IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/inm/ororsc/v24y2013i6p1618-1639.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Social Information Processing Perspective of Coworker Influence on a Focal Employee

Author

Listed:
  • Zhijun Chen

    (Department of Human Resource Management, School of International Business Administration, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, 200433 Shanghai, People’s Republic of China)

  • Riki Takeuchi

    (Department of Management, School of Business and Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong)

  • Cass Shum

    (Department of Management, School of Business and Management, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong)

Abstract

Acritical omission in the coworker influence literature is how a coworker influences a closely related (focal) employee’s job performance behaviors and whether this influence is contingent on that coworker’s own behaviors. By integrating social information processing and social cognitive theories with social exchange and role theories, we hypothesize that there are, at least, three distinct types of coworker dyadic influence. Accordingly, we developed and tested a moderated mediation model to explicate such influence. Two multisource, field-design studies conducted in Hong Kong support the modeled relationships in that employee role ambiguity partially mediated the relationships between coworker–employee exchange and two types of employee job performance behaviors—task performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Furthermore, coworker OCB fostered employee job performance behavior both directly and interactively, acting as a moderator to weaken the relationships between employee role ambiguity and the two types of job performance behaviors.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhijun Chen & Riki Takeuchi & Cass Shum, 2013. "A Social Information Processing Perspective of Coworker Influence on a Focal Employee," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(6), pages 1618-1639, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:24:y:2013:i:6:p:1618-1639
    DOI: 10.1287/orsc.2013.0820
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2013.0820
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1287/orsc.2013.0820?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexandre Mas & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Peers at Work," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(1), pages 112-145, March.
    2. Donald W. K. Andrews & Moshe Buchinsky, 2000. "A Three-Step Method for Choosing the Number of Bootstrap Repetitions," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 68(1), pages 23-52, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Huakang Liang & Ken-Yu Lin & Shoujian Zhang, 2018. "Understanding the Social Contagion Effect of Safety Violations within a Construction Crew: A Hybrid Approach Using System Dynamics and Agent-Based Modeling," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(12), pages 1-27, November.
    2. Hu, Wenan & Luo, Jinlian & Chen, Zhijun & Zhong, Jing, 2020. "Ambidextrous leaders helping newcomers get on board: Achieving adjustment and proaction through distinct pathways," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 406-414.
    3. Yong-Sun Chang & Jian Hui Guo & Joel M. Evans, 2023. "Flexible but stable: the mediated influence of an organization’s culture on performance," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(1), pages 463-492, February.
    4. Kelly Z. Peng & Zhijun Chen & Iris D. Zhang & Jinsong Li, 2021. "Unwilling to leave the good Samaritans: How peer interpersonal-oriented citizenship behaviors retains “me”," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(2), pages 669-685, June.
    5. Mert Unur & Guzide Atai & Emel Capkiner & Huseyin Arasli, 2022. "Can Safety Leadership Be an Antidote in the COVID-19 Fear of Job Insecurity and the Work Engagement Relationship in the Norwegian Service Industry? A Moderated-Mediation Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-16, September.
    6. Thomas W. H. Ng & Lorenzo Lucianetti & Dennis Y. Hsu & Frederick H. K. Yim & Kelly L. Sorensen, 2021. "You Speak, I Speak: The Social‐Cognitive Mechanisms of Voice Contagion," Journal of Management Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(6), pages 1569-1608, September.
    7. Yuan-Fang Zhan & Li-Rong Long & Kong Zhou & Hai-Jiang Wang, 2023. "Feeling obliged or happy to be a good soldier? Employee cognitive and affective reactions to receiving reactive and proactive help," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 37-57, March.
    8. Yiming Wang & Yuhua Xie & Mingwei Liu & Yongxing Guo & Duojun He, 2024. "Silent Majority: How Employees’ Perceptions of Corporate Hypocrisy are Related to their Silence," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 195(2), pages 315-334, November.
    9. ten Brummelhuis, Lieke L. & Johns, Gary & Lyons, Brent J. & ter Hoeven, Claartje L., 2016. "Why and when do employees imitate the absenteeism of co-workers?," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 16-30.
    10. Ahsan Ali & Hongwei Wang & Janet A. Boekhorst, 2023. "A moderated mediation examination of shared leadership and team creativity: a social information processing perspective," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 40(1), pages 295-327, March.
    11. Guohua He & Xinnian Zheng & Wenpu Li & Ling Tan & Siying Chen & Yifan He, 2024. "The Mixed Blessing of Leaders’ Artificial Intelligence (AI)-oriented Change Behavior: Implications for Employee Job Performance and Unethical Behavior," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 19(2), pages 469-497, April.
    12. Yang, Inju & Kelly, Aidan, 2016. "The positive outcomes of ‘Socially Sharing Negative Emotions’ in workteams: A conceptual exploration," European Management Journal, Elsevier, vol. 34(2), pages 172-181.
