skip to: page content | links on this page | site navigation | footer (site information)

Stephen E. Humphrey, Ph.D.

Research

Background

My research has focused primarily on answering two questions:

How do you make a great team?
– and –
How do you make a team great?

These two questions capture the essence of what I am passionate about in Organizational Behavior. The first question gets at issues of the “bottom-up” formative design of teams. That is, if one wants to build a successful team from scratch, what are the issues that are most important? It is through this lens that I have addressed topics such as the “seeding” of teams (Humphrey, Hollenbeck, Meyer, & Ilgen, 2007), putting the best members into the most strategically core roles (Humphrey, Morgeson, & Mannor, 2009), configuring the reward structure in a team (Aime, Meyer, & Humphrey, 2010; Beersma, Hollenbeck, Humphrey, Moon, Conlon, & Ilgen, 2003), structuring the team to capitalize on different beliefs and opinions (Homan et al., 2008; Moon, Conlon, Humphrey, Quiqley, Devers, & Nowakowski, 2003), and designing work to improve motivational and social processes (Harrison & Humphrey, 2010; Humphrey, Nahrgang, & Morgeson, 2007; Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006).

The second question deals with the “top-down” management of existing teams. That is, if we look at existing teams embedded in time, how does this temporal context affect a team's functioning? This question deals with such issues as member and role change (Moon, Hollenbeck, Humphrey, Ilgen, West, Ellis, & Porter, 2004), changes in rewards (Johnson, Hollenbeck, Humphrey, Ilgen, Jundt, & Meyer, 2006), and the progression towards an endpoint (Humphrey, Moon, Conlon, & Hoffman, 2004; Jensen, Conlon, Humphrey, & Moon, 2011).

Across both questions, a focus on the importance of roles in teams has become fundamental to my research; although roles have been central to sociological theories and have been an instrumental part in forming several individual- and team-level theories in Organizational Behavior, current theoretical models rarely address how roles influence individual action. Thus, my research increasingly incorporates a role-oriented view. Moreover, I have endeavored to test my research questions in field, lab, and archival populations, using a variety of statistical methods including Hierarchical Linear Modeling and meta-analytic techniques.

Journal Publications (back to top)


Conlon, D. E., Tinsley, C. H., Humphrey, S. E., & Ellis, A. P. J. (in press). Is it sometimes better to receive than to give? Preferences for receiver roles over proposer roles in consumer behavior ultimatums. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

Wagner, J. A. III, Humphrey, S. E., Meyer, C. J., & Hollenbeck, J. R. (in press). Individualism-collectivism and team member performance: Another look. Journal of Organizational Behavior.

Summers, J. K., Humphrey, S. E., & Ferris, G. R. (2012). Team member change, flux in coordination, and performance: Effects of strategic core roles, information transfer, and cognitive ability. Academy of Management Journal, 55, 314-338.Click here to download paper

Zinko, R. A., Ferris, G. R., Humphrey, S. E., Meyer, C. J., & Aime, F. (2012) The nature of personal reputation in organizations: Two complementary studies aimed at construct and criterion-related validity. Journal of Organizational and Occupational Psychology, 85, 156-180.Click here to download paper

Humphrey, S. E., Hollenbeck, J. R., Meyer, C. J., & Ilgen, D. R. (2011). Personality configurations in self-managed teams: A natural experiment on the effects of maximizing and minimizing variance in traits. Journal of Applied Social Psychology.Click here to download paper

Humphrey, S. E. (2011). What does a great meta-analysis look like? Organizational Psychology Review, 1, 99-103.Click here to download paper

DeRue, D. S., Nahrgang, J. D., Wellman, N. & Humphrey, S. E.(2011). Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: A meta-analytic test of their relative validity. Personnel Psychology, 64, 7-52.Click here to download paper

Hollenbeck, J.R., Ellis, A.P.J., Humphrey, S.E., Garza, A., & Ilgen, D.R. (2011). Asymmetry in structural adaptation: The differential impact of centralizing versus decentralizing team decision-making structures. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 114, 64-74.Click here to download paper

Jensen, J. M., Conlon, D. E., Humphrey, S. E., & Moon, H. (2011). The consequences of completion: How level of completion influences information concealment by decision makers. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 41, 401-428. Click here to download paper

Aime, F., Meyer, C. J., & Humphrey, S. E.(2010). Legitimacy of group rewards: Analyzing legitimacy as a condition for the effectiveness of group incentive designs. Journal of Business Research, 63, 60-66. Click here to download paper

Harrison, D. A. & Humphrey, S. E.(2010). Designing for diversity or diversity for design? Tasks, interdependence, and within-unit differences at work. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 328–337. Click here to download paper

Humphrey, S. E., Morgeson, F. P., & Mannor, M. J. (2009). Developing a Theory of the Strategic Core of Teams: A Role Composition Model of Team Performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 48-61. Click here to download paper

Beersma, B., Hollenbeck, J. R., Conlon, D. E., Humphrey, S. E., Moon, H., & Ilgen, D. R. (2009). Role negotiation in self-managed teams: The effects of history and composition on coordination and performance. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 108, 131-142. Click here to download paper

