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Drawing on activation theory, this paper aims to examine the process through which abusive supervision influences job-oriented constructive deviance (JCD) in the hospitality industry.

Data are collected from 198 employees working with 34 supervisors, at three time points across four hotel groups in Macau. The instantaneous indirect effect and moderated curvilinear effect using established measures are tested.

First, abusive supervision was positively associated with hotel employees’ job dissatisfaction and their job dissatisfaction had an inverted curvilinear effect on JCD. Second, job dissatisfaction nonlinearly mediated the impact of abusive supervision on JCD. Third, high problem-focused coping decelerated the diminishing benefits of job dissatisfaction on JCD.

First, organizations should accept employees’ constructive deviance but suppress managers’ abusive supervision. Second, organizations need to improve employees’ problem-focused coping skills and channel job dissatisfaction into constructive and active behaviors.

Theoretically, the authors test a nonlinearly mediating and moderated curvilinear model and address the research concern on whether, why and how service employees decide to engage in positive deviant behaviors when encountering abusive supervision. Practically, the authors avoid concluding that moderate levels of abusive supervision can promote positive employee behaviors and refrain from justification of abusive supervision in the hospitality context.

Drawing upon the “too-much-of-a-good-thing (TMGT)” effect and conservation of resources (COR) theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the mediation mechanism between empowering leadership and employee job performance. Specifically, the authors propose a curvilinear relationship between empowering leadership and job performance, and also suggest that employee harmonious and obsessive work passions mediate the curvilinear relationship between empowering leadership and job performance. Further the moderation role of collectivism orientation (CO) in the relationship between empowering leadership and job performance is also examined.

Questionnaires are used to obtain survey data from 256 supervisor–subordinate dyads in three companies in the communication sector of Ghana. A follow-up interview was also conducted to enhance explanation of research findings. Hierarchical regression analysis is used to analyze the associations among the variables.

The results revealed that the significant inverted U-shaped relationship between empowering leadership and subordinate job performance is mediated by both harmonious and obsessive passion for work. A significant moderation effect of CO in the empowering leadership–job performance relationship could not be established.

This study adapts the “TMGT” effect and COR theory in the explanation of an integrated model including empowering leadership, job performance, employee passion for work, and CO in the Ghanaian context.

Exploring the antecedents of members community participation is extremely important for virtual communities (VCs) research and practice. As an important social characteristic of individuals, social embeddedness has been proved as an important antecedent of many individual behaviors; however, few research has investigated the influence of virtual community members social embeddedness on virtual community members’ participation. To fill this gap, the purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between social embeddedness and community participation in VCs.

This paper conducted empirical study to test the hypotheses. Based on existing scales, this research designed the questionnaire and used a web-based survey to collect the data from VCs in China. To avoid the common method bias, this study collected data at two different times. The final sample included 96 virtual community members from seven communities (community size ranging from 10 to 25) of Baidu Tieba, which is the largest Chinese online communication platform. And this paper used regression models to analysis the data.

Based on social network theory, this paper found that virtual community members’ social embeddedness in their virtual community has a curvilinear (i.e. inverted U-shaped) effect on their community participation behaviors. And members’ perceived autonomy mediates the curvilinear (i.e. reversed U-shaped) relationship between social network embeddedness and community participation. Furthermore, member instability moderates the curvilinear (i.e. inverted U-shaped) main effect, such that the curvilinear relationship is weakened when member instability is high.

Departing from previous virtual community studies that examine antecedences of participation in linear logic, this study applied social network theory to create a complex, curvilinear, moderated mediation model. The result reveals a curvilinear (i.e. inverted U-shaped) relationship between virtual community members’ social embeddedness in the virtual community and their community participation. And this study also introduce autonomy as mediator and member instability as moderator. By testing the whole model between community members’ social embeddedness and community participation, this study contributes to deepen the understanding of social embeddedness and virtual community participation.

