Two employee research studies with mixed methods
In this seminar, Dr. Cass Shum will explain her research journey using two of her recent research works as examples. The first research draws upon the uncanny valley theory to examine how service robots’ humanlike appearance affects employee emotions and industry turnover intentions. A quasi-scenario-based experiment was conducted using four types of service robots. After watching a video on one of the service robots, participants rated perceived human-likeness, tech savviness, fear of robots, and industry turnover intentions. This study reports that perceived human-likeness has an inverted-U shaped nonlinear relationship with employees’ fear of robots, moderated by employees’ tech-savviness. The result further indicates that the fear of robots is positively related to industry turnover intentions. The second research draws on deontic justice theory and examines the moral reasoning processes through which employees’ sexual harassment experience moderates their moral outrage reactions to sexual harassment allegations in online employee reviews. Two between-subject quasi-experiments, manipulating online sexual harassment allegations and measuring employees’ sexual harassment experience and moral reasoning, reveal that sexual harassment experience alleviates the impact of online sexual harassment allegations on moral outrage by altering moral reasoning: Employees with sexual harassment experience have higher levels of sexual harassment tolerance (Study 1) and lower levels of moral obligation (Study 2), which in turn weakens their moral outrage after reading online sexual harassment allegations against customers (Study 1) and supervisors (Study 2). Theoretical contributions, practical implications, and insider stories will be shared.
Speaker Biography
Dr. Cass Shum is an Associate Professor in Hospitality Organizational Behavior at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). She received her Ph.D. in Management from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Dr. Shum previously worked as a research assistant at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and a visiting scholar at the University of Florida. Her research focuses on employees’ unethical behaviors and contemporary organizational behavioral challenges in the hospitality industry, including abusive supervision, racial and sexual discrimination, rule-breaking behaviors, industry turnover, and the use of robots. Dr. Shum’s works focused on theoretical contributions and methodological rigor. They can be found in the mainstream (e.g., Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Business Ethics) and hospitality (e.g., International Journal of Hospitality Management, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management) journals. Dr. Shum is passionate about mentoring student researchers. Her teaching interests include organizational behavior, ethics, and research methods.