The document describes the development and validation of a new measure called the Workplace Social Self-Efficacy (WSSE) inventory. It is a 4-factor measure of an employee's confidence in their ability to engage in social tasks at work. Two studies found the WSSE inventory has good psychometric properties, including a clear factor structure, high internal consistency, and validity evidenced by relationships with other related constructs. Political skill was also found to mediate the relationship between WSSE and several outcomes. The new measure addresses the need for a domain-specific social self-efficacy measure tailored to the workplace.

1. http://jca.sagepub.com/
Journal of Career Assessment
http://jca.sagepub.com/content/21/1/91
The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/1069072712454702
2013 21: 91
Journal of Career Assessment
Songpol Kulviwat
Jinyan Fan, Robert C. Litchfield, Sayeed Islam, Brianne Weiner, Monique Alexander, Cong Liu and
Workplace Social Self-Efficacy: Concept, Measure, and Initial Validity Evidence
Published by:
http://www.sagepublications.com
can be found at:
Journal of Career Assessment
Additional services and information for
http://jca.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts
Email Alerts:
http://jca.sagepub.com/subscriptions
Subscriptions:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav
Reprints:
http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
Permissions:
http://jca.sagepub.com/content/21/1/91.refs.html
Citations:
What is This?
- Aug 6, 2012
OnlineFirst Version of Record
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

2. Article
Workplace Social
Self-Efficacy: Concept,
Measure, and Initial Validity
Evidence
Jinyan Fan1
, Robert C. Litchfield2
, Sayeed Islam3
,
Brianne Weiner3
, Monique Alexander3
,
Cong Liu3
, and Songpol Kulviwat4
Abstract
The authors proposed the construct of workplace social self-efficacy (WSSE) and developed an
inventory to measure it. Two empirical studies were conducted to examine the psychometric
properties of this new measure. In Study 1, we described the development of the WSSE inventory
and explored its factor structure in a sample of 304 full-time employees. Participants in Study 2 were
137 full-time employees (who provided self-report data) and 371 coworkers of these employees
(who submitted peer ratings). Results showed that the WSSE inventory had a four-factor structure
(social gathering, performance in public contexts, conflict management, and seeking and offering
help), high internal consistency, excellent convergent and discriminant validity, and meaningful
correlation patterns with related constructs in the nomological network. Furthermore, political skill
was found to mediate the relationship between WSSE and several outcome variables. In addition, the
WSSE inventory was found to have some advantages over the Perceived Social Self-Efficacy scale
(Smith & Betz, 2000), a general social self-efficacy measure. Theoretical and practical implications
were discussed.
Keywords
workplace social self-efficacy, scale development and validation, political skills, popularity
Success in most jobs has a social component. Employees may need to establish interpersonal rela-
tionships, present work to others, participate in social groups or gatherings, or seek or offer help in
1
Department of Psychology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA
2
Department of Economics and Business, Washington and Jefferson College, Washington, PA, USA
3
Department of Psychology, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA
4
Department of Marketing and International Business, Frank G. Zarb School of Business, Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY,
USA
Corresponding Author:
Jinyan Fan, Department of Psychology, Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849, USA.
Email: jinyan.fan@auburn.edu
Journal of Career Assessment
21(1) 91-110
ª The Author(s) 2013
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/1069072712454702
jca.sagepub.com
91
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

3. order to perform effectively. Given the central role of social relationship quality in determining
employees’ work experiences (e.g., Liden, Wayne, & Sparrowe, 2000; Liu, Nauta, Spector, & Li,
2008; Scott & Judge, 2009) and the ever-increasing social interaction demands in the workplace
(Ilgen & Pulakos, 1999), it is no surprise that social effectiveness constructs have proliferated (for
a review, see Ferris, Perrewé, & Douglas, 2002). What is missing from the literature, however, is an
empirical sense of how various social effectiveness constructs might overlap and how they might be
unique (Ferris et al., 2007).
In this article, we address aspects of the segmentation of the domain of social effectiveness at
work by developing a conceptual and empirical argument for the utility of workplace social self-
efficacy (WSSE), which we define as an employee’s confidence in his or her ability to engage in
job-related social interactional tasks and to develop and maintain effective interpersonal relation-
ships with other employees in his or her organization (cf. Smith & Betz, 2000). We use theory
related to self-efficacy (Bandura, 1986, 1997) to articulate a clear conceptualization of an important,
potentially malleable antecedent of social components of work performance. Our measure exhibits
appropriate convergent and discriminant validity with other interpersonal effectiveness measures
tied to work and nonwork domains. We contribute to research concerned with the social aspect
of work performance by providing evidence that this domain-specific measure of social
effectiveness complements other important measures (e.g., political skill, popularity) in ways that
may facilitate answers to questions that are of interest to vocational and organizational scholars.
Theory and Hypotheses
Self-efficacy is defined as ‘‘people’s judgments of their capabilities to organize and execute courses
of action required to attain designated types of performance’’ (Bandura, 1986, p. 391). Although
self-efficacy has been measured in many ways, ranging from a general trait (Chen, Gully, & Eden,
2001) to a highly situation-specific phenomenon (e.g., Bandura & Cervone, 1986), many researchers
interested in the employment sphere have measured self-efficacy at an intermediate level in order to
capture a relatively specific domain (e.g., job search, creativity) while maintaining some general use
properties of the measure. Included among these are test-taking self-efficacy (Truxillo, Bauer,
Campion, & Paronto, 2002), technology self-efficacy (Mathieu, Ahearne, & Taylor, 2007), job
search self-efficacy (Brown, Cober, Kane, Levy, & Shalhoop, 2006), and creative self-efficacy
(Tierney & Farmer, 2002). Various self-efficacy concepts and measures have greatly enhanced our
understanding of human behavior in organizational settings.
However, little is known about individuals’ self-efficacy perception within the social interaction
domain in the workplace. The vast majority of studies that have examined the construct of social
self-efficacy have focused on children or adolescents (e.g., Connolly, 1989; Wheeler & Ladd,
1982) rather than adults. Although there are a few adult social self-efficacy measures in the literature
(for a review, see Smith & Betz, 2000), none of them were designed specifically to measure WSSE.
This omission is unfortunate because, as noted above, self-efficacy is usually measured with at least
some degree of domain specificity. Furthermore, the workplace contains many social features (e.g.,
explicit hierarchy, reward systems, etc.) that are either not present or may be quite different from
other social milieus. Thus, attempts to examine more general measures of self-efficacy or those bor-
rowed from other domains may underrepresent or even misrepresent the role of self-efficacy in
social processes at work. At the same time, social effectiveness has been included in vocation-
specific measures such as teacher self-efficacy (e.g., Skaalvik & Skaalvik, 2007) and counselor
self-efficacy (e.g. Larson, 1998); however, their narrow focus on specific occupations limits their
utility for broader workplace use. Given the apparently widespread belief that social effectiveness
is important to performance in many jobs, a measure that is broad enough to cover a variety of jobs
but still tailored to work organizations has the potential to contribute to future research on
92 Journal of Career Assessment 21(1)
92
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

