Top

Journal of Business and Psychology

Published in:

24-06-2019 | Original Paper

Extending Situational Strength Theory to Account for Situation-Outcome Mismatch

Authors: Reeshad S. Dalal, Balca Alaybek, Zitong Sheng, Samantha J. Holland, Alan J. Tomassetti

Published in: Journal of Business and Psychology | Issue 3/2020

Activate our intelligent search to find suitable subject content or patents.

search-config

AI-assisted search

Off

Abstract

The current paper was motivated by previous results (Meyer et al. Journal of Management, 40, 1010–1041, 2014) that appeared to contradict the popular idea that “strong” situations weaken the impact of personality on job performance. We extend situational strength theory by contending that, when a strong situation blocks one outlet for poor performance (e.g., low task performance), employees predisposed toward such behavior experience negative affect. They then displace their negative behavior to a second outlet (e.g., counterproductive work behavior), thereby strengthening their predispositions, unless that second outlet, too, is blocked by a strong situation. We then test this assertion using a two-wave survey (N = 369), analyzed using dual-stage moderated mediation. Results indicate strong support for this assertion vis-à-vis the personality traits of conscientiousness and agreeableness, thereby replicating and extending Meyer et al.’s (Journal of Management, 40, 1010–1041, 2014) seemingly anomalous results. However, results indicate weaker support vis-à-vis a third personality trait, emotional stability, which has a weaker bivariate relationship with counterproductive work behavior. The extended situational strength theory suggests important avenues for future research as well as practical guidelines for avoiding unintended consequences when applying strong situations in organizations.

next article The Joint Importance of Secure and Satisfying Work: Insights from Three Studies

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 102.000 Bücher
über 537 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Automobil + Motoren
Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Elektrotechnik + Elektronik
Energie + Nachhaltigkeit
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Maschinenbau + Werkstoffe
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Online-Abonnement

Mit Springer Professional "Wirtschaft" erhalten Sie Zugriff auf:

über 67.000 Bücher
über 340 Zeitschriften

aus folgenden Fachgebieten:

Bauwesen + Immobilien
Business IT + Informatik
Finance + Banking
Management + Führung
Marketing + Vertrieb
Versicherung + Risiko

Jetzt Wissensvorsprung sichern!

inform now

In theory, employees’ perceptions regarding the organization’s view of CWB could have ranged from organizational intolerance of CWB, through organizational tolerance of CWB, all the way to active organizational encouragement of CWB. Organizational tolerance toward CWB would then have represented a weak situation, whereas both organizational intolerance toward CWB and active organizational encouragement of CWB would have represented strong situations (albeit with different levels of behavior being encouraged). However, although it was important to design the scale to accommodate this theoretical possibility, descriptive statistics revealed that respondents did not use the full range of the scale: responses to the effect that organizations actively encouraged CWB were virtually non-existent. Thus, in effect, high scores (after reverse-scoring) represented high levels of CWB-focused situational strength whereas lower scores, which were in fact mid-range rather than truly low scores, represented lower levels of CWB-focused situational strength. Future research could instead consider using response options that range from very strongly discourages to tolerates (albeit with more gradations within this range).

We are grateful to Rustin D. Meyer for providing us with an unpublished dataset. The dataset in question contained the Meyer et al. (2014) perceptual four-facet (clarity, consistency, constraints, and consequences) measure of task-performance-focused situational strength. The dataset also contained respondents’ own judgments regarding the O*NET occupation that best fit their current job—thereby permitting us to generate occupation-level task-performance-focused situational strength scores using Meyer et al.’s (2009) two-facet (constraints and consequences) O*NET-based measure of situational strength. The current study measured clarity and constraints, the convergence of the latter of which can be assessed via the unpublished dataset. In the unpublished dataset, we were able to find 25 occupations that were each associated with 10 or more respondents (total usable n = 505). We aggregated the Meyer et al. (2014) constraints scores up to the occupation level. Interrater agreement was strong (on the basis of LeBreton & Senter’s, 2008, rules of thumb): median r_wg(j) = 0.77, using a uniform error variance distribution. For the 25 occupations, reliabilities (Cronbach’s alphas) were 0.95 for the Meyer et al. (2014) perceptual measure of constraints and 0.62 for the Meyer et al. (2009) O*NET measure of constraints. The observed correlation between scores on the two constraints measures across these 25 occupations was 0.35, p < .10. The correlation corrected for unreliability in both measures was 0.46, p < .05. Given the differences in the nature of the items used to measure constraints across the two measures, this constitutes an appreciable level of convergence.

