Although the similarity-attraction hypothesis (SAH) is one of the main theoretical foundations of management and industrial/organizational (I/O) psychology research, systematic reviews of the hypothesis have not been published. An overall review of the existing body of knowledge is therefore warranted as a means of identifying what is known about the hypothesis and also identifying what future studies should investigate. The current study focuses on empirical workplace SAH studies. This systematic review surfaced and analyzed 49 studies located in 45 papers. The results demonstrate that SAH is valid in organizational settings and it is a fundamental force driving employees’ behavior. However, the force is not so strong that it cannot be overridden or moderated by other forces, which includes forces from psychological, organizational, and legal domains. This systematic review highlights a number of methodological issues in tests of SAH relating to the low number of longitudinal studie
Purpose: The purpose of this review is to argue that the way that perceived employee misfit (PEM) has been measured in quantitative studies does not capture the construct identified in qualitative studies. Design/methodology/approach: Through reverse citation analysis, this study reveals how low levels of value congruence became the currency of PEM in quantitative studies. Findings: This study finds that in the absence of alternatives, researchers have taken low scores of value congruence as a measure of misfit. However, there is limited evidence to show that PEM relates to values, supplementary conceptualization or interactions with the organization (rather than interactions with other employees, tasks, etc.). In addition, the most commonly used instruments measure degrees of similarity, not disparity, making the interpretation of PEM-related data unclear. Combined, these factors raise construct validity concerns about most quantitative studies of PEM. Research limitations/implication
Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to integrate research conducted on work values, political values and cultural values to develop a new heuristic model of values that can be applied to workplace outcomes. Design/methodology/approach: This is a conceptual paper that draws upon the work values, political values and cultural values literatures and the “similarity leads to attraction” and “dissimilarity leads to repulsion” hypotheses to advocate an integrative conceptual model spanning these constructs. Findings: Integrating the three types of values with the underlying hypotheses of “similarity leads to attraction” and “dissimilarity leads to repulsion”, an internally consistent two-factor model of values is developed. This heuristic model argues that one set of factors causes value congruence and its associated outcomes and a different set of factors causes value incongruence and its associated outcomes. By conceptualizing value congruence and value incongruence as a
The Price Leaders Pay for Cutting Ethical Corners
Asking employees to take questionable shortcuts can hurt their motivation and their performance.
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Unfortunately, it is not uncommon for leaders to ask their employees to cross ethical lines. Consider the following examples from a pilot study we recently conducted: A sales representative at a retail company was asked to grant credit approval to unqualified customers who were friends of her supervisor; a field technician at a communications company was asked by management to close telephone repair tickets for elderly customers whose phones were not fixed; and an engineer in the transportation industry was asked to approve projects that he felt were at risk for structural failure.