4. occupational success by relieving researchers of the need to construct and validate de novo measures
of social self-efficacy for every job or occupation studied while providing better domain specificity
than social measures that do not take into account work environments.
Social self-efficacy has been recognized as potentially important to the understanding of social
effectiveness at work. For instance, Ferris et al. (2007) include self-efficacy as a key antecedent
to aspects of their conceptualization of political skill. According to Ferris et al. social
self-efficacy captures the extent to which people feel a sense of capability to influence their social
environment through their actions, and this sense of capability may be a critical determinant of some
aspects of political skill. However, social self-efficacy has received essentially no research attention
from organizational scientists (Ferris et al., 2002). Our view is that the understanding of self-effi-
cacy’s role in workplace social relationships might be facilitated through a better targeting of
self-efficacy to the workplace social domain.
Prior Adult Social Self-Efficacy Measures
Although we target the work domain specifically, it is important to note that there are several mea-
sures of overall social self-efficacy of adults available in the literature; however, most of them tend
to be either psychometrically problematic or conceptually too narrow (Smith & Betz, 2000). For
instance, items of the social self-efficacy subscale of Sherer et al.’s (1982) Generalized Self-
Efficacy scale were derived post hoc, based on exploratory factor analysis, rather than a priori.
Researchers have consistently reported less than optimal coefficient as for this measure (around
.70). Fichten, Bourdon, Amsel, and Fox’s (1987) Interaction Self-Efficacy Questionnaire focuses
on college students’ interactions with the same sex. The social skills subscale of the Skills
Confidence Inventory (Betz, Harmon, & Borgen, 1996) is limited to vocational activities and school
subjects. Fan and Mak’s (1998) Social Self-Efficacy scale for Students is intended for intercultural
social contexts. Thus, these measures are apparently inappropriate for general workplace use.
Perhaps, the best adult social self-efficacy measure for general use to date is the 25-item ‘‘Per-
ceived Social Self-Efficacy (PSSE)’’ scale (Smith & Betz, 2000). Smith and Betz (2000) define
social self-efficacy as ‘‘an individual’s confidence in his or her ability to engage in the social inter-
actional tasks necessary to initiate and maintain interpersonal relationships’’ (p. 286). PSSE items
cover social tasks relating to making friends, social assertiveness, pursuing romantic relationships,
performance in public situations, groups or parties, and receiving and giving help. According to sev-
eral empirical studies (e.g., Lin & Betz, 2009; Smith & Betz, 2000; Xie, 2007), scores from the PSSE
scale have demonstrated excellent psychometric properties. For instance, the a coefficients were in
the .90s, and the 3-week test–retest coefficients were in the low .80s. Smith and Betz (2000) reported
that the PSSE scale had a single-factor structure and was strongly correlated with several alternative
social self-efficacy measures. Furthermore, PSSE scores were consistently found to be negatively
correlated with scores in shyness, social anxiety, and depression, but positively correlated with
scores in personal self-esteem.
Despite the excellent psychometric properties of the PSSE scale, it lacks ideal properties to mea-
sure WSSE. First, PSSE items focus on behaviors in general, not workplace, social contexts. Such a
difference in level of specificity might have important consequences. For instance, there has been
emerging evidence for the frame-of-reference effect which suggests that work-specific personality
measures are more powerful predictors of work-related criteria than general personality measures
(e.g., Bing, Whanger, Davison, & VanHook, 2004; Wang, Bowling, & Eschleman, 2010). Second,
the ‘‘pursuing romantic relationships’’ domain might not be appropriate in organizational settings.
Third, items in the PSSE scale exclusively focus on nonconflict social situations, but conflict situa-
tions are a potentially important element of the workplace social domain (e.g., De Dreu & Weingart,
2003). A conflict situation is one in which an individual’s feelings, beliefs, or desired outcomes are
Fan et al. 93
93
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

5. not aligned with someone else’s feelings, beliefs, or desired outcomes; whereas a nonconflict situ-
ation does not contain any form of contradiction of goals between two or more people (Wheeler &
Ladd, 1982). Together, these aspects of extant social self-efficacy measures suggest that none is
especially well suited to the workplace. Given our discussion of the need for a measure targeted
to the social domain of the workplace and the state of existing measures, we conclude that a new
measure is needed.
Scope and Nomological Network of WSSE
Despite its focus on the domain of work, WSSE is perhaps broader in scope than several more
discrete, socially related self-efficacy concepts such as leadership self-efficacy (Ng, Ang, & Chan,
2008), team collective efficacy (Tasa, Taggar, & Seijts, 2007), and participation self-efficacy (Lam,
Chen, & Schaubroeck, 2002). Consistent with our definition, we envision the WSSE construct as
potentially applicable to many workplace social relations that may or may not take place within
or between teams, or across hierarchies or other structural boundaries. WSSE is shaped by the pos-
itive emphasis on perceived capability inherent in self-efficacy constructs. In this vein, we expect
that WSSE will display positive relationships with many other social effectiveness constructs. One
reason for such relationships may be conceptual overlap between constructs in the workplace social
domain (Ferris et al., 2002), but Ferris et al. (2007) have also suggested that self-efficacy may be
considered an antecedent of political skill.
We use Smith and Betz’s (2000) PSSE scale and Ferris et al.’s (2005) Political Skill Inventory
(PSI) to examine the convergent validity of the WSSE inventory. While PSSE is a general social
self-efficacy construct, political skill is a workplace-specific social effectiveness construct, defined
as ‘‘the ability to effectively understand others at work, and to use such knowledge to influence oth-
ers to act in ways that enhance one’s personal and/or organizational objectives’’ (Ferris et al., 2005,
p. 127). We hypothesize that WSSE scores should have positive and strong correlations with PSSE
scores and PSI scores (Hypothesis 1a). We use the using technology subscale from Betz et al.’s
(2003) Expanded Skill Confidence Inventory (ESCI), an apparently nonsocial domain self-
efficacy measure, to assess the general discriminant validity of the WSSE inventory. Compared
to the correlation between WSSE scores and PSSE scores and the correlation between WSSE scores
and PSI scores, we hypothesize a much weaker correlation between WSSE scores and ESCI scores
(Hypothesis 1b).
We use Pierce, Gardner, Cummings, and Dunham’s (1989) measure of organization-based self-
esteem as a second, organizationally relevant source of convergent validity evidence. Organization
based self-esteem (OBSE) is defined as ‘‘the degree to which an individual believes himself or her-
self to be capable, significant, and worthy as an organizational member’’ (Pierce & Gardner, 2004,
p. 593). An employee with a high level of WSSE is more likely to effectively complete the social
aspects of the job and develop and maintain good interpersonal relationships with his or her
coworkers than his or her low WSSE counterparts, and in turn to have a strong sense of ‘‘I count
here,’’ that is, a higher level of OBSE. Further, Judge, Locke, and Durham (1997) found that, at the
trait level, self-efficacy and self-esteem are related ‘‘core’’ self-evaluations. Thus, we hypothesize a
positive correlation between WSSE scores and OBSE scores (Hypothesis 2).
We also expect WSSE to function somewhat differently from other social effectiveness
constructs. Ferris et al. (2002) noted that many social effectiveness constructs, such as emotional
intelligence, self-monitoring, and political skill, entail two major components: (a) the ability to
accurately understand (or read) various social situations and (b) the capability to act on that
understanding by carrying out appropriate behavioral strategies. However, WSSE does not fit this
framework; instead, it simply focuses on the perceived ability in completing a variety of specific
social tasks required at work. Indeed, other research on domain self-efficacy suggests that
94 Journal of Career Assessment 21(1)
94
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

