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In this chapter we apply intergroup emotion theory (IET; Mackie, Devos, & Smith, 2000) to reflect on the conditions under which individuals may experience intergroup emotions in workgroups, and to explore some possible consequences of those emotions. First, we briefly outline IET and describe the psychological mechanisms underlying intergroup emotion with a particular emphasis on the role of social identification. Second, we describe some of the antecedents of shared and varied social identifications in workgroups, which may in turn elicit shared or varied intergroup emotions in workgroups. Finally, we consider potential consequences for both relationship and task outcomes such as organizational citizenship behavior, workgroup cohesion, relationship and task conflict, issue interpretation, and information sharing.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the impact of leadership on workgroup climate and performance in a religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.

The impact of leadership is investigated using a questionnaire comprised of established scales such as the transformational leadership scales (TLS), team climate inventory questionnaire (TCI), team effectiveness, workgroup cohesion, and interdependence scales. This is a context based study that considers the unique culture comprised of social, political, economic, technologic, personnel, and personal concerns. Descriptive, correlation, hierarchical regression, and SPSS macro developed by Preacher and Hayes were used as statistical techniques to assess the indirect effects (Sobel Tests) of variables.

Transformational leadership was identified as a key variable for the functioning of workgroup performance whilst transactional leadership was identified as a key influencing factor of workgroup climate. In addition, the study found a significant and positive large effect of workgroup climate on workgroup performance whilst both transformational and transactional leadership did not influence workgroup performance through workgroup climate. This finding provides areas in need of further research.

There is likely to be posing risks of method variance or response biases as all data were drawn from employee surveys. There is also likely to be selection bias as the authors could not directly compare respondents with non‐respondents. The fact that there may be operational differences in other as well as smaller organizations, based on the limited size and the ability to allocate job functions, could limit the generalization of this result to other organizations.

This study makes a significant contribution to both scholarly theory and workplace practice in the non‐profit sector as the findings indicated that the influence of workgroup climate on workgroup performance provided an enabling context for the delivery of leadership in a religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.

Employees today face a number of threats to their work and financial well-being (i.e., economic stress). In an aim to provide an agenda and theoretical framework for research on multilevel outcomes of economic stress, the current chapter considers how employees’ economic stress gives rise to emergent outcomes and how these emergent outcomes feed back to influence well-being. Specifically, we draw from Conservation of Resources theory to integrate competing theoretical perspectives with regard to employees’ behavioral responses to economic stress. As employees’ behaviors influence those with whom they interact, we propose that behavioral responses to economic stress have implications for group-level well-being (e.g., interpersonal climate, cohesion) and group-level economic stress. In turn, group-level and individual-level behavioral outcomes influence well-being and economic stress in a multilevel resource loss cycle. We discuss potential opportunities and challenges associated with testing this model as well as how it could be used to examine higher-level emergent effects (e.g., at the organizational level).

Media richness theory argues that different media are more or less appropriate for different tasks. Social information processing theory (SIP) explains a motivation and method guiding such technology adoption. In light of these theories, and the field’s lack of understanding of media effects on group development, this article investigates the development of two important group process factors – cohesion development and process satisfaction – in two different studies of groups supported by electronic meeting systems. Results indicate that initial levels of cohesion and process satisfaction differ depending on the medium (and its inherent richness) and, consistent with SIP, cohesion and process satisfaction increase over time in all types of electronic support, despite relative differences in media richness.

The benefits of humor for general well‐being have long been touted. Past empirical research has suggested that some of these benefits also exist in the work domain. However, there is little shared understanding as to the role of humor in the workplace. The purpose of this paper is to address two main gaps in the humor literature. First, the authors summarize several challenges researchers face in defining and operationalizing humor, and offer an integrative conceptualization which may be used to consolidate and interpret seemingly disparate research streams. Second, meta‐analysis is used to explore the possibility that positive humor is associated with: employee health (e.g. burnout, health) and work‐related outcomes (e.g. performance, job satisfaction, withdrawal); with perceived supervisor/leader effectiveness (e.g. perceived leader performance, follower approval); and may mitigate the deleterious effects of workplace stress on employee burnout.

The authors examine the results of prior research using meta‐analysis (k=49, n=8,532) in order to explore humor's potential role in organizational and employee effectiveness.

Results suggest employee humor is associated with enhanced work performance, satisfaction, workgroup cohesion, health, and coping effectiveness, as well as decreased burnout, stress, and work withdrawal. Supervisor use of humor is associated with enhanced subordinate work performance, satisfaction, perception of supervisor performance, satisfaction with supervisor, and workgroup cohesion, as well as reduced work withdrawal.

Profitable avenues for future research include: clarifying the humor construct and determining how current humor scales tap this construct; exploring the role of negative forms of humor, as they likely have different workplace effects; the role of humor by coworkers; a number of potential moderators of the humor relationships, including type of humor, job level and industry type; and personality correlates of humor use and appreciation.

The authors recommend caution be exercised when attempting to cultivate humor in the workplace, as this may raise legal concerns (e.g. derogatory or sexist humor), but efforts aimed at encouraging self‐directed/coping humor may have the potential to innocuously buffer negative effects of workplace stress.

Although psychologists have long recognized the value of humor for general well‐being, organizational scholars have devoted comparatively little research to exploring benefits of workplace humor. Results underscore benefits of humor for work outcomes, encourage future research, and offer managerial insights on the value of creating a workplace context supportive of positive forms of humor.

This research paper aims to advance the understanding of the circumstances under which diversity may be beneficial or detrimental for quality group process. Especially, the paper seeks to argue that communication openness is antecedent to the differing group members’ reactions to conflict events, which, in turn, are proposed to impact group's task and social outcomes in culturally diverse workgroups (CDWs).

