ABSTRACT Organizational justice research typically assumes that accountability for injustices is localized to the direct offender. Yet growing evidence suggests that blame can extend to indirect actors, calling into question such a narrowed view of injustice. By integrating fairness and power‐dependence theories, we develop a model of blame‐shifting to explain how victims can hold both coworkers (direct offenders) and supervisors (indirect offenders) accountable when coworker offenses arise. Across two studies, we theorize and test the mechanisms through which blame migrates from a direct offender to a background actor, highlighting the importance of power‐based network considerations for workplace injustices. In Study 1, event‐based data demonstrate that coworker injustice predicts supervisor injustice through the sequential mediation of coworker and supervisor blame. Study 2 constructively replicates this effect and tests boundary conditions involving formal (delegation‐based, vertical) and informal (status‐based, horizontal) power asymmetries. Results indicate that perceived intermediary delegation (PID)—the degree to which victims view coworkers as agents acting under supervisory authority—strengthens the blame migrating effect when victims concurrently hold lower relative statuses with their supervisors than their offending coworkers. Together, these findings suggest that accountability judgments arise within power‐laden networks rather than in isolated dyads. Such a network perspective offers a deeper understanding of accountability judgments thereby advancing justice theory and practice.
ABSTRACT Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly part of collaborative work that was once carried out exclusively by humans. In this special issue, we ask whether our future colleagues will even be human and what this means for today's organizations. The eight contributions examine how design choices such as human‐likeness and gendered cues shape perceptions of AI, how AI alters team processes including decision‐making, trust, and stress, and how training and organizational integration condition sustainable human–AI collaboration. Together, the contributions suggest that AI reshapes collective work processes, not only individual judgments. Building on this insight and on sociotechnical systems thinking, we develop a framework that distinguishes where AI is positioned in the social system of work and how much agency it exercises. The framework also raises the normative question of how AI's position in organizations should be governed. Together, the contributions and the framework point toward a research agenda that differentiates between human–AI configurations and treats teams rather than dyads as the unit of analysis.
ABSTRACT Why do women remain underrepresented in positions of power? The present work leverages four studies ( N = 99,293) spanning archival, qualitative, and experimental methods to surface one novel antecedent to this gender gap. Men (vs. women) tend to perceive their organizations as more meritocratic as a function of their structural power (Studies 1–2). This gender difference is statistically accounted for by the fact that men's power is more often accompanied by perceived resource sufficiency , or the appraisal that one has adequate instrumental and material resources to meet role demands and exercise authority effectively (Studies 1–3). A preregistered experiment finds that higher (vs. lower) perceived resource sufficiency increases meritocracy perceptions, which in turn increase career investment intentions but weaken support for equity‐enhancing initiatives (Study 4). Together, these findings reveal that structural power's psychological consequences are not uniform across gender but depend on whether authority is accompanied by the resources needed to exercise power. The gender gap in power may thus reproduce itself, as women become less convinced that the system rewards their effort, whereas men with the authority to change organizational systems become least likely to see the need for change.
ABSTRACT Teams hold the potential for creative performance, yet diverse perspectives may also lead to the premature rejection of unconventional ideas. Because such rejection can prevent teams from realizing their creative potential, understanding what motivational processes drive idea rejection during brainstorming is critical. Drawing on the Motivated Information Processing in Groups model (MIP‐G), we identify the reward structure offered to teams as an antecedent of idea rejection and examine how individual, team, and mixed rewards affect idea rejection and, ultimately, team creativity. We propose that individual rewards foster proself motivation, increasing team idea rejection; team rewards activate prosocial motivation, reducing it; and mixed rewards balance both motives. In an experimental lab study using behavioral video coding of 80 teams comprising 290 participants, we find that individual rewards significantly increase team idea rejection. Contrary to our expectations, team rewards also lead to elevated rejection, whereas mixed rewards reduce rejection compared to individual and team rewards. Exploratory post hoc analyses indicate that team idea rejection varies as a function of teams' level of information elaboration. Moreover, rewards are associated with differences in the novelty of rejected ideas, and novel ideas tend to be rejected in later stages of the ideation process. In contrast, we find no evidence that the manner of rejection, whether collaborative or competitive, systematically influences team creativity. These findings show that integrating proself and prosocial motives through mixed rewards may support creative collaboration in teams more effectively than emphasizing either motive alone.