6. individuals are more likely to direct resources toward goals for which they feel high self-efficacy,
but that the magnitude of the resources people allocate is lower when they feel high self-efficacy
(Vancouver, More, & Yoder, 2008). Thus, self-efficacy may come with a situational blindness that
is consistent with an ability perception but inconsistent with a careful analysis of task context (cf.
Ferris et al., 2002).
In the workplace social domain, this suggests that an important difference between WSSE and
many other constructs dealing with workplace social effectiveness may be that WSSE does not
include in the construct concepts of social perception, comparison, or judgment that are involved
in analyzing social situations. Such a difference might have important consequences. For instance,
social effectiveness constructs adhering to Ferris et al.’s (2002) framework should display relation-
ships with impression management (IM) and conflict avoidance, though different constructs might
display these relationships due to different mechanisms (cf. the role of emotions in emotional
intelligence, Salovey & Meyer, 1990; the connotation of self-serving and controlling of others in
political skill, Ferris et al., 2007). In contrast, the WSSE construct, which does not include explicit
analysis of social situations, should not be strongly associated with IM or conflict avoidance.
Therefore, we hypothesize that compared to political skill (a construct that does follow Ferris et al.’s
framework), WSSE scores should have weaker correlations with IM scores (Hypothesis 3a) and
workplace interpersonal conflict scores (Hypothesis 3b).
We consider two more distal sets of WSSE-related criteria. The first set includes two strain vari-
ables: physical symptoms and job-related affective well-being. The occupational health psychology
literature has convincingly established that one major source of stress at work is interpersonal in
nature (e.g., Spector & Jex, 1998). If, as argued earlier, employees with a high level of WSSE are
expected to have effective interpersonal relationships with others at work, and thus tend to experi-
ence less interpersonal stress, they will also have less strain, indicated by less physical symptoms
and more positive emotional reactions at work. Such outcomes are consistent with characterizations
of self-efficacy as a key concept in the regulation of motivation, cognition, and affect (Bandura,
1986, 1997). Thus, we hypothesize that WSSE scores will have a negative correlation with physical
symptoms scores (Hypothesis 4a) and a positive correlation with job-related affective well-being
scores (Hypothesis 4b).
The second set of distal criteria we consider are three coworker-rated variables: (a) popularity,
defined as ‘‘being generally accepted by one’s peers’’ (Scott & Judge, 2009, p. 21), (b) interpersonal
counterproductive work behaviors (CWB-I) targeted (Porath, Pearson, & Shapiro, 1999), and (c)
interpersonal organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB-I) targeted (Lee & Allan, 2002). Because
employees with a high level of WSSE are apt to develop and maintain good relationships with others
in the organization, they are likely to be liked and accepted by their coworkers, and their coworkers
are less likely to mistreat them and more likely to help them at work. This argument is arguably not
directly predicted by self-efficacy theory per se but, assuming that the behaviors directed by
self-efficacy do have some effect on the environment, it is expected to logically follow from self-
efficacy theory. Reciprocal effects of positive social behaviors inspired by high WSSE are also in
line with Blau’s (1964) social exchange theory. Thus, we hypothesize that WSSE scores should have
a positive correlation with peer-rated popularity scores (Hypothesis 5a), a negative correlation with
CWB-I targeted scores (Hypothesis 5b), and a positive correlation with OCB-I targeted scores
(Hypothesis 5c).
Ferris et al. (2007) conceptualize social self-efficacy as an antecedent of political skill; however,
no empirical study has investigated this relationship. Expanding on this point, we test whether
political skill mediates the relationship between WSSE and aforementioned outcome variables.
We have argued earlier that WSSE should be related to these outcome variables, and similar rela-
tionships can be expected between political skill and the same outcome variables (for a review of
political skill, see Ferris et al., 2007). Even when we expect a weaker relationship between WSSE
Fan et al. 95
95
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

7. and an outcome variable relative to political skill (i.e., for interpersonal conflict), such a prediction
does not eliminate the possibility of an indirect effect through political skill (Hayes, 2009).
Therefore, we hypothesize that political skill should mediate the relationship between WSSE and
workplace interpersonal conflict (Hypothesis 6a), physical symptoms (Hypothesis 6b), affective
job-related well-being (Hypothesis 6c), coworker-rated popularity (Hypothesis 6d), coworker-
rated CWB-I targeted (Hypothesis 6e), and coworker-rated OCB-I targeted (Hypothesis 6f).
Finally, we investigate how much of an advantage, if any, does the WSSE inventory have as a
domain-specific, WSSE measure over the PSSE scale, a general social self-efficacy measure? Based
on the notion of frame-of-reference effect mentioned earlier (e.g., Bing et al., 2004; Wang et al., 2010),
we expect that WSSE scores should be more strongly associated with various organizational variables
than should PSSE scores. In particular, we hypothesize that WSSE scores should exhibit unique rela-
tionships with organizational variables after PSSE scores are controlled for (Hypothesis 7).
In the following, we present two empirical studies validating the WSSE inventory. Study 1
described the development of the WSSE inventory and explored the factor structure of this new mea-
sure. Study 2 confirmed WSSE’s factor structure in an independent sample and tested the proposed
research hypotheses.
Study 1
Development of the Work Social Self-Efficacy (WSSE) Inventory
We first specified the behavioral domains of WSSE, as per Bandura’s (2005) guidelines. Following
Smith and Betz’s (2000) work on the PSSE scale, we designated five similar domains for WSSE:
social assertiveness, establishing interpersonal relationships, performance in public contexts, partic-
ipation in social groups or gatherings, and seeking and offering help, all in the workplace. We
excluded the domain of ‘‘pursuing romantic relationships’’ because it deviates from our interest
in effective professional relationships. We considered both conflict and nonconflict social situations
in each of the five domains. In other words, we attempted to sample workplace social behaviors from
two crossed dimensions: (a) content domains and (b) type of social scenarios. Also note that the
above five domains differ in the extent to which items describe job-related social tasks versus inter-
personal relationship maintenance tasks. For instance, almost all social tasks in the performance in
public contexts domain are job-related, whereas many social tasks in the participation in social
groups or gatherings domain are related to interpersonal relationship maintenance at work.
We interviewed 15 full-time employees from various types of organizations. These employees
held both high and low status positions in their respective organizations and had been working in
their jobs for at least 3 years. During these interviews, we asked them to list social tasks they had
performed in order to fulfill their job duties and/or develop and maintain effective interpersonal rela-
tionships with others at work. These interviews yielded 265 initial items.
Next, we conducted several rounds of intensive discussions within the research team, which
consisted of three faculty members and three graduate students in Industrial and Organizational
psychology, to screen these initial items. In the first round of discussion, we aimed to screen out
items that did not meet our inclusion criteria, that is, a good item must be (a) clearly worded and
easy to understand, (b) relevant to our definition of WSSE, (c) applicable to the workplace, and
(d) commonly found in many jobs. During the discussion, we also attempted to modify items that
met criteria (b), (c), and (d), but not (a), in order to make them useful. The decision to accept or reject
an item was based on a majority vote among the research team. At the end of the first round of
discussion, 75 items remained. In the second round of discussion, we attempted to categorize the
75 items into predesignated five subdomains, as well as into conflict versus nonconflict social situa-
tions. We also assessed items for repetition of concepts and proper placement of items into various
96 Journal of Career Assessment 21(1)
96
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

8. categories. Items that were difficult to categorize or repetitive were removed. We note that difficult-
to-categorize items did not seem to form any meaningful theme. Item exclusions were based on
group consensus. At the conclusion of this round of discussion, 58 items survived.
We then asked 31 subject matter experts (industrial and organizational graduate students) to rate
each of the 58 items based on three criteria: (a) whether the item is worded clearly, (b) whether the
specific social task is relevant to the definition of WSSE, and (c) whether the social situation in the
item is commonly experienced in many jobs/organizations. After analyzing the data, we conducted
another round of discussions to further evaluate items with the lowest ratings. Items were eliminated
if all members in the research team agreed that they did not match the established criteria. In addi-
tion, we continued to reevaluate the clarity and categorization of each item throughout the process.
These efforts resulted in 37 semifinalized WSSE items to be empirically examined in the initial vali-
dation study. The WSSE inventory asks participants to rate their confidence level in carrying out
these 37 workplace social tasks on a 100-point scale (0 ¼ no confidence; 50 ¼ moderate confidence;
100 ¼ complete confidence). This 100-point scale was recommended by Bandura (2005) for
self-efficacy scales.
Sample and Procedure
We asked undergraduate students enrolled in one of the three international marketing classes at a
private Northeastern U.S. university in the spring semester of 2009 to help with data collection,
in exchange for a modest amount of extra credit. Specifically, each student was given several sets
of questionnaires, which contained the 37 semifinalized WSSE items and a demographic survey, and
was asked to locate full-time employees and then have them complete the questionnaire. We
collected contact information from participants to verify that full-time employees (not students)
completed the self-report survey. The first page of the surveys, which contained participants’ contact
information, was removed after verification. We verified one randomly selected survey returned by
each student. If a survey failed the verification, all other surveys contributed by the student were
ruled invalid and then discarded.
Students returned 304 completed and verified questionnaires; on average, each student returned 4
completed questionnaires. Among these 304 full-time employees, 51% were female, 47% were
male, and 2% did not report their gender information. The average age was 35 years, 52% had at
least a bachelor’s degree, the average position tenure was 94 months, and the average weekly
working hours was 43 hr. Collectively, these employees worked in 15 different industries, and the
organizational levels of their positions were very diverse, ranging from entry-level positions to chief
executive officers. Forty-four percent of these employees reported engaging in some sort of social
interaction at work at least a couple of times every half day, and 39% reported that their jobs require
some sort of social interaction at least a couple of times every half day.
Factor Structure and Internal Consistency of the WSSE Inventory
The 37 37 item correlation matrix was subjected to exploratory factor analyses using the Compre-
hensive Exploratory Factor Analysis (Browne, Cudeck, Tateneni, Mels, 2004). In determining
number of factors to retain, we considered multiple criteria, following the suggestion by Fabrigar,
Wegener, MacCallum, and Strahan (1999). The eigenvalue 1 rule, scree plot, and parallel analysis
suggested retaining three or four factors. We then compared the interpretability of obliquely rotated
factor loading matrix of these two alternative models. In doing so, we removed items that did not
load substantially on any of the factors and items that had high cross-loadings, and we only consid-
ered loadings with the minimum magnitude of .50. The above exclusion criteria yielded 22 surviving
WSSE items.
Fan et al. 97
97
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