Using social identity theory as the springboard, we built on existing literature to hypothesize the proposed relationships among variables. These relationships were tested quantitatively using multiple regression.

There are a couple of significant findings from the current research. Direct effects include groups with low levels of communication openness were linked with increased destructive reactions to conflict, bullying behaviors and emotional reactions to bullying; and destructive reactions to conflict were associated with emotional reactions to bullying. Moderating effects include: high levels of communication openness moderated high levels of productive reactions to conflict for decreased bullying behaviors in groups; communication openness made a difference on bullying when destructive reactions to conflict higher; and lower levels of communication openness moderated destructive reactions for increased emotional reactions to bullying.

This study is limited by its reliance on data that focused on primarily on cultural diversity consequently, the impact of gender, age, and other forms of diversity has not been controlled. Future research should consider the impact of age and other forms of diversity in teasing out the effect of communication openness on bullying behaviors.

The results from this study have implications for leaders of CDWs. A leader who is able to manage the reactions to conflict, especially destructive reactions to conflict by increasing communication openness may be able to reduce the perception of bullying behaviors and emotional reactions to bullying. These actions should, in turn, lead to increased group task outcomes.

First, this current paper is one of the first few studies that quantitatively examined bullying in organizational workgroups and in particular, culturally heterogeneous workgroups. Secondly, the paper is also one of the first few papers to examine the role of communication openness and reactions to conflict in workplace bullying and emotional reactions to bullying. Consequently, the paper will be useful for group members and managers as well as leaders of workgroups that experience conflict and bullying. Specifically, such leaders will need not only to manage conflict skillfully but also manage the group member's reaction to conflict to reduce bullying and emotions of bullying in their workgroups.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the moderating role of culture in the relationship between boundary permeability and cooperation and work group identification. In addition, the levels of boundary permeability of Australians and Singaporeans are compared.

Survey questionnaires were administered to 134 employees (87 Singaporeans and 47 Australians) working in multinational corporations in both Australia and Singapore. Hierarchical moderated regression was used to test whether culture moderated the relationship between boundary permeability and cooperation and workgroup identification.

Results indicated that workplace boundary permeability was marginally and positively related to cooperation but not to workgroup identification. Further analysis revealed that culture moderated the relationships between workplace boundary permeability and cooperation and workgroup identification. Specifically, a stronger positive relationship was found between boundary permeability and these outcomes for Singaporeans as opposed to Australians.

Limitations include the relatively small sample size of both cultural groups; the behavioral measure used to assess cooperation; and the self‐reported nature of the data.

The findings of this study have important practical implications for managers working in multinational corporations who seek to promote cooperation and workgroup identification among culturally diverse employees.

Guided by social identity and cross‐cultural theories, this study highlights the role of culture in predicting the attitudinal consequences of boundary permeability.

This study presents an investigation of the communicative behaviors and strategies employed in the stimulation and management of productive and destructive conflict in culturally heterogeneous workgroups. Using communication accommodation theory (CAT), we argue that the type and course of conflict in culturally heterogeneous workgroups is impacted by the communicative behaviors and strategies employed by group members during interactions. Analysis of data from participant observations, non‐participant observations, semi‐structured interviews, and self‐report questionnaires support CAT‐based predictions and provide fresh insights into the triggers and management strategies associated with conflict in culturally heterogeneous workgroups. In particular, results indicated that the more groups used discourse management strategies, the more they experienced productive conflict. In addition, the use of explanation and checking of own and others' understanding was a major feature of productive conflict, while speech interruptions emerged as a strategy leading to potential destructive conflict. Groups where leaders emerged and assisted in reversing communication breakdowns were better able to manage their discourse, and achieved consensus on task processes. Contributions to the understanding of the triggers and the management of productive conflict in culturally heterogeneous workgroups are discussed.

In this chapter we discuss attitudinal and affective factors in the context of science teams. We review some of the key findings on conflict, trust, and cohesion in teams and discuss the differentiation between team-related and task-related definitions of each. In so doing, we discuss their relevance to team effectiveness in science teams and provide guidance on notional areas of research for understanding how these are related to effectiveness in science teams.

Although skilled migrants have a high capacity for integration, many report experiences of exclusion which impacts their ability to contribute fully to the host country. This experience of exclusion, which can diminish their self-efficacy at work, is especially acute for skilled migrants from non-English speaking backgrounds when functioning in a new or exclusionary environment. In this paper, we explore the relationship between workplace inclusion and self-efficacy and identify factors that contribute to perceived inclusion for skilled migrant workers.

Participants were recruited through social network groups representing migrant workers via LinkedIn. Through snowball sampling, participants were asked to recommend recent (3–5 years) skilled migrants to participate. A total of 210 skilled migrant workers to Australia completed the survey. Structural equation modelling (SEM) is used to test our model on the relationship between inclusion and self-efficacy.

Migrants' perceptions of inclusion at work are related to their self-efficacy at work. We also find that some dimensions of inclusion are more important than others in enhancing self-efficacy for skilled migrants. Meaningful exchanges with supervisors, a sense of belonging at work and workgroup cohesion (being accepted by co-workers) are more important than senior management support or getting involved in organizational social activities as determinants of perceived inclusion.

Although skilled migrants are often assumed to be a self-select group of highly motivated, high achieving workers, many experience poor adjustment and feel excluded after arriving in the host country. Public policies have limited effects in promoting inclusion of skilled migrant workers in organizations. These policies may be supplemented with an inclusive organizational climate to improve migrant worker success. Organizations and employers are thus critical partners in fostering migrant workers' sense of inclusion and supporting the career outcomes of skilled migrant workers in the host country.

This study supports the link between perceived inclusion and self-efficacy among skilled migrant workers. It also sharpens the evidence of organizational-level factors that contribute to perceived inclusion for migrant workers.