Michael Parke

Xiaoran Hu, Michael Parke, Randall S. Peterson, Grace M. Simon (2024), Faking it with the boss’s jokes? Leader humor quantity, follower surface acting, and power distance, Academy of Management Journal.

Abstract: Most scholarly work concludes that leader humor positively affects emotional outcomes for followers. However, two interrelated issues with past research make this view incomplete: (a) studies often conflate the act of expressing humor with the humor’s effectiveness, and (b) existing research overlooks follower emotion regulation. In addressing these issues, we generate and test new theory that challenges the theoretical consensus, highlighting why and when leader humor expression has emotional costs for followers. Specifically, we theorize that leader humor quantity, irrespective of its quality, puts pressure on followers to engage in “surface acting” to fake or exaggerate positive emotions. We further propose that these surface acting responses are more likely to occur when followers hold high power distance values, such that followers more willingly comply with expectations to display positive emotions in response to leader humor expression. This increase in surface acting then leads to more emotional exhaustion and less job satisfaction for followers. Results from three studies—incorporating a field experiment, a laboratory experiment, and a multi-wave field study—provide support for these hypotheses. We close with a discussion of how our findings provide a unique counterpoint regarding the effects of leader humor on follower emotional outcomes.

Michael Parke, Subra Tangirala, Apurva Sanaria, Srinivas Ekkirala (2023), How Strategic Silence Enables Employee Voice to be Valued and Rewarded, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Dana Harari, Michael Parke, Jennifer Carson Marr (2023), When helping hurts helpers: Anticipatory versus reactive helping, helper’s relative status, and recipient self-threat, Academy of Management Journal.

Michael Parke, Myeong-Gu Seo, Xiaoran Hu, Sirkwoo Jin (2021), The creative and cross-functional benefits of wearing hearts on sleeves: Authentic affect climate, information elaboration, and team creativity, Organization Science.

Abstract: Team creative processes of generating and elaborating ideas tend to be laden with emotional expressions and communication. Yet, there is a noticeable lack of theory on how differences in teams’ management and support of affect expressions influence their ability to produce creative outcomes. We investigate why and when team authentic affect climates, which encourage members to share and respond to authentic affect, generate greater creativity compared with more constrained affect climates where members suppress or hide their genuine feelings. We propose that authentic affect climate enhances team creativity through greater information elaboration by the team and that these informational and creative benefits are more likely in functionally diverse teams. Results from three complementary studies—one multisource field study of management teams and two experiments—provide support for our predictions. In our experiments, we also examine the theorized affective mechanisms and find that authentic affect climate increases information elaboration and creativity through members’ affect expressions (Study 2) and empathic responses to each other’s expressed affect (Studies 2 and 3). We discuss the implications of our findings for the team creativity, diversity, and affect literatures.

Michael Parke, Subra Tangirala, Insiya Hussain (2020), Creating organizational citizens: How and when supervisor- versus peer-led role interventions change organizational citizenship behavior, Journal of Applied Psychology, in press.

Abstract: We generate and test new theory on how organizations can use role interventions to increase employees’ organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) such as helping and voice. In particular, we examine how interventions that employ supervisors and peers as change agents can independently and jointly motivate employees to engage in OCB by encouraging them to view their work roles more broadly. We propose that the effects of these interventions become apparent over two distinct temporal phases of change. In the early phase of the change process, when there is higher flux and uncertainty, supervisor-led interventions have relatively stronger positive influences on OCB change and peer-led interventions have limited effects. By contrast, during the later phase of the change process, as greater clarity about behavioral expectations emerges, peer-led interventions have a positive impact and work synergistically with supervisor-led interventions to increase OCB. Using a mixed methods approach, we found support for our theory in a longitudinal quasifield experiment—which tested when supervisor- and peer-led interventions induced changes in OCB—and we explored the processes and challenges underlying such changes in a qualitative follow-up investigation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).

Elad N. Sherf, Michael Parke, Sofya Isaakyan (2020), Distinguishing Voice and Silence at Work: Unique Relationships with Perceived Impact, Psychological Safety, and Burnout, Academy of Management Journal, in press.

