For a long time, social network literature has focused on network structure and its effects, thereby paying little attention to how networks themselves form, change/evolve and disappear over time. This, however, has started changing recently, as more network scholars are examining network dynamics and its implications for a whole array of organizational phenomena. While this progress is positive, there is still much to be learned about the processes by which network change occurs, how and why this change affects certain outcomes, and how network and actor attributes coevolve over time. The papers in this symposium address these questions in an attempt to further the development of intra-organizational network dynamics research. The research in this symposium draws on a number of different data sets, including a longitudinal study with employees working in a boutique consultancy firm, a study of student teams engaged in a complex business simulation, a field study of employees working across eight divisions of a large government agency, and a study involving time-stamped email data obtained from a healthcare company. Leader identity and advice seeking in organizations. Author: Andrew Parker; Durham U. Business School Author: Christian Waldstrom; Aarhus U. Should I Stay or Leave? The Effect of Workflow Network Change on Employee Turnover. Author: Rohit Subhash Piplani; U. of Connecticut Author: Theresa M. Floyd; U. of Montana Author: Travis Grosser; U. of Connecticut Author: Kristin Cullen-Lester; U. of Mississippi The Coevolution of Conflict Ties and Team Perceptions Author: Semin Park; U. of Iowa Author: Aaron Schecter; U. of Georgia Performing Well, Connecting Well? Star Performers and Peers Network Evolution. Author: Hongzhi Chen; School of Management, Fudan U. Author: Benjamin B. Dunford; Purdue U. Author: Stefano Tasselli; U. of Exeter Business School Author: Wayne Boss; U. of Colorado Loneliness & Friendship: How Networks Shape Perceptions of Loneliness Author: Vinod Kumar Kothapalli; U. at Buffalo School of Management Author: Prasad Balkundi; U. at Buffalo, The State U. of New York Author: Julie Bowker; U. at Buffalo

PurposeFor decades, organizational research has primarily considered instrumental technology perceptions (ITP) – emphasizing how technology impacts the personal interests of end users themselves – to understand technology acceptance. The authors offer a complementary paradigm by introducing deontic technology perceptions (DTP), defined as the degree to which individuals believe that the technology they use is beneficial to other individuals beyond themselves (e.g. beneficial to customers).Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected quantitative survey-based data from three different hospitals located in the United States. On the basis of conservation of resources theory, the authors investigated whether both DTP and ITP were associated with improved work-related well-being.FindingsTwo pilot studies (n = 161 and n = 311 nurses) substantiated our DTP conceptualization. Our primary study (n = 346 nurses) found support for the association between DTP and improved work-related well-being. Evidence for the relationship between ITP and work-related well-being was mixed and the authors did not find a statistically significant interaction between DTP and ITP.Originality/valueThe authors build on decades of research on technology acceptance by complementing it with our deontic perspective. Our work demonstrates that technology users pay attention and react meaningfully to how their use of technology impacts not only themselves but also external parties like patients, customers and members of the general public.

In this study we address two important questions regarding the temporal dynamics of star employees. 1) How do star employees’ and peers’ networks evolve over time? 2) Does star employees’ impact on peers’ performance change over time? Integrating research on network dynamics and relational work, we argue that there are temporal variations in stars’ network evolution and their impacts on peers. Based on personnel and email network data from a health care organization in the United States, we found that internal formal status was positively related to tie creation in stars network and that the proportion of status stars in a group was positively related to tie creation in group members’ network. However, both network-expanding effects diminished over time. Further, we found that the proportion of stars in a group had a changing impact — it dampens group members’ performance in the short-term yet increases it in the long-term. Overall, this study extends research on talent management and network dynamics, offering important theoretical and practical insights.

