Symposium
Studying workplace phenomena from a dynamic perspective
Tim Vantilborgh (1) and Bart Wille (2)
(1) VUB; (2) UGent
Most, if not all, workplace phenomena are dynamic, meaning that they emerge, evolve, and dissolve over time. However, many phenomena have been studied from a between-person perspective, essentially treating them as if they were static. Several scholars have therefore called for an explicit integration of time into research on workplace phenomena, thus bringing attention to within-person processes (Sonnentag, 2012; Vantilborgh et al., 2018). For example, instead of studying how employees with different levels of a personality trait differ from each other in terms of job performance (a between-person perspective), one could examine how personality states vary from moment to moment within an individual and how these momentary personality states covary with job performance over time (a within-person perspective). The aim of this symposium is to showcase some of the leading work on temporal dynamics in IO-psychology in Belgium. The presentations in this symposium address both short-term and long-term temporal dynamics of workplace phenomena, including vocation interests, personality, and psychological contracts. Moreover, we bring attention to temporal phenomena, such as occupational future time perspective. As such, these presentations highlight how a dynamic perspective on workplace phenomena can improve our theoretical understanding of employees’ attitudes and behaviors, and they offer insights into the various methodological and analytical approaches (e.g., experience sampling methods) that can be used to study temporal dynamics.
Speaker 1: What is an agile, flexible, or adaptable employee? A typology of dynamic work-related individual difference
Jonas W. B. Lang (1,2), Filip De Fruyt (1,3) and Sander Van Hoeck (1)
(1) UGent; (2) University of Exeter, UK; (3) Institute Ayrton Senna, São Paulo, Brazil
Studying dynamic individual difference constructs in organizational settings presents a number of challenges. The term dynamic does not directly provide insights into what type of individual differences in change are exactly meant and the work and organizational psychology literature has discussed and used a variety of different definitions and descriptions like agile, adaptive, flexible, or learning to refer to different types of dynamic constructs. The goal of the present article is to build on existing work on dynamic phenomena and also on methodological work outside work and organizational psychology and address some of the challenges in studying dynamic constructs at the predictor and criterion side. We present an organizing typology of dynamic constructs that can conveniently be used and applied for predictor and criterion measurement in organizations and that includes psychometric/measurement models. The typology includes six basic conceptualizations of dynamic individual differences: Variability traits (inconsistency across situations), skill acquisition traits (learning new skills), transition traits (avoiding “loss” in performance after unforeseen change), reacquisition traits (relearning after change), dynamic consumption traits (losing energy by displaying the behavior), and dynamic integration/dissolution traits (behavior becomes more or less uniform). We provide both verbal and statistical definitions of each of these types of traits and discuss how these trait conceptualizations can be operationalized in assessment using psychometric methods. We specifically show how researchers can test different dynamic explanations for dynamic processes in either predictor or criterion data against each other.
Speaker 2: Do you feel better when you behave more extraverted than you are?
The relationship between cumulative counterdispositional extraversion and positive feelings
The relationship between cumulative counterdispositional extraversion and positive feelings
Evy Kuijpers (1), Jennifer Pickett (1), Bart Wille (2), Joeri Hofmans (1)
(1) VUB; (2) UGent
The idea that increased levels of extraversion are beneficial to well-being is widely accepted. However, studies that supported this claim have either focused on trait or state extraversion, failing to consider that, in everyday life, traits and states act together. Indeed, the Behavioral Concordance Model (BCM) posits that behaving discordant to one’s trait level is demanding and effortful to maintain and therefore should cause impaired levels of well-being. Drawing on the BCM, the current study sets out to study the potential negative effect of counterdispositional extraversion on well-being. More specifically, we test whether deviations from one’s trait level of extraversion hamper subjective well-being (SWB). Data was collected by means of an experience sampling design among 92 employees rating their level of state extraversion and well-being five times per (work)day over a four-week period (N=4,828). Results revealed that higher levels of weekly counterdispositional behaviour were associated with lower levels of weekly well-being. Moreover, we found that it mattered whether someone behaved more or rather less extraverted than the trait level, with cumulative positive deviations from one’s trait extraversion level (i.e. acting more extraverted) being positively associated to SWB, while cumulative negative deviations (i.e. acting less extraverted) were negatively associated to SWB. Additionally, when testing cross-level interactions, results revealed that extraverts benefit twice, since they benefit more from positive deviations from their trait level and suffer less from negative deviations than trait introverts.
Speaker 3: The role of need satisfaction and inducement valuation in making sense of psychological contract breach
—a moderated mediation mode
—a moderated mediation mode
Yang Yang (1) and Tim Vantilborgh (1)
(1) VUB
The psychological contract (PC) is a mental schema that employees use to assess their employment experience. PC fulfillment is associated with positive reactions whereas under-fulfillment with a variety of negative outcomes. Negative reactions harm the employee-employer relationships and may impair the performance of the organization. However, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms through which employees make sense of PC breach (i.e., both positive and negative discrepancies between delivered and obligated inducements). We take the within-person perspective and examine how the satisfaction and frustration of basic psychological needs mediates the relationship between breach perceptions and employees’ affect, as well as how inducement valuation moderates the relationship between PC breach and fulfillment and experience of need satisfaction and frustration. We collected monthly measures of inducement valuation, breach and fulfillment perceptions, as well as affective response for 26 inducements over six months. Our results suggest that at the within-person level, employees’ valence and arousal to PC breach are mediated by experience of need satisfaction and frustration, and that inducement valuation moderates employees’ experience of need satisfaction and frustration. We advance dynamic PC research by integrating Self-determination Theory (SDT) and showing the importance of employees’ needs and inducement valuation in evaluating their employment relationship. We anticipate our study to be a starting point for studying the mechanisms through which employees make sense of workplace events from the perspective of self-actualization.
Speaker 4: Reciprocal relationships between narcissism and agentic versus
communal work characteristics across the first six years of the career
communal work characteristics across the first six years of the career
Fien Heyde (1), Bart Wille (1) and Jasmine Vergauwe (1)
(1) UGent
Based on socioemotional selectivity and conservation of resources theories, we developed and tested a serial mediation model on how socioemotional and generativity opportunities are negatively related to preretirement intentions through occupational future time perspective and work-family conflict. First, a cross-lagged panel study was conducted in order to assess the directionality of the relationships between the first mediator (i.e., occupational future time perspective) and the second mediator (i.e., work-family conflict), among older workers from diverse organizations in the United Kingdom (N = 362). This first study confirmed the antecedence of the dimension “focus on limitations” of occupational future time perspective, on work-family conflict. The second study tested our serial mediation model among Belgian older workers from an organization in the public sector (N = 177). Results showed that socioemotional opportunities were negatively associated with preretirement intentions through the mediating influence of focus on limitations and work-family conflict. These findings contribute to the literature on aging at work by highlighting the role of socioemotional resources in older workers’ retirement decision-making process. Implications for future research and practical suggestions for managing an aging workforce are discussed.