ABSTRACT Discrimination against working mothers is among the strongest forms of employment discrimination today. In the current study, we integrate the stress mindset literature with the organizational literature on stress and coping to examine how a stress‐is‐enhancing mindset improves women's primary and secondary coping appraisals of perceived maternal discrimination, which in turn relates to women's perceived health. Study 1 includes multi‐wave field data from working mothers across a variety of organizations in the United States, offering desirable external validity. Results show that stress mindset predicts more adaptive primary appraisals, which in turn relate to secondary appraisals and ultimately to better perceived health. Study 2 experimentally manipulates stress mindset through a video‐based intervention (vs. control) and examines changes in coping appraisals from pre‐ to post‐intervention. The intervention significantly improved secondary appraisals (but not primary appraisals), producing an indirect effect on perceived health through secondary appraisals alone. We conclude by discussing theoretical implications for stress mindset and appraisal research, methodological contributions, and practical recommendations for supporting working mothers facing discrimination.
ABSTRACT The non‐rationalist view of morality holds that all employees—including “good” apples—are liable to do bad because they are susceptible to moral biases in everyday situational encounters. In contrast, the rationalist or trait view suggests that employees with strong moral character should be resilient against moral biases across situations and over time. Rather than treating these perspectives as competing explanations, we ask a more nuanced question: In which situational encounters and for whom does moral character shape susceptibility to daily moral biases at work? Drawing on research on moral exemplarity, we argue that “good” exists along a continuum from intermediate to exceptional moral character, with only the exceptional consistently exhibiting moral resilience. Integrating moral disengagement theory with the Situational Eight DIAMONDS model, we identify and test a comprehensive set of episodic work situations that may trigger daily within‐person fluctuations in state moral disengagement. Across two pilot studies, work situations characterized by Deception , Adversity / Negativity , and unexpectedly, Mating , positively predicted same‐day moral disengagement. In a 3‐week diary study, daily encounters of these situations triggered daily moral disengagement, which subsequently increased daily instrumental OCBs, reduced genuine OCBs, and heightened incivility among employees low to intermediate (but not exceptional) on trait Honesty–Humility. We also find that exceptional‐character employees exhibited low moral amplitude or volatility in moral disengagement over time. Our discussion highlights the necessity of considering both within‐person fluctuations and between‐person differences in resilience against moral biases at work.
Work is inherently social, and employees routinely compare themselves to coworkers to gauge expectations and performance. As a highly visible workplace behavior, workaholism carries interpersonal meaning for those who observe it, yet research has largely overlooked how coworkers are affected when they perceive a colleague as workaholic. Results from three programmatic studies obtained from four samples, including a multiwave and multisource field study, a vignette experiment, and preregistered causal-chain recall experiments, show that perceived employee workaholism heightens coworkers' individual performance pressure. This effect is particularly pronounced when coworkers attribute the workaholic's behavior to proself motivations (e.g., pursuing financial rewards or promotion opportunities) rather than prosocial motivations (e.g., helping the organization succeed). Elevated performance pressure, in turn, increases engagement in work effort and badmouthing toward the workaholic employee. Collectively, these findings reposition workaholism as a socially consequential workplace behavior, extending prior research by shifting attention from the workaholic to the coworkers who observe and interpret workaholic behaviors.
ABSTRACT Play is increasingly visible in contemporary organizations, yet it is often dismissed as peripheral to “serious” work. Challenging this view, this Special Issue advances an interdisciplinary understanding of workplace play as a consequential psychological, social, and organizational resource. Across four complementary articles using qualitative, experimental, and scale‐development approaches, the Special Issue demonstrates that play enables authentic connection, fosters psychological safety and inclusion, supports proactive work redesign, and enhances motivation and well‐being—while also being shaped and constrained by roles, diversity, power, and resource depletion. Collectively, the papers reposition play as relational infrastructure rather than frivolous diversion, highlighting its emergent, co‐created, and context‐dependent nature. Building on these insights, we outline a multilevel research agenda that examines how microepisodes of play accumulate into team climates, how contextual conditions enable or suppress play, and when play can backfire or reproduce inequality. Together, the contributions invite scholars to treat play as a central lens for understanding contemporary work.
The micro-corporate social responsibility (CSR) literature has called for research that incorporates multiple observers from different organizational levels to provide a comprehensive understanding of how to shape employees' socially responsible behaviors. Drawing on person-organization fit and organizational legitimacy theories, we propose a model in which top management team (TMT)-employee (in)congruence in attributions of substantive CSR shapes employees' socially responsible behaviors through organizational identification. We tested our model through multiple complementary studies that employed diverse methodologies. Study 1 employed a 2-year longitudinal design and analyzed data from 66 TMTs and 198 employees. Studies 2A and 2B validated the model through one experimental vignette study (n = 242) and one critical incident study (n = 187). Our results highlight that TMT-employee congruence at high levels of attributions of substantive CSR enhances organizational identification and subsequently facilitates employees' socially responsible behaviors; however, this high-level congruence was not superior to the condition in which employees attributed higher substantive CSR than TMTs. Our research contributes to the micro-CSR and broader organizational behavior literatures by providing a nuanced approach to investigating employees' CSR engagement.
