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Theoretical and empirical efforts focusing on the interplay between work context and managerial role requirements have been conspicuously absent in the scholarly literature. This paucity exists despite over 60 years of research concerning the requirements of managerial work and with the rather universal recognition that work context meaningfully shapes organizational behavior. The authors developed a theoretical model linking different types of role requirements to different forms of work context. They empirically tested this framework with a nationally representative sample of 8,633 incumbents spanning 52 managerial occupations. Findings from hierarchical linear modeling analyses demonstrated that discrete forms of context (task, social, and physical) exert significant and predictable effects on managerial role requirements.

Although role theory has long described how expectations shape role behavior, little empirical research has examined differences among work role requirements and how features of the discrete occupational context may influence the extent to which role expectations are shared among role holders. The authors examined consensus in work role requirements from a sample of over 20,000 incumbents across 98 occupations. They found that consensus systematically decreased as work role requirements ranged from molecular tasks to responsibilities to molar traits. In addition, they found that consensus in these work role requirements was significantly influenced by the amount of interdependence, autonomy, and routinization present in the surrounding task and social contexts.

SummaryDespite nearly 100 years of scientific study, comparatively little attention has been given to articulating how the broader occupational and organizational context might impact work design. We seek to address this gap by discussing how aspects of the occupational and organizational context can constrain or enable the emergence of different work design features as well as influence the relationships between work design features and various outcomes. We highlight how different forms of context might impact work design and suggest that this is an important and potentially fruitful area for future work design research and theory.

We examined the influences of different facets of psychological collectivism (Preference, Reliance, Concern, Norm Acceptance, and Goal Priority) on team functioning at 3 different performance depictions: initial team performance, end-state team performance, and team performance change over time. We also tested the extent to which team-member exchange moderated the relationships between facets of psychological collectivism and performance change over time. Results from multilevel growth modeling of 66 teams (N = 264) engaged in a business simulation revealed differential effects across facets of psychological collectivism and across different performance measurements. Whereas facets concerned with affiliation (Preference and Concern) were positively related to initial team performance, reliance was negatively related to initial team performance. Goal Priority was a strong predictor of end-state performance. Team-member exchange moderated the relationship between performance change and 3 of the 5 facets of psychological collectivism (Preference, Reliance, Norm Acceptance). Implications for team composition and team training are discussed.