To attract and motivate employees, many organizations convey a compelling mission and design jobs with the apparent opportunity to make a prosocial difference. Yet, this opportunity may not always be fully realized despite the best efforts of employees. In our research, we examine experiences of "thwarted prosocial impact"-the belief that the organization is limiting the prosocial impact one could have through their work. Drawing from psychological contract theory and the relational job design literature, we suggest that thwarted prosocial impact undermines the performance and retention of individual employees because it leads employees to perceive that their ideological contract with the organization is not being sufficiently fulfilled. Further, we theorize that these deleterious effects are particularly strong for those with high levels of contact with beneficiaries in their jobs. We test these ideas in a large sample of fully employed alumni from a public university. Results indicate that thwarted prosocial impact predicts low levels of ideological contract fulfillment, particularly for those in high-beneficiarycontact jobs. These effects were associated with lower coworker-rated boosterism behavior and greater self-rated counterproductive behavior directed at the organization. Through serial mechanisms of ideological fulfillment and counterproductive work behavior, thwarted impact significantly predicted voluntary turnover one year later.

People undergoing career transitions often bring aspects of old roles into their new work contexts, and this interface can create conflict between lingering aspects of one's work self and the newer aspects of one's work self. Yet, we know little about how this conflict between old and new selves shapes employee outcomes. We examine this issue among ex‐entrepreneurs—individuals who have transitioned from a business owner to a wage employee. Drawing from role identity theory, we develop a model of the consequences of conflict between a lingering entrepreneur identity and a current work role identity. We propose that ex‐entrepreneurs who experience higher levels of identity conflict will be more likely to experience burnout and less likely to engage in boosterism of their employer, and that these relationships are explained by lower levels of perceived professional identity growth (i.e., progressive identity). We further suggest that the negative effect of conflict on progressive identity is exacerbated by nostalgia for one's entrepreneurial past. In a three‐stage field survey of ex‐entrepreneurs and their romantic partners, we found support for these hypotheses using both partner‐rated outcomes and self‐rated outcomes. We discuss implications for the literature on entrepreneurship careers and work identity in organizations.

One of the most fundamental experiences of deriving positive meaning from work stems from perceptions of task significance. Although interactions with managers and beneficiaries can provide inspirational cues that make the significance of employees' work tasks salient (Grant, 2012, 2008), relying solely on an understanding of these discrete experiences may limit an employee's ability to consistently perceive the significance of work tasks from day to day. To expand understanding of the influences that shape perceptions of daily task significance, we draw on personality systems interaction theory (Kuhl, 2000) to examine the influence of affective shifts. Using a daily diary design over 10 workdays, results from 292 daily observations nested within 38 employees showed that upshifts in positive affect and downshifts in negative affect were positively related to daily task significance. In turn, daily task significance was positively related to helping behaviors and negatively related to work withdrawal. Daily task significance also exhibited an indirect effect on the subsequent workday's start-of-day mood. Employees who perceived high significance today were more likely to start tomorrow off with lower negative mood due to higher helping behaviors the day before and with lower positive mood due to lower work withdrawal the day before. The results yield new insights into the experience of daily task significance and offer significant implications for theory and practice on affect, task significance, and work performance.

This presenter symposium features five research studies by well-known disability scholars, from North America and Europe, on the inclusion and workplace experiences of employees with disabilities. Together, these studies extend the boundaries of disability research by showcasing inadvertent ways in which new supposedly inclusive workplace designs (e.g., alternative/digitalized work/conference spaces) can become empty promises or perpetuate social inequality; how and why career advancement may be stalled for some employees with a disability; how an employee’s identity can be associated with their disability management strategy, and in turn their help-seeking preferences; and finally how even conventional large organizations may unintentionally exclude employees with a disability. Our discussants will synthesize the individual presentations to suggest future research directions as well as practical suggestions for promoting equity and inclusion within organizations as well as within important spaces of organizing such as this Academy of Management annual meeting. (In)visibilizing Disability in Activity-Based Working Author: Ive D. Klinksiek; UCLouvain Author: Eline Jammaers; Hasselt U. Author: Laurent Taskin; Critical Management Studies COVID-19 and Conference Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities Author: Joy E. Beatty; Eastern Michigan U. The Effect of Stereotype-Inconsistent Behaviour on the Feedback Provided to Employees Author: Catherine Connelly; McMaster U. Author: Silvia Bonaccio; Telfer School of Management, U. of Ottawa Author: Ian R. Gellatly; U. of Alberta Author: Sarah-Kay Walker; McMaster U. Author: Jennifer Ho; DeGroote School of Business, McMaster U. Differential Help-Seeking Patterns among the Invisibly Disabled Author: Jordan Nielsen; Purdue U. Author: Seonyoung Ji; Purdue U., West Lafayette Author: John Lynch; U. of Illinois at Chicago Author: Julia Stevenson-Street; Purdue U., West Lafayette Experiences of State Agency Employees with Disabilities who Request Accommodations Author: Christine Nittrouer; Texas Tech U. Author: Claudia Cogliser; Texas Tech U.

