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Thomas W.H. NG
Prof. Thomas W.H. NG
Management and Strategy
Professor

3917 8344

KK 726

Academic & Professional Qualification
  • PhD University of Georgia
  • MPhil CUHK
  • BBA CUHK
Biography

Thomas Ng received his PhD from the University of Georgia and is currently a Professor at the University of Hong Kong. His research interests include career development, job mobility, organizational embeddedness, employee aging issues, employment relationships, and personality at work.

Teaching
  • Organizational behavior
  • Human resource management
  • Career development
Research Interest
  • Aging
  • Career development
  • Employee job mobility and embeddedness
  • Organizational and occupational commitment
  • Personality at work
  • Psychological contracts and employment arrangements
Selected Publications

Refereed journals (The most recent ones are listed first)

  • Ng, T. W. H. (2024) Workplace hurdles and innovative behavior: A meta-analysis. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 149, 103968.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Yim, F.K., Chen, H., & Zou, Y. (2024) Employer-Sponsored Career Development Practices and Employee Performance and Turnover: A Meta-Analysis. Journal of Management, 50(2), 685-721.
  • Ng, T. W. H. (2024). The scholarly impact of diversity research. Human Resource Management, 63(1), 87-106.
  • Shao, Y., Goštautaitė, B., Wang, M., & Ng, T. W. H.(2022). Age and sickness absence: Testing physical health issues and work engagement as countervailing mechanisms in a cross-national context. Personnel Psychology, 75(4), 895-927.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Wang, M., Hsu, D. Y., & Su, C. (2022). Voice quality and ostracism. Journal of Management, 48, 281-318.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Shao, Y., Koopmann, J., Wang, M., Hsu, D. Y., & Yim, F. H. K. (2022). The effects of idea rejection on creative self-efficacy and idea generation: Intention to remain and perceived innovation importance as moderators. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 43, 146-163.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Hsu, D. Y., Yim, F. H. K., Zou, Y., & Chen, H. (2021). Wish-making during the COVID-19 pandemic enhances positive appraisals and job satisfaction. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 130, 103619.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Yim, F. H. K., Zou, Y., & Chen, H. (2021). Receiving developmental idiosyncratic deals over time: Showing innovative behavior is key. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 130, 103630.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Lucianetti, L., Hsu, D. Y., Yim, F. H. K., & Sorensen, K. L. (2021). You speak, I speak: The social-cognitive mechanisms of voice contagion. Journal of Management Studies, 58, 1569-1608.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Hsu, D. Y., & Parker, S. K. (2021). Received respect and constructive voice: The roles of proactive motivation and perspective taking. Journal of Management, 47, 399-429.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Wang, M., Hsu, D. Y., & Su, C. (2021). Changes in perceptions of ethical leadership: Effects on associative and dissociative outcomes. Journal of Applied Psychology, 106, 92-121.
  • Zhang, Y. W., Zhang, Y., Ng, T. W. H., & Lam, S. K. K. (2019). Promotion- and prevention-focused coping: A meta-analytic examination of regulatory strategies in the work stress process. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104, 1296-1323.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Yam, K. C. (2019). When and why does employee creativity fuel deviance? Key psychological mechanisms. Journal of Applied Psychology, 104, 1144-1163.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Wang, M. (2019). An actor-partner interdependence model of employees’ and coworkers’ innovative behavior, psychological detachment, and strain reactions. Personnel Psychology, 72, 445-476.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Yam, K. C., & Aguinis, H. (2019). Employee perceptions of corporate social responsibility: Effects on pride, embeddedness, and turnover. Personnel Psychology, 72, 107-137.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Sorensen, K. L., Zhang, Y., & Yim, F. H. K. (2019). Anger, anxiety, depression, and negative affect: Convergent or divergent? Journal of Vocational Behavior, 110, 186-202.
  • Ng, T. W. H. & Lucianetti, L. (2018). Are embedded employees active or passive? The roles of learning goal orientation and preferences for wide task boundaries and job mobility in the embeddedness-voice link. Human Resource Management, 57, 1251-1269.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Allen, T. D. (2018). Organizational attachment and health. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 107, 1-14.
  • Ng, T. W. H. (2017). Transformational leadership and performance outcomes: Analyses of multiple mediation pathways. Leadership Quarterly, 28, 385-417.
  • Ng, T. W. H. (2017). Can idiosyncratic deals promote perceptions of competitive climate, felt ostracism, and turnover? Journal of Vocational Behavior, 99, 118-131.
  • Ng, T. W. H. (2016). Embedding employees early on: The importance of workplace respect. Personnel Psychology, 69, 599-633.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Lam, S. S. K., & Feldman, D. C. (2016). Organizational citizenship behavior and counterproductive work behavior: Do males and females differ?Journal of Vocational Behavior,  93, 11-32.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Lucianetti, L. (2016). Within-individual increases in innovative behavior and creative, persuasion, and change self-efficacy over time: A social cognitive theory perspective. Journal of Applied Psychology, 101, 14-34.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Lucianetti, L. (2016). Goal striving, idiosyncratic deals, and job behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 37, 41-60.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2015). Felt obligations to reciprocate to the employer, preferences for mobility across employers, and gender: Three-way interaction effects on subsequent voice behavior. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 90, 36-45.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2015). Ethical leadership: Meta-analytic evidence of criterion-related and incremental validity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 100, 948-965.