We focus on the concept of emotional intimacy among organizational members and investigate its influence on both their (a) perceptions and (b) behaviors. With regard to employees' perceptions, we test whether it is organizational identification (operationalized as cognitive and affective identification with the organization) that influences emotional intimacy or the reverse. At the behavioral level, we investigate the interplay between employee emotional intimacy and organizational identification and their effects on employee interpersonal helping (OCB-Is; interpersonal organizational citizenship behaviors) and interpersonal conflict (CWB-Is; interpersonal counterproductive workplace behaviors). Based on a three-wave panel study among nurses working in a public hospital, our findings show that emotional intimacy influences organizational identification, and it represents a unique antecedent of OCB-Is and CWB-Is.

Despite growing recognition that non-star performers play a greater than expected role in organizational effectiveness, we know surprisingly little about how so called “B-Performers” add value to firms. Integrating theory from socialization and social capital literatures, we assert that the value of non-star performers comes from their proclivity to develop complex social networks over time following internal job transfers. We derive and test a novel theoretical model of non-star internal mobility and network evolution in a medium sized US healthcare system, leveraging a multi-source, longitudinal data set comprised of email communications and personnel performance records. Supporting our model, we find evidence of a negative association between performance and internal mobility, and that internally mobile employees expand their incoming but not outgoing network ties over time relative to their immobile counterparts.

Organizations grapple with how to position and manage star employees within and across workgroups. One critical question not yet well understood is how to optimize the influence of stars on non-stars and specifically whether to concentrate together or spread out stars across workgroups. Furthermore, we lack knowledge of who is more likely to benefit from stars. To that end, we develop a theoretical model that introduces a new unit-level concept-group star proportion (GSP)-to progress understanding of how the staffing of stars, within and across workgroups, influences non-star performance. Invoking theories of vicarious learning, we explicate why GSP has a curvilinear relationship with non-star performance. Specifically, GSP positively relates to non-star performance up to a point at which there are diminishing returns. In Study 1, we tested these predictions in a field dataset in a healthcare system. In Study 2, we replicated these findings in a commercial real estate firm and expanded understanding of how GSP may serve as a cross-level moderator of non-star performance and two critical individual differences germane to learning: non-star tenure and trait negative affect. Findings offer theoretical and practical insights into how stars might be of most benefit to their non-star peers.

The authors analyze an eight-year, multi-source, longitudinal data set that followed a non-union health care system in the eastern United States as it implemented a major preventative conflict management initiative placing responsibility for conflict resolution directly in the hands of line managers and employees. The initiative was a system-wide implementation of conflict management interviews (CMIs) between employees and supervisors, designed to enable them to proactively resolve conflict and follow up on agreements for improving their working relationships. The authors investigate survey and personnel file data from 5,456 individuals from 2003 to 2010 and test key predictions of Integrated Conflict Management Systems (ICMS) theory. They find that employees whose managers provide high-quality CMIs have a lower likelihood of formal grievances, significantly more perceptions of participative department culture, and lower turnover rates. Collectively, these findings suggest that simply holding CMIs may not be sufficient; rather, the quality of CMIs may be the key to successful outcomes.

This entry uses an organization development (OD) perspective to assess the development and effectiveness of change in healthcare settings. OD has a long-range focus. It is designed to improve an organization's health, efficiency, and effectiveness in effecting change, reaching decisions, and taking advantage of the full potential of the organization's most valuable resource: its people.

Background: Helping employees balance their work and family needs is increasingly pivotal for attracting, engaging, and retaining key talent in health care. Yet, emerging theory and anecdotal evidence suggest that, within organizations, there is considerable variation between departments or units regarding how employees' lives outside work are supported. Despite top management's efforts to develop a unified organizational work-family culture, departments have a tendency to take on their own culture, norms, and traditions such that some are more supportive than others. Purpose: We investigate whether more positive work-family cultures improve functioning within hospital departments. Methodology/Approach: We surveyed 680 hospital employees nested within 60 departments at a hospital located in the southeastern United States. Results: Departments with a more (vs. less) positive work-family culture tend to have higher levels of (a) employee engagement, (b) pride in their organization, (c) confidence in management and leadership, and (d) intention to remain with the organization. Our analyses were robust when splitting the sample between clinical (e.g., nurses and physicians) and nonclinical (e.g., office, clerical, and support services) roles. Conclusion: Our study sheds further light on the importance of a positive work-family culture within hospitals. The key to instilling a positive, organization-wide work-family culture may be through a department-by-department focus.

