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The purpose of this paper is to examine the effects of two key team‐based pay characteristics – namely reward allocation procedures (i.e. reward based on norms of equity, equality or some combination of the two) and incentive intensity – on both the amount and type of help given to one another among members of outcome‐interdependent teams.

A total of 180 undergraduate students participate in a laboratory simulation with a 2 × 3 experimental design. Servicing virtual “clients,” participants receive pre‐scripted requests for assistance from anonymous teammates. ANOVA and hierarchical regression analyses are used to test the hypotheses.

Relative to equity‐oriented group‐based pay structures, equality‐oriented pay structures are found to be associated with both significantly more help giving in general and more of the type of help likely to enhance group‐level competencies (i.e. autonomous help). Incentive intensity strengthens the effects of reward allocation on the amount (but not the type) of help giving.

While the short time frame of the simulation poses a significant threat to external validity, the findings suggest that team‐based compensation practices may provide organizational leaders with an important tool by which to shape critical, helping‐related team processes, with potentially important implications for both team learning and performance.

Managers interested in promoting capacity‐building and helping among team members should avoid allocating team rewards strictly on the basis of the individual contribution.

This paper provides the first empirical findings regarding how alternative modes of team‐based reward distribution may influence key group processes among members of outcome interdependent teams.

Maureen L. Ambrose is a professor of management in the College of Business at the University of Central Florida. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Ambrose's research interests include organizational justice, employee deviance, and ethics. Her work has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Sciences Quarterly, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Management and of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. She served as an associate editor for the Academy of Management Journal and as co-editor of a special issue on organizational justice for Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. She has served on editorial boards for the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Incivility is widespread in the workplace and has been shown to have significant affective and behavioral consequences. However, the authors still have a limited understanding as to whether, how and when discrete incivility events impact team performance. Adopting a resource depletion perspective and focusing on the cognitive implications of such events, the authors introduce a multi-level model linking the adverse effects of such events on team members’ working memory – the “workbench” of the cognitive system where most planning, analyses, and management of goals occur – to team effectiveness. The model which the authors develop proposes that that uncivil interpersonal behavior in general, and rudeness – a central manifestation of incivility – in particular, may place a significant drain on individuals’ working memory capacity, affecting team effectiveness via its effects on individual performance and coordination-related team emergent states and action-phase processes. In the context of this model, the authors offer an overarching framework for making sense of disparate findings regarding how, why and when incivility affects performance outcomes at multiple levels. More specifically, the authors use this framework to: (a) suggest how individual-level cognitive impairment and weakened coordinative team processes may mediate these incivility-based effects, and (b) explain how event, context, and individual difference factors moderators may attenuate or exacerbate these cognition-mediated effects.

Although employee helping behaviors have been widely examined by organizational and human resource management scholars, relatively little is known about the antecedents and consequences of help-seeking in the workplace. Seeking to fill this gap, I draw from the social and counseling psychology literatures, as well as from research in epidemiology and health sociology to first conceptualize the notion of employee help-seeking and then to identify the variables and mechanisms potentially driving such behavior in work organizations. My critical review of this literature suggests that the application of existing models of help-seeking may offer limited predictive utility when applied to the workplace unless help-seeking is conceived as the outcome of a multi-level process. That in mind, I propose a model of employee help-seeking that takes into account the potential direct and cross-level moderating effects of a variety of situational factors (e.g., the nature of the particular problem, organizational norms, support climate) that might have differential influences on help-seeking behavior depending on the particular phase of the help-seeking process examined. Following this, I focus on two sets of help-seeking outcomes, namely, the implications of employee help-seeking on individual and group performance, and the impact of help-seeking on employee well-being. The chapter concludes with a brief examination of some of the more critical issues in employee help-seeking that remain to be explored (e.g., the timing of help solicitation) as well as the methodological challenges likely to be faced by those seeking to engage in such exploration.

This chapter provides an updated review of research examining the relationship between occupational stressors and job performance. We begin by presenting an eight-category taxonomy of workplace stressors and we then review theories that explain the relationships between workplace stressors and job performance. The subsequent literature review is divided into two sections. In the first section, we present a summary of Jex's (1998) review of research on the job stress–job performance relationship. In the second section, we provide an updated review of the literature, which includes studies that have been published since 1998. In this review, we evaluate how well the contemporary research has dealt with weaknesses and limitations previously identified in the literature, we identify and evaluate current trends, and we offer recommendations and directions for future research.

The organizational literature accepts that when an organization generates commitment among employees through cultural mechanisms, it will be more efficient since the individuals will be involved in the attainment of the organizing objectives and will be motivated to pursue them. It is not clear, however, how organizations can generate this commitment, what constitutes its key characteristics, or what impact its use has on organizational performance. This paper therefore aims to identify the cultural practices that allow organizations to generate commitment, to analyze its impact on organizational performance, and to analyze the degree to which these practices should be used to obtain commitment. The model presented is tested in Spanish hotels, which offer a clear example of the relevance that these sorts of tools can have in the achievement of organizational objectives.

This paper aims to evaluate the suggestion that the antecedents of union commitment and participation may differ between foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China based on the view that SOE unions will focus more strongly on the traditional dual role, emphasising on managerial functions and employee welfare.

The paper is based on employee surveys in two enterprises in Shanghai, one FIE and one SOE. Employee attitudes towards the union and enterprise were measured using a self-completion questionnaire, and data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Findings suggest that pro-union attitudes were more salient in the FIE context. In contrast, SOE workers’ allegiance to the union appeared to be a less reflection of pro-union attitudes and was more narrowly instrumental.

The findings suggest that FIEs workers’ union allegiances are more likely to reflect a pro-union orientation, with SOE workers more likely to see their union allegiances in narrowly instrumental terms. In FIEs, with a profit-oriented and privately managed enterprise, union allegiances may be closer to those of Western market economies, whilst in SOEs, the “dual role” model persists, with unions a service provider rather than an independent employee representative.

The findings in this paper provide an initial test of the potential differences in the antecedents of union commitment and participation across FIEs and SOEs. Future research is needed to build on these findings, in particular, adopting multi-enterprise study designs across different enterprise types.

Investigates the differences in protocols between arbitral tribunals and courts, with particular emphasis on US, Greek and English law. Gives examples of each country and its way of using the law in specific circumstances, and shows the variations therein. Sums up that arbitration is much the better way to gok as it avoids delays and expenses, plus the vexation/frustration of normal litigation. Concludes that the US and Greek constitutions and common law tradition in England appear to allow involved parties to choose their own judge, who can thus be an arbitrator. Discusses e‐commerce and speculates on this for the future.