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For half a century, psychologist Albert Bandura has worked to advance a cognitive interactional model of human functioning that emphasizes the role of cognitive and symbolic representations as central processes in human adaptation and change. In his seminal 1977 publication, Bandura emphasized that these representations – visualized actions and outcomes stemming from reflective thought – form the basis from which individuals assess their personal efficacy. An efficacy belief, he contended, is the “conviction that one can successfully execute the behavior required to produce the outcomes” one desires (p. 193). Efficacy beliefs serve as the primary means by which people are able to exercise a measure of control over their lives. During the next two decades, Bandura (1986, 1997) advanced his social cognitive theory, in which people are viewed as self-organizing, proactive, self-reflecting, and self-regulating rather than as solely reactive organisms, products of environmental or concealed inner influences. From this agentic perspective, people are seen as contributors to their life circumstances, not just recipients of them. In this way, people are “partial architects of their own destinies” (Bandura, 1997, p. 8).

The purpose of this study was to examine factors affecting teachers’ work performance (i.e., task performance and discretionary performance) and career aspirations (i.e., remaining a teacher, seeking promotion to a principalship, and career change). Applying an inclusive social-cognitive perspective, the study integrated the personal, organizational, and leadership domains to explain teachers’ task performance, discretionary performance, and career aspirations. The three domains, represented by the independent variables of self-efficacy, collective efficacy, perceived organizational support, and principal leadership styles, predicted teachers’ work performance and career aspirations. Participants included 897 public school teachers in a southern state in the United States. The data gathering instrument incorporated several previously validated scales on study constructs. The analyses indicated that teacher self-efficacy, collective efficacy, POS, and principal transformational leadership all significantly predicted the teachers’ task performance, discretionary performance, and career aspirations. Study findings suggest directions for future research on factors influencing teachers’ work performance and career aspirations.

This chapter aims to enhance understanding of the main drivers of internal auditors' moral courage to speak up about sensitive information and their cause-and-effect relationships. We use cognitive mapping method to analyze 20 chief audit executives' cognitive maps in Tunisia. A collective map was grounded through assembling the full individual maps. Using the Decision Explorer software for our analysis, we find that the state hope, whistle-blowing policy, self-efficacy, perceived supervisor support and independence of internal audit function are the main drivers for internal auditors' moral courage. Our findings are also supplemented by semi-structured interviews. Our chapter offers a novel methodological contribution to auditing literature as well as new empirical evidence (contribution to knowledge) on the drivers of internal auditors' moral courage.

Organizational researchers have become increasingly interested in multi-level constructs – that is, constructs that are meaningful at multiple levels of analysis. However, despite the plethora of theoretical and empirical work on multi-level topics, explicit frameworks for validation of multi-level constructs have yet to be fully developed. Moreover, available principles for conducting construct validation assume that the construct resides at a single level of analysis. We propose a five-step framework for conceptualizing and testing multi-level constructs by integrating principles of construct validation with recent advancements in multi-level theory, research, and methodology. The utility of the framework is illustrated using theoretical and empirical examples.

Exercising human resource (HR) leadership has always been difficult in challenging times, but the unique stressors facing organizations throughout the world today call for a new approach to HR leadership and its development. We propose a multifaceted model that redefines the role of strategic HR leadership and for understanding connections between authentic HR leadership and sustainable organizational performance. We argue that to build enduring organizations and motivate employees to provide superior customer service and create sustainable value for their organizations, we need HR leaders who know themselves, who lead with integrity and demand conformance to higher ethical values.

Most multi-level studies are cross-sectional and focus on a certain point in time, though various changes within levels may occur over time. This chapter presents a statistical method for assessing whether the degree of interdependency within a group has changed over time, using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) as an indicator of the degree of homogeneity within the groups. It then shows how to apply this method using the SAS MIXED procedure. The problem was motivated by a study in which 120 subjects were divided into 40 groups of three. In a portion of the study, collective efficacy was the dependent variable measured for each subject under four different conditions (two levels of task interdependence at two points in time). ICC was used as a measure of group homogeneity with respect to collective efficacy, and the problem was how to compare the dependent ICCs associated with the different conditions.

Organizations, especially youth organizations, often use media and communication tools to engage participants and achieve their goals. While these tools have the potential to benefit organizations, it is unclear whether using media tools influences effectiveness and how their use compares to traditional engagement practices. In this chapter, I examine the impact of both media tools and participant inclusion on organizational efficacy, controlling for various organizational characteristics. I use originally collected survey data from paid staff youth nonprofit civic organizations in the Raleigh, North Carolina area. I find that using Twitter increases organizational efficacy, but the effect is ameliorated by the inclusion of organizational characteristics. I also find that media tools tend to be used by organizations in a one-directional manner, which may help explain their limited impact. Using media tools is not sufficient to increase efficacy since the way they are used also matters. Including youth in daily decision-making processes, however, increases organizational efficacy and the relationship is robust to including organizational characteristics.

Intuition, along with empirical research, suggests that the generation of creative ideas benefits from divergent thinking among team members. However, the generation of creative ideas represents only one stage of the innovative process; teams also must implement ideas. In this chapter, we propose that effective idea implementation may depend on the opposite of team divergence: team conformity. Specifically, we propose that conformity facilitates various group processes important for effective idea implementation, including team coordination, information exchange, conflict management, and collective efficacy. Next, we discuss the role of leaders in managing the magnitude and processes of conformity. The chapter concludes with a discussion of implications and important next steps for studying conformity in relation to team innovative effectiveness.

Past research involving turnover in work teams has largely focused on turnover as a dependent variable. With the growing trend towards more fluid, project-based teams, the effects of team membership changes on team processes and outcomes are in need of theoretical development and systematic study. Building on previous work by others (e.g. Arrow & McGrath, 1995; Marks, Mathieu & Zacarro, 2001), we develop a framework for understanding the effects of the rate of membership change, or team fluidity, on emergent states and processes in teams. Specifically, we: (a) discuss the theoretical underpinnings of team fluidity; (b) review past team research involving turnover; (c) make theoretically-grounded propositions about the effects of team fluidity on emergent states and process variables as well as additional propositions about boundary conditions; (d) discuss implications for human resource management practices; and (e) identify methodological challenges, including measurement issues, in studying team fluidity.

The empirical literature on charismatic or transformational leadership demonstrates that such leadership has profound effects on followers. However, while several versions of charismatic leadership theory predict such effects, none of them explains the process by which these effects are achieved. In this paper we seek to advance leadership theory by addressing this fundamental problem. We offer a self-concept based motivational theory to explain the process by which charismatic leader behaviors cause profound transformational effects on followers. The theory presents the argument that charismatic leadership has its effects by strongly engaging followers’ self-concepts in the interest of the mission articulated by the leader. We derive from this theory testable propositions about (a) the behavior of charismatic leaders and their effects on followers, (b) the role of followers’ values and orientations in the charismatic relationship, and (c) some of the organizational conditions that favor the emergence and effectiveness of charismatic leaders.