Abstract: Scholars continue to debate whether voice and silence are opposites or distinct constructs. This ambiguity has prevented meaningful theoretical advancements about employees’ voice and silence at work. We draw on the behavioral activation and behavioral inhibition systems perspective to provide a conceptual framework for the independence of voice and silence and explicate how two key antecedents—perceived impact and psychological safety—more strongly relate to voice and silence, respectively. We further differentiate voice and silence by identifying their unique effects on employee burnout. In Study 1, a meta-analysis, we demonstrate that voice and silence are independent (Mρ = -.15) and that perceived impact (psychological safety) relates more strongly to voice (silence) than to silence (voice). We also find that silence has a significantly stronger association with burnout compared to voice. In Study 2, we constructively replicate these findings in an interval-contingent panel study across six months. Taken together, this article shifts the conversation of whether voice and silence are distinct constructs to how they differ and why such differences matter.

Michael Parke, Justin M Weinhardt, Andrew Brodsky, Subrahmaniam Tangirala, Sanford E DeVoe (2018), When daily planning improves employee performance: The importance of planning type, engagement, and interruptions, Journal of Applied Psychology.

Abstract: Does planning for a particular workday help employees perform better than on other days they fail to plan? We investigate this question by identifying 2 distinct types of daily work planning to explain why and when planning improves employees’ daily performance. The first type is time management planning (TMP)—creating task lists, prioritizing tasks, and determining how and when to perform them. We propose that TMP enhances employees’ performance by increasing their work engagement, but that these positive effects are weakened when employees face many interruptions in their day. The second type is contingent planning (CP) in which employees anticipate possible interruptions in their work and plan for them. We propose that CP helps employees stay engaged and perform well despite frequent interruptions. We investigate these hypotheses using a 2-week experience-sampling study. Our findings indicate that TMP’s positive effects are conditioned upon the amount of interruptions, but CP has positive effects that are not influenced by the level of interruptions. Through this study, we help inform workers of the different planning methods they can use to increase their daily motivation and performance in dynamic work environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Michael Parke and Myeong-Gu Seo (2017), The role of affect climate in organizational effectiveness, Academy of Management Review, 42 (2), pp. 334-360.

Abstract: Past research widely demonstrates the importance of employee emotional experiences and processes for individual and small group outcomes. However, theory is lacking on how organizations systematically differ in their affective processes and how these impact important organizational outcomes. To address this problem, we use organizational climate theory to advance the construct of affect climate and provide a conceptual foundation for understanding its processes and effects in organizations. We propose that through various sources of climate, such as company practices, leaders, and routines, organizations can create environments that promote, among employees, (1) certain types of affective experiences or expressions, (2) specific uses of desirable affect for functional goals, and (3) particular ways to manage undesirable emotions and moods. We suggest that these three interrelated processes work together to form one of six unique organizational affect climate types. Further, we develop theory to explain how each affect climate type differentially impacts four strategic outcomes of organizational units: relationship, productivity, creativity, and reliability performance. Ultimately, our theory positions affect climate as another key performance differentiator for organizations, and it provides knowledge of the specific affect climate types that enable or inhibit distinct strategic priorities.

Michael Parke, Myeong-Gu Seo, Elad N. Sherf (2015), Regulating and facilitating: The role of emotional intelligence in maintaining and using positive affect for creativity, Journal of Applied Psychology, 100 (3), pp. 917-934.

Abstract: Although past research has identified the effects of emotional intelligence on numerous employee outcomes, the relationship between emotional intelligence and creativity has not been well established. We draw upon affective information processing theory to explain how two facets of emotional intelligence—emotion regulation and emotion facilitation—shape employee creativity. Specifically, we propose that emotion regulation ability enables employees to maintain higher positive affect (PA) when faced with unique knowledge processing requirements, while emotion facilitation ability enables employees to use their PA to enhance their creativity. We find support for our hypotheses using a multimethod (ability test, experience sampling, survey) and multisource (archival, self-reported, supervisor-reported) research design of early career managers across a wide range of jobs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Subrahmaniam Tangirala, Dishan Kamdar, Vijaya Venkataramani, Michael Parke (2013), Doing right versus getting ahead: The effects of duty and achievement orientations on employees’ voice, Journal of Applied Psychology, 98 (6), pp. 1040-1050.

Abstract: Using role theory as the overarching framework, we propose that employees’ voice has contrasting relationships with the traits of duty orientation, or employees’ dispositional sense of moral and ethical obligation at the workplace, and achievement orientation, or the extent of their ingrained personal ambition to get ahead professionally. Using data from 262 employees and their managers, we demonstrate that duty and achievement orientations are, respectively, positively and negatively related to voice through their impact on voice role conceptualization or the extent to which employees consider voice as part of their personal responsibility at work. Further, we delineate how employees’ beliefs about their efficacy to engage in voice and judgments about psychological safety in the organization can moderate these relationships. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and practice.