Gedrag & Organisatie - Volume 21, Issue 3, 2008

The influence of goal orientations on the effectiveness of reemployment counseling

G. Noordzij & E.A.J. Van Hooft, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 21, August 2008, nr. 3, pp. 209-225

The present study investigates the influence of training goal orientations on job search and reemployment outcomes among unemployed people who were searching for a job. Unemployed individuals (N = 109) were randomly assigned to one of three training conditions: (1) Learning goal orientated training (LGO), (2) Performance goal orientated training (PGO), and (3) control group. LGO is defined as focusing on increasing competences whereas PGO is defined as focusing on demonstrating competences.

Participants of the LGO-training had more intentions to search for a job and more activities than the other participants. Logistic regression demonstrated that participants of the LGO-training had five times more change to find a job than the other participants. These results lead us to conclude that the LGO-training is an effective tool for reemployment counseling.

Predictors of commitment with a merged organisation: a social-psychological study among employees of Community Centres for Mental Health in Flanders (Belgium)

J. Van Raes, N. Vanbeselaere, F. Boen, H. De Witte & S. Oudermans, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 21, August 2008, nr. 3, pp. 226-253.

Research reveals that employees with a strong organizational commitment report more well-being, stronger job involvement, and are less inclined to leave their organisation. While more and more organisations are involved in a merger, a growing number of studies also show that employees have difficulties to commit themselves to the newly formed merger organisation. We therefore conducted a survey study (N = 188) to examine which of nine proposed factors predict organizational commitment among employees of merged community centres for mental health. These factors were derived from studies inspired by the social identity approach. Commitment with the merger organisation was significantly predicted by four factors: successful functioning of the new merger centre, pre-merger commitment, perceived merger necessity and perceived continuity of the pre-merger group. Based on these results, we propose a number of practical suggestions that seem useful to strengthen commitment with a merged organisation.

Construction of a risk assessment tool to prevent workplace bullying

E. Baillien, H. De Witte, G. Notelaers & I. Neyens, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 21, August 2008, nr. 3, pp. 254-278.

The aim of the current study was to develop a tool which helps organizations to prevent workplace bullying ('RATOG'). By measuring the most important antecedents of workplace bullying the tool indicates whether these antecedents have a safe, problematic or very problematic score. The tool was developed in two phases. In phase one, the most important antecedents of bullying were selected on the basis of a survey among employees of twenty Flemish organizations. These antecedents were role conflict, job insecurity, low social support from the colleagues, high frequency of conflict within the team, low employee-oriented organizational culture and low procedural justice. In the second phase, Relative Operating Characteristic analyses determined from which score these antecedents increased workplace bullying. The tool can be used to analyze an entire organization, large departments or smaller teams and contains 23 questions.

The Tilburg Psychological Contract Questionnaire

C. Freese, R. Schalk & M. Croon, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 21, August 2008, nr. 3, pp. 278-294.

The development of the Tilburg Psychological Contract Questionnaire (TPCQ) is described. Criteria are formulated that psychological contract measures should meet. The theoretical background and the psychological contract items of the TPCQ are described. With exploratory factor analysis five perceived organizational obligation scales are revealed: job content, career development, social atmosphere, organizational policies and rewards. Two perceived employee obligation scales were found: in-role behaviour and extra-role behaviour. A separate violations scale was developed. The psychometric features of the scales (including test-retest reliability) were sufficient. Construct validity was assessed with regression analysis on affective commitment, continuance commitment and intention to turnover. Organizational policies, violations and both perceived employee obligations scales were predictors of affective commitment, intention to turnover and to a lesser extent continuance commitment.

Diversity and leadership: transformational leadership and its role in managing diversity

G. De Vries & A.C. Homan, Gedrag & Organisatie, volume 21, August 2008, nr. 3, pp. 295-309

The effect of diversity on performance in work-groups can both be positive and negative. The social categorization perspective assumes a negative effect because members of a diverse work-group are more positively inclined towards members who are similar to them than to members who are dissimilar. In contrast, the information/decision-making perspective states that people who are not alike benefit from an extended network and variety in perspectives. We argue that leadership may be very important in profiting from the positive effects and diminishing the negative effects of diversity. By integrating the dimensions of transformational leadership (Burns, 1978; Podsakoff, Mackenzie, Moorman & Fetter, 1990) with the categorization-elaboration model of Van Knippenberg, De Dreu and Homan (2004) we describe how leaders can make teams profit from their diversity. Practical and theoretical suggestions are given.