No one has time to read every new piece of research that could impact our field. As a result, it is hard to know what important new findings might pass us by. Luckily, the Hogan Research Division is here to help (and we welcome your contributions in return).

Below is a quick rundown of several articles from Q1 that examined a variety of individual and organizational characteristics that drive performance. This is not an all-inclusive list. So, if you’ve read any new publications or reports from the last three months we failed to include, feel free to write a comment telling us about them.

• In a review of customer service-related variables, Hong et al. provide a nice outline of how leadership impacts a company’s bottom line. First, leadership practices shape an organization’s service climate, which influences employee behaviors. Behaviors impact customer satisfaction, which then drives financial performance. This research provides an excellent demonstration of the Leadership Value Chain at work.
• In reviewing safety-related variables, Hogan & Foster presents research demonstrating how individual employee personality characteristics predict important work outcomes. Using data from multiple samples representing a variety of jobs, organizations, and industries, we show that personality influences safety-related behaviors, which in turn predict major workplace accidents and injuries. In other words, personality doesn’t influence work outcomes by itself, but does so because of its influence in important work-related behaviors.
• We have all heard that self efficacy and performance are correlated with one another, but does one actually cause the other? Research by Sitzmann and Yeo suggests that performance drives self-efficacy, but not necessarily the other way around. Instead, individuals who are confident in their abilities likely do better on many tasks simply because they’ve done well on similar tasks in the past.
• Is conflict within teams good or bad? According to research by Bradley et al., it all depends on the personality characteristics of your team. When team members are generally high in Emotional Stability or Openness, conflict can drive good performance, but the opposite is true when either characteristic is generally low. So, when dealing with conflict within teams, it helps to know your team members.
• Abusive supervision continues to be a hot topic these days. In examining the impact of abusive supervision, Shoss et al. found that when employees identify an abusive supervisor with their company, they are more likely to retaliate against the company itself through both counterproductive behaviors and lower job performance.

And stay tuned, Parts 2 and 3 of our review will cover articles relating to coaching, statistics, and a potpourri selection of articles we thought were worth sharing.