Alaybek, B., Dalal, R. S., Sheng, Z., Morris, A. G., Tomassetti, A. J., & Holland, S. J. (2017). Situational strength cues from social sources at work: Relative importance and mediated effects. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01512.CrossRef

Austin, J. T., & Villanova, P. (1992). The criterion problem: 1917–1992. Journal of Applied Psychology, 77, 836–874. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.77.6.836.CrossRef

Barrick, M. R., & Mount, M. K. (1993). Autonomy as a moderator of the relationships between the big five personality dimensions and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 78, 111–118. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.78.1.111.CrossRef

Bennett, R. J., & Robinson, S. L. (2000). Development of a measure of workplace deviance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85, 349–360. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.85.3.349.CrossRefPubMed

Berkowitz, L. (1989). Frustration-aggression hypothesis: Examination and reformulation. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 59–73. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.106.1.59.CrossRefPubMed

Berry, C. M., Carpenter, N. C., & Barratt, C. L. (2012). Do other-reports of counterproductive work behavior provide an incremental contribution over self-reports? A meta-analytic comparison. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 613–636. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0026739.CrossRefPubMed

Berry, C. M., Ones, D. S., & Sackett, P. R. (2007). Interpersonal deviance, organizational deviance, and their common correlates: A review and meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 410–424. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.2.410.CrossRefPubMed

Borman, W. C., & Motowidlo, S. J. (1997). Task performance and contextual performance: The meaning for personnel selection research. Human Performance, 10, 99–109. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327043hup1002_3.CrossRef

Bowling, N. A., Khazon, S., Meyer, R. D., & Burrus, C. J. (2015). Situational strength as a moderator of the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance: A meta-analytic examination. Journal of Business and Psychology, 30, 89–104. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-013-9340-7.CrossRef

Brehm, J. W. (2000). Reactance. In A. E. Kazdin (Ed.), Encyclopedia of psychology (Vol. 7, pp. 10–12). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.

Buhrmester, M., Kwang, T., & Gosling, S. D. (2011). Amazon’s mechanical Turk: A new source of inexpensive, yet high-quality, data? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 3–5. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691610393980.CrossRefPubMed

Campbell, J. P. (1990). Modeling the performance prediction problem in industrial and organizational psychology. In M. D. Dunnette & L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 687–732). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Catano, V. M., O’Keefe, D. F., Francis, R. E., & Owens, S. M. (2018). Construct-based approach to developing a short, personality-based measure of integrity. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 26, 75–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12197.CrossRef

Chang, C.-H., Eatough, E. M., Spector, P. E., & Kessler, S. R. (2012). Violence-prevention climate, exposure to violence and aggression, and prevention behavior: A mediation model. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33, 657–677. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.776.CrossRef

Chen, G., Ployhart, R. E., Thomas, H. C., Anderson, N., & Bliese, P. D. (2011). The power of momentum: A new model of dynamic relationships between job satisfaction change and turnover intentions. Academy of Management Journal, 54, 159–181. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2011.59215089.CrossRef

Cheung, J. H., Burns, D. K., Sinclair, R. R., & Sliter, M. (2017). Amazon mechanical Turk in organizational psychology: An evaluation and practical recommendations. Journal of Business and Psychology, 32, 347–361. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-016-9458-5.CrossRef

Cohen, J. (1992). A power primer. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 155–159. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.112.1.155.CrossRefPubMed

Cooper, W. H., & Withey, M. J. (2009). The strong situation hypothesis. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 13, 62–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/1088868308329378.CrossRefPubMed

Costa, P. T., Terracciano, A., & McCrae, R. R. (2001). Gender differences in personality traits across cultures: Robust and surprising findings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 322–331. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.81.2.322.CrossRefPubMed

