Sabine Bergner - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Sabine Bergner
Springer Reference Psychologie, Dec 31, 2022
Kompetenzmodelle konnen eine wertvolle Basis fur die Entwicklung von Fuhrungskraften sein. Ihre u... more Kompetenzmodelle konnen eine wertvolle Basis fur die Entwicklung von Fuhrungskraften sein. Ihre unternehmensspezifische Konzeption benotigen strategisches Wissen und Feingefuhl, um ein Modell mit breiter Akzeptanz zu generieren. Der aktuelle Beitrag skizziert anhand eines Unternehmensbeispiels aus der Automobilbranche die Entwicklung und Implementierung eines Kompetenzmodells fur Fuhrungskrafte. Daran anschliesend wird exemplarisch aufgezeigt, wie die im Modell definierten Kompetenzen bei der Beurteilung von Fuhrungskraften und folglich bei der Ausarbeitung individueller Entwicklungsplane fur diese Fuhrungskrafte dienlich eingesetzt werden konnen. Der Beitrag verbindet demnach den Kompetenzmanagementansatz mit der Fuhrungskrafteentwicklung.
Springer Reference Psychologie, 2023
strengthening resilience by sustainable economy and business - towards the SDGs
This study examines the relationship between macro- (organizational design), meso- (leadership be... more This study examines the relationship between macro- (organizational design), meso- (leadership behavior) and micro-level (employees’ personality) organizational characteristics and the individual’s ability to manage the exploration–exploitation duality (balancing of exploring new and exploiting existing paths). This study aims to reveal how employees’ ability to manage this duality can be enhanced and how these characteristics interact with each other. It is a work in progress, focused on building theoretical background and applying a new research design. An experiment is planned on two samples of Master students with a business background from Austria and Slovenia, using an experimental vignette methodology. Outcomes of this research will enable department and human resource managers to provide conditions at work for employees to balance their intention to explore new avenues while at the same time exploiting existing ones, as both behaviors are necessary to trigger organizational ...
Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2010
Springer Reference Psychologie, 2023
Academy of Management Proceedings
Frontiers in Psychology
Social entrepreneurship (SE) increasingly contributes to diversity in entrepreneurship. The diffe... more Social entrepreneurship (SE) increasingly contributes to diversity in entrepreneurship. The different approaches to SE suggest a variety of antecedents which drive individuals' intention to become social entrepreneurs. While this variety of antecedents is insightful, it also creates a need for systemisation and prioritization. We address this need by introducing an integrative, multi-level framework for person-based antecedents of SE-intention. Based on this multi-level framework the antecedents are grouped on three theoretical levels which refer to an individual's (1) personality, (2) cognition, and (3) entrepreneurial exposition. When testing our framework with 499 South African University students we find support for the multi-level framework and its notion that antecedents from the diverse levels complement each other. Therefore, this study provides a structure for person-based antecedents of SE-intention and additionally points to future research which may extend the pr...
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
Personality and Individual Differences, 2013
The neural efficiency hypothesis postulates a more efficient use of brain resources in more intel... more The neural efficiency hypothesis postulates a more efficient use of brain resources in more intelligent people as compared to less intelligent ones. However, this relationship was found to be moderated by sex and task content. While the phenomenon of neural efficiency was previously supported for men when performing visuo-spatial tasks it occurred for women only when performing verbal tasks. One possible explanation for this finding could be provided by the well-studied phenomenon called stereotype threat. Stereotype threat arises when a negative stereotype of one's own group is made salient and can result in behavior that confirms the stereotype. Overall, 32 boys and 31 girls of varying intellectual ability were tested with a mental rotation task, either under a stereotype exposure or a no-stereotype exposure condition while measuring their EEG. The behavioral results show that an activated negative stereotype not necessarily hampers the performance of girls. Physiologically, a confirmation of the neural efficiency phenomenon was only obtained for boys working under a no-stereotype exposure condition. This result pattern replicates previous findings without threat and thus suggests that sex differences in neural efficiency during visuo-spatial tasks may not be due to the stereotype threat effect.