  • Ng, T. W. H. (2015). The incremental validity of organizational commitment, organizational trust, and organizational identification. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 88, 154-163.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2015). The moderating effects of age in the relationships of job autonomy to work outcomes. Work, Aging and Retirement, 1, 64-78.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2015). Idiosyncratic deals and voice behavior. Journal of Management, 41, 893-928.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2014). Embeddedness and well-being in the United States and Singapore: The mediating effects of work-to-family and family-to-work conflict. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 19, 360-375.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2014). Subjective career success: A meta-analytical review. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 85, 169-179.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Feldman, D. C., & Butts, M. M. (2014). Psychological contract breaches and employee voice behavior: The moderating effects of changes in social relationships. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 23, 537-553.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2014). A conservation of resources perspective on career hurdles and salary attainment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 85, 156-168.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2014). Community embeddedness and work outcomes: The mediating role of organizational embeddedness. Human Relations, 67, 71-103.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2013). How do within-person changes due to aging affect job performance? Journal of Vocational Behavior, 83, 500-513.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2013). A meta-analysis of the relationships of age and tenure with innovation-related behavior. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 86, 585-616.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2013). Does longer job tenure help or hinder job performance? Journal of Vocational Behavior, 83, 305-314.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2013). Employee age and health. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 83, 336-345.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2013). Changes in perceived supervisor embeddedness: Effects on employees’ embeddedness, organizational trust, and voice behavior. Personnel Psychology, 66, 645-685.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2013). Age and innovation-related behavior:  The joint moderating effects of supervisor undermining and proactive personality. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 34, 583-606.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2013). The effects of organizational embeddedness on insomnia. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 62, 330-357.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2012). The effects of organizational and community embeddedness on work-to-family and family-to-work conflict. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97, 1233-1251.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2012). Evaluating six common stereotypes about older workers with meta-analytical data. Personnel Psychology, 65, 821-858.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2012). Breaches of past promises, current job alternatives, and promises of future idiosyncratic deals: Three-way interaction effects on organizational commitment. Human Relations, 65, 1463-1486.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2012). A comparison of self-ratings and non-self- report measures of employee creativity. Human Relations, 65, 1021-1047.
  • Lam, S. K. K., Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2012). The relationship between external job mobility and salary attainment across career stages. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80, 129-136.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2012). Employee voice behavior: A meta-analytical test of the conservation of resources framework. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 33, 216-234.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2011). Affective organizational commitment and citizenship behavior: Linear and non-linear moderating effects of organizational tenure. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 79, 528-537.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2011). Locus of control and organizational embeddedness. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 84, 173-190.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2010). The impact of job embeddedness on innovation-related behaviors. Human Resource Management, 49, 1067-1087.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2010). The effects of organizational embeddedness on development of social and human capital. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 696-712.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Feldman, D. C., & Lam, S. S. K. (2010). Psychological contract breaches, organizational commitment, and innovation-related behavior: A latent growth modeling approach. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95, 744-751.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2010). The relationships of age with job attitudes: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 63, 677-718.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2010). Organizational tenure and job performance. Journal of Management, 36, 1220-1250.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2010). Idiosyncratic deals and organizational commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 76, 419-427.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2010). Human capital and objective indicators of career success: The mediating effects of cognitive ability and conscientiousness.Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 83, 207-235.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2009). Age, work experience, and the psychological contract. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 1053-1075.