    13. Nguyen, Long Thang Van & Lu, Vinh Nhat & Hill, Sally Rao & Conduit, Jodie, 2019. "The mediating role of brand knowledge on employees’ brand citizenship behaviour: Does organizational tenure matter?," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 169-178.
    14. Zhe Zhang & Juan Wang & Ming Jia, 2022. "Multilevel Examination of How and When Socially Responsible Human Resource Management Improves the Well-Being of Employees," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 55-71, February.
    15. Leni Chen & Xu Huang & Jian-min Sun & Yuyan Zheng & Les Graham & Judy Jiang, 2024. "The virtue of a controlling leadership style: Authoritarian leadership, work stressors, and leader power distance orientation," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 41(2), pages 507-547, June.
    16. Ji, Yueting & Huang, Qianyao & Liu, Haiyang & Phillips, Caleb, 2021. "Weight bias 2.0: the effect of perceived weight change on performance evaluation and the moderating role of anti-fat bias," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 111589, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    17. Huakang Liang & Ken-Yu Lin & Shoujian Zhang & Yikun Su, 2018. "The Impact of Coworkers’ Safety Violations on an Individual Worker: A Social Contagion Effect within the Construction Crew," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-21, April.
    18. Lei Qi & Zhiqiang Pang & Yuping Xu & Bing Liu, 2024. "Investigating the relationship between green human resource management and employees' environmental behavior," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 31(5), pages 4569-4580, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Amrei Lahno & Marta Serra-Garcia, 2015. "Peer effects in risk taking: Envy or conformity?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 50(1), pages 73-95, February.
    2. Henryk Gurgul & Łukasz Lach, 2011. "The impact of regional disparities on economic growth," Operations Research and Decisions, Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, Faculty of Management, vol. 21(2), pages 17-43.
    3. Joachim Inkmann, 2000. "Finite Sample Properties of One-Step, Two-Step and Bootstrap Empirical Likelihood Approaches to Efficient GMM Estimation," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0332, Econometric Society.
    4. ,, 2009. "Monopolistic group design with peer effects," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 4(1), March.
    5. Temel, Tugrul T., 2001. "A Nonparametric Hypothesis Test Via The Bootstrap Resampling," 2001 Annual meeting, August 5-8, Chicago, IL 20600, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    6. Benjamin Balsmeier & Bernd Frick & Michael Hickfang, 2019. "The impact of skilled immigrants on their local teammates’ performance," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2), pages 97-103, January.
    7. Bet Caeyers, 2014. "Peer effects in development programme awareness of vulnerable groups in rural Tanzania," CSAE Working Paper Series 2014-11, Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford.
    8. Jones, Todd R. & Kofoed, Michael S., 2020. "Do peers influence occupational preferences? Evidence from randomly-assigned peer groups at West Point," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 184(C).
    9. Stefan, Matthias & Huber, Jürgen & Kirchler, Michael & Sutter, Matthias & Walzl, Markus, 2023. "Monetary and social incentives in multi-tasking: The ranking substitution effect," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 156(C).
    10. Emek Basker, 2012. "Raising the Barcode Scanner: Technology and Productivity in the Retail Sector," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 1-27, July.
    11. Desai, Mihir A. & Foley, C. Fritz & Hines, James R. Jr., 2001. "Repatriation Taxes and Dividend Distortions," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 54(4), pages 829-851, December.
    12. Jasmin Kantarevic & Boris Kralj, 2016. "Physician Payment Contracts in the Presence of Moral Hazard and Adverse Selection: The Theory and Its Application in Ontario," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(10), pages 1326-1340, October.
    13. Graff, Frederik & Grund, Christian & Harbring, Christine, 2021. "Competing on the Holodeck - The effect of virtual peers and heterogeneity in dynamic tournaments," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    14. Patricia Funk, 2012. "How accurate are surveyed preferences for public policies? Evidence from a unique institutional setup," Economics Working Papers 1334, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Nov 2013.
    15. Julie Beugnot & Bernard Fortin & Guy Lacroix & Marie Claire Villeval, 2013. "Social Networks and Peer Effects at Work," Cahiers de recherche 1320, CIRPEE.
    16. Hope, Ole-Kristian & Su, Xijiang, 2021. "Peer-level analyst transitions," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 70(C).
    17. James B. Bushnell & Catherine Wolfram, 2009. "The Guy at the Controls: Labor Quality and Power Plant Efficiency," NBER Chapters, in: International Differences in the Business Practices and Productivity of Firms, pages 79-102, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Sacchetti, Silvia & Tortia, Ermanno, 2012. "The internal and external governance of cooperatives: the effective membership and consistency of value," AICCON Working Papers 111-2012, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    19. Mirko Kremer & Francis de Véricourt, 2022. "Mismanaging diagnostic accuracy under congestion," ESMT Research Working Papers ESMT-22-01, ESMT European School of Management and Technology.
    20. Brülisauer, Marcel & Goette, Lorenz & Jiang, Zhengyi & Schmitz, Jan & Schubert, Renate, 2020. "Appliance-specific feedback and social comparisons: Evidence from a field experiment on energy conservation," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:inm:ororsc:v:24:y:2013:i:6:p:1618-1639. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Asher (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/inforea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.