9. Comparisons of factor loading pattern of the three-factor model and the four-factor model led to
several observations. First, two factors clearly emerged in both models with exactly identical items.
The 6 items loaded highly on the first factor included social tasks related to participating in social
groups and gatherings, and thus were named the Social Gathering factor, with an estimated a coef-
ficient of .90. The 6 items loaded highly on the second factor included social tasks related to perfor-
mance in public contexts, and thus were named the Public Performance factor, with an estimated a
coefficient of .92. The second observation was that the third factor in the three-factor model defied a
clear interpretation as items did not seem to belong to a single major theme. This factor was split into
two separate factors in the four-factor model, with each having a much clearer interpretation. Spe-
cifically, the 5 items that loaded substantially on the third factor included social tasks related to seek-
ing and offering help, and thus were named the Seeking and Offering Help factor, with an estimated
a coefficient of .83. The 5 items that loaded highly on the fourth factor were in the domain of social
assertiveness, but also related to dealing with social scenarios involving potential conflict. The fac-
tor thus was named the Conflict Management factor, with an estimated a coefficient of .81.
Based on these results, we chose the four-factor model over the three-factor model to represent
the tentative factor structure of the WSSE inventory. It is interesting to note that (a) three of the four
factors were completely consistent with our a priori designation of WSSE domains, (b) one prede-
signated domain, establishing interpersonal relationships, failed to emerge in factor analysis, and (c)
items from social assertive domain that dealt with social scenarios involving potential conflict
formed the Conflict Management factor.
Next, we conducted a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) on these 22 WSSE items, imposing the
above identified factor structure using LISREL 8 (Jöreskog Sörbom, 1996). The CFA yielded
acceptable model fit: w2
(df ¼ 203) ¼ 778.02, p .01, Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI) ¼ .95, Com-
parative Fit Index (CFI) ¼ .96, standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) ¼ .07. Table 1 pre-
sents standardized factor loadings for WSSE dimensions. As can be seen, all factor loadings were
significant, with an averaged loading of .75. Thus, we have established a tentative factor structure
of the WSSE inventory, which was to be confirmed in an independent sample in Study 2. The a coef-
ficient for the WSSE total inventory was estimated to be .93. Thus, the WSSE inventory and its four
subscales had excellent internal consistency.
We also explored the relationship between WSSE and several demographic variables. Results
indicated that WSSE total scores (a) had significant, yet modest correlations with position tenure
(r ¼ .11, p .05), weekly working hours (r ¼ .15, p .01), and age (r ¼ .14, p .05) and (b) had
nonsignificant correlations with gender and education (ps .05). It is possible that position tenure
and weekly working hours represent opportunities to interact with an individual’s colleagues, the
more of which contribute to the enhancement of social self-efficacy.
Study 2
Method
Sample and procedure. We asked graduate students enrolled in a work motivation class and under-
graduate students enrolled in one of two international business classes at a private Northeastern U.S.
university in the fall semester of 2009 to help with data collection. Specifically, students were to
identify two or three full-time employees they know and then give them the survey packages.
Full-time employees were instructed by students to complete a self-report questionnaire, and then
to distribute the peer-rating surveys to up to five coworkers, who were to independently complete
the peer-rating survey. Both self-report questionnaire and peer-rating surveys were enclosed sepa-
rately in self-addressed, postage-paid return envelopes so that they may be mailed directly back
to the researchers.
98 Journal of Career Assessment 21(1)
98
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

10. Table 1. Standardized Factor Loadings of the WSSE Inventory Based on the Confirmatory Factor Analyses in
Studies 1 and 2.
Items—–How confident are you in. . . SG PP CM HP
1. Inviting your coworkers to an office birthday party for
your coworkers?
.78 (.85)
2. Participating in a holiday gift exchange with your
coworkers?
.79 (.78)
3. Taking part in group lunches or dinners with your
coworkers?
.89 (.89)
4. Engaging in small talks with your coworkers prior to a
staff meeting?
.75 (.81)
5. Participating in a game night with your coworkers? .72 (.71)
6. Socializing with your supervisors at a company function? .70 (.73)
7. Presenting to a group of potential clients? .82 (.89)
8. Presenting the results of your current work project to
your colleagues at a staff meeting?
.82 (.91)
9. Expressing your opinions at a staff meeting? .83 (.82)
10. Facilitating a group discussion in your work unit? .82 (.85)
11. Making a presentation on behalf of your company to a
large audience at a professional conference?
.75 (.85)
12. Presenting a work project at a management meeting
where your supervisor and other managers attend?
.84 (.92)
13. Approaching your supervisor regarding your unfair
performance appraisal without creating tension with him
or her?
.71 (.76)
14. Your supervisor asks you to work overtime on a day
when you have a prior engagement. How confident are
you in refusing this request without creating a bad
impression?
.65 (.70)
15. Asking your supervisor for feedback regarding your
performance on a recently completed project?
.68 (.69)
16. A colleague asks for your help on a project, and you do
not have the time. How confident are you in saying no
without damaging your relationship with him or her?
.70 (.70)
17. Giving negative performance feedback to a coworker
without frustrating him or her off?
.68 (.62)
18. You notice your coworker is frustrated with his or her
current work project. How confident are you in taking
him or her out for lunch to give him or her support?
.54 (.63)
19. Asking coworkers to help you on a work project? .78 (.80)
20. Seeking help from your supervisor when you are having
difficulty completing a job task?
.68 (.75)
21. Asking for help from a coworker when you have a
fast-approaching deadline at work?
.82 (.84)
22. Offering help to a coworker who appears overwhelmed
by a project he or she is currently working on?
.75 (.79)
Note. CM ¼ conflict management; HP ¼ seeking and offering help; PP ¼ performance in public contexts; SG ¼ social gather-
ing; WSSE ¼ workplace social self-efficacy.
Factor loadings before parentheses were based on the Study 1 sample; factor loadings within parentheses were based on the
Study 2 sample.
Fan et al. 99
99
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

11. We collected contact information from participants to verify (a) that full-time employees (not stu-
dents) completed the self-report survey and (b) that coworkers of full-time employees (not students
or full-time employees) completed the peer-report survey. The first page of the surveys, which con-
tained participants’ contact information, was removed after verification. Participants were made
aware of this step; therefore, data should be considered anonymous, and self-report and peer-
rating surveys were linked through a preassigned survey series number. We verified all employee
self-report surveys and those surveys that failed the verification were discarded. We also verified
one randomly selected coworker rating survey. If a peer-rating survey failed the verification, all
other peer-rating surveys on the same focal participants were ruled invalid and then discarded.
In exchange for students’ data collection effort, they received extra credit in their respective
classes. It should be noted, however, full-time employees and their coworkers were not provided any
incentives for completing the survey packages. This method of data collection has been used by
other organizational researchers (e.g., Harris, Harris, Brouer, 2009; Liu, Perrewé, Hochwarter,
Kacmar, 2004).
Of the 223 sets of survey packages we distributed, 137 verified self-report surveys and 371 ver-
ified peer-rating surveys were returned. Among employees who provided self-report data, 46% were
male, 72% had at least a bachelor’s degree, with a mean age of 42 years, a mean of 43 weekly work-
ing hours, and average position tenure of 88 months. Respondents represented a wide variety of
industries (e.g., finance, information technology, mechanical engineering, education, food bever-
age, health care, and government). Approximately, 71% of employees received multiple peer rat-
ings. On average, each employee received 2.71 peer ratings.
Measures
WSSE. The 22-item WSSE inventory was used.
Social self-efficacy. The 25-item PSSE scale (Smith Betz, 2000) measured general social self-
efficacy. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (no confidence at all) to
5 (complete confidence). One sample item is ‘‘How confident are you in asking someone for help
when you need it.’’ The a coefficient was .95 in the current sample.
Using technology skills confidence. The 10-item using technology subscale from Betz et al.’s (2003)
ESCI was used. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (no confidence at all)
to 5 (complete confidence). One sample item is ‘‘Use a personal finance software program.’’ The a
coefficient was .93 in the current sample.
IM. Participants’ tendency to engage socially desirable responding was measured by the IM scale
from the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding (Paulhus, 1988). The IM scale has been
widely used in research examining social desirability in noncognitive measures. We used the 12-
item short version of the IM scale provided by Delroy Paulhus (personal communication, October
27, 2009). One sample item is ‘‘I don’t gossip about other people’s business.’’ The a coefficient was
.74 in the current sample.
Political skill. Ferris et al.’s (2005) 18-item PSI was used. PSI has demonstrated excellent psycho-
metric properties (e.g., Andrews, Kacmar, Harris, 2009; Liu et al., 2007; also see Ferris et al.,
2007, for a review). Items were rated on 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree)
to 5 (strongly agree). Sample items include ‘‘I spend a lot of time and effort at work networking with
others’’ and ‘‘I understand people very well.’’ The a coefficient was .92 for PSI scale.
100 Journal of Career Assessment 21(1)
100
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