Dalal, R. S. (2005). A meta-analysis of the relationship between organizational citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90, 1241–1255. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.90.6.1241.CrossRefPubMed

Dalal, R. S., Bashshur, M. R., & Credé, M. (2011). The forgotten facet: Employee satisfaction with management above the level of immediate supervision. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 60, 183–209. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1464-0597.2010.00431.x.CrossRef

Dalal, R. S., Lam, H., Weiss, H. M., Welch, E. R., & Hulin, C. L. (2009). A within-person approach to work behavior and performance: Concurrent and lagged citizenship-counterproductivity associations, and dynamic relationships with affect and overall job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 52, 1051–1066. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.44636148.CrossRef

Dalal, R. S., & Meyer, R. D. (2012). The implications of situational strength for HRM. In W. J. Rothwell & G. M. Benscoter (Eds.), The encyclopedia of human resource management (Vol. 3, pp. 298–306). San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer/Wiley.CrossRef

Evans, M. G. (1985). A Monte Carlo study of the effects of correlated method variance in moderated multiple regression analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 36, 305–323. https://doi.org/10.1016/0749-5978(85)90002-0.CrossRef

Fox, S., Spector, P. E., Goh, A., Bruursema, K., & Kessler, S. R. (2011). The deviant citizen: Measuring potential positive relations between counterproductive work behaviour and organizational citizenship behaviour. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 85, 199–220. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8325.2011.02032.x.CrossRef

Gelfand, M. J., & Lun, J. (2013). The culture of the situation: The role of situational strength in cultural systems. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 16, 34–38. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajsp.12018.CrossRef

Gelfand, M. J., Nishii, L. H., & Raver, J. L. (2006). On the nature and importance of cultural tightness-looseness. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 1225–1244. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.91.6.1225.CrossRefPubMed

Giacopelli, N. M., Simpson, K. M., Dalal, R. S., Randolph, K. L., & Holland, S. J. (2013). Maximizing as a predictor of job satisfaction and performance: A tale of three scales. Judgment and Decision Making, 8, 448–469.

Hattrup, K., & Jackson, S. E. (1996). Learning about individual differences by taking situations seriously. In K. R. Murphy (Ed.), Individual differences and behavior in organizations (pp. 507–547). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Hayes, A. F. (2013). Introduction to mediation, moderation, and conditional process analysis. New York: The Guilford Press.

Hirschman, A. O. (1970). Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations, and states. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Hauser, D. J., & Schwarz, N. (2015). Attentive Turkers: MTurk participants perform better on online attention checks than do subject pool participants. Behavior Research Methods, 48, 400–407. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0578-z.CrossRef

Hershcovis, M. S., Turner, N., Barling, J., Arnold, K. A., Dupré, K. E., Inness, M., LeBlanc, M. M., & Sivanathan, N. (2007). Predicting workplace aggression: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 228–238. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.1.228.CrossRefPubMed

Hideg, I., & Ferris, D. L. (2017). Dialectical thinking and fairness-based perspectives of affirmative action. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102, 782–801. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000207.CrossRefPubMed

Holden, C. J., Dennie, T., & Hicks, A. D. (2013). Assessing the reliability of the M5-120 on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Computers in Human Behavior, 29, 1749–1754. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.02.020.CrossRef

Holland, S. J., Simpson, K. M., Dalal, R. S., & Vega, R. P. (2016). I can’t steal from a coworker if I work from home: Conceptual and measurement-related issues associated with studying counterproductive work behavior in a telework setting. Human Performance, 29, 172–190. https://doi.org/10.1080/08959285.2016.1160094.CrossRef

Huang, J. L., Curran, P. G., Keeney, J., Poposki, E. M., & DeShon, R. P. (2012). Detecting and deterring insufficient effort responding to surveys. Journal of Business and Psychology, 27, 99–114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-011-9231-8.CrossRef

Hulin, C. (1991). Adaptation, persistence, and commitment in organizations. In M. D. Dunnette & L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (pp. 445–505). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

Hulin, C. L., Fitzgerald, L. F., & Drasgow, F. (1996). Organizational influences on sexual harassment. In M. S. Stockdale (Ed.), Sexual harassment in the workplace: Perspectives, frontiers, and response strategies (Women and work: A research and policy series) (Vol. 5, pp. 127–150). https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483327280.n7.CrossRef

Izard, C. E. (1977). Human emotions. New York, NY: Plenum.CrossRef

John, O. P., Donahue, E. M., & Kentle, R. L. (1991). The Big Five Inventory—Versions 4a and 54. Berkeley, CA: University of California, Berkeley, Institute of Personality and Social Research.