Employees with a proactive personality tend to show exceptional initiative and perseverance, suggesting that they are relatively impervious to stressors. Yet some evidence suggests that proactive personality may exacerbate the effect of stressors on strain. In this study, we clarify these conflicting ideas by systematically distinguishing between different types of chronic work stressors. Integrating the conservation-of-resources model and the challenge–hindrance stressor framework, we suggest that employees with more proactive personalities are especially sensitive to the extent to which chronic work stressors are amenable to their resource investments. Specifically, we hypothesize that, for more proactive employees, challenge stressors (opportunities more amenable to resource investment) lead to less strain (i.e., emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions) but also that hindrance stressors (demands less amenable to proactive expectations of achievement) lead to relatively more strain. We further propose perceived organizational support as a mediator of these interactive effects wherein challenging opportunities are interpreted by proactive employees as particularly indicative of high support and hindering demands as particularly indicative of low support, ultimately leading to lower and higher perceptions of strain, respectively. A three-wave survey of 256 architects generally supports these hypotheses: the effects of challenge stressors on emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions were significantly attenuated and the effects of hindrance stressors on these outcomes were significantly exacerbated for more proactive people. These effects were mediated (partially for exhaustion, fully for turnover intentions) by perceived support. Follow-up analysis demonstrates that this interactive effect extends to turnover behavior 2.5 years later, fully mediated by perceived support.

Why does a person work? Over the last two decades we have seen exponential growth in research distinguishing three orientations toward work (job, career, calling) and how they bear on who we are and what we do. Our integrative review of this literature highlights an outsized focus on the calling orientation as well as a static view of work orientations in general. More fundamentally, we find consistent evidence in the empirical record contradicting the idea of three, mutually exclusive, work orientations. Instead, we derive an alternative framework, consisting of two orthogonal dimensions (job or calling, and career) yielding four profiles. Using this new framework, we work to resolve prior contradictions, definitional confounds, and erroneous assumptions. Further, we catalog insights pertaining to how and when an individual's work orientation changes over time, including identifying four key drivers (learning, affect, hardship, and their relationships). We conclude by offering an updated agenda for future research, including a need for career orientation research to catch up with our knowledge of calling, an embrace of variance (and moderation) in sampling, more consideration of temporal variation, as well as situating work orientations in organizational practices and a rapidly changing world.

In recent years, a rapidly growing literature has shed light on important costs and benefits of prosocial motivation in the workplace. However, researchers have studied prosocial motivation using various labels, conceptualizations, and operationalizations, leaving this body of knowledge fragmented. In this study, we contribute to the literature by providing an integrated framework that organizes extant constructs and measures of prosocial motives along two dimensions: level of autonomy (discretionary/obligatory) and level of generality (global/contextual/positional). Drawing upon this framework, we conducted a meta-analysis with 252 samples and 666 effect sizes to examine the effects of prosocial motivation on workplace outcomes. Moderator analyses were performed to resolve inconsistencies in the empirical literature and understand the context under which prosocial motivation had the strongest or weakest effect. We found that prosocial motivation, in general, was beneficial for employee well-being (𝜌̅ = .23), prosocial behavior (𝜌̅ = .35), job performance (𝜌̅ = .20), and career success (𝜌̅ = .06). The direction and magnitude of these effects depended on the autonomy, generality, and measurement of prosocial motivation, the nature of the outcome (i.e., type of prosocial behavior, subjectivity of performance measures, and forms of career success), as well as the cultural context. Importantly, prosocial motivation had incremental validity above and beyond general cognitive ability and Big Five personality traits for predicting all four outcomes. We discuss the theoretical, methodological, and practical implications from these findings and offer a guiding framework for future research efforts.