12. Organization based self-esteem. The 10-item OBSE scale by Pierce et al. (1989) was used. Items
were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree).
One sample item is ‘‘I am a valuable part of this place.’’ The a coefficient was .90 in the current
sample.
Workplace interpersonal conflict. The 4-item Interpersonal Conflict at Work scale (Spector Jex,
1998) was used. Participants were asked to indicate how often they get into arguments with others at
work, how often other people yell at them at work, how often people are rude to them at work, and
how often other people do nasty things to them at work. Items were rated on a 5-point scale ranging
from 1 (less than once per month or never) to 5 (several times per day). Spector and Jex (1998)
reported an averaged a coefficient of .74 across 13 studies. The a coefficient was .74 in the current
sample.
Job-related affective well-being. We used the 20-item short form of the Job-Related Affective Well-
being scale (Van Katwyk, Fox, Spector, Kelloway, 2000) to measure participants’ emotional reac-
tions to their job. Participants were asked to indicate how often they had experienced 20 emotions at
work over the last 30 days. Each item was an emotion and was rated on a 5-point scale ranging from
1 (never) to 5 (always). The a coefficient was .90 in the current sample.
Physical symptoms. The 18-item Physical Symptoms Inventory (Spector Jex, 1998) assessed par-
ticipants’ physical, somatic health symptoms. Participants were asked to indicate for each of the 18
symptoms if they did not have it, had it, or saw a doctor for it in the past 30 days. The total physical
symptom score was calculated as the summation of the number of symptoms they had. This total
score was used in subsequent analyses. Because this is a count variable, the a coefficient is not
applicable.
Popularity. The 8-item Popularity scale by Scott and Judge (2009) was used. Coworkers rated the
focal employees’ popularity within their work unit. Items were based on a 5-point Likert-type scale
ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). A sample item is ‘‘The person for whom I
am completing this survey is popular.’’ The a coefficient was .92 in the current sample.
Interpersonal counterproductive work behavior (CWB-I) targeted. We adapted the 9-item CWB-I scale
by Porath, Pearson, and Shapiro (1999) to measure CWB-I targeted. Items were rated by coworkers
of the focal employees on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (almost never) to 5 (very often).
One sample item is ‘‘How often do this person’s coworkers insult him/her?’’ The a coefficient was
.88 in the current sample.
Interpersonal organizational citizenship behavior (OCB-I) targeted. We adapted the 8-item OCB-I scale
by Lee and Allan (2002) to measure OCB-I targeted. Items were rated on a 5-point Likert-type scale
ranging from 1 (almost never) to 5 (very often). One sample item is ‘‘How often do this person’s
coworkers give up time to help him or her with work or non-work problems?’’ The a coefficient was
.92 in the current sample.
Results
Factor Structure of the WSSE Inventory
We conducted a CFA on the 22 WSSE items, imposing the factor structure identified in Study 1. The
CFA yielded acceptable model fit: w2
¼ 496.95, p .01, NNFI ¼ .94, CFI ¼ .94, SRMR ¼ .07. Table
Fan et al. 101
101
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

13. 1 presents standardized factor loadings for the WSSE inventory. As can be seen, all factor loadings
were significant, with an averaged loading of .79. The a coefficient for the WSSE total scale was
estimated to be .93, and the coefficient for the four WSSE subscales was estimated to be .90 for the
social gathering subscale, .94 for the public performance subscale, .81 for the conflict management
subscale, and .87 for the seeking and offering help subscale. Thus, we conclude that WSSE inven-
tory’s factor structure was established and the WSSE inventory and its subscales had excellent inter-
nal consistency.
Convergent and Discriminant Validity
Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations, and correlations among study variables. WSSE
scores had strong and positive correlations with PSSE scores (r ¼ .67, p .01), PSI scores (r ¼
.55, p .01), and OBSE scores (r ¼ .53, p .01), but had a positive, yet much weaker correlation
with Using Technology Skills Confidence scores (r ¼ .22, p .01). Three t tests for the difference
between two dependent correlation coefficients yielded significant results: for r ¼ .67 (PSSE) versus
r ¼ .22 (Using Technology), t (134) ¼ 5.77, p .01; for r ¼ .55 (PSI) versus r ¼ .22 (Using Tech-
nology), t (134) ¼ 3.38, p .01, and for r ¼ .53 (OBSE) versus r ¼ .22 (Using Technology), t (134)
¼ 3.14, p .01. Thus, Hypotheses 1a, 1b, and 2 were supported.
Nomological Network Analysis
Hypothesis 3a predicted that the correlation between WSSE scores and IM scores should be weaker
than the correlation between political skills scores and IM scores. As expected based on the theore-
tical proposition that WSSE may involve a degree of situational blindness, WSSE total scores were
uncorrelated with IM scores (for WSSE total: r ¼ .01, p ¼ .98); however, PSI scores were positively
correlated with IM scores (r ¼ .20, p .05). A test for the difference between these two dependent
correlation coefficients was significant: t (134) ¼ 2.38, p .05, thus supporting Hypothesis 3a.
Hypothesis 3b predicted that WSSE scores should have a weaker correlation with workplace
interpersonal conflict scores than should PSI scores. Table 2 indicated that WSSE scores were not
significantly correlated with interpersonal conflict scores (r ¼ .13, p ¼ .12), whereas PSI scores
were (r ¼ .25, p .01). A test for the difference between two dependent correlation coefficients
indicated that although the correlation difference pattern was in the expected direction, it failed to
reach the conventional significance: r ¼ .13 versus r ¼ .25, t(134) ¼ 1.51, p ¼ .06. Together,
these results suggest weak support for Hypothesis 3b.
According to Table 2, WSSE scores had a significant and negative correlation with the Physical
Symptom scores (r ¼ .18, p .05), and a significant and positive correlation with Job-related
Affective Well-being scores (r ¼ .35, p .01). Thus, Hypotheses 4a and 4b were supported.
In calculating correlations between WSSE scores and three coworker ratings, we only considered
participants who received at least two coworker ratings (n ¼ 97), in order to provide more rigorous
tests of the relevant hypotheses. Among the coworker ratings, popularity is a consensus-based con-
cept (Scott Judge, 2009), and we thus calculated the interrater agreement, rwg for coworker-rated
popularity (James, Demarre, Wolf, 1984). It turned out that rwg value was larger than the conven-
tional cutoff of .70 for all 97 participants, which justified using averaged coworker-rated popularity
in subsequent analyses. The other two coworker ratings were not consensus-based constructs, and
we simply calculated the average ratings.
WSSE scores were found to be significantly correlated with the coworker-rated popularity scores
(r ¼ .27,n¼ 97, p .01)and coworker-ratedOCB-I targetedscores(r ¼ .23,n ¼ 97, p .05), supporting
Hypotheses 5a and 5c, respectively. However, Hypothesis 5b was not supported, as the correlation
between WSSE scores and CWB-I targeted scores was not significant: r ¼ .01, n ¼ 97, p .05.
102 Journal of Career Assessment 21(1)
102
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

