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Research
Overview
The main
focus of my research is to investigate how employees react
to changes at work. This work is motivated by my
previous professional experiences of weathering two mergers and
two large restructurings. I noticed then that for any number of
people confronted with the same change event that individual
experiences vary tremendously. Thus, the majority of my research
aims to better understand the sources of differences associated
with a variety of changes at work (e.g., mergers and
acquisitions, downsizings, plant closings, career transitions,
etc.). To this end, I conduct both conceptual and empirical
research. The empirical work is always field research involving
employees in the context of their jobs and employing
organizations (i.e., no student subjects or lab studies). An
overarching objective of my research is to identify key
individual and situational factors that influence employee’s
reactions to changes at work. In the process, my work
contributes to research by refining theories via conceptual and
empirical rigor. Beyond this my work also has considerable
practical value in that it is applied and conducted in field
settings and informs practice (i.e., managing change). My work
that examines employee reactions to change falls into three
general categories: coping with organizational change,
dispositional employability, and career transitions.
Coping with Organizational
Change (sample articles):
Coping with Change Over Four Stages of a Merger
Explication of the Coping Goal Construct--Implications for
Coping and Reemployment
Coping with Organizational Change
Research. Much of my work examines employee reactions to
change by studying how they cope. Coping research and practice
was “born” in psychology and health settings, however, my work
contributes to a more recent trend of applying coping theory in
organizational contexts. Employee coping provides a rich and
practical window through which to view employee’s experiences at
work in that it encompasses both person and situation factors
that influence behavior. This work incorporates several crucial
constructs: cognitive appraisal (how individuals evaluate the
meaning of experiences), emotions (employee’s affective
reactions to experiences), coping strategies (variegated
behaviors and cognitive efforts), and a host of outcomes with
both individual and organizational significance, such as
withdrawal behaviors (sick time and turnover), job search, and
reemployment. To this end, I’ve examined employee coping in a
host of contexts. For instance, I examined how employees coped
with a merger over four stages, an article found in Personnel
Psychology (Fugate et al., 2002; see attached vita for
complete reference). We found that coping is indeed a process
that changes over time. This is a rare study in that it was
longitudinal and the first to verify the process nature of a
seminal coping theory in an organizational context. In another
study, I examined factors that drove employee job search and
reemployment after they were terminated due to a plant closing
(found in the Journal of Applied Psychology). The
contribution of this paper was that identified key predictors of
employee’s job search behavior, and thus was informative for the
managers of companies that terminate employees as well as
vocational counselors responsible for placing terminated
employees.
Cognitive appraisal theory is central to
much of my work related to employee coping with change. An
individual’s cognitive appraisal is an evaluation of a situation
in terms of its personal meaning and impact. Cognitive appraisal
of a change event determines whether the person will perceive
the situation positively or negatively. In turn, one’s appraisal
of an event drives subsequent emotional reactions and coping
behaviors. My current work refines appraisal theory, extends it
beyond psychology and health settings and applies it to
organizational contexts, and informs the management of employee
reactions to organizational change. Any funding provided will
support three papers in this stream. I am the lead author on
each of these projects, and each is derived from data I have
collected (much of it while here at Cox).
Paper #1.
Employee coping with organizational change: An alternative
models test.
Purpose: In this paper, we test current conceptualizations
of coping theory in the context of organizational change. This
is a valuable project in that the majority of organizational
change research is at the macro level and examines aspects of
change such as the motives for change (e.g., cost reduction),
types of changes (e.g., mergers and acquisitions), and change
outcomes (e.g., profitability). However, the management
literature is relatively silent on employee level or micro
aspects of organizational change, such as the processes by which
employees perceive and cope with organizational change. This is
especially surprising given the persistence and pervasiveness of
change and the tremendous impact on literally millions of
employees each year. Therefore, we endeavor to help fill this
void and use a process theory of coping to examine employee
experiences and reactions to organizational change. To this end,
we field test the veracity of alternative conceptualizations of
coping found in the literature and provide important insights
into how employees experience and cope with organizational
change. Moreover, in this paper we also test the relationship
between employee coping and withdrawal behaviors (voluntary
turnover and sick time used) in the context of change. In so
doing, this research has significant implications for advancing
coping theory, as well as the management of organizational
change.