Over the last decade, research on positive psychology has skyrocketed. One area in particular that has gained attraction is compassion. In short, compassion is the desire to alleviate suffering, a common yet detrimental aspect to an individual’s personal and professional life. Suffering can take on a variety of forms – from feeling undervalued by your supervisor and organization to grieving the death of a family member. This experience can happen inside the walls of the workplace or spillover from an individual’s personal life. Regardless of where, when, and how an individual suffers, an increasingly important question that is asked is “should businesses care?” (Worline & Dutton, 2017). Many would argue yes, as compassion helps from both a strategic level – increasing an organization’s overall bottom line (Worline & Dutton, 2017) – and an individual level – protecting an employee from negative experiences (Reizer, 2019; Schabram & Heng, 2021) and improving their overall well-being (Zessin, Dickhauser, & Garbade, 2015). Despite that the topic is both “timely and timeless,” it is surprising that there is a lack of attention given to compassion in the workforce. A recent review illustrates that the healthcare industry dominates the majority of research on compassion (Dodson & Heng, 2021). While research in that setting may be important, it is also useful to explore compassion from a business lens. For instance, encouraging compassion in the workplace may appear beneficial, but research on helping professions demonstrates that it can lead to compassion fatigue (Boyatzis, Smith, & Blaize, 2006; Figley, 2002). Thus, an important question to consider is what does compassion mean in the workplace? Does it result in positive organizational outcomes, but come at cost to the individual? Further, the literature on compassion has shown to be empirically messy or inconsistent (Dodson & Heng, 2021). The literature has teased out two components of compassion: self-compassion (kind acts toward the self; Neff, 2003) and other-compassion (kind acts toward others; Lazarus, 1991). The former has been studied as a state (Leary, Tate, Adams, Allen, & Hancock, 2007), trait (Anjum Liang, Durrani, & Parvez, 2020), and process (Schabram & Heng, 2021), while the latter has been conceptualized as a process (Dutton, Workman, & Hardin, 2014). Taken together, these shortcomings pave the way for future research to investigate the implications of compassion in the organizational context and conceptualizations and comparisons of the constructs. This symposium seeks to investigate the role that self- and/or other- compassion play in addressing employee suffering – a common yet understudied area. Our symposium includes five papers that collectively make three important contributions. First, we contribute to the compassion literature by expanding scholars’ knowledge to both the antecedents and consequences of compassion, which shows that compassion can be harnessed in organizations and can benefit the individual employee as well as surrounding employees or a diverse workgroup. Second, we explore various conceptualizations of compassion, which paints a clearer picture on how compassion can be utilized and studied in the workplace. Third, we consider the role that compassion may have for the self and other employees, highlighting both the potential upsides and downsides from an organizational perspective. We hope this symposium will encourage future research and stimulate further discussion around the importance of studying and practicing compassion at work. Clearance to Care: The Impact of Sufferer Self-Compassion on Observer Compassion Presenter: Yu Tse Heng; U. of Virginia Presenter: Charmi Patel; Henley Business School, U. of Reading The Effects of Forgone Identity Preference and Existential Meaning Beliefs on Compassion Presenter: Rachel Burgess; W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State U. When to Care: Self- and Other-Compassion on Citizenship Behavior Presenter: Sara Krivacek; Clemson U. Presenter: Thomas Joseph Zagenczyk; North Carolina State U. Presenter: Kristin L. Scott; College of Business, Clemson U. Presenter: Yannick Griep; Radboud U., Netherlands Exploring the Possible Benefits of Self-Compassion for Interracial Interactions Presenter: Jean-Marc Moke; York U. Presenter: Natalya Alonso; Haskayne School of Business, U. of Calgary Presenter: Brent John Lyons; Schulich School of Business, York U. The Straining Effect of Leader Identity Threat and the Exacerbating Role of Overidentification Presenter: Jordan Nielsen; Purdue U. Presenter: Thomas Ptashnik; U. of Iowa Presenter: Amy E. Colbert; U. of Iowa

