Contributions published at Human Resource Management and Leadership (Jochen Menges)

The pandemic has given many of us the opportunity to ditch the commute and work from home long-term, offering huge potential time savings. But to truly reap the benefits of remote work during the current crisis and beyond, we need to think proactively about how we restructure our workday in this new normal. The authors suggest six concrete, research-backed actions you can take today to create clearer work-life boundaries and optimize how you spend your time.

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Entities such as individuals, teams, or organizations can vary systematically from one another. Researchers typically model such data using random effects, multilevel models, which assume that the random effects are uncorrelated with the regressors. Violation of this assumption creates an endogeneity problem. We review the various modeling approaches in the presence of endogeneity and show with a series of Monte Carlo simulations that popular “go-to” solutions can produce biased and inconsistent estimates depending on the model estimated. Our results show that researchers should instead use cluster means of the Level 1 explanatory variables as controls (i.e., the correlated random effects or Mundlak approach). To examine the state of the science, we reviewed 150 randomly drawn articles from organizational science journals, finding that only 70 articles properly deal with the random- effects assumption. Alarmingly, most models also failed on the usual exogeneity requirement of the regressors, leaving only 13 articles (8.67%) that potentially reported trustworthy multilevel estimates. We offer a set of practical recommendations for researchers to model multilevel data appropriately.

Charisma is conceptualized as an attribution that followers grant their leader, based on their leader’s looks, words, and behaviors. Once followers attribute charisma to their leader, they are particularly receptive to the leader’s influence. Here we suggest that charisma attributions are also affected by the physical environment in which followers see their leader. Although the environment by itself should have no bearing on a person’s quality, we theorize that the attribution process by which charisma is granted is susceptible to peripheral cues such as the grandiosity or mundanity of the surroundings in which a leader appears. We test these ideas across four experimental studies, casting leaders in either awe-inducing or ordinary environments. No matter whether our stimuli feature actual or fictional charismatic leaders, or whether our stimuli are presented as pictures, text or video, the findings suggest that awe-inducing physical environments amplify charisma attributions for leaders. Although results vary somewhat across studies, we also find that awe-inducing physical environments provide a stronger boost in charisma attributions for those who would otherwise not be seen as holding charismatic appeal. Overall, our results indicate that followers do not only consider the leader, but also the environment in forming their charisma attributions.

Background: Research demonstrates that the placebo effect can influence the effectiveness of medical treatments and accounts for a significant proportion of healing in many conditions. However, providers may differ in the degree to which they consciously or unconsciously leverage the forces that produce placebo effects in clinical practice. Some studies suggest that the manner in which providers interact with patients shapes the magnitude of placebo effects, but this research has yet to distill the specific dimensions of patient–provider interactions that are most likely to influence placebo response and the mechanisms through which aspects of patient–provider interactions impact placebo response. Methods: We offer a simplifying and unifying framework in which interactions that boost placebo response can be dissected into two key dimensions: patients’ perceptions of competence, or whether a doctor “gets it” (i.e., displays of efficiency, knowledge, and skill), and patients’ perceptions of warmth, or whether a doctor “gets me” (i.e., displays of personal engagement, connection, and care for the patient). Results: First, we discuss how this framework builds on past research in psychology on social perception of competence and warmth and in medical literature on models of effective medical care, patient satisfaction, and patient–provider interactions. Then we consider possible mechanisms through which competence and warmth may affect the placebo response in healthcare. Finally, we share original data from patients and providers highlighting how this framework applies to healthcare. Both patient and provider data illustrate actionable ways providers can demonstrate competence and warmth to patients. Discussion: We conclude with recommendations for how researchers and practitioners alike can more systematically consider the role of provider competence and warmth in patient–provider interactions to deepen our understanding of placebo effects and, ultimately, enable providers to boost placebo effects alongside active medications (i.e., with known medical ingredients) and treatment in clinical care.

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Information about a person’s income can be useful in several business-related contexts, such as personalized advertising or salary negotiations. However, many people consider this information private and are reluctant to share it. In this paper, we show that income is predictable from the digital footprints people leave on Facebook. Applying an established machine learning method to an income representative sample of 2,623 U.S. Americans, we found that (i) Facebook Likes and Status Updates alone predicted a person’s income withan accuracy of up to r = 0.43, and (ii) Facebook Likes and Status Updates added incremental predictive power above and beyond a range of socio-demographic variables ($ΔR^2$ =6–16%, with a correlation of up to r = 0.49). Our findings highlight both opportunities for businesses and legitimate privacy concerns that such prediction models pose to individuals and society when applied without individual consent.

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Time matters for healthcare quality. Patients explicitly desire more time with providers and patient perceptions of visit length influence meaningful outcomes, including patient satisfaction and adherence intentions.1, 2 Given existing system-level barriers and competing demands (e.g., electronic health records, high patient volume), it may be challenging for providers to increase the objective amount of time they have with patients.3 However, research suggests that patient perceptions of time with the provider can outweigh actual visit length1, 2 and, fortuitously, that these perceptions are malleable.4 Little research has tested what providers can do to shape patients’ perceptions of the time providers spend with them. The current study tested whether provider demeanor, including the well-documented traits of warmth (e.g., attentiveness, care, and connection with patients) and competence (e.g., displays of knowledge, skill, and efficiency),5, 6 influenced patient time perceptions of a fixed-length medical visit.

