Browsing by Person "Fasbender, Ulrike"

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Anger: The misunderstood and mismanaged workplace emotion
(2025) Umbra, Robin; Fasbender, Ulrike
Anger is a familiar yet often misunderstood and mismanaged emotion in organizational settings, commonly viewed as a purely negative force to be mitigated. This dissertation challenges such reductive perspectives by proposing a comprehensive reconceptualization of workplace anger as a potentially constructive emotion. It argues that, when properly understood and managed, anger can enhance employee productivity and well-being. Through a systematic examination of the antecedents, characteristics, and outcomes of anger in the workplace, this work introduces new theoretical frameworks and empirically validated strategies for harnessing anger’s positive potential. The dissertation is structured into three main sections that collectively advance the understanding of workplace anger. Chapter 1 establishes a foundational understanding by developing and validating a new State-Trait Anger Scale tailored for organizational research. This scale addresses limitations in existing measures by incorporating advanced psychometric techniques and a cross-cultural lens, revealing that workplace anger is influenced by both individual traits and situational factors, with significant variations across cultural contexts. A meta-analytic review follows, synthesizing the antecedents, concomitants, and consequences of workplace anger. The findings indicate that anger often arises from perceived negative workplace events and blame appraisals, which can primarily lead to destabilizing reactions. Chapter 2 advances the theoretical framework by introducing a novel perspective that links workplace anger to morality and perceived moral discrepancies. Through a series of empirical studies—including experience sampling, vignette experiments, and egocentric network analysis—this research demonstrates that anger frequently emerges from perceived transgressions of moral expectations in workplace interactions. The dissertation presents the Interaction Discrepancy Model, an innovative theoretical framework that integrates cognitive, social, and moral dimensions to better understand the dynamics of anger. This model elucidates how anger, a latent, morally and hedonically non-valanced construct, can motivate change-oriented behaviors aimed at rectifying moral discrepancies. Chapter 3 builds on these theoretical insights by developing practical strategies for constructive anger management in organizations. The research contrasts traditional mitigation-oriented strategies—such as suppression/rumination, avoidance, diffusion, and seeking social support—with constructive, approach-oriented strategies like confrontation and assertion. It shows that when anger is channeled appropriately through these constructive strategies, it can enhance both individual productivity and well-being. The empirical evidence further supports these findings, demonstrating that change-oriented strategies for managing anger are more effective in achieving work-related goals and maintaining well-being than mitigation-oriented approaches. This dissertation makes significant contributions to the fields of organizational psychology and organizational behavior by reconceptualizing workplace anger as a complex construct with both constructive and destructive potential. It introduces an empirically robust anger measurement tool that enhances research precision by addressing gaps in existing scales and incorporating advanced psychometric techniques. It also provides a meta-analytic overview of anger dynamics, offering a comprehensive synthesis of the antecedents, concomitants, and outcomes of anger in workplace settings. Furthermore, the dissertation offers theoretical advancements in the study of anger and emotions more broadly, integrating cognitive, social, and moral dimensions to provide a deeper understanding of emotional dynamics in organizational contexts. Additionally, it presents evidence-based strategies for practitioners to harness anger’s constructive potential, demonstrating how appropriate management of anger can lead to enhanced productivity and well-being. By challenging the conventional view of anger, this research opens new avenues for theory, practice, and future research, suggesting that anger, when understood and managed appropriately, can be a positive force in organizations.
