Research documents conflicting evidence about the relationship between a leader's unpleasant affe... more Research documents conflicting evidence about the relationship between a leader's unpleasant affective displays and team performance. Drawing on the dual threshold model of anger , we propose a novel explanation for this paradox such that the positive relationship between leaders' unpleasant affect and team performance turns negative at high levels of intensity. We examine our hypothesis in a multi-level field study of 304 halftime locker room speeches involving 23 high school and college basketball teams, and a follow up experiment. Our results show support for the prediction, and suggest that the curvilinear effect of leaders' unpleasant affective displays may be explained by team members' redirection of attention and approach, which is positively associated with team members' effort at moderate levels of leader unpleasantness, but with lower effort at high and low levels of unpleasantness. We discuss the theoretical contributions for scholarship on leadership, emotions as social information (EASI) theory, as well as practical implications of the results.
This panel brings together recently retired academics at different stages of evolving a pattern i... more This panel brings together recently retired academics at different stages of evolving a pattern in their retirement careers. They will deal with questions of why they chose to retire, what they anticipated it would be like, how it has turned out, and what issues or concerns they have encountered. It is meant to be informal, with each presenter talking briefly and then joining audience groups for more intense discussion and questions.
This paper presents a general alternative interpretation of correlational findings vihich link pe... more This paper presents a general alternative interpretation of correlational findings vihich link perceptual or questionnaire measures to data on performance. Essentially, it is posited that organizational participants possess theories of performance just as do organizational researchers, and that respondents will use knowledge of performance as a cue by which they attribute characteristics to themselves, their work groups, and organizations. According to this attribution hypothesis, self-report data on organizational characteristics may actually represent the consequences rather than the determinants of performance. To test this alternative interpretation of correlational findings, an experiment was conducted in which knowledge of group performance (positive vs. negative) was a manipulated independent variable. The results showed that knowledge of performance affected the levels of influence, cohesion, communication, motivation, and openness to change attributed by members to their work groups. These findings were also cross-validated by an interpersonal simulation. The data of the true experiment and the interpersonal simulation, together, provided strong evidence for the attribution hypothesis.
SUMMARY The purpose of this paper is to reorient the study of turnover from an examination of the... more SUMMARY The purpose of this paper is to reorient the study of turnover from an examination of the antecedents of leaving an organization to its consequences. Towards this end, a number of positive as well as negative consequences of turnover are discussed and moderators of these effects are proposed. Finally, the issues associated with assessing the multiple and conflicting outcomes of turnover are addressed along with specific recommendations for future research.
A test was made of the Thompson-Zald hypothesis that succession of leadership is a response to or... more A test was made of the Thompson-Zald hypothesis that succession of leadership is a response to organizational problems. Turnover of university department heads was found to be an interactive functi...
This study provides a comparative test of two psychological theories concerning the relationship ... more This study provides a comparative test of two psychological theories concerning the relationship between affect and performance. Managerial simulations are used to test whether people who are positive in , disposition perform better or worse on both decisional and interpersonal tasks. Results are consistent in supporting the happier-and-smarter as opposed to the sadder-but-wiser hypothesis, since they show positive relationships between dispositional affect and performance. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to both the older literature on links between satisfaction and performance and the more recent controversy over the dispositional approach to job attitudes.*
Summary This paper readdresses the personsituation debate in organizational research. The well-k... more Summary This paper readdresses the personsituation debate in organizational research. The well-known arguments of Davis-Blake and Pfeffer (1989) are evaluated in light of research and theory that has transpired since the publication of their original critique. A new ...
This study explored how affect relates to creativity at work. Using both quantitative and qualita... more This study explored how affect relates to creativity at work. Using both quantitative and qualitative longitudinal data from the daily diaries of 222 employees in seven companies, we examined the nature, form, and temporal dynamics of the affect-creativity relationship. The results indicate that positive affect relates positively to creativity in organizations and that the relationship is a simple linear one. Time-lagged analyses identify positive affect as an antecedent of creative thought, with incubation periods of up to two days. Qualitative analyses identify positive affect as a consequence of creative thought events, as well as a concomitant of the creative process. A preliminary theory of the affect-creativity cycle in organizations includes each of these links and proposes mechanisms by which they may operate.
We examined whether press reports on the collective mood of investors can predict changes in stoc... more We examined whether press reports on the collective mood of investors can predict changes in stock prices. We collected data on the use of emotion words in newspaper reports on traders' affect, coded these emotion words according to their location on an affective circumplex in terms of pleasantness and activation level, and created indices of collective mood for each trading day. Then, by using time series analyses, we examined whether these mood indices, depicting investors' emotion on a given trading day, could predict the next day's opening price of the stock market. The strongest findings showed that activated pleasant mood predicted increases in NASDAQ prices, while activated unpleasant mood predicted decreases in NASDAQ prices. We conclude that both valence and activation levels of collective mood are important in predicting trend continuation in stock prices.