Background: Oral immunotherapy (OIT) can lead to desensitization to food allergens, but patients can experience treatment-related symptoms of allergic reactions that cause anxiety and treatment dropout. Interventions to improve OIT for patients are needed. Objective: To determine whether fostering the mindset that non–life-threatening symptoms during OIT can signal desensitization improves treatment experience and outcomes. Methods: In a randomized, blinded, controlled phase II study, 50 children/adolescents (28% girls, aged 7-17 years, M = 10.82, standard deviation = 3.01) completed 6-month OIT for peanut allergies. Patients and their parent(s) had monthly clinic visits at the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research between January 5, 2017, and August 3, 2017. All families received identical symptom management training. In a 1:1 approach, 24 patients and their families were informed that non–life-threatening symptoms during OIT were unfortunate side effects of treatment, and 26 patients and their families were informed that non–life-threatening symptoms could signal desensitization. Families participated in activities to reinforce these symptom mindsets. Results: Compared with families informed that symptoms are side effects, families informed that symptoms can signal desensitization were less anxious (B = −0.46, 95% confidence interval [CI]: −0.76 to −0.16; P = .003), less likely to contact staff about symptoms (5/24 [9.4%] vs 27/154 [17.5%] instances; P = .036), experienced fewer non–life-threatening symptoms as doses increased (BInteraction = −0.54, 95% CI: −0.83 to −0.27; P < .001), less likely to skip/reduce doses (1/26 [4%] vs 5/24 [21%] patients; P = .065), and showed a greater increase in patient peanut-specific blood IgG4 levels (BInteraction = 0.76, 95% CI: 0.36 to 1.17; P < .001). Conclusions: Fostering the mindset that symptoms can signal desensitization improves OIT experience and outcomes. Changing how providers inform patients about non–life-threatening symptoms is a promising avenue for improving treatment.

People tend to perceive their own opinions to be especially prevalent among others, especially among members of their ingroups. This paper proposes that this process operates differently in groups with prominent figures who take public stances on issues (opinion cues) that suggest what group members do or should think when some members of such groups are opinion deviant, meaning that their own opinions differ from their group's opinion cues. Two studies of Democrats', Republicans', and Independents' perceptions of others' views on global warming in two national surveys of probability samples of American adults (N = 804 in 2012, and N = 1000 in 2018) showed that whereas partisans whose own beliefs aligned with the opinion cues of their political party perceived their own beliefs to be more prevalent among members of their own party and perceived the opposite belief to be more prevalent among members of the other party, opinion deviants (e.g., Republicans who believe that global warming has been happening) did not. Furthermore, aligned partisans perceived a larger partisan gap than opinion deviants. This research illuminates a new way in which group membership affects perceptions of public opinion on environmental issues and suggests novel strategies for climate change communication.

From an evolutionary perspective, followership is puzzling because it is not clear why individuals would relinquish their autonomy and set aside their personal goals to follow those of another individual, the leader. This paper analyzes followership from an evolutionary perspective and advances three main conclusions that are not yet part of the leadership literature. First, followership evolved as a strategy to solve a range of cooperation and coordination problems in groups (e.g., collective movement, peacekeeping). Second, individuals who lack the physical, psychological, or social capital to be leaders themselves are more likely to emerge as followers. Third, followership styles, behaviors, and engagement result from (a) variations in the relative pay-offs that accrue to followers vis-à-vis their leader, (b) the adaptive goals pursued by followers, (c) the adaptive challenges that select for different followership styles, and (d) the prevailing leadership style. Together, these conclusions have several implications for followership theory, research, and practice.

Predictions about the effects of climate change cannot be made with complete certainty, so acknowledging uncertainty may increase trust in scientists and public acceptance of their messages. Here we show that this is true regarding expressions of uncertainty, unless they are also accompanied by acknowledgements of irreducible uncertainty. A representative national sample of Americans read predictions about effects of global warming on sea level that included either a worst-case scenario (high partially bounded uncertainty) or the best and worst cases (fully bounded uncertainty). Compared to a control condition, expressing fully bounded but not high partially bounded uncertainty increased trust in scientists and message acceptance. However, these effects were eliminated when fully bounded uncertainty was accompanied by an acknowledgement that the full effects of sea-level rise cannot be quantified because of unpredictable storm surges. Thus, expressions of fully bounded uncertainty alone may enhance confidence in scientists and their assertions but not when the full extent of inevitable uncertainty is acknowledged.

In times of crisis, leaders are perceived as more effective and charismatic. Using signaling theory, we explore the impact of crisis on charismatic rhetoric and presidential support. In France, between January 2015 and July 2016, three terrorist attacks targeted a satiric journal (i.e., “Charlie Hebdo”) as well as ordinary citizens (i.e., “Paris” and “Nice” attacks). We exploited data from this “natural experiment” setting to investigate former French President Hollande’s charismatic rhetoric and approval ratings. We analyzed 150 major speeches for markers of charismatic leadership (Antonakis, 2017a). Using a regression discontinuity design, where we identify the causal effect of the attack on his speeches (just before and after the attacks) our results indicate that the occurrence of a crisis (i.e., in the cases of Nice and Paris) significantly increased President Hollande’s use of charismatic leadership tactics and for all cases, his approval ratings. Our findings add to empirical evidence showing that a crisis state offers more opportunities to leaders to signal charisma as well as more visibility, attention and credit, resulting in higher ratings. We offer explanations and discuss the implications of these findings.

Grounded in an open systems perspective, we build and test new theory about how the kinds of industries in which an organization participates influence organizational affective tone and connect to workforce strain. We propose that the more an organization’s activities lie in consumer-centric industries (e.g., service, retail), the more positive and less negative the organization’s affective tone. We connect consumer-centric industry participation and affective tone by explaining how personnel policies and organizational structure generate and sustain consistent positive and negative affect throughout an organization. Additionally, we examine the effects of organizational affective tone on workforce strain. The results of a survey-based study of 24,015 human resource managers, top management team members, and employees of 161 firms largely support our predictions. We discuss the implications of considering macro contextual factors for understanding affect in organizations.

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