Neuropsychologia, 2011
Synchronization of EEG alpha activity has been referred to as being indicative of cortical idling... more Synchronization of EEG alpha activity has been referred to as being indicative of cortical idling, but according to more recent evidence it has also been associated with active internal processing and creative thinking. The main objective of this study was to investigate to what extent EEG alpha synchronization is related to internal processing demands and to specific cognitive process involved in creative thinking. To this end, EEG was measured during a convergent and a divergent thinking task (i.e., creativity-related task) which once were processed involving low and once involving high internal processing demands. High internal processing demands were established by masking the stimulus (after encoding) and thus preventing further bottom-up processing. Frontal alpha synchronization was observed during convergent and divergent thinking only under exclusive top-down control (high internal processing demands), but not when bottom-up processing was allowed (low internal processing demands). We conclude that frontal alpha synchronization is related to top-down control rather than to specific creativity-related cognitive processes. Frontal alpha synchronization, which has been observed in a variety of different creativity tasks, thus may not reflect a brain state that is specific for creative cognition but can probably be attributed to high internal processing demands which are typically involved in creative thinking.
Intelligence, 2014
The neural efficiency hypothesis describes the phenomenon that brighter individuals show lower br... more The neural efficiency hypothesis describes the phenomenon that brighter individuals show lower brain activation than less bright individuals when working on the same cognitive tasks. The present study investigated whether the brain activation-intelligence relationship still applies when more versus less intelligent individuals perform tasks with a comparable personspecific task difficulty. In an fMRI-study, 58 persons with lower (n = 28) or respectively higher (n = 30) intelligence worked on simple and difficult inductive reasoning tasks having the same person-specific task difficulty. Consequently, less bright individuals received samplebased easy and medium tasks, whereas bright subjects received sample-based medium and difficult tasks. This design also allowed a comparison of lower versus higher intelligent individuals when working on the same tasks (i.e. sample-based medium task difficulty). In line with expectations, differences in task performance and in brain activation were only found for the subset of tasks with the same sample-based task difficulty, but not when comparing tasks with the same person-specific task difficulty. These results suggest that neural efficiency reflects an (ability-dependent) adaption of brain activation to the respective task demands.
Intelligence, 2010
The well-documented sex difference in mental rotation favoring males has been shown to emerge onl... more The well-documented sex difference in mental rotation favoring males has been shown to emerge only for 2-dimensional presentations of 3-dimensional objects, but not with actual 3dimensional objects or with virtual reality presentations of 3-dimensional objects. Training studies using computer games with mental rotation-related content have demonstrated training effects on mental rotation performance. Here, we studied the combined effect of a twoweek mental rotation (MR) training on 2-dimensional vs. 3-dimensional presentations of a classic Shepard-Metzler task (presented in a pretest-training-posttest design) and their accompanying cortical activation patterns assessed via EEG in a sample of 38 male and 39 female adolescents of about 15 years of age. Analysis of one performance parameter (reaction times) displayed only main effects of dimensionality (with shorter RTs on the 3D vs. 2D version of the MR task) and of training (significant shortening of RTs), but no significant sex difference. Analysis of the other performance parameter (scores) in the MR task revealed a sex difference favoring males that first, appeared only in the 2D version, but not in the 3D version of the MR task and, secondly, diminished after training. Neurophysiologically we observed a complex sex × dimensionality × training × hemisphere interaction showing that the hypothesized decrease of brain activation (increase in neural efficiency) with training emerged for males in both 2D and 3D conditions, whereas for females this decrease was found only in the 3D but not with the 2D version of the MR task.
High Ability Studies, 2011
A male advantage in spatial abilities is assumed to underlie their superior performance in comple... more A male advantage in spatial abilities is assumed to underlie their superior performance in complex mathematical problems. In this study we investigated whether sex differences in mental rotation (MR) tasks are related to female underachievement and whether training effects of a MR training can be generalized across achievers and underachievers. Moreover, the cortical activation pattern (assessed via EEG) of gifted
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 2010
Research concerning the relationship between personality and job performance has been largely con... more Research concerning the relationship between personality and job performance has been largely conducted within the framework of the broad Big Five personality traits (Costa & McCrae, 1992). In contrast, the validity of narrow traits has not been adequately addressed. We examined the extent to which narrow personality traits contribute to the prediction of managerial success beyond the Big Five. To
Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 2015
The study investigated if personality can explain why certain managers are prone to overrate or u... more The study investigated if personality can explain why certain managers are prone to overrate or underrate their own effectiveness. Thus, the relationship between self–other agreement of effectiveness and personality was studied. In total, 214 managers completed a multisource feedback and provided personality data on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. Results show that more extraverted leaders overrated their effectiveness in relation to their supervisors but had more accurate perceptions when self–peer and self–subordinate ratings were compared. Leaders with an intuition preference had more accurate perceptions when comparing self and supervisor or subordinate ratings while leaders with judging preferences received lower subordinate than self-ratings. Findings show that personality partly explains why leaders overrate or underrate their effectiveness and thus can be used for understanding leaders’ careers.
