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Although scholarly inquiry into entrepreneurial stress has existed for nearly 40 years, little is known about how events drive stress responses in entrepreneurs, and how entrepreneur coping responses impact their well-being, relationships, and venture performance. In response to these deficiencies, the authors propose a stress events theory (SET) which they apply to an entrepreneurial context. The authors begin by providing a brief review of existing literature on entrepreneurial stress, which highlights unique stressors and events that entrepreneurs encounter. The authors then introduce event systems theory as developed by Morgeson, Mitchell, and Liu (2015). From this foundation, the authors develop SET, which describes how entrepreneurs react to particular event characteristics (novelty, disruptiveness, criticality, and duration). Additionally, the authors propose that how entrepreneurs interpret events drives coping choices, and that the accuracy of these coping choices subsequently differentiates the quality of entrepreneur well-being, interpersonal relationships, and venture-related consequences. The authors conclude with a discussion of contributions and areas of future research using our proposed theory.

Coalitions are informal and interdependent groups of actors operating within organizations, yet their effects in organizations are not widely understood. In this paper, we develop a model of coalition formation and functioning inside organizations. By extrapolating the behavioral intentions (i.e., altruistic or antagonistic) and compositional differences (i.e., supplementary or complementary) among these informal group structures, we classify coalitions into four forms (i.e., lobby, cartel, circle, and alliance), theorizing how each coalition form affects work role innovation, resource allocations, and work performance. Our conceptualization helps clarify previous theoretical inconsistencies and establish an agenda for the study of coalitions at work. Furthermore, this paper provides insights into the ways that coalitions support or impede the organization’s objectives.

Executives exert a pervasive influence on the organizations they lead. As such, scholars have long considered how to calibrate the risks inherent in executive decision making, often relying on incentives and compensation to calibrate executive risk behavior. However, there are shortcomings that reduce the efficacy of this approach, largely because incentives and compensation do not alter the work environment itself, which play a significant role influencing executive risk behavior. Consequently, in this chapter, we propose a conceptualization that integrates executive risk-taking with work design, framing three central features of the strategic leader job and work environment that may be manipulated to channel and shape executive risk-taking. Specifically, accountability, discretion, and relationships are proposed as the key higher-order characteristics of the executive work context, and they are examined with respect to optimal calibration in order to maximize both executive performance and well-being, as well as organizational coordination and control. Implications of this conceptualization and directions for future research are discussed.

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.

Teams in extreme and disruptive contexts face unique challenges that can undermine coordination and decision-making. In this study, we evaluated how affective differences between team members and team process norms affected the team's decision-making effectiveness.

Teams were placed in a survival simulation where they evaluated how best to maximize the team's survival prospects given scarce resources. We incorporated multisource and multirater (i.e., team, observer, and archival) data to ascertain the impacts of affect asymmetry and team process norms on decision-making effectiveness.

Results suggest that teams with low positive affect asymmetry and low process norms generate the most effective decisions. The least effective team decision performance occurred in teams characterized by high variance in team positive affectivity (high positive affect asymmetry) and low process norms. We found no similar effect for teams with high process norms and no effect for negative affect asymmetry, however, irrespective of team process norms.

These findings support the affect infusion model and extend cognitive resource theory, by highlighting how affect infusion processes and situational constraints influence team decision-making in extreme and disruptive contexts.

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.