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Sorensen, K. L., & Yim, F. H. K. (2009). Does the job satisfaction-job performance relationship vary across cultures? Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 40, 761-796.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2009). Personality, social relationships, and vocational indecision among college students: The mediating effects of identity construction. Career Development International, 14, 309-332.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2009). Occupational embeddedness and job performance. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 30, 863-891.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Sorensen, K. L. (2009). Dispositional affectivity and work-related outcomes: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39, 1255-1287.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2009). Re-examining the relationship between age and voluntary turnover. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 74, 283-294.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Butts, M. M. (2009). Effectiveness of organizational efforts to lower turnover intentions: The moderating role of employee locus of control. Human Resource  Management, 48, 289-310.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2009). How broadly does education contribute to job performance? Personnel Psychology, 62, 89-134.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2008). Can you get a better deal elsewhere? The effects of psychological contract replicability on organizational commitment over time. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 73, 268-277.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2008). Long work hours: A social identity perspective on meta-analysis data. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29, 853-880.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Sorensen, K. L. (2008). Toward a further understanding of the relationships between perceptions of support and work attitudes: A meta-analysis. Group and  Organization Management, 33, 243-268.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2008). The relationship of age to ten dimensions of job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 392-423.
  • Eby, L. T., Allen, T. D., Evans, S. C., Ng, T. W. H., & DuBois, D. L. (2008). Does mentoring matter? A multidisciplinary meta-analysis comparing mentored and non-mentored individuals. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 72, 254-267.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2007). The school-to-work transition: A role identity perspective. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 71, 114-134.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Sorensen, K. L., Eby, L. T., & Feldman, D. C. (2007). Determinants of job mobility: A theoretical integration and extension. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 80, 363-386.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2007). Organizational embeddedness and occupational embeddedness across career stages. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 70, 336-351.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Sorensen, K. L., & Feldman, D. C. (2007). Dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of workaholism: A conceptual integration and extension. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 28, 111-136.
  • Feldman, D. C., & Ng, T. W. H. (2007). Careers: Mobility, embeddedness, and success. Journal of Management, 33, 350-377.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Sorensen, K. L., & Eby, L. T. (2006). Locus of control at work: A meta-analysis. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27, 1057-1087.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Butts, M. M., Vandenberg, R. J, Dejoy, D. M., & Wilson, M. G. (2006). Effects of management communication, opportunity for learning, and work schedule flexibility on organizational commitment. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 68, 474-489.
  • Ng, T. W. H., Eby, L. T., Sorensen, K. L., & Feldman, D. C. (2005). Predictors of objective and subjective career success: A meta-analysis. Personnel Psychology, 58, 367-408.
Book chapters (The most recent ones are listed first)
  • Ng, T. W. H. (2015). Employee aging. In Oxford Bibliographies. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Ng, T. W. H. (2014). Conservation of resources model. In M. Vodosek, D. Den Hartog, & J. M. McNett (Eds.), Wiley Encyclopedia of Management (Volume 6, International Management). New York: Wiley.
  • Feldman, D. C., & Ng, T. W. H. (2013). Theoretical approaches to the study of job transitions. In N. Schmitt & S. Highhouse (Eds.), Handbook of Psychology (Volume 12, pp. 292-307). New York: Wiley.
  • Feldman, D. C., Ng, T. W. H., & Vogel, R. M. (2012). Off-the-job embeddedness: A reconceptualization and agenda for future research. In J. J. Martocchio, A. Joshi, & H. Liao (Eds.), Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management (pp. 209-251). Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing.
  • Ng, T. W. H., & Feldman, D. C. (2012). Aging and participation in career development. In J. W. Hedge & W. C. Borman (Eds.), Oxford Handbook of Work and Aging (pp. 137-150). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Feldman, D. C., & Ng, T. W. H. (2011). Participation in continuing education programs: Antecedents, consequences, and implications. In M. London (Ed.), Oxford Handbook of Lifelong Learning  (pp. 180-194). New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Butts, M. M., & Ng, T. W. H. (2008). Chopped liver? OK. Chopped Data? Not OK. In C. E. Lance & R. J. Vandenberg (Eds.), Statistical and Methodological Myths and Urban Legends: Received Doctrine, Verity, and Fable in the Organizational and Social Sciences (pp. 361-386). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  • Feldman, D. C., & Ng, T. W. H. (2008). Motivation for engaging in training and career development. In R. Kanfer, G. Chen, & R. Pritchard (Eds.), Work Motivation: Past, Present, and Future (pp. 401-431). New York: Routledge.
  • Ng, T. W. H. (2006). Career mobility. In J. H. Greenhaus & G. A. Callanan (Eds.),  Encyclopedia of Career Development (pp. 127-130). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Service to the University/Community