Citizenship fatigue is a phenomenon where employees feel tired and worn out from engaging in extra-role behaviors. Previous research applies resource-based theories to argue that citizenship fatigue is caused by resource depletion. We integrate resource-based perspectives from the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions and the positive organizational behavior literature to argue that the acquisition and possession of resources can help reduce experiences of citizenship fatigue. Among a sample of 272 healthcare employees from a hospital located in the Southeastern United States, we find that personal resources (e.g., optimism and self-esteem) are associated with lower levels of citizenship fatigue. We also find that the absence of organizational resources (higher levels of understaffing) leads to increases in citizenship fatigue. Although we found that the negative relationship between personal resources and citizenship fatigue was attenuated (i.e., weakened) when understaffing was low, we also found that average levels of citizenship fatigue were lower among these employees. We discuss the implications of our findings in terms of both future research and practical implications. In terms of practice, we highlight the importance of both personal and organizational resources as key mechanisms to limit experiences of citizenship fatigue.

Boss (1983) showed that while team-building interventions generally yield short-term success, regression effects occur within less than a year. He introduced Personal Management Interviews (PMIs) to mitigate the regression problem and showed they were efficacious in maintaining positive effects for three years following intervention. The question remains whether such change interventions can be sustained for a longer time period. Thirty-five years after Boss’ seminal study, we examine how PMIs can prevent backsliding by continuing to enhance trust and foster a psychologically safe environment. We examine 202 natural teams over periods ranging from 3 months to 29 years. Using responses of 2,310 participants to Friedlander’s Group Behavior Inventory and Likert’s Profile of Organizational and Performance Characteristics, results indicate that regular PMIs significantly decrease regression effects for as long as 29 years with no additional interventions after team-building meetings. Thus, regular PMIs appear to be valuable for creating enduring organizational change and enhancing team processes and performance.

Intractable conflicts between two individuals within an organization can be particularly detrimental, exerting ripple effects that affect other individuals, entire units, or the organization as a whole. This study extends previous research on third-party consultation interventions by exploring trust and other variables that facilitate intractable conflict resolution, while examining several outcomes over time. Data for this 14-year study in an operating room came from self-reports by the participants, behavioral observations by hospital administrators, and hospital records. Results include statistically significant improvement in trust measures, individual and group effectiveness, increased availability of surgical supplies and equipment, reduced physician abuse of scheduling privileges, decreased verbal abuse of nurses by physicians, the elimination of nursing turnover, and a decision by the surgeons to not build an outpatient surgical center. From a methodological standpoint, our quasi-experimental design using longitudinal panel data provide strong evidence for the effectiveness of organization development interventions on intractable conflicts, including not only how resolutions and positive outcomes occur but also how they can endure over time.

This article investigates the effects of perceived supervisor support on ethical (organizational citizenship behaviors) and unethical employee behavior (counterproductive workplace behavior) using a multi-method approach (one experiment and one field survey with multiple waves and supervisor ratings of employees). Specifically, we test the mediating mechanism (i.e., supervisor-based self-esteem) and a boundary condition (i.e., employee task satisfaction) that moderate the relationship between support and (un)ethical employee behaviors. We find that supervisor-based self-esteem fully mediates the relationship between supervisor support and (un)ethical employee behavior and that employee task satisfaction intensifies the relationship between supervisor support and supervisor-based self-esteem.

