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Based on the situated focus theory of power, this chapter empirically investigates the relationship between an individual’s organizational power position and emotion recognition accuracy (ERA), and it examines individuals’ stress experiences at work as a boundary condition for this relationship.

Survey data were collected in a field sample of 117 individuals employed across various organizations in Germany. We used an established, performance-based test of ERA and applied hierarchical regression analysis to examine our model.

An individual’s power was negatively related with his or her ability to decipher others’ emotional expressions among individuals experiencing higher work stress, whereas this relationship was not significant for participants with lower stress.

Although the cross-sectional study design and data collection within one country are relevant limitations, the findings promote a better understanding of the complex relationship between power and ERA.

Given the relevance of accurate emotion perception, the results indicate that stressful work environments may be an important risk factor for organizational power holders’ personal and professional success.

The findings advance the literature on power and emotion recognition by highlighting the role of work stress as an important, heretofore neglected boundary condition that may explicate the ambiguous results in prior research.

Commentators have claimed that business schools encourage unethical behavior by using economic theory as a basis for education. We examine claims that exposure to agency theory acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy, reducing ethical behavior among business students. We experimentally test whether economics coursework or a manipulated competitive vs. cooperative frame affects measured ethical behavior in simulated decision settings. We measure ethical behavior using established tasks. We also measure ethical recognition to test whether agency theory reduces recognition of ethical issues. Exposure to agency theory in either prior classwork or the experiment increased wealth-increasing unethical behavior. We found no effect on unethical behavior that does not affect wealth. We found no effect of exposure to agency theory on ethical recognition. Usual laboratory experiment limitations apply. Future research can examine why agency theory reduces ethical behavior. Educators ought to consider unintended consequences of the language and assumptions of theories that underlie education. Students may assume descriptions of how people behave as prescriptions for how people ought to behave. This study contributes to the literature on economic education and ethics. We found no prior experimental studies of the effect of economics education on ethical behavior.

Exercises are key components of assessment centers (ACs). However, little is known about the nature and determinants of AC exercise performance. The traditional exercise paradigm primarily emphasizes the need to simulate task, social, and organizational demands in AC exercises. This chapter draws on trait activation theory in proposing a new AC exercise paradigm. First, we develop a theoretical framework that addresses the complexity of situational characteristics of AC exercises as determinants of AC performance. Second, we argue for planting multiple stimuli within exercises as a structured means of eliciting candidate behavior. Third, we show how the new paradigm also has key insights for the rating part of ACs, namely, in selecting dimensions, designing behavioral checklists, screening assessors, and training assessors. Finally, the impact of this new AC exercise paradigm is anticipated on important AC outcomes such as reliability, internal/external construct-related validity, criterion-related validity, assessee perceptions, and feedback effectiveness.

This chapter proposes a model of person-situation interactions to explain when individuals react to demographic diversity in their work places. Qualitative research reported here suggests individual identities likely influence reactions to diversity and should be considered in conjunction with traditional situational factors. The model developed from this research looks at interactions between high and low identification with demographic categories and strong and weak situational cues toward such categories to explain when individuals are most likely to respond (or not respond) to diversity. The proposition that motivated reactions to diversity are observable only when both situational and personal factors contribute is advanced.

Although scholars increasingly use institutional logics to explain macro-level phenomena, we still know little about the micro-level psychological mechanisms by which institutional logics shape individual action. In this paper, we propose that individuals internalize institutional logics as an associative network of schemas that shapes individual actions through a process we call institutional frame switching. Specifically, we conduct two novel experiments that demonstrate how one particularly important schema associated with institutional logics – the implicit theory – can drive individual action. This work further develops the psychological underpinnings of the institutional logics perspective by connecting macro-level cultural understandings with micro-level situational behavior.

We extend emotional-labor research by developing a time-based theory of the effects of emotion regulation in emotional-labor performance. Drawing on Gross's (1998a) process model, we argue that antecedent- and response-focused regulatory styles can be used to make differential predictions about outcomes such as performance, health, and antisocial behavior and that these effects differ in shorter- and longer-time windows. We discuss the theoretical implications and address the strengths and limitations of our approach.

Persistent change has placed considerable pressure on organizations to keep up or fade into obscurity. Firms that remain viable, or even thrive, are staffed with decision-makers who capably steer organizations toward opportunities and away from threats. Accordingly, leadership development has never been more critical. In this chapter, the authors propose that leader development is an inherently dyadic process initiated to communicate formal and informal expectations. The authors focus on the informal component, in the form of organizational politics, as an element of leadership that is critical to employee and company success. The authors advocate that superiors represent the most salient information source for leader development, especially as it relates to political dynamics embedded in work systems. The authors discuss research associated with our conceptualization of dyadic political leader development (DPLD). Specifically, the authors develop DPLD by exploring its conceptual underpinnings as they relate to sensemaking, identity, and social learning theories. Once established, the authors provide a refined discussion of the construct, illustrating its scholarly mechanisms that better explain leader development processes and outcomes. The authors then expand research in the areas of political skill, political will, political knowledge, and political phronesis by embedding our conceptualization of DPLD into a political leadership model. The authors conclude by discussing methodological issues and avenues of future research stemming from the development of DPLD.

We review the literature on stress in organizational settings and, based on a model of job insecurity and emotional intelligence by Jordan, Ashkanasy and Härtel (2002), present a new model where affective responses associated with stress mediate the impact of workplace stressors on individual and organizational performance outcomes. Consistent with Jordan et al., emotional intelligence is a key moderating variable. In our model, however, the components of emotional intelligence are incorporated into the process of stress appraisal and coping. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the implications of these theoretical developments for understanding emotional and behavioral responses to workplace.

Decision-making in human resources management is done at both the micro and macro level of organizations. Unfortunately, the decisions at each level are often executed without consideration of the other, and current theory reflects this issue. In response to a call for integration of micro- and macro-level processes by Huselid and Becker (2011), we review the extant literature on strategic human resources and high-performance work systems to provide recommendations for both research and practice. We aimed to contribute to the literature by proposing the incorporation of the situation awareness literature into the high-performance work systems framework to encourage the alignment of human resources efforts. In addition, we provide practical recommendations for integrating situation awareness and strategic decision-making. We discuss a process for the employment of situation awareness in organizations that might not only streamline human resources management but also result in more effective decisions. Additional considerations include implications for teams, boundary conditions (e.g., individual differences), and measurement.