Contact with beneficiaries has been described as an important job characteristic for shaping perceptions about the social value of work; however, little is known about how to navigate experiences in which contact with beneficiaries is negative, which can explicitly undermine the conclusion that work is socially valuable. We draw from two tenets of social information processing theory to propose that negative contact with bene-ficiaries has a dual effect on employees. Whereas negative contact may make employees perceive low social worth, it may simultaneously lead employees to believe they are engaging in self-sacrifice for a worthy cause???a relatively positive justification of such experiences. We investigated these ideas in three studies. In Study 1, a three-wave survey of registered nurses and their supervisors supported the hypothesized dual effect. Fur-ther consistent with our theorizing, the effect of perceived self-sacrifice on job satisfac-tion and performance was contingent on coworker emotional support: with higher support, perceived self-sacrifice exhibited a null relationship with satisfaction and a positive relationship with performance; with lower support, these effects were negative. In Study 2, we again studied nurses using an experimental vignette method, showing that negative contact exhibits a causal effect on employee perceptions, and that negative contact is more likely to lead to perceived self-sacrifice when the contact is attributed to the nature of the work versus one???s own performance. In Study 3, a two-wave survey of people from various occupations replicated the effects of negative contact on perceived social worth and perceived self-sacrifice. Moreover, the effect of negative contact on sac-rifice was contingent on affective commitment to beneficiaries.

Experiencing work as a calling has been described as the ideal of a truly positive experience of work. But what we know about how called professionals construct identities as people who are called to their work is incomplete. Discussions about callings are often framed as narratives—stories of people’s callings—yet little is known about how professionals incorporate a wide variety of life events into coherent stories that support their identity claims. To understand this process, we analyzed the narratives of 236 individuals from four professions. We found two ways our participants identified their callings: discernment and exploration. Discerners journeyed toward their destiny, which was their one true calling. Explorers actively searched for work they loved, but destiny played no role. Through a series of lived experiences, called professionals’ identities took shape as they were enacted, with their callings strengthening over time. After identifying their calling, each of these professionals engaged in two crucial processes for integrating self and work as they lived their calling. Like other professionals, called professionals sought legitimacy in their fields by demonstrating mastery and receiving affirmation. Yet their sense of calling simultaneously propelled them to craft personal authenticity through tailoring their own unique enactment of the role.

SummaryThis research seeks for improved understanding regarding the interaction of meaningful work and the work–family interface. Existing literature suggests that experiencing a sense of calling toward work makes the work domain particularly salient to employees compared to other life domains. In this article, we draw on this idea, rooted in identity theory, to hypothesize that a sense of calling toward work diminishes the effects of work–family conflict and work–family enrichment on employee's job and life satisfaction. We test these ideas in two studies. First, we surveyed an alumni sample of 598 employees from various jobs, industries, and job levels. Then, in a constructive replication, we surveyed 327 employees using a time‐lagged design. Calling was found to significantly buffer the effect of work–family conflict on job satisfaction in Study 2, but not Study 1. Calling did not buffer the effect of conflict on life satisfaction in either study. However, both studies demonstrated that calling attenuated (substituted for) the effect of work–family enrichment on job satisfaction. Study 1 supported the idea that calling attenuates the effect of enrichment on life satisfaction; however, this interactive effect was reversed in Study 2, contrary to expectations. We discuss implications for theory and practice related to callings and career choices, as well as for the role of calling and work identity in the work–family interface.

One of the most challenging features of a managerial role is the exposure individuals have to informal negative feedback from subordinates, peers, and supervisors. Although such feedback is an inevitable component of a manager’s job, we suggest that it can interrupt a manager’s sense of self, or identity, such that their well-being and behavior is negatively affected. Drawing from identity theory and identity perspectives on leadership and stress, this research introduces the phenomenon of leader identity threats— a situation where claims to leadership are not reciprocated through grants of leadership from others. In a two-wave survey of 158 full- time managers from a variety of industries and organizations, we found that managers who experienced leader identity threats to a greater degree in the last year were more likely to experience psychological strain, form intentions to turnover, and self-report negative leader behaviors. Contrary to expectations, support from supervisors did not reduce the negative effects of leader identity threat; indeed, leader identity threat actually negated the positive effects of such support. A third survey employing a critical incidents technique led us to identify four response tactics that managers use to address leader identity threats, including derogating, confessing, teaching, and feedback-seeking. These inductively derived tactics were supplemented by four additional deductively derived responses (withdrawing, shifting, re-framing, and importance change). Finally, through content validation, EFA, and CFA, a scale was developed to measure these eight response tactics. We close by discussing the implications of these findings for organizations, and for future research furthering this line of inquiry.

