A Critical Review and Best‐Practice Recommendations for Control Variable Usage
2015/02/18 by Jeremy B. Bernerth, Herman Aguinis · 1,652 citations
Business, Management and Accounting · Health Professions · Psychology · #Applied psychology #Burnout #Clinical psychology #Computer science #Control (management) #Empirical research #Epistemology #Healthcare professionals’ stress and burnout #Job Satisfaction and Organizational Behavior #Management #Organizational citizenship behavior #Organizational commitment #Organizational justice #Psychology #Social psychology #Transparency (behavior) #Variable (mathematics) #Workplace Health and Well-being
paper · doi:10.1111/peps.12103
published in Personnel Psychology 69(1), 229-283 (Wiley)
openalex publication_date 2015/02/18 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Abstract
The use of control variables plays a central role in organizational research due to practical difficulties associated with the implementation of experimental and quasi‐experimental designs. As such, we conducted an in‐depth review and content analysis of what variables, and why such variables are controlled for, in 10 of the most popular research domains (task performance, organizational citizenship behaviors, turnover, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee burnout, personality, leader‒member exchange, organizational justice, and affect) in organizational behavior/human resource management (OB/HRM) and applied psychology. Specifically, we examined 580 articles published from 2003 to 2012 in AMJ , ASQ, JAP , JOM , and PPsych . Results indicate that, across research domains with clearly distinct theoretical bases, the overwhelming majority of the more than 3,500 controls identified in our review converge around the same simple demographic factors (i.e., gender, age, tenure), very little effort is made to explain why and how controls relate to focal variables of interest, and control variable practices have not changed much over the past decade. To address these results, we offer best‐practice recommendations in the form of a sequence of questions and subsequent steps that can be followed to make decisions on the appropriateness of including a specific control variable within a particular theoretical framework, research domain, and empirical study. Our recommendations can be used by authors as well as journal editors and reviewers to improve the transparency and appropriateness of practices regarding control variable usage.
Cited by
- Motivational signals in public sector job advertisements and how they relate to attracting and hiring candidates
- Phishing Susceptibility in Context: A Multilevel Information Processing Perspective on Deception Detection
- An Evaluation of Four Solutions to the Forking Paths Problem: Adjusted Alpha, Preregistration, Sensitivity Analyses, and Abandoning the Neyman-Pearson Approach
- Rotten apples in bad barrels: Psychopathy, counterproductive work behavior, and the role of social context
- Testing Moderation in Business and Psychological Studies with Latent Moderated Structural Equations
- Quiet Workaholics? The Link Between Workaholism and Employee Silence and Moral Voice as Explained by the Social‐Cognitive Theory of Morality
- The Causal Cookbook: Recipes for Propensity Scores, G-Computation, and Doubly Robust Standardization
- Workplace fear of missing out, organizational support and performance: the mediating role of work-related social media use
- Tactics of speaking up: The roles of issue importance, perceived managerial openness, and managers' positive mood
- The impact of developmental job experience on job performance: The importance of team context
- We can do it! Inclusive leader language promotes voice behavior in multi-professional teams
- The XX factor: Female managers and innovation in a cross-country setting
- Worship me at the office altar: Why narcissistic leaders resist remote work
- Trouble with big brother: Counterproductive consequences of electronic monitoring through the erosion of leader‐member social exchange
- The more the merrier or too many cooks spoil the pot? A meta‐analytic examination of team size and team effectiveness
- Leader‐signaled knowledge hiding: Effects on employees' job attitudes and empowerment
- Synergy or substitution? The interactive effects of insiders' fairness and support and organizational socialization tactics on newcomer role clarity and social integration
- Understanding organizational embeddedness and career success: Who and what you know
- Associations between psychological inflexibility processes, pre‐sleep arousal and sleep quality
- RETRACTED: The ripple effect of abusive supervision: A longitudinal examination of psychological contract breach, turnover intentions, and resilience among third parties
- The Mask of Sanity? Leader Primary Psychopathy and the Effects of Leader Emotion Regulation Strategies on Followers
- Mind the Gap: An Integrative Review of the Causes of the Gender Pay Gap
- Re-evaluating evidence for a ‘naming bias’ in scientific awards
- How Corporate Social (Ir)Responsibility Influences Employees’ Private Prosocial Behavior: An Experimental Study
- Dare to thrive! How and when do development idiosyncratic deals promote individual thriving at work?