ABSTRACT This review advances the understanding of psychological contracts (PCs) that include third‐party beneficiaries and transcend self‐interested goals, which we term “PCs with purpose.” PC theory has challenged the assumption that social exchange relies solely on balanced rewards and inducements, highlighting that individuals may wish to contribute beyond the traditional give‐and‐take. Consequently, scholarly attention to ideological currency has grown, coinciding with the increasing prominence of purpose in management research and practice. Existing research on PCs in volunteering, the public sector, and nonprofit organizations offers additional insights into contexts where purpose is integral to organizational mission. Yet despite its relevance for employees and organizations, there is little consensus on how purpose should be systematically incorporated into PC literature. This review clarifies the role of purpose in the employee‐employer exchange as captured across the disparate strands of PC research. We develop a comprehensive framework of existing research, identify key challenges, and offer directions for addressing them. In doing so, the review provides new theoretical directions and a rich research agenda for advancing the understanding of PCs with purpose. We argue that foregrounding purpose in PCs will future‐proof the framework's relevance for understanding the employment relationship among employees who strive to make a difference through their work.
Workplace allyship has emerged as a key construct in the literature on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Although research on workplace allyship has expanded rapidly in recent years, advancement in this research stream is limited by conceptual ambiguity and fragmentation across numerous perspectives. In this integrative review, we address these limitations. First, we examine differences in how workplace allyship has been conceptualized in the workplace and develop three definitions reflecting key perspectives on workplace allyship: (1) engagement in workplace allyship by advantaged employees, (2) perceived workplace allyship by disadvantaged employees, and (3) the relational dynamics of workplace allyship between advantaged and disadvantaged employees. Second, we develop a conceptual model grounded in social identity theory and signaling theory that integrates these three perspectives. Third, based on this model, we synthesize and structure prior empirical research to develop an integrative framework of workplace allyship. Building on this framework, we propose a comprehensive agenda for future research. Overall, this review provides new insights into workplace allyship as a mechanism for creating and sustaining social equality within and beyond organizational boundaries.
ABSTRACT There is increasing interest in understanding and recognition of the importance of empathy effects at work. However, despite the two‐party nature of empathy, little research has distinguished between empathy‐giving versus empathy‐receiving, or between empathy‐giver versus receiver. This conflation arguably creates an incomplete or even misleading understanding of empathy effects on workplace outcomes and limits the development of theories that can synthesize mechanisms and boundary conditions to explain how empathy influences outcomes for both parties. Thus, to refine and advance existing knowledge, we systematically review 234 articles (188 empirical and 46 conceptual) that have examined empathy effects on work outcomes. We employed a 2 × 2 matrix (empathy‐giving vs. empathy‐receiving × empathy‐giver's outcomes vs. empathy‐receiver's outcomes) to categorize existing studies into four empathy–outcome pathways. This framework not only highlights significant research emphases and omissions but also provides a structured approach for advancing our understanding of empathy effects in the workplace. This approach contributes new knowledge by identifying a range of empirical, theoretical, and methodological findings within existing literature—dominated by studies on empathy‐givers, beneficial effects, and only one party. Drawing on and extending these findings, we propose a research agenda comprising three new lines of inquiry—relating to empathy‐receivers, detrimental effects, and two parties—recommending that scholars explore these avenues to collectively advance understanding of the complex processes and outcomes involved in the effects of both giving and receiving empathy on work outcomes.
ABSTRACT We study the phenomenon of ambivalence to lead, characterized as leaders' experience of mixed feelings (positive and negative) toward their leadership position. We do so by integrating the beneficial role of dualities with the affect‐as‐information theory. Our model shows that the duality involved in ambivalence to lead activates leaders' integrative complexity — the ability to identify and integrate different perspectives on the same subject—which in turn increases their effectiveness as leaders. This positive effect is altered by the leader's perceptions of structural dynamics of the workplace: organic vs. mechanistic. The former allows for greater individual discretion and action than the latter, facilitating an environment in which ambivalence to lead can further activate leader integrative complexity and, in turn, leader effectiveness. To examine our model, we conducted two studies using different research designs (experiment and field) and various organizational settings from three data sources (managers, their supervisors, and objective raters) at three time points. The findings provide substantial support for our thesis, demonstrating that ambivalence to lead enhances the effectiveness of leaders (through leader integrative complexity) and that this indirect positive effect is stronger (vs. weaker) under an organic (vs. mechanistic) structure.