Research documents conflicting evidence about the relationship between a leader's unpleasant affe... more Research documents conflicting evidence about the relationship between a leader's unpleasant affective displays and team performance. Drawing on the dual threshold model of anger , we propose a novel explanation for this paradox such that the positive relationship between leaders' unpleasant affect and team performance turns negative at high levels of intensity. We examine our hypothesis in a multi-level field study of 304 halftime locker room speeches involving 23 high school and college basketball teams, and a follow up experiment. Our results show support for the prediction, and suggest that the curvilinear effect of leaders' unpleasant affective displays may be explained by team members' redirection of attention and approach, which is positively associated with team members' effort at moderate levels of leader unpleasantness, but with lower effort at high and low levels of unpleasantness. We discuss the theoretical contributions for scholarship on leadership, emotions as social information (EASI) theory, as well as practical implications of the results.
This panel brings together recently retired academics at different stages of evolving a pattern i... more This panel brings together recently retired academics at different stages of evolving a pattern in their retirement careers. They will deal with questions of why they chose to retire, what they anticipated it would be like, how it has turned out, and what issues or concerns they have encountered. It is meant to be informal, with each presenter talking briefly and then joining audience groups for more intense discussion and questions.
This paper presents a general alternative interpretation of correlational findings vihich link pe... more This paper presents a general alternative interpretation of correlational findings vihich link perceptual or questionnaire measures to data on performance. Essentially, it is posited that organizational participants possess theories of performance just as do organizational researchers, and that respondents will use knowledge of performance as a cue by which they attribute characteristics to themselves, their work groups, and organizations. According to this attribution hypothesis, self-report data on organizational characteristics may actually represent the consequences rather than the determinants of performance. To test this alternative interpretation of correlational findings, an experiment was conducted in which knowledge of group performance (positive vs. negative) was a manipulated independent variable. The results showed that knowledge of performance affected the levels of influence, cohesion, communication, motivation, and openness to change attributed by members to their work groups. These findings were also cross-validated by an interpersonal simulation. The data of the true experiment and the interpersonal simulation, together, provided strong evidence for the attribution hypothesis.
SUMMARY The purpose of this paper is to reorient the study of turnover from an examination of the... more SUMMARY The purpose of this paper is to reorient the study of turnover from an examination of the antecedents of leaving an organization to its consequences. Towards this end, a number of positive as well as negative consequences of turnover are discussed and moderators of these effects are proposed. Finally, the issues associated with assessing the multiple and conflicting outcomes of turnover are addressed along with specific recommendations for future research.
A test was made of the Thompson-Zald hypothesis that succession of leadership is a response to or... more A test was made of the Thompson-Zald hypothesis that succession of leadership is a response to organizational problems. Turnover of university department heads was found to be an interactive functi...
This study provides a comparative test of two psychological theories concerning the relationship ... more This study provides a comparative test of two psychological theories concerning the relationship between affect and performance. Managerial simulations are used to test whether people who are positive in , disposition perform better or worse on both decisional and interpersonal tasks. Results are consistent in supporting the happier-and-smarter as opposed to the sadder-but-wiser hypothesis, since they show positive relationships between dispositional affect and performance. The results are discussed in terms of their relevance to both the older literature on links between satisfaction and performance and the more recent controversy over the dispositional approach to job attitudes.*
Summary This paper readdresses the personsituation debate in organizational research. The well-k... more Summary This paper readdresses the personsituation debate in organizational research. The well-known arguments of Davis-Blake and Pfeffer (1989) are evaluated in light of research and theory that has transpired since the publication of their original critique. A new ...
This study explored how affect relates to creativity at work. Using both quantitative and qualita... more This study explored how affect relates to creativity at work. Using both quantitative and qualitative longitudinal data from the daily diaries of 222 employees in seven companies, we examined the nature, form, and temporal dynamics of the affect-creativity relationship. The results indicate that positive affect relates positively to creativity in organizations and that the relationship is a simple linear one. Time-lagged analyses identify positive affect as an antecedent of creative thought, with incubation periods of up to two days. Qualitative analyses identify positive affect as a consequence of creative thought events, as well as a concomitant of the creative process. A preliminary theory of the affect-creativity cycle in organizations includes each of these links and proposes mechanisms by which they may operate.
We examined whether press reports on the collective mood of investors can predict changes in stoc... more We examined whether press reports on the collective mood of investors can predict changes in stock prices. We collected data on the use of emotion words in newspaper reports on traders' affect, coded these emotion words according to their location on an affective circumplex in terms of pleasantness and activation level, and created indices of collective mood for each trading day. Then, by using time series analyses, we examined whether these mood indices, depicting investors' emotion on a given trading day, could predict the next day's opening price of the stock market. The strongest findings showed that activated pleasant mood predicted increases in NASDAQ prices, while activated unpleasant mood predicted decreases in NASDAQ prices. We conclude that both valence and activation levels of collective mood are important in predicting trend continuation in stock prices.
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Papers by Barry Staw