Experiencing work as meaningful benefits both individuals and organizations. While prior research has indicated that leaders may shape followers’ work meaningfulness, little is known about the role of leaders’ own work meaningfulness in this process. Drawing from self-concept based theory and interpersonal sensemaking processes, we argue that work meaningfulness trickles down from strategic leaders to mid-level leaders to employees through visionary leadership. Additionally, we propose that organizational tenure shapes this transfer in such a way that leaders’ influence is higher for followers new to the organization. Finally, we expect work meaningfulness to positively relate to important behavioral outcomes across different hierarchies. In order to test the derived hypotheses, we conducted two multilevel studies among 54 CEOs and 267 mid-level managers (Study 1), and 39 mid-level leaders and 173 employees (Study 2). Using multilevel structural equation modeling, our results confirmed most hypotheses. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
This study explores how and when customer feedback influences organizational health, conceptualized as a combination of employee health and organizational performance. Based on affective events theory, we classify both positive and negative customer feedback as affective work events. We expect that these events influence organizational health through their impact on positive affective climate, and that the relationships are moderated by empowerment climate. We tested the model in a dataset consisting of 80 independent organizations with 178 board members, 80 HR representatives, and 10'953 employees. The findings support the expected indirect effects. Furthermore, empowerment climate strengthened the impact of positive customer feedback on organizational health but does not affect the relationship between negative customer feedback and organizational health. By providing first insights into the consequences of both positive and negative customer feedback on organizational health, this study opens a new avenue for scientific inquiry of customer influences on employees at the organizational level.
While complaint management has received much attention, customer compliments and their systematic handling have been largely ignored. Based on two empirical studies, this article suggests that customer compliments bear great potential for benefiting firms, and gives recommendations on how managers can enable, stimulate, and amplify positive customer feedback.
This research examines the interplay of internal versus external communication and employees’ distance to headquarters on employees’ organizational identification. Drawing from construal-level theory and social identity theory, the authors theoretically argue that employees’ psychological distance to headquarters determines the effect of organizational communication measures on employees’ organizational identification. In particular, the degree of construal fit between concreteness versus abstractness of the communication and employees’ psychological distance to headquarters might influence whether internal or external communication will lead to higher organizational identification. Hypotheses were tested via two multilevel field studies comprising the responses of 1,102 employees from an industrial service firm and a retail firm. Study results support the proposed model: Internal communication is superior to target employees with low psychological distance while external communication is superior to target employees with high psychological distance to headquarters. Important theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.