Contribution.
This study makes several notable contributions. For instance,
this is the first study to empirically examine coping using the
complete complement of coping constructs associated with current
theory—appraisal, emotions, coping, and coping outcomes.
Moreover, this study is conducted in an organizational context,
which shows the cross-disciplinary applicability of a theory
from psychology and health to the field of management. An
especially important contribution is our inclusion of emotions.
Emotions are recent additions to coping theory, and this
research is the first to examine the role of emotions
simultaneously with all of the other coping constructs.
In so doing, we lend empirical support to the importance of
emotions in the coping process which to this point has largely
been a conceptual argument. Lastly, we conduct alternative
models tests, using structural equations modeling, to examine
the veracity of the various conceptualizations of coping
presented in more recent empirical research, thus this work
lends clarity and guidance for future research.
Paper #2: The
antecedents and outcomes of employee perceptions of threat
during a restructuring.
Purpose:
Perceptions of threat (i.e., threat appraisals) are critical
determinants of employee reactions to changes at work. In this
research we seek to identify both person (attitudes toward
change, change related self-efficacy, and job satisfaction) and
situation (job security, trust in management, and perceived
organizational support) antecedents of employee threat
appraisals during an organizational restructuring. I developed a
context specific measure of threat appraisal for this study,
which allowed for a more precise examination of this important
construct. Additionally, we employ structural equations modeling
to determine whether a person or situation factor more strongly
predicts threat appraisals. This is important, as threat
appraisals have been shown to influence intentions to quit and
voluntary turnover, which are serious negative consequences of
organizational change. We also examine the impact of threat
appraisal on these important outcomes. Preliminary results
revealed that situation factors are stronger predictors of
threat appraisals, which in turn predicted intentions to quit
and voluntary turnover. Thus, this study provides highly
practical insights for employers and their efforts to manage
change.
Contributions.
This paper is unique in that we have identified no other
research that examines antecedents and outcomes of threat
appraisals in the management and organization literature. Thus,
we illuminate the importance of this construct in an
organizational change context. This research also refines
appraisal theory and does so in a management/organizational
context. Previous research typically measures threat appraisals
in a very generic granular manner, and this research provides a
more precise operationalization of this important construct.
Moreover, results of this research can guide management
efforts/interventions to mitigate employee threat appraisals and
reduce unwanted turnover.
Employability
(sample articles):
Employability in the New Millennium
Employability: A psycho-social construct, its dimensions and
applications
Employability Research. My work
related to employability is another major aspect of my research
identity, beyond my coping with organizational change research.
Examples of this work are found in the Journal of Vocational
Behavior—“Employability: A psycho-social construct, its
dimensions, and applications,” and a conceptual piece related to
this is in press for the Encyclopedia of Careers Development,
a SAGE publication. In this work I developed a new dispositional
approach to employability, which is a conceptual reframing and
departure from previous employability research. Scholars have
historically viewed employability as a fit between a known or
static set of skills and abilities, that is, a prospective
employee is employable if his/her skills match pre-prescribed
job requirements. I argue that this conceptualization is out of
date given the dynamism inherent in today’s work and career
environment. Of course skills and abilities matter, but I
contend that it is increasingly important to consider
individual’s proactivity and adaptability, which are difficult
to discern from a typical resume and conventional measures of
human capital. Thus, another aspect of my work in this area is
the development of a dispositional measure of employability.
This scale development piece has been a major focus of research
while at Cox. Currently, this manuscript is under review at
Educational and Psychological Measurement. This is a popular
topic as I routinely get requests for both the conceptual and
measurement articles. In particular, this topic and my approach
seem to be especially appealing to Europeans, where the concept
of employability garners not only different but also much
greater attention in academia and government.
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