Johnson, J. A. (2005). Ascertaining the validity of individual protocols from web-based personality inventories. Journal of Research in Personality, 39, 103–129. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2004.09.009.CrossRef

José, I. J., Hermida, R., Vega, R. P., Chen, T. R., Hale, A., Dalal, R. S., et al. (2011). When preferred and actual levels of situational strength differ. In: Extensions and Applications of Situational Strength in the Organizational Sciences. Symposium conducted at the meeting of the Academy of Management, R. D. Meyer (chair), San Antonio, TX.

Judge, T. A., & Zapata, C. P. (2015). The person-situation debate revisited: Effect of situation strength and trait activation on the validity of the big five personality traits in predicting job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 58, 1149–1179. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2010.0837.CrossRef

Kees, J., Berry, C., Burton, S., & Sheehan, K. (2017). An analysis of data quality: Professional panels, student subject pools, and Amazon’s mechanical Turk. Journal of Advertising, 46, 141–155. https://doi.org/10.1080/00913367.2016.1269304.CrossRef

LeBreton, J. M., & Senter, J. L. (2008). Answers to 20 questions about interrater reliability and interrater agreement. Organizational Research Methods, 11, 815–852. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428106296642.CrossRef

Lee, S., & Dalal, R. S. (2016). Climate as situational strength: Safety climate strength as a cross-level moderator of the relationship between conscientiousness and safety behaviour. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 25, 120–132. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2014.987231.CrossRef

Levene, H. (1960). Robust tests for equality of variances. In I. Olkin (Ed.), Contributions to probability and statistics: Essays in honor of Harold Hotelling (pp. 278–292). Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

Marcus, B., Höft, S., & Riediger, M. (2006). Integrity tests and the five-factor model of personality: A review and empirical test of two alternative positions. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 14, 113–130. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2389.2006.00338.x.CrossRef

Marcus-Newhall, A., Pedersen, W. C., Carlson, M., & Miller, N. (2000). Displaced aggression is alive and well: A meta-analytic review. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 670–689. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.78.4.670.CrossRefPubMed

Marx, R. G., Menezes, A., Horovitz, L., Jones, E. C., & Warren, R. F. (2003). A comparison of two time intervals for test-retest reliability of health status instruments. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, 56, 730–735. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0895-4356(03)00084-2.CrossRefPubMed

Meyer, R. D., Dalal, R. S., & Bonaccio, S. (2009). A meta-analytic investigation into the moderating effects of situational strength on the conscientiousness-performance relationship. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 1077–1102. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.602.CrossRef

Meyer, R. D., Dalal, R. S., & Hermida, R. (2010). A review and synthesis of situational strength in the organizational sciences. Journal of Management, 36, 121–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206309349309.CrossRef

Meyer, R. D., Dalal, R. S., Jose, I. J., Hermida, R., Chen, T. R., Vega, R. P., et al. (2014). Measuring job-related situational strength and assessing its interactive effects with personality on voluntary work behavior. Journal of Management, 40, 1010–1041. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206311425613.CrossRef

Miller, N. E. (1941). I. The frustration-aggression hypothesis. Psychological Review, 48, 337–342. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0055861.CrossRef

Miron, A. M., & Brehm, J. W. (2006). Reactance theory—40 years later. Zeitschrift für Sozialpsychologie, 37, 9–18 doi:0.1024/0044-3514.37.1.9.CrossRef

Mischel, W. (1968). Consistency and specificity in behavior. In W. Mischel (Ed.), Personality and assessment (pp. 13–39). New York: Wiley.