Homan, A. C., Hollenbeck, J. R., Humphrey, S. E., van Knippenberg, D., Ilgen, D. R., & Van Kleef, G. A. (2008). Facing differences with an open mind: Openness to experience, salience of intra-group differences, and performance of diverse work groups. Academy of Management Journal, 51, 1204-1222. Click here to download paper

Moon, H., Marinova, S. V., Hollenbeck, J. R. & Humphrey, S. E. (2008). Beneath the surface: Uncovering the relationship between Extraversion and Organizational Citizenship Behavior through a facet approach. International Journal of Selection and Assessment. Click here to download paper

Humphrey, S. E., Nahrgang, J. D., & Morgeson, F. P. (2007). Integrating motivational, social, and contextual work design features: A meta-analytic summary and theoretical extension of the work design literature. Journal of Applied Psychology. Click here to download paper

Humphrey, S. E., Hollenbeck, J. R., Meyer, C. J., & Ilgen, D. R. (2007). Personality configurations in self-managed teams: A conceptual examination of the use of seeding to maximize and minimize trait variance in teams. Journal of Applied Psychology. Click here to download paper

Morgeson, F. P. & Humphrey, S. E. (2006). The work design questionnaire (WDQ): Developing and validating a comprehensive measure for assessing job design and the nature of work, Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 1321-1339. Click here to download paper

Ellis, A. P. J., Humphrey, S. E., Conlon, D. E., & Tinsley, C. H. (2006). Improving customer reactions to brokered ultimatums: The benefits of prior experience and explanations, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36, 2293-2324. Click here to download paper

Johnson, M. D., Hollenbeck, J. R., Humphrey, S. E., Ilgen, D. R., Jundt, D. K.. & Meyer, C. J. (2006). Cutthroat cooperation: Asymmetrical adaptation of team reward structures, Academy of Management Journal, 49, 103-119. Click here to download paper

Humphrey, S. E., Moon, H., Conlon, D. E., & Hofmann, D. A. (2004). Decision making and behavioral fluidity: How focus on completion and emphasis on safety changes over the course of projects. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 93, 14-27. Click here to download paper

Moon, H., Hollenbeck, J. R., Humphrey, S. E., Ilgen, D. R., West, B. J., Ellis, A. P. J., & Porter, C. O. L. H. (2004). Asymmetric adaptability: Dynamic team structures as one-way streets. Academy of Management Journal, 47 , 681-695. Click here to download paper

Humphrey, S. E., Ellis, A. J. P., Conlon, D. E., & Tinsley, C. H. (2004). Customer reactions to brokered ultimatums: Applying negotiation and justice theory. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 466-482. Click here to download paper

Beersma, B., Hollenbeck, J. R., Humphrey, S. E., Moon, H., Conlon, D. E., & Ilgen, D. R. (2003). Cooperation, Competition, and Team Performance: Towards a Contingency Approach. Academy of Management Journal, 46, 572-490. Click here to download paper

Moon, H., Conlon, D. E., Humphrey, S. E., Quigley, N., Devers, C. E., & Nowakowski, J. M. (2003). Group structure and incrementalism in organizational decision-making. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 92, 67-79. Click here to download paper

Moon, H., Hollenbeck, J. R., Humphrey, S. E., & Maue, B. (2003). The tripartite model of neuroticism and the suppression of depression and anxiety within an escalation of commitment dilemma. Journal of Personality, 71, 347-368. Click here to download paper

Humphrey, S. E., & Kahn, A. S. (2000). Fraternities, athletic teams, and rape: Importance of identification with a risky group. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 15, 1313-1322.

Book Chapters (back to top)

Morgeson, F. P., & Humphrey, S. E. (2008). Job and team design: Toward a more integrative conceptualization of work design. In J. Martocchio (Ed.), Research in personnel and human resource management (Vol. 27, pp. 39-92). United Kingdom: Emerald Group Publishing Limited. Click here to download paper

Humphrey, S. E., Hollenbeck, J. R., Ilgen, D. R., & Moon, H. (2004). The changing shape of large scale programs of research: MSU-DDD as an illustrative example. In S. G. Schiflett, L. R. Elliott, E. Salas, & M. D. Coovert (Eds.), Scaled Worlds: Development, Validation and Applications. (pp. 200-219). England : Ashgate Publishing Limited. Click here to download paper

Humphrey, S. E., Hollenbeck, J. R., Meyer, C. J., & Ilgen, D. R. (2002). Hierarchical team decision making. In G. R. Ferris, & Martocchio, J. J. (Eds.), Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management (Vol. 21, pp. 175-214). Oxford: Elsevier Science Ltd. Click here to download paper

Other Publications (back to top)

Wagner, J. A. III, Meyer, C. J., & Humphrey, S. E., & Hollenbeck, J. R. (2005). Effects of utilitarian and ontological individualism-collectivism on multitask performance in teams. Best Paper Proceedings, 64th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management, Honolulu, HI.

Conference Presentations (back to top)

©2005-2011 Stephen E. Humphrey. All rights reserved.