The Organizational Scientist: Research

Showing posts with label Research. Show all posts

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Organizational Science Fall Colloquium Features Interdisciplinary Presentations

by Ashley Andrew

On Nov. 19, 2009, the Organizational Science (OS) program hosted its first Organizational Science Fall Colloquium. The program included research talks from several OS faculty members and OS student research assistants. The event offered a way for the organizational science community to come together and talk about the some of the exciting research projects currently underway. This year’s program included:

Assessing Organizational Integrity in the Pharmaceutical Industry, presented by: Dr. Denis Arnold, Dr. Tammy Beck, and Samantha Paustian-Underdahl
Work and Health under Market Transition: A Study of Psychological and Physical Wellbeing in Urban China, presented by: Dr. Yang Cao
Willing and Able to Fake Emotions: A Closer Examination of the Link between Emotional Dissonance and Employee Well-Being, presented by: Dr. Doug Pugh

Judging from post-event feedback from faculty members and students alike, the event was a resounding success. Most of all, it provided an opportunity to showcase interdisciplinary research efforts while continuing to build and strengthen the inclusive, cohesive culture that characterizes OS at UNC Charlotte.

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Summer 2009: A Time for Research and (a little) Relaxation

by Joe Allen

For faculty members and students in the Organizational Science doctoral program, summer is a season filled with lots of research and some well-deserved relaxation. Although some would argue that the latter never came, a recent informal poll indicates that much research occurred this summer. Students and faculty members alike worked diligently to move forward with research ideas, data collection, manuscript writing,presentation preparation, and many submissions for eventual publication.

The following certainly isn’t an exhaustive description of summer research activities, but upon reading this list many may feel exhausted.

Dr. Eric Heggestad and Ashley Andrew recently finished drafting and submitted a book chapter on aging, personality, and job attitudes for publication. Heggestad is also working on another chapter for the same publication concerning process models of faking on personality assessments in applicant contexts.

Dr. Tammy Beck and Dr. Denis Arnold are working with Sam Paustian-Underdahl on a project looking at the integrity of pharmaceutical companies. They are in the middle of gathering data concerning stated values versus actual behaviors of pharmaceutical companies that occurred over the past 10 years.

Dr. Linda Shanock presented a paper at the International Communication Association conference on supervisor-lead meetings (Ben Baran’s thesis), finalized two manuscripts to be sent for publication, began data analysis on a project looking at structural and relational influences on employee meeting behaviors, submitted a manuscript that used longitudinal data to look at how socialization tactics reduce turnover and enhance commitment, and so on.

Dr. Steven Rogelberg and many student co-authors (e.g. Brett Agypt, Joe Allen, Ben Baran, Adrian Goh, etc.) worked on papers about meeting effectiveness, meeting satisfaction, meeting lateness, volunteer recruitment, counter-productive behavior, dirty work, employee-volunteer dynamics, and on survey nonresponse.

Dr. Wei Zhao prepared two manuscripts over the summer for review including “Multidimensional Status, Status Inconsistency, and Product Valuation in the California Wine Market” (with Xueguang Zhou) and “Institutional Compatibility and the Diffusion of ‘Best Practices’: Human Resource Management in Foreign-Invested Enterprises in China” (with Dr. Yang Cao).

Dr. Yang Cao spent the summer in Hawaii as a visiting fellow at the East West Center focusing on a project that examines from an institutional perspective the relationship between work and health in China.

Dr. Doug Pugh worked on a manuscript currently under review at the Journal of Applied Psychology on the topic of emotional labor and emotional dissonance, began data analysis on a different emotional labor project with animal shelter employees, and is working on a write up for submission to the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology conference on a work-family study that grew out of an Organizational Science Consulting & Research project.

Dr. David Gilmore worked with Izabella Szymanska on research using the Change Style Indicator using data from the Center for Creative Leadership. He also worked on revising a paper on political skill and promotability with a former graduate student and others.

Dr. Cliff Scott worked on a range of projects already in progress with several student co-authors (e.g., after-action reviews and safety climate with Joe Allen and Ben Baran) and continued work on an Organizational Science Consulting & Research project for TIAA-CREF with Dr. Loril Gosset, David Askay, and Ashley Andrew.

Dr. Lisa Rashotte and Tonya Frevert worked on a study measuring current race beliefs as related to competence, workplace potential, and hireability.

