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The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) has long recognized the importance of interpersonal influence for employee and organizational effectiveness. HRM research and practice have focused primarily on individuals’ characteristics and behaviors as a means to understand “who” is influential in organizations, with substantially less attention paid to social networks. To reinvigorate a focus on network structures to explain interpersonal influence, the authors present a comprehensive account of how network structures enable and constrain influence within organizations. The authors begin by describing how power and status, two key determinants of individual influence in organizations, operate through different mechanisms, and delineate a range of network positions that yield power, reflect status, and/or capture realized influence. Then, the authors extend initial structural views of influence beyond the positions of individuals to consider how network structures within and between groups – capturing group social capital and/or shared leadership – enable and constrain groups’ ability to influence group members, other groups, and the broader organizational system. The authors also discuss how HRM may leverage these insights to facilitate interpersonal influence in ways that support individual, group, and organizational effectiveness.

The Center for Women’s Business Research estimates women are now the majority owners in 6.7 million privately held businesses in the United States and equal owners in another 4.0 million firms. When part owners in multiple businesses are included the female ownership total climbs to an estimated 15.6 million businesses. Women majority owners account for nearly half (48 per cent) of the privately‐held firms in the United States. Their businesses generate $2.46 trillion in sales. They employ 19.1 million people and spend an estimated $492 billion on salaries and $54 billion on employee benefits. The number of women‐owned firms increases at twice the rate of all new firms (14 per cent versus 7 per cent) and the number of employees nearly as fast (30 per cent versus 18 per cent). Women owners are rapidly moving into all industries, with the fastest growth percentages in the fields of construction (30 per cent), transportation, communications and public utilities (28 per cent) and agricultural services (24 per cent). Worldwide, with women entrepreneurs in under developed countries leading the way, women‐owned firms now comprise between one‐fourth and one‐third of all businesses. Given the numbers, it would be almost impossible to overestimate the impact of women owned businesses in today’s global economy.

Participants in leadership development programs take part in multiple developmental experiences that can influence the composition of their social network and enhance social capital. However, further investment in such practices may be limited because little is known about the relationship between leadership development approaches, networking ability, and social capital. This study explores how common developmental approaches may contribute to social capital, taking into consideration the role networking ability plays in this relationship. This descriptive, correlational study included a sample of graduates (N= 231) from 15 statewide agricultural-based leadership development programs. Our findings reveal that: 1) Networking is an antecedent to social capital, 2) skill building and personal growth approaches to leadership development are significant predictors of networking ability, and 3) networking ability is a significant predictor of social capital.

This chapter seeks to investigate the ways individualistic versus collectivistic values moderate neural responses to social exclusion among African American and White respondents. The author hypothesized that the vmPFC – a key brain region for emotion regulation – would correspond to collectivistic value moderation and the dlPFC – the cognitive control center of the brain – would be associated with individualistic value moderation.

This study used a virtual ball tossing game (Cyberball), where 17 African American and 11 White participants were excluded or included with ball tosses, while inside an fMRI scanner. Before the start of each round the participants were primed with individualism, collectivism or a comparison condition.

Results showed that (1) African Americans showed stronger neural responses to exclusion and (2) offered support for the hypothesis that the dlPFC showed greater activation in African Americans (compared to Whites) when they were primed with individualism values during exclusion. There was no support for the collectivism hypothesis.

Research limitations included a relatively small sample size (N = 28), a comparison of only two racial groups and that the partners in the game were virtual (pre-programmed by the experimenter).

This research offers an empirical framework for sociologists seeking to apply social theories into neurological studies.

Identifying effective coping strategies for historically oppressed racial groups.

The chapter is original for demonstrating the moderating effects of values on neural responses to exclusion for the first time and by offering a novel neurosociological framework.

This chapter examines the affordances of social media to understand how groups are experienced through social media. Specifically, the chapter presents a theoretical model to understand how affordances of social media promote or suppress entitativity.

