IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks :: Browsing by Author "Williams, Jane"

Browsing by Author "Williams, Jane"

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A Pilot Study Of A Mental Health Education Program (AMUSE) For Restaurant Employees
(2024-08) Muth, A. J.; Salyers, Michelle; Cyders, Melissa; Williams, Jane; Rand, Kevin
Restaurant workers in the United States (US) face multiple stressors and mental health concerns. Additionally, there are indications that restaurant workers may hold stigmatizing mental health beliefs and are less likely to seek help for mental health concerns. Despite this, there have been no interventions assessed that target restaurant workers’ mental health, well-being, and mental health stigma. The purpose of this study is to provide an initial evaluation of one such intervention, a mental health education course (AMUSE) developed by a restaurant nonprofit (CHOW) focused on mental health in the restaurant industry. As an initial pilot study, we assessed the feasibility and acceptability of AMUSE, and sought to identify potential outcomes, and explore potential moderators and confounds. A combination of quantitative (pre and post measures) and qualitative (follow-up interviews) methods were utilized to collect data. Initial indications show that AMUSE is feasible to deliver and well accepted by those who have taken it. Additionally, participants demonstrated positive changes in help-seeking and self-efficacy after completing the course. Positive changes appeared to be moderated by characteristics of participants’ restaurant work. Despite our expectations, no significant changes were observed for stigma, motivation, social support, well-being, psychological distress, or stress. Future directions and recommendations for AMUSE were discussed based on these findings
Are Black, Male Leaders Expected to Help Other Black Americans in the Workplace?
(2024-08) Yan, Sisley; Williams, Jane; Ashburn-Nardo, Leslie; Derricks, Veronica
Experimental vignette methodology was utilized to investigate the relationships between leader group prototypicality, identity denial, and three leader outcomes (i.e., charisma, trust, and endorsement). Participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental conditions: general advocacy (control), ingroup advocacy, and ingroup anti-advocacy. We hypothesized that a Black, male target displaying ingroup advocacy behaviors would be perceived most favorably while a Black, male target displaying ingroup anti-advocacy behaviors would be perceived most poorly. Furthermore, we predicted that identity denial, measured via perceived racial identification, would serve as a mediator. Overall, we found support for our hypotheses, with the exception being that there were no significant differences in leader outcome ratings when comparing the general advocacy condition to the ingroup advocacy condition, even despite the significant mediation throughout all conditions. In summary, Black Americans on average do not expect a Black, male leader to help other Black employees, but he is expected to not devalue or trivialize his Black identity. Doing so would lead to identity denial and less positive evaluations. In contrast, standing in solidarity with the ingroup increases the leader’s perceived racial identification the most and this in turn helps to bolster leader outcomes. Although future research should test climate change as a valid control condition, our pattern of findings suggests that environmental sustainability should be a safe topic for a Black, male leader to advocate for if he wishes to remain more neutral on matters pertaining to race.
Can Women Faculty Say No? The Gendered Expectation of Mentorship
(2021-11) Hall, Deidre Yvonne; Ashburn-Nardo, Leslie; Pietri, Evava; Williams, Jane
Women in academia tend to take on the caretaker role in their departments by fulfilling most of the less promotable service work like mentoring. The perceived fit between this service and the communal stereotype of women creates expectations that women should take on these roles, which can lead to backlash if women violate these expectations. This study investigates gendered expectations in academia by evaluating whether women faculty experience more backlash for declining a student’s mentorship request than their male counterparts. Participants read a profile of a faculty member (male or female) and an email exchange between that faculty member and a student requesting mentorship. The faculty member either declined or accepted the request and participants rated the faculty member on interpersonal measures. Results indicated that men and women faculty were both rated more negatively by students when they declined the request, suggesting that women can say no to mentoring without the burden of gendered backlash. Given that some predicted effects approached significance, it is important to understand other factors that may impact perceptions, including whether the reason for declining, field of study (i.e., STEM), and the gender of student may impact the extent of backlash. This work furthers our understanding of whether women faculty can say no to service and focus on more promotable tasks without hurting their reputations.
COVID CV: A System for Creating Holistic Academic CVs during a Global Pandemic
(IEEE, 2021-05) Raja, Umesh; Chowdhury, Nahida Sultana; Raje, Rajeev R.; Wheeler, Rachel; Williams, Jane; Ganci, Aaron; Computer and Information Science, School of Science
The effects of the Covid pandemic have been, similar to the population at-large, unequal on academicians - some groups have been more susceptible than others. Traditional CVs are inadequate to highlight these imbalances. CovidCV is a framework for academicians that allows them to document their life in a holistic way during the pandemic. It creates a color-coded CV from the user's data entries documenting the work and home life and categorizing corresponding events as good or bad. It, thus, provides a visual representation of an academician's life during the current pandemic. The user can mark any event as major or minor indicating the impact of the event on their life. The CovidCV prototypical system is developed using a three tier architecture. The first tier, the front-end, is a user interface layer that is a web application. This prototype has a back-end layer consisting of two tiers which are responsible for handling the business logic and the data management respectively. The CovidCV system design is described in this paper. A preliminary experimentation with the prototype highlights the usefulness of CovidCV.