Dr. Beth Rubin and Dr. Charles Brody finished a revise and resubmit from Sociological Perspectives, which is their third paper looking at commitment in the new economy. With Brett Agypt, Rubin plans to begin data collection on our project about temporal structures in contemporary organizations by summers’ end.

Dr. Shawn Long worked on his forthcoming book Communication, Relationships and Practices in Virtual Work, finalized a case study paper called “Islamaphobia at work: Cultural terrorism in organizations”, and co-authored a manuscript with Dr. Cliff Scott and colleagues entitled “Making the case for andragogical integration of social networking technology in graduate education.”

As the exhaustion from the summer research sets in, it is important to recognize that this is just a smattering of the projects that are currently in progress. In compiling this list and asking students and faculty about their projects, it became clear that the Organizational Science program students and faculty members are continually engaged in research that adds value to both theory and practice. One question remains after reporting on the amazing productivity of students and faculty members: Did anyone take a break this summer?

Outcomes from Collaboration: The Better Ideas Group

by Joe Allen

Given its interdisciplinary focus, the Organizational Science program naturally engenders conversations and research projects that bridge disciplinary traditions. And an early example of this type of collaboration is the Better Ideas Group (BIG), which has launched a number of promising studies.

The group started in August 2007, when a number of faculty members and students began discussing potential collaborative research ideas that centered on the topic of meetings in organizations. Those initial conversations sparked a research team that eventually included eight members: Brett Agypt, Joe Allen, Ashley Andrew, Ben Baran, Dr. Steven Rogelberg, Dr. Beth Rubin, Dr. Cliff Scott, and Dr. Linda Shanock. The discussions and projects that resulted from this collaborative effort illustrate the potential of collaborative work spanning the disciplines of Communication Studies, Industrial/Organizational Psychology, and Sociology. Specifically, three projects initiated by this group are moving forward in the publication process after data collection from hundreds of working adults.

First, Baran and Shanock collected data from more than 350 respondents on meetings-related topics such as the role of supervisors, justice perceptions, meeting practices, perceived organizational support, and the degree of formalization and centralization perceived within respondents' organizations. The first manuscript reporting results from these data, titled "When Supervisors Lead Meetings: Relationships with Leader-Member Exchange, Perceived Organizational Support, and Meeting Citizenship Behaviors," functioned as Baran's pre-doctoral project and industrial/organizational psychology master's thesis. Fellow BIG members Rogelberg and Scott served on Baran’s pre-doctoral project committee, and Shanock presented a version of the paper at the International Communication Association (ICA) conference (in Baran’s absence). Shanock is spearheading work on the second manuscript based upon this study, which will investigate both structural and relational influences on meeting behaviors, effectiveness and burnout. Plans include potential conference presentations and submitting the manuscript for publication during the upcoming academic year.

Second, Agypt and Rubin focused on the temporal aspects related to meetings in organizations and have presented their results from their data collection at meetings of both the ICA and the Southern Sociological Society. The data also served as the basis of Agypt’s pre-doctoral project. They plan to use these data as a pilot study for a grant proposal and as a springboard for an in-depth analysis of a Fortune 500 company to which they have gained access.

Third, Allen and Andrew collected data related to perceptions of organizational support, power distance, and emotion regulation in meetings. This project launched approximately six months after the other BIG surveys, which facilitated collecting of time-lagged data for the other two projects. Allen and Andrew’s first manuscript from these data focuses on perceived organizational support as a moderator of the relationship between power distance and emotion regulation in meetings. This paper will be submitted for potential presentation at the 2010 annual meeting of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.

In addition to these projects, other BIG members’ spear-headed related research endeavors. For example, Scott assembled, submitted, and led the panel presentation at the ICA conference in May 2009 that included two BIG-produced manuscripts. As an expert on meetings at work, research mentor, and administrator, Rogelberg provides ongoing support to BIG members, including his service on pre-doctoral project committees, attending the ICA conference, and securing financial support for data collection.

Clearly, the collaborative energy associated with BIG members continues to pay off in the form of conference presentations and publishable manuscripts. And other groups like BIG exist, highlighting the remarkable interdisciplinary nature of research within the Organizational Science program. With these types of efforts underway, faculty members and students alike are building a culture of cooperation well poised for both learning and the production of meaningful research.