SummaryResearch on work aggression or anger has typically focused on supervisors and co-workers as the instigators of aggression; however, aggressive customers are also likely and may have unique consequences for the employee. We explore this phenomenon with a sample of 198 call center employees at two work sites. The employees reported that customer verbal aggression occurred 10 times a day, on average, though this varied by race and negative affectivity. Using LISREL, our data indicated that both the frequency and stress appraisal of customer aggression positively related to emotional exhaustion, and this burnout dimension mediated the relationship of stress appraisal with absences. Stress appraisal also influenced employees' emotion regulation strategies with their most recent hostile caller. Employees who felt more threatened by customer aggression used surface acting or vented emotions, while those who were less threatened used deep acting. Job autonomy helped explain who found these events more stressful, and implications of these results are discussed.

Although it is an explicitly dyadic approach to leadership, some leader-member exchange (LMX) research has been characterized by relatively low levels of agreement between leader and member judgments of the relationship. Using a combination of meta-analytic methods and primary data collection, the authors sought to explore several theoretically and methodologically meaningful factors that might account for lower levels of agreement. On the basis of data from 64 independent samples (N = 10,884 dyads), the authors found that overall agreement was moderate in nature (? = .37). In addition, they found that longer relationship tenure, affectively oriented relationship dimensions, and ad hoc sampling techniques showed the highest levels of agreement. Empirical results from 98 matched dyads revealed that the extent of LMX agreement increases as the length of relationship tenure and intensity of dyadic interaction increases. Implications for LMX theory and future empirical research are discussed.

Sensitivity of SD WG , CV WG , r WG(J) , r WG(J) * , and ICC to Systematic Nonresponse In multilevel theory testing, estimation of group-level properties (i.e., consensus and diversity) is often complicated by missing data. Researchers are left to draw inferences about group constructs (e.g., organizational climate and climate strength) from the responses of only a subset of group members. This study analyzes the biasing impact of random and nonrandom missingness patterns on within-group agreement and reliability (standard deviation, coefficient of variation, r WG(J) , r * WG(J) , AD M , a WG , and intraclass correlation) across a range of response rates, numbers of items, and systematic missing data mechanisms. Results demonstrate biases up to 20% over-or underestimation for common response rates found in organizational research. Correction formulae are presented, which enable assessment of the sensitivity of multilevel results to survey nonresponse.

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When measuring group-level psychological properties (e.g., organizational climate, leadership, team motivation), researchers typically aggregate individual perceptions to represent the group. L. R. James provided the groundbreaking insight that, in order to justify aggregating individual perceptions to represent a group-level property, one must first establish that there exist shared perceptions—or shared psychological meaning—within the group. Here we label and describe two distinct theoretical parameters that can both be used to define within-group agreement: (a) [Formula: see text] (i.e., a parameter that defines within-group agreement as Individual True-Score Consensus), which arises from the theoretical work of L. R. James and colleagues in the 1970s, and (b) [Formula: see text] (i.e., a parameter that treats within-group agreement as a Group True-Score Reliability Analog), which forms the theoretical basis for the [Formula: see text] index. We extend the work of L. R. James by offering a systematic comparison of different estimators of the two within-group agreement parameters ([Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text]). Recommendations are provided for estimating within-group agreement, to continue the legacy of justified measurement of group-level psychological properties.