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The influence of traditional individually oriented Organization Development (OD), with its focus on psychological dispositions, on self-development and growth, is currently waning. I argue here that individually oriented OD would be well served by a new focus on habitus and social position that expand our understanding of human behavior. Using Bourdieu's concept of social position in the form of “habitus-oriented approach,” as I do here using my consulting experience, allows individually oriented OD to become a scholarly and professional site that understands human behavior in terms of both the social and the personal.

The paper explores how social networks influence Cameroonian consumers' buying behavior. Then, the authors examine customers' advertising perceptions and psychological dispositions to explain their purchase intention and behavioral consumption.

The research framework is developed based on Nelson's theory of advertising by studying advertising perceptions, consumer psychological dispositions associated with social network characteristics and behavioral consumption. Using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), the validation takes support from 231 responses collected with an online questionnaire from Cameroun.

The study reveals three critical results: (1) consumers' perceptions of advertising significantly influence their psychological disposition, (2) consumers' psychological dispositions and the social network significantly influence their intention to purchase and (3) consumers' intention to purchase significantly impacts their behavioral consumption.

The proposed and validated model contributes to understanding the influence of social network communication on customers' buying behavior on social s-Commerce platforms of developing country enterprises.

While businesses seek to engage customers, their efforts are often met with varied results, as some customers are more predisposed to engage than others. Understanding customers’ dispositions to engage is central to understanding customer engagement, yet research examining customer engagement dispositions remains sparse and predominantly focused on personality traits. This paper aims to consider the general nature of a disposition and draws on qualitative findings to depict a framework for customer engagement dispositions.

To investigate customer engagement dispositions comprehensively and in-depth, an exploratory qualitative approach was adopted. In total, 20 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with customers in ongoing relationships with financial planners residing in Australia.

Nine attributes reflecting customer engagement dispositions emerge from the data. These include the customer’s internal tendency to engage (confidence, desire for control, extroversion and enthusiasm); a tendency to engage determined in the interaction with the service provider (sense of similarity, sense of social connection and trust in the service provider); and the capacity to engage (expertise and knowledge and time availability).

This study provides a conceptual foundation for future empirical measurement of customer engagement dispositions and their nomological network.

This study establishes a foundation for managers to build distinct engagement disposition profiles and segments and target initiatives to maximize engagement activity.

This research challenges the view of customer engagement dispositions as largely personality factors, or exclusively cognitive and emotional dimensions of engagement, and offers a comprehensive framework reflecting a customer’s disposition to engage with a service provider.

The finance literature is awash with papers bordering on the classical assumption that investors are rational in their decision-making, and hence, would always take decisions rationally given the right information, thus making the stock market efficient. This assumption has, however, been found to be at least inadequate given the fact that investors are complex psychological beings full of emotions. This paper aims to investigate the psychological factors that tend to influence the decisions of investors.

The study used a questionnaire to survey a total of 350 investors holding stocks of listed banks on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

The study found the existence of various behavioural biases among the investors surveyed. The most dominant factor or bias found to be influencing investment decisions of respondents was herding with nearly 62% weight. Again, biases such as regret aversion and gambler’s fallacy were also found to strongly influence the decisions of investors, along with mental accounting, overconfidence and anchoring.

The presence of these behavioural biases, therefore suggests that investors do not always take rational decisions, and hence, making the stock market efficient and that as psychological beings, their investment decisions are impacted strongly by their psychology.

The study used a questionnaire to survey a total of 350 investors holding stocks of listed banks on the GSE with a special focus on overconfidence, anchoring, herding, gambler’s fallacy, mental accounting and regret aversion as the variables of interest, the first of its kind in Ghana.

Innovative pedagogical delivery (IPD) and behaviour have been a major concern among academics in Nigeria. The purpose of this study is aimed at analyzing the impact of psychological empowerment (PE) on IPD through achievement orientation (AO) and perceived inclusive leadership (PIL) among academics of tertiary institutions in Nigeria.

A questionnaire-based survey was conducted among the academics in Nigeria, and 350 responses were received. A multiple regression analysis was conducted using Smart-PLS version 3.

Findings are: (a) PE significantly impacts AO and IPD; (b) AO mediates the relationship between PE and IPD; and (c) PIL moderates the relationship between PE and AO.

It is recommended that practitioners and administrators in tertiary institutions pay attention to academics’ AO while integrating employee empowerment intervention for optimum results.

The findings emphasize AO in explaining the mechanism by which the relationship between PE and IPD holds sway. PIL explains the boundary conditions under which PE can effectively influence IPD.

Valence is one of the key dimensions underlying actor engagement, yet there is limited research to provide a comprehensive understanding of the concept. The purpose of this paper is to conceptualise engagement valence in actor networks and develop an agenda for future research.

The exploration of the psychological foundations of the concept of valence and a systematic literature review from a multiple database search contribute to four sets of propositions defining the domain of the concept of actor engagement valence.

The propositions posit that valence resides in the engaging actor’s past, current and future psychological dispositions, which can shift between positive, negative and ambivalence. Actor engagement valence is triggered by the engagement objects and value propositions of other actors in the network. The antecedents of actor engagement valence comprise individual factors such as cognitive evaluations and hedonic feelings, as well as network-related factors such as social norms and shared beliefs, and the network structure. The net balance of actor engagement valence determines the actor’s engagement behaviours, and this relationship is moderated by individual and network factors.

