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The purpose of this paper is to draw from: Freud's Interpretation of Dreams, citing the Dream of Irma's Injection, to illustrate psychic organization and the relation of psychic to social organization; The Dream of the Failed Dinner Party, to illustrate the inter‐individual context of dreaming; and finally The Dream of the Burning Child, to briefly discuss analogous processes to dreams in relation to the ethics of organization.

The paper consists of a critical conceptual review of literature in the fields of psychoanalysis and organization.

A psychoanalytic focus on dreams acknowledges the importance of the organization of the psyche, highlighting the continuing importance of childhood experience and of repressed desire for adult neurotics. The social organization of the psyche illustrates the importance of understanding that different character types produce different phantasies of organization. It is argued that the inter‐individual context is important to understanding the contagious nature of hysterical desire. Finally, given that traumatic dreams unsettle and destabilize our conscious understanding as good, rational, individual subjects, the paper discusses the analogous roles for dreaming, which might be related to organization ethics.

By highlighting unconscious processes, the psychoanalytic understanding of dreams asks organizational theorists to enquire into material that is withheld from consciousness.

This paper contributes to the understanding of dreams in relation to the organization of the psyche; the relation of psychic organization to social organization; and the inter‐individual context.

What are the performance implications of peer monitoring in a multiple-supplier context? Grounded in agency and social exchange theories, this study aims to examine how, when, and why peer monitoring works as a crucial control mechanism to reduce opportunism among suppliers.

A conceptual model and research hypotheses are tested using survey data from 246 respondents in 82 supplier groups.

Results suggest that peer monitoring is related positively to perceived deterrence (as mediator) and negatively to opportunism, whereas the mediated relationship is moderated negatively by generalized reciprocity and positively by balanced reciprocity and negative reciprocity.

This study introduces the application of peer monitoring into business-to-business research and shows how it reduces opportunism. Its findings have implications for manufacturers on how to use peer monitoring to control opportunism among multiple suppliers.

The purpose of this paper is to present a model of inter‐cultural communication that enumerates and structures latent factors affecting such communication and elaborates on the process of self‐reflection as a guiding mechanism of successful communication.

The five factors and various moderators that are introduced in the model are discussed by making references to existing psychology, sociology and education literature and its integration with everyday examples. Following this, overview is an argumentative discourse on self reflection and its role in inter‐cultural communication.

The paper argues that inter‐cultural communication competence can only be attained when self‐reflective processes increase a person's awareness of her own culture, personality, identity in that particular situation and various other factors. Further exposes how these factors surface in everyday situations.

The model is at this stage purely conceptual and lacks concrete operationalisation. The factors do not necessarily present an exhaustive list.

By identifying relevant factors and promoting the strategic employment of self‐reflective processes, the approach can alert individuals to become more aware and thus more successful in their inter‐cultural communication. The conceptual nature of the paper can also guide future empirical research aimed at facilitating inter‐cultural communication.

This paper provides an introductory, meaningfully structured overview of issues that impact on inter‐cultural communication. It ties established concepts together in a novel way that can guide individual growth in the domain.

Based on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, this study aims to identify person-contingent antecedents and consequences of proactive strength-oriented behaviors at work. Thus, the authors propose and test a model in which psychological capital (PsyCap), as a personal resource, represents a precursor of strengths use, which in turn is a facilitator of employees' self-rated performance.

The authors tested the hypothesized mediation process through a cross-lagged study with three waves, using data collected from a sample of Romanian employees. The authors analyzed the data through structural equation modeling.

The results provided support for our model. The data showed significant, positive cross-lagged relationships between PsyCap, strengths use and performance across waves. Also, the authors identified a significant and positive indirect effect between PsyCap at T1 and performance at T3 through increased strengths use at T2.

This research brings new evidence for strengths use's placement as a proactive individual strategy within the JD-R theory. Practical implications are related to career self-management and work from home.

This paper aims to examine how knowledge transfer between individuals influences performance in product development (PD) organizations and whether this influence is contingent to the degree of novelty in the PD work.

A set of hypotheses describing the relationships between knowledge transfer by codification (KTC), knowledge transfer by personalization (KTP) and performance is developed. It is hypothesized that performance decreases when KTC interacts with novelty, but improves when KTP and novelty interact. Survey‐based data were collected from 287 knowledge workers across 19 PD units of Indian manufacturing companies, and multiple regression analyses were performed to test the hypotheses.

Of the eight hypotheses stated, only one was supported by the data. KTP significantly influences the efficiency of PD work, highlighting the relative importance of personalized, as compared to repository‐based, knowledge transfer to performance. No significant interaction effects of KTC/KTP with novelty were detected.

The findings strongly suggest that PD work can benefit from interpersonal relationships and knowledge exchange, something that requires diligent cultural interventions.

To the best of the authors' knowledge, the contingent effects of novelty on the productivity of inter‐individual knowledge transfer have received little, if any, attention to date. This study helps improve understanding of the nature of knowledge transfer that is best suited where the nature of work involves creativity.

