PUBLISHED WORK
Susan Zhu, Yimin He, Pol Solanelles, & Kristin Cullen-Lester
Personnel Psychology
Workplace venting (i.e., expressing frustrations or negative emotions regarding workplace problems) is common and can lead to negative short-term consequences for ventors or listeners. However, existing research has overlooked the dyadic nature of venting and focused on short-term reactions, thereby missing potential relational benefits of workplace venting ties (i.e., ongoing relationships where employees regularly seek out preferred listeners for venting). Drawing on social penetration theory and agentic perspectives of network dynamics, we propose a dynamic relational model to theorize how venting networks evolve and co-evolve with advice-giving networks through listeners’ choices to form or maintain venting and advice-giving ties, respectively. We test this model by analyzing three waves of whole-network data using Stochastic Actor-Oriented Models (SAOMs). Results reveal that listeners are more likely to form or maintain subsequent venting and advice-giving ties with their ventors. We also find that actors’ attributes, namely conscientiousness, can alter the co-evolution process such that its effects are amplified for conscientious ventors but not conscientious listeners. Finally, we identify a potential cost of reduced advice provision when employees are a preferred listener for many coworkers (i.e., central to venting networks). We discuss the value and implications of employing a network approach to studying venting in the workplace.
Caitlin Porter, Pol Solanelles, Kristin Cullen-Lester, Ashley Pearson, & Juan Du
Journal of Organizational Behavior
Informal job search—the use of personal and professional networks for job search—is a popular job search method. Yet, answers to the questions of whether informal job search is effective (relative to formal job search) and why have not been clearly articulated, hindering research progress and limiting practical recommendations for job seekers and institutions. We endeavored to address these questions via an integrative, interdisciplinary review of how job search methods (i.e., formal vs. informal) and forms of social capital (i.e., types of contacts and tie strength) relate to job search outcomes (i.e., finding a job vs. finding quality employment), and we summarize evidence for the role of job seeker characteristics as key contingencies on this process. In doing so, we uncover “a tale of two job searches,” wherein informal job search effectiveness is dependent upon job seeker characteristics that impart status within the labor market and/or society. Collectively, our review provides much-needed clarity regarding whether an informal job search is better than a formal job search and why, revealing that answers to these questions depend on who is searching for a job. Considering these insights, we outline an agenda for future research focused on enhancing job seekers' access to social networks and integrating job search and social network perspectives to extend knowledge of how different types of job seekers can more effectively utilize their networks for job search.
How rare is rare? How common is common? Empirical issues associated with binary dependent variables with rare or common event rates
Hyun-Soo Woo, John Berns, & Pol Solanelles
Organizational Research Methods
The use of logit and probit models when examining binary dependent variables including those in the form 0/1 (i.e., dummy variables), yes/no, and true/false (hereafter labeled DVs) is commonplace. Yet, the appropriateness and effectiveness of such models are challenged when the event rate of a binary DV is rare or common. To better understand the impact on the field of strategy, we undertook a literature review and assessed recently published research in the Strategic Management Journal. We then utilized Monte Carlo simulations with results showing that as event rates become rarer or more common, issues including biased coefficients, standard error inflation, low statistical power to detect significant effects, and model convergence failure increasingly arise. In addition, small sample sizes amplified these empirical issues. Using a strategy example study, we also show how various analytic tools can lead to different findings when empirical models face an extreme event rate with small sample sizes. Based on our findings, we provide step-by-step guidance for strategy researchers going forward.
Drinking (wine) again: Always the same in a pandemic?
Pol Solanelles, Barry J. Babin, & David A. Locander
Journal of Wine Research
The present research explores the role of wine’s social and coping benefits during stressful times (e.g. COVID-19 shutdown). This research operationalizes one factor that captures perceived value from wine due to social benefits and a second factor that captures the perceived value from wine due to benefits that help one cope with anxious times. A research framework is proposed and explored using mediation analyses. Results across two studies suggest that life situations relate to both wine’s social value and need for coping. Both wine's social value and coping value help drive wine consumption.
Network structures of influence within organizations and implications for HRM
The field of Human Resource Management (HRM) has long recognized the importance of interpersonal influence for employee and organizational effectiveness. HRM research and practice have focused primarily on individuals’ characteristics and behaviors as a means to understand “who” is influential in organizations, with substantially less attention paid to social networks. To reinvigorate a focus on network structures to explain interpersonal influence, the authors present a comprehensive account of how network structures enable and constrain influence within organizations. The authors begin by describing how power and status, two key determinants of individual influence in organizations, operate through different mechanisms, and delineate a range of network positions that yield power, reflect status, and/or capture realized influence. Then, the authors extend initial structural views of influence beyond the positions of individuals to consider how network structures within and between groups – capturing group social capital and/or shared leadership – enable and constrain groups’ ability to influence group members, other groups, and the broader organizational system. The authors also discuss how HRM may leverage these insights to facilitate interpersonal influence in ways that support individual, group, and organizational effectiveness.
Bias in student evaluations: Self-efficacy and identity-threat at play
Amy McMillan, Pol Solanelles, & Bryan Rogers
Studies in Educational Evaluation
The use of peer evaluations to evaluate performance is commonplace, especially in higher education. Yet, researchers and educators have long expressed concerns about the accuracy of such ratings. While research has found student peer evaluations to be consistent with instructor evaluations, rater bias is inherent in all evaluations, and students are not exempt from this. This study examines task completion and identity threat to determine if experience and identity play a role in shaping student peer evaluations. A sample of MBA students evaluated their peers before and after completing a course presentation. Results showed that students’ peer evaluations were significantly “lower” or more critical after having completed the presentation themselves. This study illuminates the importance of experience and training in the implementation of performance evaluations.