Illegitimate Tasks: Accumulating Evidence for a New Stressor Concept

INTRODUCTION: Task stressors typically refer to characteristics such as not having enough time or resources, ambiguous demands, or the like. We suggest the perceived lack of legitimacy as an additional feature of tasks as a source of stress. Tasks are “illegitimate” to the extent that it is perceived as improper to expect employees to execute them – not because of difficulties in executing them, but because of their content for a given person, time, and situation; they are illegitimate because a) they are not conforming to a specific occupational role, as in “non-nursing activities” (called unreasonable) or b) there is no legitimate need for them to exist (called unnecessary; Semmer et al., 2007). These features make illegitimate tasks a unique task-related stressor. The concept of illegitimate tasks grew from the “Stress-as-Offense-to-Self” theory (SOS; Semmer et al, 2007); it is conceptually related to role stress (Kahn et al., 1964; Beehr & Glazer, 2005) and the organizational justice tradition (Cropanzano et al., 2001; Greenberg, 2010). SOS argues that a threat to one’s self-image is at the core of many stressful experiences. Violating role expectations, illegitimate tasks can be regarded as a special case of role conflict. As roles shape identities, this violation is postulated to constitute a threat to one’s professional identity. Being assigned a task considered illegitimate is likely to be considered unfair. Lack of fairness, in turn, contains a message about one’s social standing, and thus, the self. However, the aspects discussed have not received much attention in the role stress or the justice/fairness tradition. OBJECTIVE: Illegitimate tasks are a rather recent concept that has to be established as a construct in its own right by showing that it is associated with well-being/strain while controlling for other stressors, most notably role conflict and lack of justice. The aim of the presentation is to present the evidence accumulated so far. METHODS AND RESULTS: We present several studies employing different designs, using different control variables, and testing associations with different criteria. Study 1 demonstrates associations of illegitimate tasks with self-esteem, feelings of resentment against one’s organization, and burnout, controlling for distributive justice, role conflict, and social stressors (i.e. tensions). Study 2 yielded comparable results, using the same outcome variables but controlling for distributive as well as procedural / interactional justice. Study 3 demonstrated associations between illegitimate tasks and feelings of stress, sleeping problems, and emotional exhaustion, controlling for demands, control, and social support among medical doctors. Study 4 showed that feeling appreciated by one’s superior acted as a mediator between illegitimate tasks and job satisfaction and resentments towards the military in Swiss military officers. Study 5 demonstrated an association of illegitimate tasks with counterproductive work behavior (Semmer et al. 2010). Studies 1 to 5 were cross-sectional. In Study 6, illegitimate demands predicted irritability and resentments towards one’s organization longitudinally. Study 7 also was longitudinal, focusing on intra-individual variation in multilevel modeling; occasion-specific illegitimate tasks predicted cortisol among those who judged their health as comparatively poor. Studies 1-3 and 6 used SEM, and measurement models that used unreasonable and unnecessary tasks as indicators (isolated parceling) yielded a good fit. IMPLICATIONS & CONCLUSIONS: These studies demonstrate that illegitimate tasks are a stressor in its own right that is worth studying. It illuminates the social meaning of job design, emphasizing the implications of tasks for the (professional) self, and thus combining aspects that are traditionally treated as separate, that is, social aspects and task characteristics. Practical implications are that supervisors and managers should be alerted to the social messages that may be contained in task assignments (cf. Semmer & Beehr, in press).

Applying prospect theory to predict new venture creation

Although prior research on new venture creation has identified several antecedents that differentiate entrepreneurs from non-entrepreneurs, scholars still have an incomplete understanding of the factors and decision processes that lead an individual to become an entrepreneur. By applying prospect theory, we introduce the reference point as an important antecedent of new venture creation. Testing our research model and hypotheses with entrepreneurs and employees, results show that entrepreneurs set more aspiring reference points and therefore find themselves more often in a perceived loss situation. Results are also robust when testing for entrepreneurial intention of business graduate students. According to prospect theory, the perceived loss triggers more risk-seeking behavior. Summing up, the reference point has a positive effect on new venture creation and differentiates entrepreneurs from nonentrepreneurs. We discuss theoretical and managerial implications of the findings and develop avenues for future research.

The Use of New Technology and Occupational Mobility: An Event History Analysis of the Swiss Labor Market

The investigation of the consequences of new technologies has a long standing tradition within economics. Particularly, labor economists are wondering how the introduction of new technologies, e.g. Personal Computers, have shaped labor markets. Former research has concentrated on the question of whether on-the-job use of PCs creates a wage bonus for employees. In this paper, we investigate whether the use of PCs increases employees’ probability of an upward shift in their employment status and whether it reduces the risk of involuntary labor market exits. We do so by applying event history analysis to the Swiss Labor Market Survey, a random sample of 3028 respondents, and by analyzing a Panel sub-sample of 650 respondents conducted recently in Switzerland. Our results show that on-the-job use of PCs was beneficial for employees in the past by increasing their probability of an upward shift by approximately 50%. The analysis also suggests that PC use reduces the risk and duration of unemployment. However, these latter results fail to reach statistical significance.

Psychological Ownership of Employees as a Mediator in the Justice - Affective Commitment Relationship

Numerous scholars have accumulated evidence on the positive effects that employees’ organizational justice perceptions exert on work-related outcomes such as affective commitment. However, research still lacks understanding of the underlying mechanisms connecting the two constructs. In this article we aim to narrow this gap by examining the concept of psychological ownership as a possible mediator between organizational justice perceptions and affective commitment. Investigating a sample of 619 employees, we find distributive justice to be positively related to psychological ownership, and observe psychological ownership as a full mediator of the distributive justice and affective commitment relationship. These insights offer a new explanation in understanding the justice-commitment connection, contributing to both organizational justice and psychological ownership literature and opening up ways for promising future research.

Psychological Ownership of Employees as a Mediator in the Justice - Affective Commitment Relationship

Numerous scholars have accumulated evidence on the positive effects that employees' organizational justice perceptions exert on work-related outcomes such as affective commitment. However, research still lacks understanding of the underlying mechanisms connecting the two constructs. In this article we aim to narrow this gap by examining the concept of psychological ownership as a possible mediator between organizational justice perceptions and affective commitment. Investigating a sample of 619 employees, we find distributive justice to be positively related to psychological ownership, and observe psychological ownership as a full mediator of the distributive justice and affective commitment relationship. These insights offer a new explanation in understanding the justice-commitment connection, contributing to both organizational justice and psychological ownership literature and opening up ways for promising future research