This is the first study to conceptualise actor engagement valence, which contributes to the refinement of the actor engagement concept. This research defines the conceptual domain, deepens the understanding and provides an agenda for future research into the valence of engagement among actors in networks. The study recognises the institutional influences on actor engagement valence, and contributes to an understanding of the nature of actors’ psychological dispositions and how their valence determines the actors’ behavioural engagement manifestations.

This paper aims to adopt a novel approach to the study of individuals’ psychological dispositions that predict Facebook usage/non-usage. Given the historically disappointing results associated with studies that treat personality traits/dispositions as enduring and invariant, contemporary thought accepts that it is the interaction between dispositions and situations that influence behaviour. In this study, the situation (in this case, Facebook) is positioned as the antecedent stimulus for the activation of context-relevant psychological dispositions that, subsequently, facilitate behavioural prediction (i.e. Facebook usage/non-usage). Moreover, Facebook (the stimulus) is examined through its perceived psychological, rather than normative, features to identify context-relevant dispositions.

This two-study project adopts a research framework developed through the integration of communication theories and theoretical frameworks and psychological processing theories. Study 1 adopted a qualitative approach to determine the psychological features of Facebook, as perceived from the individual’s standpoint. Study 2 involved a national online survey, developed from the findings from Study 1, to explore context-relevant psychological dispositions in their prediction of Facebook behaviour.

The findings of Study 1 lead to the identification of the perceived psychological features of Facebook which are categorised under the umbrella terms of interaction, self-image control, usage volition and risk. Using these features (identified in Study 1) to guide in the selection of context-relevant dispositions, rather than arbitrarily selecting dispositions, the hypotheses for Study 2 are developed. As a result, Study 2 involves the discriminant analysis of data gathered from 579 user/non-users of Facebook to determine if context-relevant psychological dispositions accurately predict behaviour of both users and non-users of Facebook.

The findings provide a psychological roadmap for Facebook advertisers, which can be used to develop and test media-specific advertising strategy. Furthermore, a significant contribution of this study resides within the research approach itself which can be used to guide not only media research but also other marketing and business research that is characterized by context specificity.

The purpose of this conceptual paper is to provide a theoretical explanation for the persistence of the glass ceiling keeping women from assuming leadership positions.

The methodological approach of this paper is to compare and contrast social role theory and expectation states theory as theoretical underpinnings to explain the persistence of a glass ceiling for women leaders.

Both social role theory and expectation states theory belong to the structural/cultural models describing differences between the genders. Social role theory and expectation states theory explicate diverse reasons for the emergence of these differences. However, both theories propose that gender differences will result in evaluation bias against women.

As a result of evaluation bias against women, the glass ceiling phenomenon keeping women from assuming top leadership positions continues to occur.

This paper is being written on the 20 year anniversary of the term glass ceiling being coined. It adds to the body of literature by closely examining two structural/cultural theories as possible causes to an invisible barrier which keeps women leaders from entering top level management positions.

The purpose of this study is to determine if observed ratings on a multi‐source feedback (MSF) instrument reflect the same cognitive constructs of leadership across multiple rating pairs based on rater and ratee gender.

The independent variables of this quantitative research study are MSF rater and ratee gender. The dependent variables are leadership constructs reflected by MSF ratings. During phase I of the data analysis, five models of leadership constructs are built. During phase II of the data analysis, the five models are compared against each other to discover if the same factors determine the cognitive constructs of leadership comprising each model.

Findings from this study indicate that constructs of leadership across multiple rating pairs reflect the same cognitive constructs of leadership. Measurement equivalence for the MSF instrument under investigation has been established.

It is concluded that the MSF instrument is free of bias, thus not contributing to the existence of a “glass ceiling” keeping women from entering top‐level leadership positions. The potential for a “social epidemic” in the near future whereby the glass ceiling will be shattered and many women will enter into top leadership positions is confirmed.

Findings are contrary to the conclusions drawn from the literature review of social role theory, expectation states theory, and leadership categorization theory. This study fills a gap in the empirical body of knowledge, by including a large number of female managers.

Given the thriving attention paid to brand personification in marketing, this paper aims to delve into consumers’ psychological traits that may moderate the positive anthropomorphic effects on brand outcomes specific to relationship marketing.

A theoretical model was proposed based on a review of the extant literature. Study 1 conducted an online survey and used confirmatory factor analysis to validate the constructs significantly correlated with anthropomorphic processing. Two follow-up studies (Study 2a and 2b) using experimental designs were performed to provide evidence substantiating the moderated mediation in the process.

Based on the results across the three studies, motivational, rather than cognitive, disposition significantly correlates with perceived anthropomorphism and brand relationship outcomes. Need for belonging serves as a sociality moderator in strengthening the mediating effects of perceived anthropomorphism on brand attachment and brand experience, respectively. Parasocial interaction serves as an effectance moderator in augmenting the mediating effects of perceived anthropomorphism on brand attachment.

This research extends and contrasts the theoretical grounding for anthropomorphism as a set of situational consumer perceptions by integrating its boosting factors in social psychology with emerging brand constructs in marketing and consumer behavior research. More studies are encouraged to probe into the complex anthropomorphic phenomenon.

This research sheds light on marketers’ strategic management efforts in implementing brand personification to target a wide range of market segments with diverse psychological disposition.

Conceiving anthropomorphism as an in-process situational output in information processing, this research provides further understanding of the psychological traits that facilitate the construction of consumer-brand relationships through anthropomorphic perceptions in the context of brand personification.