Interpersonal conflict is a persistent barrier to organizational effectiveness in healthcare organizations. For decades, experts have described a “fade out” problem in which dysfunctional attitudes and behavior resurface in the weeks or months following conflict management interventions which bring relationships to the status quo and can ultimately hinder organizational effectiveness. To address the fade out problem, Personal Management Interviews (PMIs) are specifically designed to foster accountability and long term follow up among individuals who have confronted interpersonal conflict and made action plans for overcoming it. Yet to date, little research provides evidence-based guidance about how to properly implement PMIs. We hypothesize that unless PMIs are done consistently, they will not overcome the fade out problem described by scholars and practitioners. In a study of two independent US hospitals, we examine how the consistency of Personal Management Interviews impacts five attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. In support of our PMI consistency hypothesis, we find evidence that citizenship behavior, intention to stay, trust for leaders, team effectiveness and meeting effectiveness are considerably improved when PMIs are held consistently. Importantly, we find no statistical differences on these outcomes between individuals who conduct PMIs inconsistently and those who do not conduct them at all. These findings lead to the conclusion that its not if, but how PMIs are conducted that matters.

We analyzed an eight-year multi-source longitudinal data set that followed a healthcare system in the Eastern United States as it implemented a major conflict management initiative to encourage line managers to consistently perform Personal Management Interviews (or PMIs) with their employees. PMIs are interviews held between two individuals, designed to prevent or quickly resolve interpersonal problems before they escalate to formal grievances. This initiative provided us a unique opportunity to empirically test key predictions of Integrated Conflict Management System (or ICMS) theory. Analyzing survey and personnel file data from 5,449 individuals from 2003 to 2010, we found that employees whose managers provided high-quality interviews perceived significantly higher participative work climates and had lower turnover rates. However, retention was worse when managers provided poor-quality interviews than when they conducted no interviews at all. Together these findings highlight the critical role that line mangers play in the success of conflict management systems.

While research on pay dispersion continues to pique the interest of scholars, mediational mechanisms linking pay dispersion and outcomes remain understudied. Additionally, most studies at the group level of analysis focus primarily on sports teams. To overcome these limitations, a conditional indirect effects model was proposed and tested using a sample of 676 healthcare employees across 113 workgroups. Three waves of survey data were collected and matched with salary and measures of performance provided by the human resources department. Pay dispersion was negatively and indirectly related to workgroup processes and workgroup performance via pay satisfaction dispersion (i.e., differences in pay satisfaction across workgroup members). Informational justice climate moderated the relationship between pay dispersion and pay satisfaction dispersion such that high levels of informational justice climate attenuated the negative indirect relationship with workgroup outcomes. These findings were robust across six different calculations of pay dispersion and pay variation. Depending on the calculation used for pay dispersion, high levels of informational justice climate not only diminished the negative indirect relationship between pay dispersion and workgroup outcomes but also in some cases created a positive relationship where pay dispersion indirectly contributed to increases in favorable workgroup outcomes.

Workplace incivility is a widespread phenomenon that silently damages many organizations and people working within them. To better understand moderators of the relationship between experienced incivility and employees' decision to leave, we conducted a two-wave study that examined a sample of 618 nurses working in a public research hospital. Whereas previous research has focused on preventing and eradicating uncivil behaviors, our study investigates factors that enhance or buffer the negative consequences of incivility. Building on theories of job resources and job demands, we show that (a) certain structural demands (i.e., role ambiguity and working in the night shift) increase the relationship of workplace incivility with turnover intentions, while (b) organization-provided resources (i.e., team-building and personal management interviews) help organizations reduce the association of incivility with turnover intentions.

This study reports the 25-year-impact of OD interventions surrounding the merger of a probation department in the public sector. Using a quasi-experimental design, within the framework of Kotter’s change model (1995), we evaluate the effectiveness of the OD interventions on a number of attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Results from six data collections evidence considerable improvement on all subscales of the Likert Profile of Organizational and Performance Characteristics and the Group Behavior Inventory, as well as organizational effectiveness and interpersonal trust, while the scores for two comparison groups remained unchanged. Evaluation data from the agency’s major clients suggest that the initial merger results endured for 25 years.