Leadership & Organizational Behavior

Norm violations engender both negative reactions and perceptions of power from observers. We addressed this paradox by examining whether observers' tendency to grant power to norm followers versus norm violators is moderated by the observer's position in the hierarchy. Because norm violations threaten the status quo, we hypothesized that individuals higher in a hierarchy (high verticality) would be less likely to grant power to norm violators compared to individuals lower in the hierarchy (low verticality).

In this commentary, we reflect on several important issues and questions provoked by Murphy and Dweck's target article. First, we define a mindset as a frame of mind that affects the selection, encoding, and retrieval of information as well as the types of evaluations and responses an individual gives. As such, we suggest that while studying fixed versus growth mindsets is important, it is critical to explore and understand how a variety of mindsets affect consumer behavior, including regulatory focus, construal level, implementation versus deliberation, and power.

Perspective taking is a crucial leadership skill, yet Galinsky and Schweitzer contend that it becomes more difficult the higher you rise in an organization. Gaining perspective helps to motivate others, communicate more clearly, and navigate difficult or tense situations. Their article includes research they conducted with psychologists at the University of Iowa, the University of California-Los Angeles, and New York University, as well as an anecdote about President John F. Kennedy and the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.

Firms often use both objective/verifiable and subjective/non-verifiable performance measures to provide employees with effort incentives. We study a principal/two-agent model in which an objective team-based performance measure and subjective individual performance measures are available for contracting. A problem with tying rewards to subjective measures is that the principal may have incentives to understate the realization of those measures in order to reduce compensation. We compare two mechanisms for overcoming this credibility problem: bonus pools and reputation.

Prior research has shown that an individual's hormonal profile can influence the individual's social standing within a group. We introduce a different construct — a collective hormonal profile — which describes a group's hormonal make-up. We test whether a group's collective hormonal profile is related to its performance. Analysis of 370 individuals randomly assigned to work in 74 groups of three to six individuals revealed that group-level concentrations of testosterone and cortisol interact to predict a group's standing across groups.

Past research finds foreign visitors who accommodate their behavior to local norms to a moderate degree are appreciated more than those who accommodate little, but more extreme accommodation does not always evoke positive evaluations. To understand why high accommodation is appreciated more in some contexts than others, we investigate the role of diversity ideologies, proposing that differing responses follow from multiculturalism (that cultural traditions are unique, separate legacies) versus polyculturalism (that cultures are interacting systems which contribute to each other).