This study develops and tests a model of the transition from paid employment to entrepreneurship using a sample of 226 adults currently in paid employment. Building on a seminal but largely untested insight from Shapero (1975), we used theoretical logic from event system theory to propose that displacing work events moderate the effect of entrepreneurial identity aspirations, a possible-self role identity, on engagement in nascent entrepreneurial activities (discovery and exploitation behaviors). Results show that entrepreneurial identity aspirations were more strongly positively related to entrepreneurial discovery behaviors among employees who experienced a displacing work event in their current workplace; discovery behaviors in turn related to entrepreneurial exploitation behaviors. The moderation effect was significant for four of the six displacing events examined in this study. Our findings have implications for the literatures on entrepreneurial career transitions, entrepreneurial role identity, and event system theory and offer validity evidence for the nascent entrepreneurial behaviors scale. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Leaders have often been implicated as having a large influence not only on employee behavior, but also on employee well-being. However, only recently have researchers begun to examine how leader behaviors affect the leader’s own well-being. Indeed, the well-being of a leader would seem to be considered something of an afterthought when it comes to behavioral leadership research, despite the fact that healthy and resilient leaders should be a priority for organizations who want to cultivate management patterns that are sustainable over time. This symposium seeks to continue a research trend toward well-being as important criterion generally, and leader well-being as an important criterion specifically, by expanding our knowledge of how leader behaviors affect a leader’s well-being at work. The Effects of Servant Leadership on Followers' and Leaders' Workload and Emotional Exhaustion Presenter: Florian Scholz; U. of Potsdam Presenter: Robert C Liden; U. of Illinois at Chicago Presenter: Eric Kearney; U. of Potsdam The Influence of Leader Self-Sacrifice on Leader Well-Being: Sacrificial Leadership as a Stressor Presenter: Jordan Nielsen; Purdue U. Presenter: Amy E. Colbert; U. of Iowa Presenter: Michael Montanye; U. of Iowa Am I Being Fair? Implications of Dyadic Justice Agreement for Leader Well-Being and Performance Presenter: Catherine Kleshinski; Purdue U., West Lafayette Presenter: Kelly Schwind Wilson; Purdue U., West Lafayette Presenter: Benjamin B. Dunford; Purdue Leaders' Narcissism and Well-Being: An Empirical Study Presenter: Jeremy Bernerth; San Diego State U.

Despite the wide use of groups in organizations, research on individuals' experiences of fit in their work groups has lagged due to lack of conceptual clarity of person-group (PG) fit and inconsistent measurement. To rectify these issues, we present an integrative definition of PG fit, which incorporates social- and task-related elements of group work, as well as supplementary and complementary conceptualizations of fit. Using this definition, we develop the Multidimensional Perceived Person-Group Fit (MPPGF) scale and validate it through five phases, across six samples. In Phase 1, we identified dimensions and generated items using a mix of deductive and inductive approaches. In Phase 2, we validated items yielding seven dimensions (value congruence, shared interests, perceived demographic similarity, needs-supplies match, goal similarity, common workstyle, and complementary attributes). In Phase 3, we examined how the dimensions combine to form an aggregate (formative) PG fit construct. The MPPGF scale showed convergent and discriminant validity with relevant constructs in Phase 4. In Phase 5, the MPPGF exhibited criterion-related and incremental validity with attitudes and performance beyond existing PG fit scales. Finally, we report dimension-specific results, demonstrating that MPPGF could be used to study questions regarding overall PG fit perceptions, as well as more narrow dimension-specific questions.

This article presents a comprehensive synthesis and quantitative review of studies examining relationships between team design characteristics and team performance. Across 398 primary studies, the present study meta-analytically investigated the effects of team composition, team task design, and team leadership characteristics on team performance. The study further investigates how the effects of these team design characteristics differ according to the industry context within which the team is embedded (high technology, manufacturing, service, or student). Overall, this review emphasizes the importance of continued inquiries focusing on team design while also discussing the implications of this review for theory, practice, and future research.

Although the benefits of proactive personality have been well documented for both organizational and individual careers, there may be costs and risks associated with trait proactivity to which managers and researchers should pay attention. Drawing on the conservation of resources model, we suggest that, as a behavioral tendency associated with situational change, highly proactive people may be especially sensitive to hindrance stressors–barriers in organizations that impede personal growth and achievement and are inherently resistant to change. In a sample of 229 licensed architects, we find that those high in proactive personality were even more likely than others to feel emotionally exhausted and form turnover intentions when hindrance stressors were prevalent. In contrast, proactive people were less likely to be exhausted and form turnover intentions when challenge stressors were prevalent. We propose and find support for perceived organizational support as a mediating link explaining the proactivity-stressor interaction’s effect on employee outcomes, suggesting that proactive people may blame frustrations with hindrances on lacking organizational resources, but may credit organizations for providing challenging opportunities to express their proactivity. We discuss the implications of our research for managers and organizational researchers.