Editorial Board for the following journals:

  • Journal of Applied Psychology
  • Journal of Management
  • Journal of Management Studies
  • Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes
  • Personnel Psychology
Recent Publications
More
19Jul
Prof. Thomas W.H. NG
Serious Business: Why changes in the perception of ethical leadership are important to companies

19 Jul 2021
Management and Strategy
1Jan
Prof. Thomas W.H. NG
Changes in Perceptions of Ethical Leadership: Effects on Associative and Dissociative Outcomes

From employees’ point of view, changes in ethical leadership perceptions can signal important changes in the nature of the employment relationship. Guided by social exchange theory, this study proposes that changes in ethical leadership perceptions shape how employees appraise their exchange relationship with the organization and affect their pride in or contempt for the organization. Changes in these associative/dissociative emotions, in turn, precipitate changes in behaviors that serve or hurt the organization, notably voice and turnover. Experimental data collected from 900 subjects (Study 1) and field data collected from 470 employees across 4 waves over 14 months (Study 2) converged to show that changes in ethical leadership perceptions were related to same-direction changes in employees’ pride in the organization and to opposite-direction changes in their contempt for the organization above and beyond the effect of the present ethical leadership level. Changes in pride were in turn related to same-direction changes in functional voice, whereas changes in contempt were related to same-direction changes in dysfunctional voice. The field study also provided evidence that when pride increased (decreased), employees were less (more) likely to leave the organization 6 months after. These results suggest that changes in ethical leadership perceptions are meaningful on their own, that they may alter employees’ organization-targeted behaviors, and that changes in associative/dissociative emotions are the mediating mechanism.

1 Jan 2021
Journal of Applied Psychology
1Feb
Prof. Thomas W.H. NG
Corporate social responsibility: Doing good is good for business

Building positive perception of a company’s activities in corporate social responsibility among employees can result in valuable benefits, including increasing employees’ loyalty to the company and slowing turnover rates.

1 Feb 2020
Management and Strategy
1Oct
Prof. Yiwen ZHANGProf. Thomas W.H. NGProf. Simon S.K. LAM
Promotion- and prevention-focused coping: A meta-analytic examination of regulatory strategies in the work stress process

We provide a meta-analytic examination of the regulatory strategies that employees adopt to cope with different types of stressors in the workplace and how these strategies are linked to work and personal outcomes. Drawing from regulatory focus theory, we introduce a new taxonomy of promotion- and prevention-focused coping that complements the traditional taxonomy of problem- and emotion-focused coping in the transactional theory of stress. In addition, we propose that challenge stressors tend to evoke promotion-focused coping, whereas hindrance stressors tend to evoke prevention-focused coping. As a pair of important coping mechanisms in the work stress process, promotion-focused coping is positively related to employees’ job performance, job attitudes, and personal well-being, whereas prevention-focused coping is negatively related to these outcomes. We conducted an original meta-analysis of coping strategies in the workplace and tested the hypotheses with 550 effect sizes drawn from 156 samples that involved a total of 75,344 employees. We also tested the tenability of the proposed stressor-coping-outcome processes using meta-analytic path models and further examined the robustness of these models using full-information bootstrapping technique. The results converge to show that promotion- and prevention-focused coping serve as important intervening mechanisms that account for the relationships between work stressors and individual outcomes.

1 Oct 2019
Journal of Applied Psychology
1Sep
Prof. Thomas W.H. NG
When and why does employee creativity fuel deviance? Key psychological mechanisms

Drawing on self-enhancement theory, we propose that, intraindividually, employees tend to give themselves credit when they engage in creativity. Perceived creative credit, in turn, activates multiple psychological motives that ultimately affect deviance. On the one hand, perceived creative credit is associated with greater creativity-driven norm-breaking motives and greater entitlement motives, which in turn should increase deviance. On the other hand, perceived creative credit is associated with greater image preservation motives, which in turn should decrease deviance. A within-person study involving 206 employees and their coworkers conducted over a 10-day period provided broad support for the proposed model. In addition, a between-person variable, namely rewards for creativity, moderated the self-crediting process. The within-person serial mediation relationship between creativity and deviance was positive and significant for employees who perceived low rewards for creativity, but was not significant for those who perceived high rewards for creativity. In other words, rewards for creativity in the workplace effectively nullified this within-person self-crediting mechanism among employees. This study thus illustrates that, within individuals, creativity and deviance are related through perceived creative credit and different psychological motives (i.e., serial mediation). However, the strength of this serial mediation relationship varies depending on the availability of formal rewards for creativity (i.e., moderated serial mediation).

1 Sep 2019
Journal of Applied Psychology