14. Table
2.
Means,
Standard
Deviations,
and
Inter-correlations
Among
Study
2
Variables.
Mean
SD
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
1.
WSSE_TOT
81.22
12.58
(.93)
2.
WSSE_SG
86.21
15.70
.71**
(.90)
3.
WSSE_PP
78.16
20.52
.82**
.34**
(.94)
4.
WSSE_CM
73.85
16.14
.73**
.30**
.51**
(.81)
5.
WSSE_HP
86.21
13.21
.76**
.55**
.45**
.47**
(.87)
6.
PSSE
3.76
0.68
.67**
.52**
.59**
.41**
.45**
(.95)
7.
TechSC
2.87
1.03
.22**
.18*
.17*
.18*
.13
.19*
(.93)
8.
PSI
5.51
0.82
.55**
.37**
.49**
.36**
.43**
.59**
.12
(.92)
9.
IM
4.13
0.98
.01
.15
.04
.05
.08
.09
.07
.20*
(.74)
10.
OBSE
4.40
0.51
.53**
.30**
.45**
.36**
.51**
.38**
.04
.61**
.22**
(.90)
11.
Conflict
1.53
0.50
.13
.18*
.02
.08
.17*
.16
.05
.25**
.16
.26**
(.74)
12.
PHS
4.64
3.19
.18*
.01
.18*
.19*
.18*
.19*
.08
.22**
.26**
.22**
.23**
N/A
13.
JAW
3.53
0.62
.35**
.12
.34**
.32**
.27**
.34**
.11
.32**
.19*
.46**
.30**
.40**
(.90)
14.
Popularity
4.29
0.43
.27**
.24*
.22*
.11
.25*
.15
.03
.42**
.27**
.43**
.39**
.06
.18
(.92)
15.
CWB
–
I
1.42
0.36
.01
.06
.10
.04
.15
.08
.02
.01
.13
.16
.27**
.10
.08
.38**
(.88)
16.
OCB
–
I
3.66
0.55
.23*
.14
.24*
.05
.23*
.01
.19
.16
.12
.11
.16
.01
.24**
.42**
.27**
(.92)
Note.
N
¼
137
for
self-report
data
(Variable
1
through
13).
N
¼
97
for
peer-rating
data
(Variable
14
through
16).
Coefficient
Alpha
estimates
are
on
the
diagonal.
WSSE_TOT
¼
Workplace
Social
Self-Efficacy
total
scale.
WSSE_SG
¼
WSSE
Social
Gathering
subscale.
WSSE_PP
¼
WSSE
Public
Performance
subscale.
WSSE_CM
¼
WSSE
Conflict
Management
subscale.
WSSE_HP
¼
WSSE
Seeking
and
Offering
subscale.
PSSE
¼
Perceived
Social
Self-Efficacy
scale.
TechSC
¼
Using
Technology
Skill
Confidence
scale.
PSI
¼
Political
Skill
Inventory.
IM
¼
Impression
Management
scale.
OBSE
¼
Organization
Based
Self-Esteem.
Conflict
¼
Interpersonal
Conflict
at
Work
scale.
PHS
¼
Physical
Symptom
inventory.
JAW
¼
Job-related
Affective
Well-being
inventory.
Popularity
¼
Peer-rated
Popularity
Scale.
CWB
–
I
¼
Peer-rated
Interpersonal
Counterproductive
Work
Behavior
Targeted.
OCB
–
I
¼
Peer-rated
Interpersonal
Organizational
Citizenship
Behavior
Tar-
geted.
*
p
.05.
**
p
.01.
103
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

15. Hypothesis 6 predicted that political skill should mediate the relationship between WSSE and
various outcome variables. The key to a mediation relationship is the significance of the indirect
effect (Hayes, 2009). Methodologists have recently recommended using the bootstrapping method
to test the indirect effect to overcome the seldom-held normality assumption required by the Sobel
test (e.g., Preacher Hayes, 2008). Thus, we used the bootstrapping method to test these mediation
effects, using the statistical package for social sciences macro written by Preacher and Hayes. The
results are summarized in Table 3. Specifically, political skill was found to mediate the relationship
between WSSE and workplace interpersonal conflict (the indirect effect ¼ .0055, p .05, support-
ing Hypothesis 6a), affective well-being (the indirect effect ¼ .0048, p .05, supporting Hypoth-
esis 6c), and coworker-rated popularity (the indirect effect ¼ .0070, p .05, supporting Hypothesis
6f). Other mediation hypotheses were not supported.
Hypothesis 7 predicted that WSSE scores should exhibit unique relationships with organizational
variables after PSSE scores are controlled for. We conducted a series of hierarchical regression anal-
yses in which PSSE was entered into the regression model in Step 1 and then in Step 2 WSSE was
also entered. Note that workplace interpersonal conflict and coworker-rated CWB-I targeted were
not included in this set of analysis because they were not significantly correlated with either WSSE
or PSSE. Also note that we intentionally included the nonorganizational variable of physical symp-
toms to examine whether the advantage of WSSE scores over PSSE scores is limited to the organi-
zational settings. The regression results are summarized in Table 4. WSSE scores yielded unique,
significant relationships with all organizational variables after controlling for PSSE scores, includ-
ing organizational based self-esteem (b ¼ .50, DR2
¼ .14), political skill (b ¼ .29, DR2
¼ .04), job-
related affective well-being (b ¼ .23, DR2
¼ .03), coworker-rated popularity (b ¼ .31, DR2
¼ .08),
and coworker-rated OCB-I targeted (b ¼ .41, DR2
¼ .09). Interestingly, WSSE scores did not yield
unique relationships with the nonorganizational variable of physical symptoms (b ¼ .08, DR2
¼
.00) after PSSE scores were controlled for. Therefore, taken together, Hypothesis 7 was strongly
supported.
General Discussion
We contribute to research concerned with social effectiveness at work by formally defining the con-
struct of WSSE and developing a measure for it. Based on two studies conducted using diverse sam-
ples of full-time employees, we believe that this new measure represents a promising addition to the
Table 3. Mediation of the Indirect Effects of WSSE on Outcome Variables Through Political Skill.
Mediation models Point estimate
BCa 95% CI
Lower Upper
WSSE à PS à workplace interpersonal conflict .0055*
[.0123, .0001]
WSSE à PS à physical symptoms .0255 [.0565, .0057]
WSSE à PS à job-related affective well-being .0048*
[.0001, .0108]
WSSE à PS à popularity .0070*
[.0030, .0128]
WSSE à PS à CWB-I targeted .0001 [.0039, .0055]
WSSE à PS à OCB-I targeted .0013 [.0045, .0063]
Note. BCa 95% CI ¼ bias corrected and accelerated 95% bootstrapping confidence intervals that include correction for med-
ian bias and skew. Bootstrapping results were based on 2,000 bootstrapped samples.
CWB-I ¼ Coworker-rated Interpersonal Counterproductive Work Behavior; OCB-I ¼ Coworker-rated Interpersonal
Organizational Citizenship Behavior; PS ¼ Political Skill; WSSE ¼ Workplace Social Self-Efficacy.
For models involving popularity, CWB-I, and OCB-I, n ¼ 97; for all other models, n ¼ 137.
*p .05.
104 Journal of Career Assessment 21(1)
104
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