For years, organizational scholars have studied the role of human physiology in applied settings. Under this broad umbrella, researchers have recently given specific attention to the interplay between employee food consumption and organizational phenomena. This focus on food is natural, considering that acquiring food is a foundational human motivation and that food is often consumed within the workplace. However, despite recent inroads, research on this topic remains limited, especially studies involving interpersonal and episodic dynamics. As such, we present a framework of employee food consumption and outline individual‐, interpersonal‐, and organizational‐level predictors and outcomes. Additionally, we discuss how the nexus between work and food can be better understood by considering biological, psychological, and social mechanisms. Based upon our review of the literature, we identify new lines of inquiry that can help drive the field forward. We also describe the theoretical and practical implications of our framework.
Prior studies have typically viewed self-sacrificing managers as "good leaders" who inspire their employees through such positive mechanisms as fostering identification with the leader and cultivating high-quality leader-follower relationships that benefit both parties. Based on theories of conformity, we challenge the prevailing supportive view by arguing that leader self-sacrifice (LSS) can increase subordinate self-sacrifice through a pressure-based mechanism. Specifically, using data from one experiment and two 3-wave field studies, we found that LSS was positively related to subordinate self-sacrificial pressure, which in turn prompted subordinate self-sacrifice. Furthermore, we established that leader autonomy support mitigated these effects: When leaders provided greater autonomy support, their employees experienced lower levels of self-sacrificial pressure induced by LSS. These findings reveal a previously overlooked, pressure-driven mechanism through which LSS influences followers, and thus, even well-intentioned leader behaviors can impose hidden psychological demands on subordinates.
Work from home (WFH) is recognized as carrying both risks and benefits for individuals. However, its impact on romantic couples remains poorly understood. Drawing on boundary theory and family systems theory, we propose that WFH can render certain couples vulnerable to separation and trace the process through which this occurs. Specifically, when romantic partners hold incongruent preferences for segmenting work and home, or when both have a high preference for segmentation, WFH employees might experience heightened work-to-home conflict. This conflict drains resources needed for intimacy, fostering mutual loneliness and, ultimately, relationship dissolution deliberations. Across two longitudinal studies of dual-earner couples in Germany (n = 170, n = 1561), we found nuanced support for this model. Dyadic response surface analyses showed that incongruent segmentation preferences affected the work-to-home conflict of employees in divergent ways-exacerbating it for some, mitigating it for others. As expected, a joint preference for segmentation was consistently associated with heightened work-to-home conflict in WFH employees. Work-to-home conflict was linked to loneliness in both partners, which explained dissolution deliberations. Overall, our research highlights that WFH is a work arrangement that has couple-level consequences-beneficial for some, but a risk factor for others.
Family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSBs) have been widely recognized for helping employees navigate work-family demands. Yet, it remains unclear whether the benefits of FSSB extend beyond the workplace to enrich supervisors themselves and their partners at home. Drawing on work-family enrichment theory and family systems theory, we propose a spillover-crossover framework to examine how engaging in FSSB enhances supervisors' family role performance and, in turn, positively associates with their partners' family experiences. Using a weekly experience sampling method with data from dual-earner couples, we find that FSSB is positively related to supervisors' family role performance via work-family interpersonal capitalization. This enhanced family role performance subsequently crosses over to improve partners' family role performance. Contrary to expectations, the relationship between FSSB and interpersonal capitalization is stronger when family harmony is low, suggesting a compensatory effect. By shifting the lens beyond employees, our study highlights the broader relational reach of FSSB and offers new insights into its cascading impact across work and family domains.
Gaslighting is increasingly discussed in organizational contexts, yet its meaning, boundaries, and process remain unclear within management and organizational scholarship. Although research on gaslighting has expanded across multiple disciplines, existing work is conceptually fragmented and difficult to integrate, limiting cumulative theory development and empirical progress. In this review, we synthesize 56 years of gaslighting research (1969-2025; 266 articles) to clarify how gaslighting has been defined, studied, and applied, with particular attention paid to its relevance for work and organizational settings. We identify four recurring ways gaslighting has been conceptualized and show how variation across these approaches has contributed to inconsistent definitions, measurement dispersion, and limited theorizing. Building on this synthesis, we advance a management-oriented definition of gaslighting and introduce an organizing framework that depicts gaslighting as a process unfolding over time, linking antecedent conditions to interactional dynamics and downstream individual and organizational consequences. Finally, we review methodological patterns in the literature and outline a focused agenda for future research aimed at strengthening conceptual clarity, theory development, and empirical rigor in the study of gaslighting in organizations.
