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A talent shortage and underrepresentation of women in logistics emphasize the need to assess the logistics work culture. As logistics practitioners face round-the-clock job pressures, work–family conflict presents one such opportunity for study. Consequently, the purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of supervisors and mentoring on work interference with family (WIF) and subsequent job satisfaction and intent to leave logistics.

Under role conflict theory, the authors apply structural equation modeling to survey data of logistics practitioners, focusing on time, strain and behavior WIF sources.

The results highlight the complexity of WIF in logistics. Strain and behavior-based WIF relate to job satisfaction, which then relates to intent to leave logistics. Family-supportive supervisors reduce time and strain-based WIF, and mentoring provides complementary support for behavior-based WIF. However, mentoring also yields unintended contradictory effects for women as detrimental to time-based WIF.

The relatively small sample size, particularly for women, limits generalizability of the results.

To foster supportive work environments, logistics organizations must train supervisors and mentors to resolve employee WIF, including its different sources and gender-specific impacts.

The interplay of supervisors and mentors has not been well studied to date. Also, the contradictory impacts of mentoring for women based on WIF sources challenges WIF literature and issues warnings for mentoring in professional practice. Finally, the results provide insight into the talent shortage and gender imbalance in logistics that lack empirical study.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of situational factors in improving learning for trainees with low conscientiousness.

A sample of 117 employees completed a survey questionnaire in the context of a training intervention. Perceptions of conscientiousness, legitimacy, and accountability were used to predict employee learning in a training context. Moderated multiple regression was used to test the hypotheses.

Results support interactions of conscientiousness and perceived accountability to predict learning such that learners who are low in conscientiousness showed higher levels of learning when perceived accountability was considered strong than when perceived accountability was considered weak. There was no support for the proposed interaction of conscientiousness and perceived legitimacy to predict learning.

Results support the view that organizations should implement formal controls to increase perceived accountability and improve learning. Trainees with low conscientiousness had higher levels of learning in situations with strong accountability perceptions.

The study is one of the few to evaluate perceived accountability in a field study, whereas most previous research has evaluated this concept in lab experiments. Therefore, the findings support the wide range of perceived accountability that exists in most organizations. The results imply the need for more accountability controls within an organization to increase learning in a training context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the presence of an audience inhibits or facilitates feedback-seeking behaviors.

A sample of 148 employees completed a survey questionnaire regarding feedback-seeking behaviors. Perceived value of public and private feedback, public self-consciousness (PSC), and tolerance for ambiguity were used to predict public or private feedback-seeking behaviors. Hierarchical multiple regression were used to test the hypotheses.

Statistically significant relationships were found between perceived value of public feedback, PSC, tolerance for ambiguity, and public feedback seeking. Subsequently, statistically significant relationships were only found between perceived value of private feedback, tolerance for ambiguity, and private feedback seeking.

Future research should focus on how individuals respond to less privacy in the workplace in regards to feedback-seeking behaviors.

Many more companies are moving to open office spaces and cubicles which suggest there is less privacy for employees to seek feedback. This study found that employees do make a distinction when seeking feedback in a public or private context.

This is the first field study to identify specific antecedents relating to seeking feedback in a public or private context. With this study, the feedback context becomes another important variable in understanding how an individual's feedback environment may relate to feedback seeking.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether individuals seeking feedback from either a supervisor or co-worker relate to intrinsic and extrinsic career success.

Survey data were collected from 168 employees in three different organizations in the southeastern United States. Moderated multiple regression was used to test the hypotheses.

Results support interactions of feedback seeking and feedback source (both supervisor and co-worker) to predict extrinsic career success. There was no support for the proposed interaction of feedback seeking and feedback source to predict intrinsic career success.

The results support the need for organizations to focus on developing feedback environments that encourage feedback-seeking behaviors. Individuals that desire more feedback and take initiative within their careers by seeking feedback may have positive outcomes related to extrinsic career success.

The study is one of the few studies to evaluate feedback-seeking behaviors in relation to individual outcomes such as career success. The findings support proactive behaviors in relation to extrinsic career success and continue the call for more research related to proactive behaviors in the workplace.

Professional touching behavior (PTB), defined as intentional touching behavior that occurs between organizational members and that falls within the boundaries of appropriateness and professionalism in the workplace, is prevalent in organizations. Scholars from multiple disciplines, including human resources researchers, have acknowledged the importance of physical contact for facilitating interpersonal communication and relationship-building. However, PTB may not only elicit positive reactions from those who receive it but also negative reactions as well, with implications for social dynamics in organizations. PTB can, on the one hand, fulfill employees’ desires for interpersonal connection; at the same time, such physical contact at work can represent a threat to employees’ health. To explain the nature and implications of these divergent effects of receiving PTB, the authors draw upon sociometer theory and behavioral immune system (BIS) theory to model the emotional, cognitive, and physiological processes via which, and the conditions under which, receiving such behavior will result in socially functional responses and prompt subsequent prosocial behavior, and when PTB will be perceived as a health risk and prompt withdrawal behavior. The theoretical framework of this chapter expands our conceptual understanding of the consequences of interpersonal physical contact at work and has important human resources management (HRM) implications for organizational managers.