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2015
Transformational managers lead by sharing a vision, being compassionate, thinking outside of the ... more Transformational managers lead by sharing a vision, being compassionate, thinking outside of the box, and being charismatic. Transformational leadership positively impacts followers’ per-formance and is regarded as one of the most promising leadership approaches in fast-changing environments. In this fMRI-study, we investigated the neural activations in potential followers as they were experiencing transformational leadership behavior. Forty-seven participants assessed leadership behavior in pre-scanning identification tasks and then completed comparison tasks while being scanned. Whenever a task was completed correctly, a transformational leader’s face was highlighted. If a task was completed incorrectly, a laissez-faire leader was stressed. The re-sults suggested that transformational leadership behavior elevates the activations in the reward circuitry, particularly, in the ventral striatum. The more transformational leaders were perceived to be, the higher the activations in the dorsal caudate nucleus,...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2021
Language is the primary tool for business communication and exerts its influence during both time... more Language is the primary tool for business communication and exerts its influence during both times of crisis and stability. This study examines the power of CEO language and investigates its link t...
Motivation plays a crucial role in leadership, particularly when facing difficult situations and ... more Motivation plays a crucial role in leadership, particularly when facing difficult situations and decisions. This long-term study investigates whether vocational interests predict an individual s motivation to lead (MtL). Moreover, it examines whether the link between vocational interests and MtL is mediated by the extent and success of prior leadership experiences. To this end, 471 participants (291 male, 180 female, Mage 5 22.65, SDage 5 7.95) provided information on their vocational interests. Two years later, participants rated their MtL and provided information on both the extent of their prior leadership experiences and the respective success gained from these. Results show that enterprising and conventional interests positively affect MtL two years later. Additionally, enterprising and social interests also indirectly influence a person s motivation to lead through the extent and success of prior leadership experiences: people with higher enterprising and social interests repo...
Springer Reference Psychologie, Dec 31, 2022
Kompetenzmodelle konnen eine wertvolle Basis fur die Entwicklung von Fuhrungskraften sein. Ihre u... more Kompetenzmodelle konnen eine wertvolle Basis fur die Entwicklung von Fuhrungskraften sein. Ihre unternehmensspezifische Konzeption benotigen strategisches Wissen und Feingefuhl, um ein Modell mit breiter Akzeptanz zu generieren. Der aktuelle Beitrag skizziert anhand eines Unternehmensbeispiels aus der Automobilbranche die Entwicklung und Implementierung eines Kompetenzmodells fur Fuhrungskrafte. Daran anschliesend wird exemplarisch aufgezeigt, wie die im Modell definierten Kompetenzen bei der Beurteilung von Fuhrungskraften und folglich bei der Ausarbeitung individueller Entwicklungsplane fur diese Fuhrungskrafte dienlich eingesetzt werden konnen. Der Beitrag verbindet demnach den Kompetenzmanagementansatz mit der Fuhrungskrafteentwicklung.
Springer Reference Psychologie, 2023
strengthening resilience by sustainable economy and business - towards the SDGs
This study examines the relationship between macro- (organizational design), meso- (leadership be... more This study examines the relationship between macro- (organizational design), meso- (leadership behavior) and micro-level (employees’ personality) organizational characteristics and the individual’s ability to manage the exploration–exploitation duality (balancing of exploring new and exploiting existing paths). This study aims to reveal how employees’ ability to manage this duality can be enhanced and how these characteristics interact with each other. It is a work in progress, focused on building theoretical background and applying a new research design. An experiment is planned on two samples of Master students with a business background from Austria and Slovenia, using an experimental vignette methodology. Outcomes of this research will enable department and human resource managers to provide conditions at work for employees to balance their intention to explore new avenues while at the same time exploiting existing ones, as both behaviors are necessary to trigger organizational ...
Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2010
Springer Reference Psychologie, 2023
Academy of Management Proceedings
Frontiers in Psychology
Social entrepreneurship (SE) increasingly contributes to diversity in entrepreneurship. The diffe... more Social entrepreneurship (SE) increasingly contributes to diversity in entrepreneurship. The different approaches to SE suggest a variety of antecedents which drive individuals' intention to become social entrepreneurs. While this variety of antecedents is insightful, it also creates a need for systemisation and prioritization. We address this need by introducing an integrative, multi-level framework for person-based antecedents of SE-intention. Based on this multi-level framework the antecedents are grouped on three theoretical levels which refer to an individual's (1) personality, (2) cognition, and (3) entrepreneurial exposition. When testing our framework with 499 South African University students we find support for the multi-level framework and its notion that antecedents from the diverse levels complement each other. Therefore, this study provides a structure for person-based antecedents of SE-intention and additionally points to future research which may extend the pr...
Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience
Personality and Individual Differences, 2013
The neural efficiency hypothesis postulates a more efficient use of brain resources in more intel... more The neural efficiency hypothesis postulates a more efficient use of brain resources in more intelligent people as compared to less intelligent ones. However, this relationship was found to be moderated by sex and task content. While the phenomenon of neural efficiency was previously supported for men when performing visuo-spatial tasks it occurred for women only when performing verbal tasks. One possible explanation for this finding could be provided by the well-studied phenomenon called stereotype threat. Stereotype threat arises when a negative stereotype of one's own group is made salient and can result in behavior that confirms the stereotype. Overall, 32 boys and 31 girls of varying intellectual ability were tested with a mental rotation task, either under a stereotype exposure or a no-stereotype exposure condition while measuring their EEG. The behavioral results show that an activated negative stereotype not necessarily hampers the performance of girls. Physiologically, a confirmation of the neural efficiency phenomenon was only obtained for boys working under a no-stereotype exposure condition. This result pattern replicates previous findings without threat and thus suggests that sex differences in neural efficiency during visuo-spatial tasks may not be due to the stereotype threat effect.
Neuropsychologia, 2011
Synchronization of EEG alpha activity has been referred to as being indicative of cortical idling... more Synchronization of EEG alpha activity has been referred to as being indicative of cortical idling, but according to more recent evidence it has also been associated with active internal processing and creative thinking. The main objective of this study was to investigate to what extent EEG alpha synchronization is related to internal processing demands and to specific cognitive process involved in creative thinking. To this end, EEG was measured during a convergent and a divergent thinking task (i.e., creativity-related task) which once were processed involving low and once involving high internal processing demands. High internal processing demands were established by masking the stimulus (after encoding) and thus preventing further bottom-up processing. Frontal alpha synchronization was observed during convergent and divergent thinking only under exclusive top-down control (high internal processing demands), but not when bottom-up processing was allowed (low internal processing demands). We conclude that frontal alpha synchronization is related to top-down control rather than to specific creativity-related cognitive processes. Frontal alpha synchronization, which has been observed in a variety of different creativity tasks, thus may not reflect a brain state that is specific for creative cognition but can probably be attributed to high internal processing demands which are typically involved in creative thinking.
Intelligence, 2014
The neural efficiency hypothesis describes the phenomenon that brighter individuals show lower br... more The neural efficiency hypothesis describes the phenomenon that brighter individuals show lower brain activation than less bright individuals when working on the same cognitive tasks. The present study investigated whether the brain activation-intelligence relationship still applies when more versus less intelligent individuals perform tasks with a comparable personspecific task difficulty. In an fMRI-study, 58 persons with lower (n = 28) or respectively higher (n = 30) intelligence worked on simple and difficult inductive reasoning tasks having the same person-specific task difficulty. Consequently, less bright individuals received samplebased easy and medium tasks, whereas bright subjects received sample-based medium and difficult tasks. This design also allowed a comparison of lower versus higher intelligent individuals when working on the same tasks (i.e. sample-based medium task difficulty). In line with expectations, differences in task performance and in brain activation were only found for the subset of tasks with the same sample-based task difficulty, but not when comparing tasks with the same person-specific task difficulty. These results suggest that neural efficiency reflects an (ability-dependent) adaption of brain activation to the respective task demands.