The purpose of this paper is to explicate the influence of diverse team on team-level ambidexterity and its curvilinear assessment, and test the mediating role of team reflexivity and the moderating role of shared meta-knowledge in the curvilinear relationship between team diversity and team ambidexterity.

The authors collected multisource and temporally separated data on 206 R&D teams within 28 high-tech firms in Taiwan.

This study found a complex, curvilinear, moderated mediation relationship that functional background diversity has with team ambidexterity. Furthermore, consistent with the notion from categorization-elaboration model, the authors found the curvilinear relationship that functional background diversity has with both team ambidexterity and team reflexivity. Finally, the authors also found that the curvilinear relationship between functional background diversity and team reflexivity was moderated by shared meta-knowledge, such that the positive relationship was strengthened and the negative relationship weakened, in higher shared meta-knowledge in teams rather than lower.

The results demonstrate that team diversity-team ambidexterity relationship is much more complicated than previous works have assumed or suggested. Overall, the authors contribute to a novel understanding about the importance of team diversity in ambidextrous teams by opening the black box of how and when functional background diversity and team ambidexterity.

Previous research has yielded inconsistent findings of the effects that task conflict has on creative outcomes, with some research finding a negative relationship but others holding a positive or even no significant relationship. Drawing on the too-much-of-a-good-thing effect approach, this paper aims to investigate the curvilinear relations between task conflict and creative idea generation as well as the mediating role of task reflexivity and the moderating role of task complexity.

Two studies were carried out to test the proposed relationship. In Study 1, multisource and lagged data collected from 533 employees and 140 corresponding supervisors were used to test the curvilinear relationship between task conflict and creative idea generation as well as the moderating effect of task complexity. In Study 2, the authors extended the findings by exploring the mediating effect of task reflexivity using a matched sample of 350 employees and 99 corresponding supervisors.

Task conflict had an inverted U-shaped relationship with creative idea generation, and task reflexivity partially mediated this relationship. Besides, this association was moderated by task complexity such that the curvilinear relationship was more pronounced for tasks with lower complexity.

This study was more or less contaminated by common method variance because some variables were derived from the same sources. Also, task conflict might be necessitated to differentiate and more situational variables should be considered to draw a complete picture.

Managers should undertake conflict management according to the levels of task conflict and task complexity. At a lower degree of task conflict, managers might motivate employees to think more about task-related issues; at higher levels of task conflict, managers should act as conflict mediators to reduce the underlying negative effects, especially for simple tasks.

These findings could help us understand the boundary conditions under, and the underlying mechanisms by, which task conflict has an impact on creative idea generation.

This research proposes and examines a theoretical model grounded in anthropomorphism theory considering the curvilinear and linear relationships between service robot anthropomorphism and consumer usage intention and explores the mediating effect of perceived risk.

To examine the developed model, two complementary studies are designed. In Study 1, multi-time data of 511 participants show that service robot anthropomorphism inverts U-shaped (curvilinear) relationship on consumer usage intention and perceived risk mediates this curvilinear relationship. In Study 2, multi-source data of 460 volunteers are used to confirm the findings of Study 1 and examine that consumer empathy moderates the complex nonlinear effect of service robot anthropomorphism on perceived risk, and the indirect curvilinear effect of service robot anthropomorphism on consumer usage intention through perceived risk.

This research provides preliminary and yet important findings on how service robot anthropomorphism most likely is positively associated with consumer usage intention, i.e. the positively influence mechanism of service robot anthropomorphism on consumer usage intention.

This research provides preliminary and yet important findings on how service robot anthropomorphism most likely is positively associated with consumer usage intention, i.e. the positively influence mechanism of service robot anthropomorphism on consumer usage intention.

Intrinsic motivation is held as critical for employees' willingness to be flexible (WTBF). Yet empirical research suggests that employees who find work intrinsically satisfying could resist work changes. In this study, the authors examine if a curvilinear relationship exists between these variables.

