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This chapter examines the role of political skill in relation to employee psychological and physiological health and well-being. First, we begin by providing a review of the current research on the relationship of political skill to stress and strain; additionally, areas in this literature that are in need of greater theoretical specification are identified. A multi-mediation organizing framework is proposed, which suggests that political skill impacts intrapsychic (i.e., constructs residing within an individual such as control, self-esteem) and interpersonal processes (i.e., authenticity, trustworthiness, affability, and humility), which subsequently influence the development and maintenance of work relationships, networks, and coalitions, and ultimately affects individual psychological and physiological health and well-being. The implications of this framework, and directions for future research, are discussed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of subordinates' perceived supervisor political support (SPS) as a boundary condition capable of attenuating individuals' negative reactions to politics perceptions.

Data for this three-sample investigation were obtained from employees of a package distribution firm (n=144), employees of an engineering firm (n=187), and individuals attending a manufacturing-related professional conference (n=174). Data were analyzed using hierarchical moderated regression analyses.

Consistent with prior research, individuals' politics perceptions were directly associated with less than desirable workplace outcomes. However, individuals' who perceived their supervisors to provide them with SPS were less negatively affected by politics perceptions than their peers who perceived low levels of SPS.

SPS appears to provide information to subordinates to aid in sensemaking such that they are better able to deal with requisite uncertainty associated with their political settings, and in doing so, SPS shifts their perceptions of the political environment from that of threat to potential benefit.

This investigation in one of a handful of studies to examine the other-benefitting role of political behavior as well as the conditions under which politics perceptions result in auspicious outcomes. Additionally, the manuscript is unique in that it introduces, conceptually delineates, and empirically evaluates a more active, behavioral form of supervisory support (i.e. SPS).

This research aims to utilize Social Identity Theory to examine the role of identification on two forms of extra‐role behaviors, namely, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and prosocial behaviors.

This study examined college students' reports of their identification with the university, organizational citizenship behaviors, and prosocial behaviors.

Results indicate that individuals who are highly identified with their organization are more likely to perform OCB, whereas individuals who are highly identified with their community are more likely to participate in prosocial behaviors. In addition, the relationship between organizational identification and prosocial behavior was found to be fully mediated by community identification.

The authors suggest that scholars take care when operationalizing OCB with actual behaviors that surpass task performance; these should differ from attitudes and common courtesy. Limitations include having constructs measured by the same source which can lead to common method variance.

Organizational identification may be an important factor when determining which individual will be willing to go the extra mile for the organization. Organizations may want to recruit, hire, and retain individuals who will identify with the organization as these individuals are more likely to go above and beyond task performance.

This study examined these two forms of extra‐role behavior simultaneously in order to better understand these behaviors as they occur.

Samantha K. Baard holds a University Distinguished Fellowship in Michigan State University's Ph.D. program in organizational psychology. Her research interests include individual and team adaptability, leadership, motivation, cross-cultural differences, and stress. She is also examining, from a statistical and methodological perspective, the dynamic processes of motivation, feedback, and performance. As a University Scholar at George Mason University, she investigated the interactive effects of leadership and motivation on individual performance. She spent three years working as a research fellow at the Consortium of Research Fellows Program where she worked with the U. S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences studying team effectiveness, cross-cultural competence, leadership, and motivation. She has served as a guest lecturer at several colleges, and has presented her research at the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology's Annual Conference.

The emergence of gender-nonconforming behavior in a child presents an opportunity and, often, significant pressure for parents to question the gender beliefs they have taken for granted. The purpose of this research is to examine how parents of gender-diverse youth respond to such pressures and ultimately come to understand and support their children’s gender identity.

This research is guided by Ridgeway’s theoretical concept of gender as a primary frame for coordinating social life. Using in-depth interviews with 36 supportive parents of gender-diverse children, the author details the process by which parents developed a critical consciousness of gender and subsequently adopted trans-affirming beliefs in response to their children’s gender-nonconformity.

Findings illustrate the power of gender as a primary frame for organizing life within the family as well as the circumstances under which hegemonic gender beliefs can be disrupted and alternative beliefs can be formed. The analysis shows that the process of making space for gender diversity within the home, which is taken on almost exclusively by mothers, invokes competing maternal mandates of raising “proper” children versus modeling selfless devotion to children’s happiness and well-being. As mothers navigate these conflicting requirements to create greater gender freedom for their children, they reinforce and perpetuate gender stereotypes that cast women as natural caregivers. Ironically, the work of intensive mothering is also the mechanism through which women come to develop alternative gender beliefs that they then use to expand gender possibilities for their children.

This chapter uses narrative inquiry to tell the stories of two female neophyte educators experiencing the oppositional misalignment between their idealized perception of female teachers in American society and their personal realities by providing alternate images of women in education. American teachers, especially women, are perceived as a homogeneous group that lives to serve the children of others and inhabit a monochrome, two-dimensional, existence inside the educational landscape of schools (Clandinin & Connelly, 1996). However, the prevailing notions and outdated imagery of teachers is flawed in its lack of acknowledgment of the richly diverse and textured lived experiences of women both inside and outside of the educational field. Furthermore, female teachers face tremendous pressure to imitate these unrealistic ideals and expectations at the expense of the authentic self, which can lead to a myriad of internal dissonances, such as burnout, serving as an umbrella over PTSD, anxiety, compassion fatigue, decreased confidence, and lower job satisfaction. The researchers in this chapter come from nontraditional backgrounds to capture the negative effects of subtle, persistent, and unrealistic expectations of females that contribute to feelings of burnout at the onset of our teaching careers.

Post-diagnostic dementia care is often fragmented in the United Kingdom, with great variation in provision. Recent policies suggest moving towards better community-based care for dementia; however, little is known on how this care is delivered. This study aimed to map the post-diagnostic dementia support provided in England a decade after the introduction of a National Dementia Strategy.

A mixed-methods e-survey (open Nov 2018–Mar 2019) of dementia commissioners in England recruited through mailing lists of relevant organisations was conducted. The authors descriptively summarised quantitative data and carried out thematic analysis of open-ended survey responses.

52 completed responses were received, which covered 82 commissioning bodies, with representation from each region in England. Respondents reported great variation in the types of services provided. Information, caregiver assessments and dementia navigation were commonly reported and usually delivered by the voluntary sector or local authorities. Integrated pathways of care were seen as important to avoid overlap or gaps in service coverage. Despite an increasingly diverse population, few areas reported providing dementia health services specifically for BME populations. Over half of providers planned to change services further within five years.

There is a need for greater availability of and consistency in services in post-diagnostic dementia care across England.

Post-diagnostic dementia care remains fragmented and provided by a wide range of providers in England.

This paper aims to build on affordance theory from a discovery perspective, to illustrate how motivations and goals behind enterprise social media adoption by companies in the fashion and apparel industries are discovered and realized in performance. Enterprise social media and its exogenous technological affordances are introduced as action opportunities in an organization during implementation, to be discovered and acted upon by users to effect various performance outcomes.

A case study approach was adopted. Data was collected on five fashion companies that have implemented enterprise social media for their internal communication.

The findings show that fashion companies adopt enterprise social media offered by external vendors to actively seek more effective internal communication and collaboration among their employees. However, fashion companies embark on different pathways of discovering and actualizing the affordances from the newly implemented enterprise social media. As a result, these firms achieved various kinds of performance benefits, which range from improved customer loyalty to enhanced innovation performance.

This study is the first to introduce a discovery perspective to affordance theory and systematically document the success of enterprise social media appropriation by companies in the fashion and apparel industries.