Research Experience and Interests

The 1990s saw issues of employee health and well-being attaining prominence among organizational researchers. In more recent years there has been a realization that organizational findings and models developed in North America don’t necessarily transport overseas. My research interests have linked the domains of employee well-being with cross-cultural/cross-national issues. More specifically, my research efforts have been focused on 1) job stress; 2) job stress in cross-cultural settings; and 3) cross-cultural measurement equivalence/invariance (ME/I). Research in Job Stress. Most job stress studies have used self-report data. However, it is necessary to go beyond self-reports to better link the work environment to strain. Job stress data can be collected from multiple sources, e.g., peer-reports, supervisor-reports, rater-reports, and job databases. To gain a greater insight into the connections between the objective work environment and employees’ job strains, this study added job stress data from the O*NET database. We found that an O*NET (lack of) job autonomy was related to physical and behavioral strains. There is something in the objective environment that plays a role in employees’ physical well-being. This study is published on the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology. Research in Cross-Cultural Job Stress. It is important to understand the context of the American scene compared with those of other countries. In this project, we examined the similarities and difference of job stressors and strains experienced by American and Chinese employees. This study used both quantitative and qualitative approaches to collect and analyze job stress data, making it a unique contribution to occupational stress area. This study is published on the Journal of Organizational Behavior. Research in Cross-Cultural Measurement Equivalence/Invariance (ME/I). In this study, we tested ME/I of the German Job Satisfaction Survey (GJSS) using structural equation modeling methodology. The effects of language and culture on measurement equivalence were examined. A culture distance hypothesis, based on S. H. Schwartz’s (1999) theory, was tested with 4 cultural groups: West Europe, English speaking, Latin America, and Far East. Findings indicated the robustness of the GJSS in terms of measurement equivalence across countries. The survey maintained high transportability across countries speaking the same language and countries sharing similar cultural backgrounds. Consistent with Schwartz’s model, a cultural distance effect on scale transportability among scales used with maximally dissimilar cultures was also detected. This project resulted in a publication on the Journal of Applied Psychology.