The authors predict that the relationship between intrinsic motivation and employees' WTBF will become more positive as intrinsic motivation advances beyond moderate levels. They examine the role developmental supervisor support plays in generating the critical threshold of intrinsic motivation needed for it to be positively related with WTBF. They test their hypotheses with survey data collected in three substantially different employee samples.

Data support the hypothesized curvilinear relationship between intrinsic motivation and WTBF. Developmental supervisor support is found to influence employee flexibility indirectly through its linear effect on intrinsic motivation and, in turn, the quadratic effect of intrinsic motivation on WTBF.

The study provides insight into how and when intrinsic motivation increases employees' WTBF and into the degree of developmental support needed to facilitate a positive relationship between these variables.

This is the first study to the author’s knowledge that empirically examines the relationship between intrinsic motivation and employees' WTBF.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how leader humility affects the engagement of employees in creative processes, using perceived organizational support (POS) as a mediator and leader competence as a moderator.

Data were collected from a two-wave sampling of 113 dyads of leaders and subordinates in China.

A curvilinear relationship was found between leader humility and employee engagement in creative processes. Further, POS partially mediates this relationship, and leader competence positively moderates the relationship between leader humility and POS.

First, organizations should select and train leaders who show humility as a character trait and foster a supportive organizational climate. Second, managers should study the benefits of moderate and harms of superfluous humility, especially in the Chinese cultural context. Third, competent leaders are more effective as humble leaders.

Few studies have concentrated on leader humility in the eastern cultural context. The results challenge traditional views of the impact of leader humility and shed light on its mechanism and the conditions under which it promotes employee engagement in creation. This study also clarifies the nonlinear influence of leader humility, building a fine-grained theoretical framework integrating the motivation-opportunities-abilities model and Chinese Zhong-Yong theory.

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether Chinese college students' social cyberloafing out of class has a curvilinear effect on academic performance and whether students' levels of psychological detachment and relaxation mediate the effect.

A field survey was used to collect 502 self-reported responses from student Internet users at a large university located in central China.

The results show an inverted U-shaped relationship between social cyberloafing out of class and academic performance. Two types of effort recovery experience gained from social cyberloafing, psychological detachment and relaxation, mediate that effect. Students' social cyberloafing out of class is positively associated with psychological detachment and relaxation, which in turn, have opposite effects on academic performance.

This study offers novel insights into the effects of social cyberloafing on college students' academic achievement. The findings illustrate how social cyberloafing can serve as a recovery experience and improve academic performance, but it can hinder performance if the cyberloafing is excessive.

This study extends the cyberloafing literature by focusing on Chinese college students' cyberloafing out of class. The study finds that a moderate amount of social cyberloafing out of class can result in psychological detachment, relaxation and improved performance when returning to academic work. However, both too much or too little social cyberloafing can result in difficulty returning to academic work and reduced academic performance. The findings are novel to the cyberloafing literature.

Prior studies have mainly advanced the understanding of a linear relationship between leadership humility and employee work outcomes, mediated and/or moderated by various individual, team and organizational variables. This study attempts to advance prior knowledge by investigating a potential curvilinear relationship between leadership humility and frontline service employee (FSE) performance and the role of FSE's psychological capital (PsyCap) in attenuating this curvilinear relationship.

Survey data were drawn from a survey sample of 273 FSEs working in the hospitality industry of the United States of America. Hierarchical linear regression analysis was used to test the proposed hypotheses.

The results uncover the existence of a tipping point in the relationship between leader humility and FSE performance; that is, humble behaviors expressed by leaders positively influence FSE performance up to the tipping point beyond which FSE performance starts to diminish. However, this curvilinear effect is attenuated when FSE's PsyCap is high but not when it is low.

The findings provide service managers with insights into the importance of balancing their humble behaviors to yield optimal FSE performance. Furthermore, the paper points to the need for FSE's PsyCap cultivation within service firms so that FSEs are less dependent on their supervisors and can deliver highly satisfactory results.

This research is one of the very first to investigate the curvilinear relationship between leader humility and FSE performance and the moderating role of PsyCap in attenuating the curvilinear effect.