Participants (N=265) were recruited through snowball sampling to answer questions about their recent Facebook status updates. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to examine the goodness of fit for our model.

We validate a model of entitativity as it occurs through the affordances offered by social media. Participant’s knowledge that status update responders were an interacting group outside of Facebook affected their perceptions of interactivity in the responses. Interactivity and history of interactions were the strongest predictors of status update entitativity. Further, status update entitativity had positive relationships with overall Facebook entitativity as well as group identity.

To encourage group identity through social media, managers need to increase employees’ perceptions of entitativity, primarily by enabling employees to see the interactions of others and to contribute content in social media platforms.

This is the only study we know of that empirically examines how groups are experienced through social media. Additionally, we draw from an affordance perspective, which helps to generalize our findings beyond the site of our study.

In order to respond to the many challenges that confront them, organizations must assist their leaders to develop their personal and professional strengths. The development of leaders and leadership involves more than just the development of knowledge and must become an integral part of the organizational culture so as to also develop know-how and soft skills. Accordingly, programs have been created that are based on collaborative learning and the contextualization of the various issues demanding resolution, all with a view to developing leadership capable of surpassing the limitations of current management methods. To demonstrate how these programs can influence leadership, this article proposes a theoretical review of leadership, viewed as an ongoing process and then presents three proven development programs: coaching, mentoring and action learning.

The purpose of this project was to examine the extent to which early-career women faculty in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) experience working in a chilly interpersonal climate (as indicated by experiences of ostracism and incivility) and how those experiences relate to work and non-work well-being outcomes.

Data came from a sample of 96 early-career STEM faculty (Study 1) and a sample of 68 early-career women STEM faculty (Study 2). Both samples completed online surveys assessing their experiences of working in a chilly interpersonal climate and well-being.

In Study 1, early-career women STEM faculty reported greater experiences of ostracism and incivility and more negative occupational well-being outcomes associated with these experiences compared to early-career men STEM faculty. In Study 2, early-career women STEM faculty reported more ostracism and incivility from their male colleagues than from their female colleagues. Experiences of ostracism (and, to a lesser extent, incivility) from male colleagues also related to negative occupational and psychological well-being outcomes.

This paper documents that exposure to a chilly interpersonal climate in the form of ostracism and incivility is a potential explanation for the lack and withdrawal of junior women faculty in STEM academic fields.

Adult agricultural leadership programs (ALP) train people to address the needs of a diversifying society with pressing social, economic, environmental, and political challenges. Additionally, these programs offer transformative learning experiences that lead to a greater capacity of current and prospective leaders to become change agents in their communities. In a profession where vitality, strength, and perseverance are fundamental, the agricultural industry needs leaders who remain aware of the foundational knowledge contributed by their predecessors. At the same time, it also necessitates innovation that may revolutionize the agricultural industry for decades to come. In this mixed-method study, we asked participants of a state-based ALP to complete the Loyola Generativity Scale (N=48) that measures generative concern, with higher scores indicating stronger generative concern. Survey results (N=48) indicated average overall generative concern. However, there was a considerable variation among participants, scores ranging from 45 to 77. To understand the range of attitudes, we conducted interviews (N=11) with ALP participants. Generativity Theory provided the foundation of our qualitative analysis. We identified how participants are acting generatively in their leadership roles by promoting the sustainability of agriculture through social engagement, capitalizing on opportunities for teaching and learning, and expanding social capital through intergenerational professional networks. From this research, scholars and practitioners will gain a more nuanced understanding of how this ALP is facilitating generative leadership among today’s leaders so they may continue transforming their industry by connecting generational cohorts through the transmission of experience, knowledge, and expertise.

This is a comparative study of employee needs patterns in eight international subsidiaries of a multinational corporation. Although in each country the need to control one′s work environment emerges as the most dominant need, four different needs patterns are identified. The resulting patterns suggest that specific strategies are necessary for employee motivation in different cultural environments. Strategies that enhance work motivation in one country should be reviewed carefully before being transferred to another.