Objectives: To evaluate a wireless smart phone–assisted (SPA) system that assesses ongoing heart rate (HR) and HR-triggered participant reports of momentary stress when HR is elevated during daily life. This SPA system was used to determine the independent and interactive roles of chronic and momentary work stress on HR reactivity among female managers.

Methods: A sample of 40 female managers reported their chronic work stress and wore the SPA system during a regular workday. They provided multiple reports of their momentary stress, both when triggered by increased HR and at random times. Relationships among chronic stress, momentary stress, and HR were analyzed with hierarchical linear modeling.

Results: Both chronic work stress (b = 0.08, standard error [SE] = 0.03, p = .003) and momentary work stress (b = 1.25, SE = 0.62, p = .052) independently predicted greater HR reactivity, adjusting for baseline HR, age, smoking, caffeine, alcohol use, and momentary physical activity levels. More importantly, chronic and momentary stress significantly interacted (b = 1.00, SE = 0.04, p = .036); high momentary stress predicted elevated HR only in the context of high chronic stress.

Conclusions: Female managers who experience chronic work stress displayed elevated cardiac reactivity during momentary stress at work. The joint assessment of chronic stress and momentary stress and their relationship to physiological functioning during work clarifies the potential health risks associated with work stress. Moreover, this wireless SPA system captures the immediate subjective context of individuals when physiological arousal occurs, which may lead to tailored stress management programs in the workplace.

Emotions are an important aspect of organizational life. However emotional issues, particularly negative emotions, have traditionally been largely neglected in organizational life. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between transformational, transactional, and laissez-faire leadership styles, and leaders’negative emotions perceived by the subordinates. The aim is also to investigate the influence of leadership styles on the subordinates’ overall psychological health and well-being. The result challenges some of the earlier findings, suggesting that there is a need for a better understanding of how contextual factors might intervene in the relation between leaders’ negative emotions, leadership styles, and subordinates’ well-being.

The study asks the question of where we can find a good way of understanding leadership effectiveness, if this could be done with the help of the concept of national culture. The objective of the study is to explore how leadership should be in order to be perceived as effective in different national cultures. Responses were obtained from six countries, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Sweden and USA. Factor analysis, correlation analysis and ANOVA was performed on each national sub sample. The result shows that several items are present in the factors of all or almost all countries, while the content of the factors might differ substantially. As a conclusion, it is suggested that the concept of leadership effectiveness should be stratified into two levels; one fundamental level that would deal with the social and psychological needs of leaders, and one level that would deal with the applications or acculturations of the underlying social and psychological needs.

Knowing how to retain employees, especially those who are well educated, experienced and contribute to company’s competitive advantage, is important. However, with an increasing number of companies operating with subsidiaries outside the home country, retention also needs to be viewed from a cultural perspective. In this theoretical article, focus is on the interrelatedness between retention strategies and national culture in two countries with different cultures: France and Sweden. The GLOBE study framework is used, and national culture is measured in terms of Future Orientation, Assertiveness, Institutional Collectivism, Power Distance, Humane Orientation and Uncertainty Avoidance. Retention is measured as Remuneration, Career Opportunities, Training and Development of Skills, Leadership Style, Physical Working Conditions and Work–Life Balance. As a result of the study, seven hypotheses, aiming to test the interrelatedness between the areas of retention and national culture in France and Sweden, are proposed.