The double-edged dynamics of social comparisons: micro-level drivers of employees’ knowledge behaviors
(2025) Rinker, Laura; Fasbender, Ulrike
Amidst worldwide developments such as globalization, workforce aging, and the accelerating pace of advancements, organizations depend on effective knowledge flows to maintain competitive and enable innovation. Because interpersonal knowledge exchange is central to organizational knowledge management, organizations must gain an understanding of what drives individual knowledge behaviors. This cumulative dissertation offers a timely investigation of social comparisons as critical socio-cognitive underpinnings of such knowledge behaviors. The underlying research seeks to deepen the understanding of the micro-level drivers of knowledge behaviors by tracing them back to employees’ social comparison experiences. The first manuscript combines the identification-contrast model of social comparisons with informal workplace learning theorizing to examine the social-cognitive roots of workplace learning. Specifically, it considers how employees’ emotionally charged (un)favorability perceptions of their social comparisons guide their daily engagement in narrow and broad informal learning behaviors through reflection processes focusing on successes or failures. The hypothesized model is tested using a ten-day experience sampling study (NLevel 2 = 175 employees, NLevel 1 = 1,256 employee-day observations). Results demonstrate that the different types of reflection translate both favorable and unfavorable social comparison experiences into learning-oriented knowledge behaviors. The findings additionally stress the moderating influence of organizational support. The second manuscript joins social comparison and stress appraisal theories to investigate the ambivalent potential of upward comparisons as work stressors. Drawing from the challenge-hindrance stress framework, it probes a dual pathway model connecting upward social comparisons with different knowledge behaviors through an approach pathway (via challenge appraisal) and an avoidance pathway (via hindrance appraisal). The hypotheses are tested based on two experimental studies with employees (NStudy 1 = 206, NStudy 2 = 414). Finding no support for the approach pathway, the research identifies hindrance appraisals as a cognitive mechanism to explain how upward comparisons harm knowledge flows. However, these adverse effects are mitigated by an between the focal employee and the comparison target. The third manuscript integrates social comparison frameworks and affective events theory to examines the daily emotional complexities of social comparisons. It seeks to clarify how the multiple facets of daily social comparisons can lead to both facilitative and harmful behavioral reactions, probing the mediating effect of discrete social comparison-induced emotions. The findings from a ten-day experience sampling study (NLevel 2 = 155 employees, NLevel 1 = 960 employee-day observations) demonstrate that daily social comparisons are linked to knowledge behaviors via inspiration, envy, and sympathy. In addition, the results reveal the complementary effects of the two cardinal social comparison axes (i.e., horizontal and vertical). In conclusion, this dissertation establishes social comparisons as a multi-faceted socio-cognitive antecedent of employees’ knowledge behaviors, providing novel insights into cognitive and emotional underpinnings and multi-level boundary conditions. Offering a more holistic perspective of social comparisons and their impact on knowledge behaviors, this work opens avenues for scholars to develop a deeper understanding of the socio-cognitive roots of organizational behavior. Moreover, the findings equip practitioners with actionable insights to utilize social comparisons as micro-level drivers, instead of barriers, of knowledge flows.
The daily relations between workplace anger, coping strategies, work outcomes, and workplace affiliation
(2025) Umbra, Robin; Fasbender, Ulrike
This study examines the daily relations among workplace anger, coping strategies, work outcomes, and employee dispositions using a conceptual framework based on affective events theory and cognitive perspectives on emotions. A sample of 214 full-time employees took part in a two-week study, contributing 1,611 daily observations through an experience sampling approach. Contrary to the assumption that workplace anger always detrimentally relates to work outcomes, the results showed a nonsignificant relation between workplace anger and workplace resource depletion, as well as a positive link between workplace anger and goal achievement. These relations were dependent on the coping strategies used by employees in response to anger-inducing situations, as well as their attitudes toward workplace affiliation. These findings suggest the need to expand affective events theory to include coping strategies as a mediator between affective responses and work outcomes. They also highlight the importance of integrating employee-level factors into organizational research models.
Why do or don't older employees seek knowledge from younger colleagues? A relation–opportunity model to explain how age‐inclusive human resources practices foster older employees' knowledge seeking from younger colleagues
(2021) Fasbender, Ulrike; Gerpott, Fabiola H.
Knowledge‐related interactions between older and younger employees are crucial for business success. Although research has contributed much to understanding why older employees share knowledge with younger colleagues, little is known about older employees' motivation to seek knowledge. In this study, we answer the question of how age‐inclusive human resources (HR) practices can foster older employees' knowledge seeking from younger colleagues. Drawing on social learning theory that conceptualises learning‐oriented behaviour (i.e. knowledge seeking) as being inextricably linked to social context and person‐related factors, we develop a dual pathway relation–opportunity model outlining how age‐inclusive HR practices foster older employees' development striving, which, in turn, promotes knowledge seeking from younger colleagues. On the one hand, we propose a relation‐based pathway that identifies contact quality with younger colleagues as a socio‐emotional mechanism linking age‐inclusive HR practices with knowledge seeking via development striving. On the other hand, we suggest an opportunity‐based pathway that identifies older employees' future time perspective as a person‐related mechanism. We find support for our hypotheses in a sample of 502 older employees who participated in a three‐wave survey. We discuss theoretical implications and encourage scholars to further shift the conversation towards an inclusive perspective that overcomes stereotypical views of older employees.