16. nomological network of workplace social effectiveness constructs. WSSE fits within established
theoretical frameworks (Ferris et al., 2007), and it also exhibits some distinctive properties that
might make it uniquely useful in some types of future research.
The WSSE inventory has properties associated with a sound measure. Factor analyses established
that the WSSE inventory has a quite clean four-factor structure: (a) participating in social groups and
gatherings, (b) performance in public contexts, (c) conflict management, and (d) seeking and offer-
ing help. Both the WSSE total scale and the four subscales had excellent internal consistency as all a
coefficients were above .80. WSSE scores exhibited excellent convergent and discriminant validity.
We observed positive correlations with a general social self-efficacy measure (the PSSE scale), a
work-domain social effectiveness measure (the PSI), and a work-domain self-esteem measure, and
at the same time a much weaker correlation with a nonsocial domain self-confidence measure (the
Using Technology Skill Confidence scale). The moderate correlations between the WSSE scale and
the PSSE scale (r ¼ .67) and the PSI (r ¼ .55) suggested some overlap between these constructs, but
the shared variance between the WSSE and the PSI was modest enough to ward off concerns that the
measures tap identical domains (Lewis-Beck, 1980). With respect to criterion-related validity,
WSSE scores were found to be positively correlated to scores in job-related affective well-being,
negatively to number of physical symptoms experienced, and positively to coworker-rated
popularity and OCB-I targeted. The above findings strongly suggest that WSSE is a relevant
construct in organizational settings.
Our mediation analyses also support Ferris et al.’s (2007) proposal that self-efficacy is an
important antecedent of political skill. We found support for three of the six mediation analyses
we conducted. These results clearly show that WSSE fits well within the theoretical structures iden-
tified by Ferris and colleagues for social effectiveness in general (Ferris et al., 2002) and political
skill in particular (Ferris et al., 2007).
We found evidence that the WSSE scale is a better fit to work environments compared to the
more general measure of the PSSE scale. For instance, the WSSE scale has a four-factor structure,
whereas the PSSE scale has a single-factor structure. The WSSE items tap into both conflict and
nonconflict social situations, whereas the PSSE items omit the latter. Most importantly, the WSSE
items are all workplace related, and as a result, exhibited unique relationships with various organi-
zational variables above and beyond PSSE scores. As such, we conclude that a WSSE measure has
been justified.
Some additional findings are noteworthy. One such result involves the weak correlations between
WSSE and self-reported workplace interpersonal conflict, and between WSSE and self-reported IM.
Taken together and in the context of the many stronger relationships we observed involving WSSE,
these null findings are consistent with our argument that WSSE may represent a relatively pure
Table 4. Regression Analyses Examining the Unique Effects of WSSE and PSSE.
Predictors
Org. based
self-esteem
(n ¼ 137)
Political skill
(n ¼ 137)
Physical symp-
toms
(n ¼ 137)
Job-related
AWB
(n ¼ 137)
Coworker
rated popularity
(n ¼ 97)
Coworker
rated OCB-I
target (n ¼ 97)
Step 1 Step 2 Step 1 Step 2 Step 1 Step 2 Step 1 Step 2 Step 1 Step 2 Step 1 Step 2
PSSE .38** .04 .59** .42** .19* .14* .34** .19 .15 .09 .002 .27**
WSSE .50** .26** .08 .21* .36** .40**
R2
.14 .28 .35 .39 .04 .04 .11 .14 .02 .10 .00 .09
DR2
.14 .04 .00 .03 .08 .09
Note. *p .05. **p .01.
Job-related AWB ¼ job-related affective well-being; OCB-I ¼ coworker-rated interpersonal organizational citizenship
behavior.
Fan et al. 105
105
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

17. assessment of one’s social competence at work that is less inclusive of assessments of specific social
situations compared to other social effectiveness constructs (cf. political skill; Ferris et al., 2002).
The fact that WSSE seems to relate strongly to one dimension identified by Ferris et al. (2002)
as important to social effectiveness (self-focused assessments of one’s capacity to act) but much less
to the second (reading social situations) might have implications for future research concerned with
topics such as individuals’ development of political skill.
Finally, we did not propose specific hypotheses regarding the four WSSE subscales. Neverthe-
less, we observed some evidence that subscales are differentially correlated with various constructs
in the nomological network. For instance, the public performance subscale and the seeking and
offering help subscale were the strongest correlates of organization-based self-esteem, and the social
gathering subscale and the seeking and offering help subscale were the only two subscales that had
significant correlations with the workplace interpersonal conflict scale. These differential relation-
ships provide some initial support to our conceptualization of WSSE as a multidimensional con-
struct. Among the four WSSE subscales, the seeking and offering help subscale and the public
performance subscales appeared to have the strongest relationships to the correlates we examined.
This suggests that social activities related to these two subdomains are particularly instrumental in
bringing about beneficial outcomes for employees good at these activities. In contrast, the remaining
two WSSE subscales seemed to have more unique patterns of relationships relative to other con-
structs we studied. Future researchers should continue to examine whether and how WSSE total
scores and subscale scores similarly and differentially relate to relevant constructs in the
nomological network.
Limitations and Future Research Directions
Several limitations should be kept in mind when interpreting our results. One limitation is that even
though our two studies might be regarded as sufficient to develop and introduce the WSSE measure,
the present work contained only a single study that examined criteria. Future research is needed to
elaborate the placement of WSSE within the nomological net of social effectiveness. Another lim-
itation concerns the causality of our findings. We relied on prior theory about the placement of
WSSE relative to other constructs and we used peer ratings to alleviate the common method variance
problem in Study 2, but these measures do not fully address questions about direction of causality in
survey research. For instance, the mediation analyses we conducted were based on Ferris et al.’s
(2007) theorizing of self-efficacy as an antecedent of political skill and on the long history of con-
struing self-efficacy as an antecedent to skill development in learning, but we still cannot rule out the
possibility of a reverse causal flow. Specifically, it is also possible based on social cognitive theory
to construe WSSE as the mediator and political skill as the antecedent because assessments of ability
in performance situations might be based on perceptions of relevant skills. Future research manip-
ulating WSSE is needed to fully establish the direction of causality.
Still another limitation is that when collecting peer ratings, employees were asked to distribute
surveys to up to five of their coworkers, and employees may have chosen to give surveys to their
friends in the workplace, which may lead to inflated popularity, CWB, and OCB ratings. It is unclear
whether such inflations may result in the under- or overestimation of the correlations between PSSE
scores and these peer ratings. Future research with more rigorous methods of collecting peer-rating
data is needed to replicate our findings.
Future research might also examine WSSE as a moderator of relationships between workplace
social stressors and strains. Although we found some moderating tendency for WSSE scores in a few
exploratory analyses in Study 2, no significant results were found, probably due to our modest sam-
ple size and the difficulty of identifying interaction effects in survey studies. Nevertheless, future
106 Journal of Career Assessment 21(1)
106
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

18. researchers should investigate this important research question using larger samples and including
more social stressor and strain variables.
Practical Implications
One appealing feature of domain-related conceptualizations of self-efficacy is that they represent
self-efficacy perceptions as malleable, thus subject to external influences such as training and
coaching. Given the benefits associated with having a high level of WSSE, training programs can
be developed to boost employees’ WSSE, particularly in jobs requiring intensive social interactions.
In this regard, Bandura’s (1986, 1997) framework provides excellent strategies to boost WSSE.
Furthermore, employees’ WSSE total scores and subscale scores can serve as a diagnostic tool
before the training and as an evaluation tool after the training. Executive coaches and organizational
mentors can also use these scores to help trainees and protégés identify specific deficiency areas and
then develop plans to address them.
Conclusion
We developed and provided initial evidence for the utility of WSSE as an indicator of one dimension
of workplace social effectiveness. Our studies introduce WSSE as a relevant construct and show
how it complements existing theory, but more research is clearly needed to identify how this and
other constructs help us to understand the complex but important social worlds of employment.
Given the high stakes that are frequently attached to social interactions at work, we hope that our
research inspires others to investigate this critical domain.
Authors’ Note
Jinyan Fan and Robert C. Litchfield contributed equally to this article.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or
publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
References
Andrews, M. C., Kacmar, K. M., Harris, K. (2009). Got political skill? The impact of justice on the
importance of political skill for job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 1427–1437.
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice Hall.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. New York, NY: Work.
Bandura, A. (2005). Guide for constructing self-efficacy scales. In F. Pajares T. Urdan (Eds.), Self-efficacy
beliefs of adolescents (pp. 1–43). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.
Bandura, A., Cervone, D. (1986). Differential engagement of self-reactive influences in cognitive motiva-
tion. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 38, 92–113.
Betz, N. E., Borgen, F., Rottinghaus, P., Paulsen, A., Halper, C. R., Harmon, L. W. (2003). The expanded
skills confidence inventory: Measuring basic domains of vocational activity. Journal of Vocational
Behavior, 62, 76–100.
Fan et al. 107
107
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

