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This paper considers threats to the internal validity of field studies that utilize survey data. Compared to laboratory experiments and field experiments, field surveys should be strong in realism, practical significance, and normative quality. However, there are substantial threats to internal validity that fall into the general categories of sampling and measurement. We consider these issues and how to deal with them. We pay special attention to the existence and impact of common method variance including strategies for avoiding it, methods for assessing it, and approaches to correcting for it. Our objective is to provide a road map for better use of survey methods.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to present a subset of seven statistical and methodological myths and urban legends (SMMULs). When present, SMMULs degrade the overall research process and make manuscript evaluation problematic during the review process. SMMULs covered here included those pertaining to accepting the theoretical model, conventional cutoff values, exploratory factor analysis, common method bias, moderation analysis, Baron and Kenny's four-step mediation test, and permitting correlated item residuals.

Design/Methodology – Given that the details underlying the SMMULs have already been published, the present chapter was a summary of each. The summaries presented the urban legend and sources for it. Subsequently, the kernel of truth underlying the SMMUL was presented, and how this truth may have been lost and distorted. Each summary ends with the recommended “good” practices as presented by the original authors.

Findings/Implications – The implication for researchers is to modify their current practices to strengthen their research and to make better inferences. And for editors and reviewers, the implication is to develop accurate decision rules to strengthen the review process.

Originality/Value – The overall value of the chapter is to improve the research process in general.

Theorists, such as Darwin and Aristotle, have long argued that facial expressions communicate information about a person's emotional state. Recently, validated coding strategies for facial expressions have been developed, which enable researchers to reliably assess a person's affect. Although social, health, and clinical psychologists have regularly employed these objective measures of facial expressions (OMFE), occupational stress and well-being researchers are yet to benefit from this method. The subsequent chapter integrates the facial expression and occupational well-being literature. Specifically, we discuss the advantages of OMFE over self-reports and implications of OMFE for future research on occupational well-being.

Although the proliferation of research in emotional intelligence (EI) in the last 25 years has largely focused on the individual level, some researchers have proposed theories and measurement models for EI at the organizational level. Drawing from earlier work which conceptualizes organizational emotional intelligence (OEI) as a climate-level construct involving shared norms and practices this chapter sets out to investigate the relationship between perceptions of organizational emotional intelligence (OEI) and turnover intentions amongst employees. Since turnover intentions are a reliable indicator of actual turnover they are deemed to be a critical indicator for organizational performance. This chapter also builds on previous research which found that the relationship between OEI as a climate-level construct and intention to leave was mediated by organizational emotional appeal (i.e., overall reputation) and trust in senior management to explore the mediating role of other employee attitudes which have been traditionally linked to climate and individual-level outcomes in organizations, namely job satisfaction and affective commitment. By surveying employees in a UK-based charity organization (n = 173), the study finds that both job satisfaction and affective commitment mediate the impact of OEI on intention to leave and explain a moderate amount of variance in the focal construct. However, the majority of the mediation occurs through job satisfaction with a reduced mediation effect for affective commitment. Potential reasons for these results in the charity context are discussed. The chapter contributes to a wider understanding of the way in which perceptions of OEI impact on employee attitudes toward the organization and the job; and, in turn, how these attitudes impact on turnover intentions.

Purpose: During turbulent social and economic times, perceptions of job insecurity can be expected to increase. In this chapter, we outline a theoretical model that links perceptions of job insecurity to lower affective commitment and high work-related stress, resulting in employees' engaging in poor decision-making behavior. We argue further that employees who possess individual skills of being aware of emotions and managing emotions are less susceptible to such behavior. Study Design/Methodology/Approach: We tested our model in two studies. The first study was conducted using an online sample of 217 respondents. The second study used a split administration design conducted in a single organization and used a sample of 579 employees. Findings: Our data revealed that job insecurity is linked to negative decision-making behaviors and that better emotional awareness and management skills may reduce negative decision-making behaviors. Originality/Value: Our findings support the notion of threat rigidity theory where we found that job insecurity affects how individuals make decisions. Our analysis suggests that the individual's level of emotional skills can act as a form of behavioral control that can ameliorate the effects of job insecurity on decision-making behavior. Research Limitations: Both studies had a female gender bias in our sampling frames. There is a possibility of common method variance affecting the results of Study 1, and both studies involved the use of a self-report measure of emotional skills.