Mischel, W. (1977). The interaction of person and situation. In D. Magnusson & N. S. Endler (Eds.), Personality at the crossroads: Current issues in interactional psychology (pp. 333–352). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Mendoza-Denton, R. (2002). Situation-behavior profiles as a locus of consistency in personality. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 50–54. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00166.CrossRef

Ottinot, R. C. (2010). A multi-level study investigating the impact of workplace civility climate on incivility and employee well-being. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL.

Paolacci, G., Chandler, J., & Ipeirotis, P. G. (2010). Running experiments on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Judgment and Decision Making, 5, 411–419.

Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J.-Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 879–903. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879.CrossRefPubMed

Rosse, J. G., & Miller, H. E. (1984). Relationship between absenteeism and other employee behaviors. In P. S. Goodman & R. S. Atkin (Eds.), Absenteeism: New approaches to understanding, measuring, and managing employee absence (pp. 194–228). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Rotundo, M., & Sackett, P. R. (2002). The relative importance of task, citizenship, and counterproductive performance to global ratings of job performance: A policy-capturing approach. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 66–80. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.1.66.CrossRefPubMed

Sackett, P. R. (2002). The structure of counterproductive work behaviors: Dimensionality and relationships with facets of job performance. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 10, 5–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-2389.00189.CrossRef

Shah, N. P., Cross, R., & Levin, D. Z. (2018). Performance benefits from providing assistance in networks: Relationships that generate learning. Journal of Management, 44, 412–444. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206315584822.CrossRef

Siemsen, E., Roth, A., & Oliveira, P. (2010). Common method bias in regression models with linear, quadratic, and interaction effects. Organizational Research Methods, 13, 456–476. https://doi.org/10.1177/1094428109351241.CrossRef

Uz, I. (2015). The index of cultural tightness and looseness among 68 countries. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 46, 319–335. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022022114563611.CrossRef

Walter, S. L., Seibert, S. E., Goering, D., & O’Boyle, E. H. (2019) A tale of two sample sources: Do results from online panel data and conventional data converge? Journal of Business and Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-018-9552-y.

Watson, D., & Clark, L. A. (1999). The PANAS-X: Manual for the positive and negative affect schedule-expanded form. Ames, IA: University of Iowa.

Yang, L.-Q., Caughlin, D. E., Gazica, M. W., Truxillo, D. M., & Spector, P. E. (2014). Workplace mistreatment climate and potential employee and organizational outcomes: A meta-analytic review from the target’s perspective. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 19, 315–335. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0036905.CrossRefPubMed

Zohar, D. (1980). Safety climate in industrial organizations: Theoretical and applied implications. Journal of Applied Psychology, 65, 96–102. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.65.1.96.CrossRefPubMed

Zohar, D., & Hofmann, D. (2012). Organizational culture and climate. In S. W. J. Kozlowski (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of organizational psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 643–666). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Title: Extending Situational Strength Theory to Account for Situation-Outcome Mismatch
Authors: Reeshad S. Dalal
Balca Alaybek
Zitong Sheng
Samantha J. Holland
Alan J. Tomassetti
Publication date: 24-06-2019
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Journal of Business and Psychology / Issue 3/2020
Print ISSN: 0889-3268
Electronic ISSN: 1573-353X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-019-09632-z

Springer Professional

Abstract

Please log in to get access to your license.

Dont have a licence yet? Then find out more about our products and how to get one now:

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft+Technik"

Springer Professional "Wirtschaft"

Other articles of this Issue 3/2020

FSSBs and Elderly Care: Exploring the Role of Organizational Context on Employees’ Overall Health and Work–Family Balance Satisfaction

The malevolent side of organizational identification: unraveling the impact of psychological entitlement and manipulative personality on unethical work behaviors

The Power of Doing: How Job Crafting Transmits the Beneficial Impact of Autonomy Among Overqualified Employees

The Joint Importance of Secure and Satisfying Work: Insights from Three Studies

Feeling, Expressing, and Managing Emotions in Work-Family Conflict

“Oops, I Did It” or “It Wasn’t Me:” An Examination of Psychological Contract Breach Repair Tactics