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This study aims to examine the role of deviant status (lower vs higher rank) and organizational structure (vertical vs horizontal) on individuals’ responses to workplace deviance.

Two studies (N = 472) were designed to examine the role of deviant status and organizational structure in responses to workplace deviance. Study 1 (N = 272) manipulated deviant status and organizational structure. Study 2 (N = 200) also manipulated deviant status but focused on participants’ subjective evaluations of the organizational structure of their workplace.

Study 1 found that participants reported lower job satisfaction and organizational commitment, and higher turnover intentions when they imagined being confronted with deviant behaviors displayed by a manager (vs by a subordinate), regardless of the type of organizational structure. Study 2 extended this finding by showing that the indirect effect of organizational structure (vertical vs horizontal) on turnover intention via job satisfaction and organizational commitment was moderated by deviant status: when the deviant’s status was higher, working in a vertical (vs horizontal) organization was associated with decreased job satisfaction and commitment, which, in turn, was associated with a higher level of turnover intentions.

The findings broaden our understanding of how individuals respond to deviance at the workplace, by simultaneously considering the effects of organizational structure (vertical vs horizontal) and deviant status (upward vs downward directions of deviance).

The “Individual Preference Effect” (IPE: Faulmüller et al., 2010; Greitemeyer and Schulz-Hardt, 2003; Greitemeyer et al., 2003), a form of confirmation bias, is an important barrier to achieving improved group decision-making outcomes in hidden profile tasks. Group members remain committed to their individual preferences and are unable to disconfirm their initial suboptimal selection decisions, even when presented with full information enabling them to correct them, and even if the accompanying group processes are perfectly conducted. This paper examines whether a mental simulation can overcome the IPE.

Two experimental studies examine the effect of a mental simulation intervention in attenuating the IPE and improving decision quality in an online individual hidden profile task.

Individuals undertaking a mental simulation achieved higher decision quality than those in a control condition and experienced a greater reduction in confidence in the suboptimal solution.

Results suggest a role for mental simulation in overcoming the IPE. The test environment is an online individual decision-making task, and broader application to group decision-making is not tested.

Since mental simulation is something we all do, it should easily generalise to an organisational setting to improve decision outcomes.

To the authors' knowledge, no study has examined whether mental simulation can attenuate the IPE.

Whereas there is general satisfaction with straightforward picture‐board techniques for testing me‐too and brand extension product concepts, there is a widely held belief that such techniques are inadequate in accurately gauging the appeal of truly innovative concepts. “Living with the concept” is an alternative method which requires participants to keep material describing the concept at home for a period of time. During this time they are asked to think about the concept. At the end of the fixed period participants record their attitudes and likely purchase intention for the concept. Although this method is considerably more costly and time consuming, it continues to grow in popularity, supported by the lay‐beliefs that “time to think” affects participants’ responses to the concept and makes such responses more predictive of marketplace success. Reports on an empirical study that provides a controlled test of the first of these beliefs. States that results showed that time per se had no effect on responses, but argues that more systematic “thought‐related” exercises within concept tests may lead to better prediction of marketplace success for innovative products.