19. Betz, N. E., Harmon, L., Borgen, F. (1996). The relationships of self-efficacy for the Holland themes to gen-
der, occupational group membership, and vocational interests. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 43,
90–98.
Bing, M. N., Whanger, J. C., Davison, H. K., VanHook, J. B. (2004). Incremental validity of the frame-of-
reference effect in personality scale scores: A replication and extension. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89,
150–157.
Blau, P. M. 1964. Exchange and power in social life. New York, NY: Wiley.
Brown, D. J., Cober, R. T., Kane, K., Levy, P. E., Shalhoop, J. (2006). Proactive personality and the success-
ful job search: A field investigation with college students. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 717–726.
Browne, M. W., Cudeck, R., Tateneni, K., Mels, G. (2004). CEFA: comprehensive exploratory factor
analysis, Version 2.00 [Computer software and manual]. Columbus: Department of Psychology, Ohio
State University.
Chen, G., Gully, S. M., Eden, D. (2001). Validation of a new general self-efficacy scale. Organizational
Research Methods, 4, 62–83.
Connolly, J. (1989). Social self-efficacy in adolescents: Relations with self-concept, social adjustment and
mental health. Journal of Behavioral Science, 21, 258–269.
De Dreu, C. K. W., Weingart, L. R. (2003). Task versus relationship conflict, team performance, and team
member satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 741–749.
Fabrigar, L. R., Wegner, D. T., MacCallum, R. C., Strahan, E. J. (1999). Evaluating the use of exploratory
factor analysis in psychological research. Psychological Methods, 4, 272–299.
Fan, C., Mak, A. S. (1998). Measuring social self-efficacy in a culturally diverse student population. Social
Behavior and Personality, 26, 131–144.
Ferris, G. R., Perrewé, P. L., Douglas, C. (2002). Social effectiveness in organizations: Construct validity and
research questions. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 9, 49–63
Ferris, G. R., Treadway, D. C., Kolodinsky, R. W., Hochwarter, W. A., Kacmar, C. J., Douglas, C., . . . Frink,
D. D. (2005). Development and validation of the political skill inventory. Journal of Management, 31,
126–152.
Ferris, G. R., Treadway, D. C., Perrewé, P. L., Brouer, R. L., Douglas, C., Lux, S. (2007). Political skill in
organizations. Journal of Management, 33, 290–320.
Fichten, C. S., Bourdon, C. V., Amsel, R., Fox, L. (1987). Validation of the college Interaction Self-Efficacy
Questionnaire: Students with and without disabilities. Journal of College Student Personnel, 28, 449–458.
Harris, K. J., Harris, R. B., Brouer, R. L. (2009). LMX and subordinate political skill: Direct and interactive
effects on turnover intentions and job satisfaction. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39, 2373–2395.
Hayes, A. F. (2009). Beyond Baron and Kenny: Statistical mediation analysis in the new millennium.
Communication Monographs, 76, 408–420.
Ilgen, D. R., Pulakos, E. D. (1999). The changing nature of performance: Implications for staffing, motiva-
tion, and development. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
James, L. R., Demaree, R. G., Wolf, G. (1984). Estimating within-group interrater reliability with and with-
out response bias. Journal of Applied Psychology, 69, 85–98.
Jöreskog, K. G., Sörbom, D. (1996). LISREL8: User’s reference guide. Chicago, IL: Scientific Software.
Judge, T. A., Locke, E. A., Durham, C. C. (1997). The dispositional causes of job satisfaction: A core eva-
luations approach. Research in Organizational Behavior, 19, 151–188.
Lam, S. S., Chen, X.-P., Schaubroeck, J. (2002). Participative decision making and employee performance in
different cultures: The moderating effects of allocentrism/idiocentrism and efficacy. Academy of
Management Journal, 45, 905–914.
Larson, L. M. (1998). The social cognitive model of counselor training. The Counseling Psychologist, 26,
219–273.
Lee, K., Allen, N. J. (2002). Organizational citizenship behavior and workplace deviance: The role of affect
and cognitions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 131–142.
108 Journal of Career Assessment 21(1)
108
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

20. Lewis-Beck, M. S. (1980). Applied regression: An introduction. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Sparrowe, R. T. (2000). An examination of the mediating role of psychological
empowerment on the relations between the job, interpersonal relationships, and work outcomes. Journal of
Applied Psychology, 85, 407–416.
Lin, S., Betz, N. (2009). Factors related to the social self-efficacy of Chinese international students. The
Counseling Psychologist, 37, 451–471.
Liu, C., Nauta, M. M., Spector, P. E., Li, C. (2008). Direct and indirect conflict at work in China and the US:
A cross-cultural comparison. Work Stress, 22, 295–313.
Liu, Y., Perrewé, P., Hochwarter, W. A., Kacmar, C. J. (2004). Dispositional antecedents and consequences
of emotional labor at work. Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies, 10, 12–26.
Mathieu, J., Ahearne, M., Taylor, S. R. (2007). A longitudinal cross-level model of leader and salesperson
influences on sales force technology use and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 528–537.
Ng, K.-Y., Ang, S., Chan, K.-Y. (2008). Personality and leader effectiveness: A moderated mediation model
of leadership self-efficacy, job demands, and job autonomy. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 733–743.
Paulhus, D. L. (1988). Paulhus deception scale (PDS): The Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding–7
user’s manual. North Tonawanda, NY: Multi-Health System.
Pierce, J. L., Gardner, D. G. (2004). Self-esteem within the work and organizational context: A review of the
organization-based self-esteem literature. Journal of Management, 30, 591–622.
Pierce, J. L., Gardner, D. G., Cummings, L. L., Dunham, R. B. (1989). Organization-based self-esteem:
Construct definition, operationalization, and validation. Academy of Management Journal, 32, 622–648.
Porath, C., Pearson, C., Shapiro, D. L. (1999). Turning the other cheek or an eye on an eye: Target’s
responses to incivility. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Chicago, IL.
Preacher, K. J., Hayes, A. F. (2008). Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing
indirect effects in multiple mediator models. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 879–891.
Salovey, P., Meyer, J. D. (1990). Emotional intelligence. Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 9,
185–211.
Scott, B. A., Judge, T. A. (2009). The popularity contest at work: Who wins, why, and what do they receive?
Journal of Applied Psychology, 94, 20–33.
Sherer, M., Maddux, J. E., Mercadante, B., Prentice-Dunn, S., Jacobs, B., Rogers, R. W. (1982). The Self-
Efficacy Scale: Construction and validation. Psychological Reports, 51, 663–671.
Skaalvik, E. M., Skaalvik, S. (2007). Dimensions of teacher self-efficacy and relations with strain factors,
perceived collective teacher efficacy, and teacher burnout. Journal of Educational Psychology, 99,
611–625.
Smith, H. M., Betz, N. E. (2000). Development and validation of a scale of perceived social self-efficacy.
Journal of Career Assessment, 8, 283–301.
Spector, P. E., Jex, S. M. (1998). Development of four self-report measures of job stressors and strain:
Interpersonal Conflict at Work Scale, Organizational Constraints Scale, Quantitative Workload
Inventory, and Physical Symptoms Inventory. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 3, 356–367.
Tasa, K., Taggar, S., Seijts, G. H. (2007). The development of collective efficacy in teams: A multilevel and
longitudinal perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92, 17–27.
Tierney, P., Farmer, S. M. (2002). Creative self-efficacy: Its potential antecedents and relationship to creative
performance. Academy of Management Journal, 45, 1137–1148.
Truxillo, D. M., Bauer, T. N., Campion, M. A., Paronto, M. E. (2002). Selection fairness information and
applicant reactions: A longitudinal field study. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87, 1020–1031.
Van Katwyk, P. T., Fox, S., Spector, P. E., Kelloway, E. K. (2000). Using the job-related affective well-being
scale (JAWS) to investigate affective responses to work stressors. Journal of Occupational Health
Psychology, 5, 219–230.
Vancouver, J. B., More, K. M., Yoder, R. J. (2008). Self-efficacy and resource allocation: Support for a non-
monotonic, discontinuous model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 35–47.
Fan et al. 109
109
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from

21. Wang, Q., Bowling, N. A., Eschleman, K. J. (2010). A meta-analytic examination of work and general locus
of control. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 761–768.
Wheeler, V. A., Ladd, G. W. (1982). Assessment of children’s self-efficacy for social interactions with peers.
Developmental Psychology, 18, 795–805.
Xie, D. (2007). Buffering or strengthening: The moderating effect of self-efficacy on stressor-strain relation-
ship. Journal of Career Assessment, 15, 351–366.
110 Journal of Career Assessment 21(1)
110
at CITY UNIV OF HONG KONG on December 7, 2014
jca.sagepub.com
Downloaded from