Development and Testing of an Intervention to Improve Group Decision-Making Effectiveness in a Hidden Profile Scenario
(2010-04-12T17:47:41Z) Donovan, Angela S.; Devine, Dennis J. (Dennis John); Williams, Jane; Bond, Gary R.
Research has repeatedly shown that when groups whose members have varying expertise are combined to make a decision, they tend to discuss common information at a higher rate than unique information, hindering their ability to make the best decision. In response to these findings and the fact that organizations are increasingly using groups rather than individuals to make important decisions, a new intervention was developed based on past research to help groups make better decisions and discuss more unique information. The intervention was developed through three phases to determine which techniques were most powerful. The formal evaluation of the intervention was tested on a total of 228 undergraduate students (44 groups of four and 52 individuals). Groups were randomized into an experimental condition, receiving the intervention, or a control condition. Groups participated in a hidden profile business simulation acting as the top management team of a fictional Hollywood movie studio. Information was distributed so that there was common and unique information for each group. Groups given the intervention made significantly better decisions, shared more unique information, and performed significantly better than individuals. Unique information sharing was positively related to performance and the unique information given to one group member mediated the relationship between the condition and performance. In addition, this study revealed that within the inventory of unique information, different types of information may be more critical in reaching the best possible decision than others. Future research aims and implications are discussed.
Dress to Repress: Exploring How Dress Codes & Norms Harm Black Women in the Workplace
(2024-06) Beecham, Jasmine Grace; Derricks, Veronica; Pietri, Evava S.; Johnson, India; Williams, Jane; Dumortier, Jerome
Dress codes were originally based on safety practices but have evolved into standards around perceived professionalism that uphold White masculine norms in the workplace. At the crossroads of White male standards is Black women’s hairstyling habits. While some Black women may engage in impression management and straighten their hair to fit in more, others may not feel authentic with straightened hair and could choose to deliberately express their identity through their hairstyle. Across two studies, I examine whether dress codes and norms targeting natural Black hairstyling habits lead to threats to authenticity and identity safety, in turn leading to negative organizational outcomes. A measure of one’s desire to deliberately express identity (general and Black) through hair was included to examine potential moderation. In Study 1, participants were randomly assigned to one of three hypothetical dress code conditions – a restrictive dress code, inclusive dress code, or a control of general company values with no dress information. Hypotheses were almost fully supported in Study 1, with restrictive dress codes having the lowest identity safety and authenticity outcomes and inclusive having the highest. The contrast between restrictive vs inclusive dress codes and the subsequent authenticity outcome was moderated by both Hair Identity & Hair Expression Importance. Hair Expression Importance also moderated the relationship between restrictive vs inclusive dress codes and identity threat. Lower feelings of authenticity and identity safety both led to lower feelings of organizational attraction (for all moderator models). In Study 2, participants all saw the same inclusive dress code for the company and were then randomly assigned to one of three dress norms – unaccepting, accepting, or an unknown norms control. Unaccepting dress norms led to the lowest feelings of authenticity and identity safety and accepting dress norms led to the highest. Unlike in Study 1, neither hair scale moderated the relationship between the dress norms contrasts and authenticity. Unexpectedly, Hair Expression Importance partially moderated the relationship between dress norms and identity threat. Lower feelings of authenticity once again led to lower organizational attraction, but identity safety did not act as a significant predictor (for all moderator models).
The Effect of Resume Whitening on African Americans Ingroup Members' Perceived Likability, Hireability, Future Encounters, and Emotional Reactions: The Role of Perceived Racial Identity
(2021-03) Abdul Karim, Muhammad Fazuan; Ashburn-Nardo, Leslie; Pietri, Evava; Williams, Jane
Members of stigmatized racial groups who realize that they might face employment discrimination may engage in résumé whitening, whereby they downplay the role of their group identity in their résumés. Although it has been documented that this approach helps members of stigmatized groups, such as Black American and Asian American individuals, move forward in their pursuit of employment (Kang, DeCelles, Tilcsik, & Jun, 2016), little is known about how their ingroup members would perceive this behavior. The current study explores the potential backlash coming from their own ingroup members when Black targets engage in résumé whitening.