Previous literature has recognized the variability of job performance, calling attention to the inter-individual differences in performance change. Building on Murphy’s (1989) theoretical model of performance, the purpose of this paper is to verify the existence of two distinct classes of performance, reflecting stable and increasing trends, and to investigate which personal conditions prompt the inclusion of individuals in one class rather than the other.

Overall job performance was obtained from supervisory ratings for four consecutive years for 410 professionals of a large Italian company going through significant reorganization. Objective data were merged with employees’ organizational tenure and self-efficacy. Growth Mixture Modeling was used.

Two main groups were identified: the first one started at higher levels of performance and showed a stable trajectory over time (stable class); the second group started at lower levels and reported an increasing trajectory (increasing class). Employees’ with stronger efficacy beliefs and lower tenure were more likely to belong to the stable class.

Through a powerful longitudinal database, the nature, the structure and the inter-individual differences in job performance over time are clarified. The study extends Murphy’s (1989) model, showing how transition stages in job performance may occur also as a result of organizational transformation. Moreover, it demonstrates the essential role of self-efficacy in maintaining high performance levels over time.

Who is able to cooperate with his or her competitors? The coopetition is a relatively recent concept that is almost always studied at the inter-organizational level. To study coopetition at the individual and inter-individual levels, the authors will analyze the disposition of managers to compete and to cooperate as a function of their centrality to their network and also their personality traits. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Using a sample of 110 trainee future managers (quantitative method), the paper shows that the network position and personality traits have different effects on propensity to compete and propensity to cooperate.

The paper concludes that the network position has a strong effect on the propensity to compete and also on the propensity to cooperate, in contrast with that, personality traits are more relevant in the explanation of the propensity to cooperate.

It seems there are individual and inter-individual causes which might explain the propensity of actors to coopetite. This body of research suggests that it is important to study the characteristics of managers who are able to create cooperation between competitors.

Purpose — This study proposes an optimal survey design method for multi-day and multi-period panels that maximizes the statistical power of the parameter of interest under the conditions that non-linear changes in response to a policy intervention over time can be expected.

Design/methodology/approach — The proposed method addresses balances among sample size, survey duration for each wave and frequency of observation. Higher-order polynomial changes in the parameter are also addressed, allowing us to calculate optimal sampling designs for non-linear changes in response to a given policy intervention.

Findings — One of the most important findings is that variation structure in the behaviour of interest strongly influences how surveys are designed to maximize statistical power, while the type of policy to be evaluated does not influence it so much. Empirical results done by using German Mobility Panel data indicate that not only are more data collection waves needed, but longer multi-day periods of behavioural observations per wave are needed as well, with the increase in the non-linearity of the changes in response to a policy intervention.

Originality/value — This study extends previous studies on sampling designs for travel diary survey by dealing with statistical relations between sample size, survey duration for each wave, and frequency of observation, and provides the numerical and empirical results to show how the proposed method works.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the interaction between the availability of financial information and individuals' cognitive profiles to explain investors' herding behavior.

The authors designed and conducted an experiment to observe the behavior of subjects in three settings, each with a different level of information.

Results confirm that a dependence relation exists between information, investors' behavioral biases and the herding phenomenon. Moreover, the experiment shows that information concerning the number of previous transactions in the market is particularly relevant to explain herding propensity among investors. The findings indicate that the cognitive profile of investors is more relevant as the availability of information increases and the number of previous transactions in the market is low.

Future research should examine further the best way to measure the individual's cognitive profile and its interaction with information limitation in financial markets. The presence of high levels of uncertainty favors herding behavior regardless of inter‐individual differences, and only when the availability of information is high and the number of transactions is low does the subjects' cognitive profile explain the investors' herding behavior. Finally, it is observed that not all public information receives the same attention by investors. The attractiveness of public information requires further attention.

The herding phenomenon is difficult to anticipate because there are factors of a very diverse nature that intervene.

The research described in this paper measures investors' cognitive profile to identify the interaction between availability of information, cognitive profile and herding.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a comprehensive new recruitment model that brings together research findings in the different areas of recruitment. This model may serve as a general framework for further recruitment research, and is intended to support Human Resource managers in developing their recruitment policy. To highlight its utility, how the model can be applied to describe the recruitment process of the military is exemplified.

The model is developed based on an extensive search for published studies on employee recruitment and on the efforts of the members of the NATO Task Group on Recruitment and Retention of Military Personnel.

The model proposes that individuals' cognitions (beliefs, perceptions, expectations) influence job pursuit behavior, via influencing job pursuit attitudes and intentions. Individuals' cognitions are shaped by information about job and organizational characteristics. Job/organizational information can be obtained from sources that are or are not under the direct control of the organization. Finally, several inter‐individual difference variables (e.g. values, needs) are proposed to moderate the relationships depicted in the model.

The model extends previous recruitment models through its integrated focus on both the applicant's and organization's perspective, its recognition of the multiphased nature of recruitment, and its applicability to real‐life recruitment contexts.