Supporting interdependent telework employees: A moderated-mediation model linking daily COVID-19 task setbacks to next-day work withdrawal.

The COVID-19 crisis has compelled many organizations to implement full-time telework for their employees in a bid to prevent a transmission of the virus. At the same time, the volatile COVID-19 situation presents unique, unforeseen daily disruptive task setbacks that divert employees' attention from routinized work tasks and require them to respond adaptively and effortfully. Yet, little is known about how telework employees react to such complex demands and regulate their work behaviors while working from home. Drawing on Hobfoll's (1989) conservation of resources (COR) theory, we develop a multilevel, two-stage moderated-mediation model arguing that daily COVID-19 task setbacks are stressors that would trigger a resource loss process and will thus be positively related to the employee's end-of-day emotional exhaustion. The emotionally exhausted employee then enters a resource preservation mode that precipitates a positive relationship between end-of-day exhaustion and next-day work withdrawal behaviors. Based on COR, we also predict that the relation between daily COVID-19 task setbacks and exhaustion would be more positive in telework employees who have higher (vs. lower) task interdependence with coworkers, but organizations could alleviate the positive relation between end-of-day exhaustion and next-day work withdrawal behavior by providing employees with higher (vs. lower) telework task support. We collected daily experience-sampling data over 10 workdays from 120 employees (Level 1, n = 1,022) who were teleworking full-time due to the pandemic lockdown. The results generally supported our hypotheses, and their implications for scholars and managers during and beyond the pandemic are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

A psychometric evaluation of the Loss of Face Scale.

Face and loss of face (LOF) are important social and clinical constructs in many cultures. The present study evaluated the psychometric properties of the LOF Scale in 4 samples of European Americans and Asian Americans with a total of 2,057 participants. We found LOF Scale scores to have high internal reliability across all samples. Confirmatory factor analyses comparing 1- and 2-factor models supported a 1-factor structure for both European and Asian Americans, albeit 4 items (Items 3, 13, 14, and 20) were found to be noninvariant across the 2 groups. Two error covariances between Items 2 and 3, and between Items 11 and 20 were both substantial and invariant across groups. Tests of latent mean differences revealed a mean LOF score that was significantly higher for Asian Americans than for European Americans. Finally, the LOF scores correlated with affective distress and self-construal equally for Asian Americans and European Americans, correlated with some factors in collective self-esteem for both groups, and correlated with acculturation for Asian Americans. These results supported the LOF Scale as a psychometrically sound tool for assessing the unidimensional concept of the LOF across cultures. (PsycINFO Database Record

A dual-stage moderated mediation model linking authoritarian leadership to follower outcomes.

Although authoritarian leadership is viewed pejoratively in the literature, in general it is not strongly related to important follower outcomes. We argue that relationships between authoritarian leadership and individual employee outcomes are mediated by perceived insider status, yet in different ways depending on work unit power distance climate and individual role breadth self-efficacy. Results from technology company employees in China largely supported our hypothesized model. We observed negative indirect effects of authoritarian leadership on job performance, affective organizational commitment, and intention to stay among employees in units with relatively low endorsement of power distance, whereas the indirect relationships were not significant among employees in relatively high power distance units. These conditional indirect effects of authoritarian leadership on performance and intention to stay were significantly stronger among employees with relatively high role breadth self-efficacy. We discuss how the model and findings promote understanding of how, and under what circumstances, authoritarian leadership may influence followers' performance and psychological connections to their organizations. (PsycINFO Database Record