Effects of Feedback Seeking Behavior on Supervisor Perceptions: Examining the Interaction of Seeking Frequency With Supervisor Implicit Person Theory and Feedback Orientation
(2024-05) Schneider, Jacob; Williams, Jane; Stockdale, Margaret; Derricks, Veronica
Feedback seeking is an essential process for employees to improve performance and clarify expectations (Renn & Fedor, 2001; Ashford & Tsui, 199). Certain factors such as ego and image defense limit feedback seeking in the workplace due to avoidance of negative outcomes (Ashford & Cummings, 1983), however we know less about whether feedback seeking does lead to actual negative outcomes for the employee (Ashford, De Stobbeleir, & Nujella, 2016). The current study examines the existence of actual costs to the seeker for seeking more frequently and adds to the literature by examining whether supervisor individual differences are related to perceptions of seeking behavior, namely implicit person theory and feedback orientation. With a sample of 275 adult supervisors recruited from Mturk, the current study measured participants on these individual differences and assessed perceptions of a fictional employee who either sought feedback with high or low frequency. The employee was rated on a selection of performance potential outcomes related to promotability, expectations of future performance, willingness to mentor, and candidacy for career development opportunities. Findings suggest there is a cost associated with seeking feedback at a higher frequency which manifests as a decrease in perceptions of confidence in the employee. Additionally, this perception of lower confidence from seeking feedback could contribute to more significant downstream outcomes such as expectations of lower quality performance and lower likelihood of being promoted. By understanding more about individuals’ perceptions of feedback seeking behavior, we may train supervisors how to be more receptive of different feedback seeking behavior. This could assist in fostering a performance improvement environment that ultimately improves organizational performance.
Employee and Supervisor (Mis)Matching IPT and Performance Management Consequences
(2022-05) Findley, Mya; Williams, Jane; Stockdale, Margaret; Derricks, Veronica
Although performance management (PM) is a common, vital system used in most organizations, both supervisors and employees have been routinely disappointed with PM experiences, despite extensive research. Recent studies have identified certain individual differences that impact PM effectiveness. Specifically, the inclination to believe that one’s core traits are either malleable (an incremental mindset; high IPT) or fixed (an entity mindset; low IPT), a concept called "implicit person theory" (IPT), predicts many important supervisor behaviors that subsequently influence employee’s behaviors and attitudes. Furthermore, there is substantial support indicating that employee IPT also predicts their own performance, behaviors, and attitudes. This research shows the many benefits of having a high IPT over a low IPT. In this study, I examined the matching or mismatching IPT between employees and their respective supervisors and whether this differentially predicts employee attitudes that relate to PM. Responses were gathered from 211 participants. In an initial survey, participants were asked to report their IPT and their perceptions of their supervisor’s IPT. Two days later, participants reported their perceptions of procedural justice, satisfaction with PM, and motivation to improve performance. Employee perceptions of procedural justice and satisfaction were combined into a single measure measuring general affective reactions to PM, after an exploratory factor analysis revealed the two outcomes loaded onto a single factor. PROCESS Model 1 was used to examine the central hypothesis. I found significant interactions of employee and supervisor IPT on motivation and affective reactions to PM. The relationship between employee IPT and motivation was positive and strongest when supervisors had a high IPT, and was positive but weaker when supervisors had a low IPT. Interestingly, the relationship between employee IPT and affective reactions was negative when supervisors had a low IPT, such that low IPT employees reported better affective reactions to PM when they perceived their supervisors to have a low IPT rather than a high IPT. This research contributes to the literature by demonstrating the nuances of how IPT predicts employee outcomes. Organizations can benefit from this research by increasing awareness of one’s IPT and implementing cultural changes alongside interventions to increase favorable outcomes.
An Examination of Supervisors' Implicit Person Theory and the Supervisor-Employee Relationship
(2022-12) Chavez, Emily K.; Williams, Jane; Stockdale, Peggy; Porter, Christopher O.L.H.
Previous research has established that supervisor’s play an important role in conveying performance management strategies and influencing an employee’s job experience. Notably, there has been a growing area of research of how Implicit Person Theory (IPT) can contribute to supervisors’ coaching and management styles. Research within the more recent years has shown that IPT has indirect effects on the employee experience. The current study expands upon both IPT and performance management literature, by examining how an employee perceives their Supervisor’s IPT, their supervisor’s coaching style of support for developmental opportunities, and the employee’s related job outcomes of: Turnover Intentions, Job Satisfaction, and Satisfaction with Supervisor. Results from 388 men and women in various industries and organizations suggest that Perceived Supervisor IPT is related to developmental opportunities within the workplace. Additionally, we found support for Supervisor IPT being indirectly related to employees’ Turnover Intentions, Job Satisfaction, and Satisfaction with Supervisor via Perceived Developmental Opportunities. When adding Employee IPT to our mediated model, we only found marginally significant support for employees’ Satisfaction with Supervisor. Additionally, we controlled for Leader Member Exchange (LMX) within our moderated mediation model and found non- significant interactions on the indirect path of Perceived Developmental Opportunities on all three employee outcomes and obtained non-significant mediations nested within our greater model. Within our exploratory analyses we found evidence of IPT interaction between an employee and supervisor predicting LMX, Turnover Intentions, and Job Satisfaction. Ultimately, this research contributes to performance management, IPT, and LMX research by providing evidence of how a developmental coaching style of providing opportunities to employees can influence the employees’ job experience and is related to their perceptions of their leader.

Browsing by Author "Williams, Jane"

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