Intelligence, 2010
The well-documented sex difference in mental rotation favoring males has been shown to emerge onl... more The well-documented sex difference in mental rotation favoring males has been shown to emerge only for 2-dimensional presentations of 3-dimensional objects, but not with actual 3dimensional objects or with virtual reality presentations of 3-dimensional objects. Training studies using computer games with mental rotation-related content have demonstrated training effects on mental rotation performance. Here, we studied the combined effect of a twoweek mental rotation (MR) training on 2-dimensional vs. 3-dimensional presentations of a classic Shepard-Metzler task (presented in a pretest-training-posttest design) and their accompanying cortical activation patterns assessed via EEG in a sample of 38 male and 39 female adolescents of about 15 years of age. Analysis of one performance parameter (reaction times) displayed only main effects of dimensionality (with shorter RTs on the 3D vs. 2D version of the MR task) and of training (significant shortening of RTs), but no significant sex difference. Analysis of the other performance parameter (scores) in the MR task revealed a sex difference favoring males that first, appeared only in the 2D version, but not in the 3D version of the MR task and, secondly, diminished after training. Neurophysiologically we observed a complex sex × dimensionality × training × hemisphere interaction showing that the hypothesized decrease of brain activation (increase in neural efficiency) with training emerged for males in both 2D and 3D conditions, whereas for females this decrease was found only in the 3D but not with the 2D version of the MR task.
High Ability Studies, 2011
A male advantage in spatial abilities is assumed to underlie their superior performance in comple... more A male advantage in spatial abilities is assumed to underlie their superior performance in complex mathematical problems. In this study we investigated whether sex differences in mental rotation (MR) tasks are related to female underachievement and whether training effects of a MR training can be generalized across achievers and underachievers. Moreover, the cortical activation pattern (assessed via EEG) of gifted
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 2010
Research concerning the relationship between personality and job performance has been largely con... more Research concerning the relationship between personality and job performance has been largely conducted within the framework of the broad Big Five personality traits (Costa & McCrae, 1992). In contrast, the validity of narrow traits has not been adequately addressed. We examined the extent to which narrow personality traits contribute to the prediction of managerial success beyond the Big Five. To
Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, 2015
The study investigated if personality can explain why certain managers are prone to overrate or u... more The study investigated if personality can explain why certain managers are prone to overrate or underrate their own effectiveness. Thus, the relationship between self–other agreement of effectiveness and personality was studied. In total, 214 managers completed a multisource feedback and provided personality data on the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator. Results show that more extraverted leaders overrated their effectiveness in relation to their supervisors but had more accurate perceptions when self–peer and self–subordinate ratings were compared. Leaders with an intuition preference had more accurate perceptions when comparing self and supervisor or subordinate ratings while leaders with judging preferences received lower subordinate than self-ratings. Findings show that personality partly explains why leaders overrate or underrate their effectiveness and thus can be used for understanding leaders’ careers.
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2015
Transformational managers lead by sharing a vision, being compassionate, thinking outside of the ... more Transformational managers lead by sharing a vision, being compassionate, thinking outside of the box, and being charismatic. Transformational leadership positively impacts followers’ per-formance and is regarded as one of the most promising leadership approaches in fast-changing environments. In this fMRI-study, we investigated the neural activations in potential followers as they were experiencing transformational leadership behavior. Forty-seven participants assessed leadership behavior in pre-scanning identification tasks and then completed comparison tasks while being scanned. Whenever a task was completed correctly, a transformational leader’s face was highlighted. If a task was completed incorrectly, a laissez-faire leader was stressed. The re-sults suggested that transformational leadership behavior elevates the activations in the reward circuitry, particularly, in the ventral striatum. The more transformational leaders were perceived to be, the higher the activations in the dorsal caudate nucleus,...
Academy of Management Proceedings, 2021
Language is the primary tool for business communication and exerts its influence during both time... more Language is the primary tool for business communication and exerts its influence during both times of crisis and stability. This study examines the power of CEO language and investigates its link t...
Motivation plays a crucial role in leadership, particularly when facing difficult situations and ... more Motivation plays a crucial role in leadership, particularly when facing difficult situations and decisions. This long-term study investigates whether vocational interests predict an individual s motivation to lead (MtL). Moreover, it examines whether the link between vocational interests and MtL is mediated by the extent and success of prior leadership experiences. To this end, 471 participants (291 male, 180 female, Mage 5 22.65, SDage 5 7.95) provided information on their vocational interests. Two years later, participants rated their MtL and provided information on both the extent of their prior leadership experiences and the respective success gained from these. Results show that enterprising and conventional interests positively affect MtL two years later. Additionally, enterprising and social interests also indirectly influence a person s motivation to lead through the extent and success of prior leadership experiences: people with higher enterprising and social interests repo...