- ‘Better together’: Evidence on the joint adoption of circular economy and industry 4.0 technologies
- Corporate financing constraints and environmental information disclosure hype
- Endogeneity: A Review and Agenda for the Methodology-Practice Divide Affecting Micro and Macro Research
- The Diversity Imperative: The Effects of Local Economic Structure and Social Capital on Local Philanthropy
- The dark side of employee-generative AI collaboration in the workplace: An investigation on work alienation and employee expediency
- Preparing supply chain for the next disruption beyond COVID-19: managerial antecedents of supply chain resilience
- Surviving remotely: How job control and loneliness during a forced shift to remote work impacted employee work behaviors and well‐being
- Impact of artificial intelligence-driven big data analytics culture on agility and resilience in humanitarian supply chain: A practice-based view
- Creativity under workload pressure and integrative complexity: The double-edged sword of paradoxical leadership
- Predicting Job Crafting From the Socially Embedded Perspective: The Interactive Effect of Job Autonomy, Social Skill, and Employee Status
- Bankers closing idiosyncratic deals: Implications for organisational cynicism
- How do suppliers respond to institutional complexity? Examining voluntary public environmental disclosure in a global manufacturing supply network
- The effects of latent withdrawal profiles on employee turnover, destinations and job performance
- Perceived overqualification and job crafting: the moderating role of positive psychological capital
- Poor work design begets poor work design: Capacity and willingness antecedents of individual work design behavior.
- On the Distinction Between Personal Standards Perfectionism and Excellencism: A Theory Elaboration and Research Agenda
- Managerial relevance of moderating and mediating variables/effects in management research
- Routinized killing of animals: Going beyond dirty work and prestige to understand the well-being of slaughterhouse workers
- Does college alcohol consumption impact employment upon graduation? Findings from a prospective study. [europepmc]
- Implicit Age Cues in Resumes: Subtle Effects on Hiring Discrimination. [europepmc]
- Trajectories of Perceived Workplace Age Discrimination and Long-Term Associations With Mental, Self-Rated, and Occupational Health. [europepmc]
- Examining conscientiousness as a key resource in resisting email interruptions: Implications for volatile resources and goal achievement. [europepmc]
- When Mindfulness Interacts With Neuroticism to Enhance Transformational Leadership: The Role of Psychological Need Satisfaction. [europepmc]
- Promoting resilience in adolescents: A new social identity benefits those who need it most. [europepmc]
- Taking engagement to task: The nature and functioning of task engagement across transitions. [europepmc]
- Detachment from Work: A Diary Study on Telepressure, Smartphone Use and Empathy. [europepmc]
- How Ethical Leadership Shapes Employees' Readiness to Change: The Mediating Role of an Organizational Culture of Effectiveness. [europepmc]
- Well-Being in Life and Well-Being at Work: Which Comes First? Evidence From a Longitudinal Study. [europepmc]
- Mental Health and Work Attitudes among People Resuming Work during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study in China. [europepmc]
- Higher Socioeconomic Status Predicts Less Risk of Depression in Adolescence: Serial Mediating Roles of Social Support and Optimism. [europepmc]
- The relationship between autonomy, optimism, work engagement and organisational citizenship behaviour among nurses fighting COVID-19 in Wuhan: a serial multiple mediation. [europepmc]
- Psychological Climate for Caring and Work Outcomes: A Virtuous Cycle. [europepmc]
- Perceived Stress, Hope, and Health Outcomes Among Medical Staff in China During the COVID-19 Pandemic. [europepmc]
- Does Paradoxical Leadership Facilitate Leaders' Task Performance? A Perspective of Self-Regulation Theory. [europepmc]
- The Relationship Between Proactive Behavior and Work-Family Conflict: A Moderated Mediation Model. [europepmc]
- Workplace Friendship is a Blessing in the Exploration of Supervisor Behavioral Integrity, Affective Commitment, and Employee Proactive Behavior - An Empirical Research from Service Industries of Pakistan. [europepmc]
- The relationship between leader support, staff influence over decision making, work pressure and patient satisfaction: a cross-sectional analysis of NHS datasets in England. [europepmc]
- Differential Effects of Optimism and Pessimism on Adolescents' Subjective Well-Being: Mediating Roles of Reappraisal and Acceptance. [europepmc]
- I like what you are saying, but only if i feel safe: Psychological safety moderates the relationship between voice and perceived contribution to healthcare team effectiveness. [europepmc]
- Can supervisor support improve daily employee well-being? Evidence of supervisor training effectiveness in a study of veteran employee emotions. [europepmc]
- The Double-Edged Sword Effect of Illegitimate Tasks on Employee Creativity: Positive and Negative Coping Perspectives. [europepmc]
- Online and offline gendered racial microaggressions and sleep quality for Black women. [europepmc]
- Associations between psychological inflexibility processes, pre-sleep arousal and sleep quality. [europepmc]
Related