This study, based on our analysis of survey data from 1,242 partners and employees of a U.S. national public accounting firm, examines the impact on psychological well-being from the moderating effects of flexibility and role clarity on work-home conflict experienced by public accountants. Most prior research in public accounting deals with the antecedents and consequences of role stress and primarily focuses on job outcomes of turnover intentions and job satisfaction as dependent variables. Public accounting firms have responded to stressors with worker-friendly policies, largely by introducing flexibility and clarity in their organizational culture. Using a multi-disciplinary research model, we analyze the causal relationships of flexibility and clarity as moderators of the bi-directional nature of work-home conflict (work interference with home and home interference with work) on psychological well-being. Our study finds that perceptions of flexibility and role clarity drawn from a career position in public accounting can mitigate role conflict between work and home environments and contribute to enhanced psychological well-being. We also find that certain relationships described in the model are moderated by family status and age, but not by gender. Results of our study have implications to both individual public accountants and to their firms.

It is a great honor to be selected as a marketing legend, and 117 of my refereed journal articles are published in nine volumes by Sage India as part of the Legend series. In this chapter, I discuss my preparation for an academic career and the trajectory my research has followed. I reflect on my research contributions to marketing by selectively summarizing the key contributions in each of the nine volumes and draw out some lessons and principles I have learned in the process.

Firm’s operating contexts and asymmetric perspectives of success versus failure outcomes are two essential features typically absent in research on firms’ implemented strategies. The study here describes and provides examples of formal case-based models (i.e., constructing algorithms) of firms implemented strategies within several of 81 potential context (task environments) configurations – large vs small, service vs production orientation, low vs high competitive intensity, low vs high technological turbulence, and ambiguous settings for each. The study applies the tenets of complexity theory (e.g., equifinality, causal asymmetry, and single causal insufficiency). The study proposes a meso-theory and empirical testing position for solving “the crucial problem in strategic management” (Powell, Lovallo, & Fox, 2011, p. 1370) – firm heterogeneity – why firms adopt different strategies and structures, why heterogeneity persists, and why competitors perform differently. A workable solution is to identify/describe implemented executive capability strategies that identify firms in alternative specific task environments which are consistently accurate in predicting success (or failure) of all firms for specific implemented capabilities/context configuration. The study shows how researchers can perform “statistical sameness testing” and avoid the telling weaknesses and “corrupt practices” of symmetric tests such as multiple regression analysis (Hubbard, 2015) including null hypothesis significance testing. The study includes testing the research issues using survey responses of 405 CEO and chief marketing officers in 405 Hungarian firms. The study describes algorithms indicating success cases (firms) as well as failure cases via deductive, inductive, and abductive fuzzy-set logic of capabilities in context solutions.

Owing to the inconclusive results of prior studies on the strategic change–firm performance relationship, this paper extends the marketing strategy literature by postulating an “inverted U-shaped” relationship and the moderating roles of “organizational learning” (OGL) and “strategic flexibility” (STF).

A self-administered survey was employed to collect data from different strategic business units of 550 firms operating in Thailand. The data collection yielded a response rate of 17.27%. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to validate the scales, and path analysis was employed to test the hypotheses in this study.

Although no significant curvilinear relationship was found, the directions of the path coefficients are consistent with the hypothesis. Both OGL and STF serve as significant moderators in the marketing strategic change (MSC)–business performance relationships. While STF strengthens the relationship, the generative OGL tends to weaken it.

Managers need to understand the type of learning that fits different types of strategic changes in order to enhance business performance. Generative OGL may seem harmful for changes that are less proactive. Furthermore, firms should incorporate flexibility in managing political, economic, and financial risks in their strategies by emphasizing investments and cost sharing, flexible human capital allocation, and spontaneous and impromptu actions.

This study extends international marketing strategy literature by empirically testing the hypotheses in an emerging Asian economy. The research proposes a nonlinear relationship between MSC and business performance as well as introduces the moderating roles of OGL and STF.