Leadership Effectiveness in a Crisis
I examine the female leadership advantage (FLA) in high/stakes societal crises, using objective effectiveness indicators such as COVID-19 mortality, urban economic health, protest-related violence, and war-policy decision/making. Taken together, my research appears to indicate that female leaders seem to outperform their male counterparts in crises, with mediating mechanisms including empathy, ethics of care leadership (ECL), and intersectional leadership advantage (ILA).
Prof. Alex and Kayla Stajkovic discuss the empirical foundations and theoretical implications of gender differences in leadership effectiveness crises. This presentation synthesizes research on the female leadership advantage and highlights findings from their 2020 study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, which analyzed the leadership of U.S. governors during the COVID-19 pandemic. Their multi-method study reveals that women governors appeared to be more effective than their male counterparts. This research contributes to the broader literature on gender, leadership, and crisis management, and offers evidence-based insights into the conditions under which communal leadership behaviors are particularly impactful.
Toward Cognitive Automation in Organizations
With rising cognitive overload (attention demands are greater than attention capacity) at work, I investigate whether primed goals and money can enhance performance subconsciously at little to no attentional cost, offering insights into possibilities of cognitive automation at work.
Confidence-Based Self-Regulation
In this research stream, I examine “can-do” beliefs (self-efficacy, collective efficacy, group potency, and core confidence latent construct) as self-regulatory mechanisms that influence work motivation and performance, and how they relate to each other and big five personality traits.
This video provides an overview of Professor Alex Stajkovic’s article published in Personality and Individual Differences, titled “Test of three conceptual models of influence of the Big Five personality traits and self-efficacy on academic performance: A meta-analytic path analysis.” In this video abstract, the theoretical rationale, methodology, and key findings from the co-author team's comprehensive meta-analysis that examines how the Big Five personality traits and self-efficacy jointly predict academic performance is explained. The study tests three conceptual models to clarify the role of confidence (self-efficacy) as either a mediator or independent predictor. Results support a model in which self-efficacy partially mediates the influence of certain personality traits on academic outcomes, providing robust evidence for confidence-based self-regulation as a central motivational mechanism.
Incentive Motivators and Research Methods
M y early research focused on the social part in SCT. I examined reinforcement effects of money, feedback, and social recognition on work behavior . T wo reasons precipitated this interest. B eing an economics major in college , the effects of external reinforcers sounded believable, which segued sensibly into my advisor ’s research interests on Skinnerian operant conditioning.