PhD Defence: Exploring Co-worker Relationships

What determines social relationships in the work place? What are the key factors affecting these relationships? Eliza Byington answers these and other questions in her dissertation entitled <link doctoral-programme phd-in-management phd-projects detail>Exploring Co-worker Relationships: Antecedents and Dimensions of Interpersonal Fit, Co-worker Satisfaction, and Relational Models.

The dissertation starts by putting forward a new theory of person-person fit. Two factors are named as being key in determining the degree of co-worker satisfaction experienced by a certain employee towards another. These factors are warmth and competence. Preconditions for these factors, as well as their perception by individuals are analysed as part of the theory.

Byington follows on by further developing the construct of co-worker satisfaction, a term that is important in organisational behaviour research but still awaits substantial conceptual and methodological development. The next part of Eliza’s work considers the sources from which the experience of co-worker satisfaction can be derived.

A further section of the dissertation deals with co-worker relationships from the perspective of the Relational Models Theory (RMT). This model hypothesizes four types that interpersonal relationship can be divided into. Eliza rounds off her research by analysing the antecedence of factors such as personality characteristics and demographics with regard to the choice of certain relational models.

Eliza Byington defended her dissertation on Thursday, 10 October 2013. Her supervisor was Daan van Knippenberg, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Other members of the Doctoral Committee were Professor Alan Fiske (University of California, Los Angeles), Dr. Stefan Giessner  and Dr. Dirk van Dierendonck (both of Erasmus University).

About Eliza Byington

Eliza Byington’s research interests include individual differences, team dynamics, co-worker relationships and satisfaction, and what polynomial regression, machine learning, and Social Relations Modeling can reveal about the relationships between them. Her research on the IQ – job performance relationship and dysfunctional team members has appeared in Volume 30 and Volume 27 of Research in Organizational Behavior. Her work has also been presented at the annual meetings of the Academy of Management and included in the best paper proceedings. Currently, Eliza is a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the Australian School of Business at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Abstract of Exploring Co-worker Relationships: Antecedents and Dimensions of Interpersonal Fit, Co-worker Satisfaction, and Relational Models

Management scholarship has revealed the myriad ways in which relationships between co-workers impact individual, team, and organizational phenomena. However, our scientific understanding of co-worker relationships and what makes for satisfying connections with colleagues is still in its early days.

This dissertation helps advance our understanding by proposing new drivers of co-worker satisfaction, unpacking the nature of co-worker satisfaction itself, and examining the sources and antecedents of different types of co-worker relationships. Specifically, work suggests that fit between the desired degree of warmth and competence, and their provision by a co-worker will result in co-worker satisfaction. The factors that influence an individual’s desired degree of warmth and competence are considered, along with factors that influence perceptions of these resources in the interpersonal environment. Further, I empirically examine co-worker satisfaction as a phenomenon that a) individuals have a general tendency to experience across co-workers, b) individuals have a general tendency to evoke from their partners, and c) as a phenomenon that is relationally emergent – a unique response to a particular co-worker. Beyond empirically substantiating these aspects of co-worker satisfaction, personality predictors of each aspect are also identified. Finally, this dissertation examines the types of relationships that may exist between colleagues, and considers general tendencies to perceive and provoke relationship types across partners, as well as the emergence of relationship types that are partner-specific. Personality and gender predictors of general relationship tendencies and emergent relationship styles are also presented.

Photos: Chris Gorzeman / Capital Images