Piia Seppälä, Jari J. Hakanen, Asko Tolvanen and Evangelia Demerouti
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of a job resources-based intervention aimed at proactively increasing work engagement and team innovativeness during…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effectiveness of a job resources-based intervention aimed at proactively increasing work engagement and team innovativeness during organizational restructuring using a person-centered approach.
Design/methodology/approach
The intervention was conducted in two organizations: two departments served as participants (n=82) and two as controls (n=52). The aim was to first identify sub-groups of employees with different developmental patterns of work engagement, and then to determine whether these sub-groups benefited differently from the intervention with respect to team innovativeness and work engagement.
Findings
Latent profile analysis identified three different patterns of work engagement among the participants: high and stable (n=64), moderate and decreasing (n=13), and low and decreasing (n=5). The χ²-test yielded no significant difference between participants and controls (n=52) with respect to team innovativeness over time. However, t-tests showed that team innovativeness increased in the high work engagement class and somewhat decreased in the moderate and low work engagement classes.
Practical implications
During organizational changes, those initially work-engaged seem to be able to proactively build their team innovativeness via a job resources-based intervention and remain engaged; whereas those initially not work-engaged may not, and their work engagement may even decrease.
Originality/value
This study reveals that an initial level of work engagement is a prerequisite why some employees profit more from a job resources-based intervention than others and provides tailored knowledge on the effectiveness of the intervention.
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Keywords
Lotta K. Harju, Wilmar B. Schaufeli and Jari J. Hakanen
The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-level effects of team-level servant leadership on job boredom and the mediating role of job crafting. Cross-level moderating effects…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-level effects of team-level servant leadership on job boredom and the mediating role of job crafting. Cross-level moderating effects of team-level servant leadership were also investigated.
Design/methodology/approach
This longitudinal study employed a multilevel design in a sample of 237 employees, clustered into 47 teams. Servant leadership was aggregated to the team-level to examine the effects of shared perceptions of leadership at T1 on individual-level outcome, namely job boredom, at T2. In addition, mediation analysis was used to test whether team-level servant leadership at T1 can protect followers from job boredom at T2 by fostering job crafting at T2. Cross-level moderating effects of team-level servant leadership at T1 on the relation between job crafting at T2 and job boredom at T2 were also modeled.
Findings
Job crafting at T2 mediated the cross-level effect of team-level servant leadership at T1 on job boredom at T2.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest that team-level servant leadership predicts less job boredom by boosting job crafting.
Originality/value
This study is the first to assess the effects of servant leadership on job boredom and the mediating role of job crafting. This paper examines job boredom in a multilevel design, thus extending knowledge on its contextual components.
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Lotta K. Harju and Jari J. Hakanen
Job boredom is an amotivational state at work, where employees lack interest in their work activities and have difficulties concentrating on them. Although recent research…
Abstract
Purpose
Job boredom is an amotivational state at work, where employees lack interest in their work activities and have difficulties concentrating on them. Although recent research suggests that job boredom may concern a wide range of industries, studies investigating the experience and its emergence in white-collar work are scarce. Thereby the purpose of this paper is to contextualize job boredom by exploring the experience and its preconditions in white-collar work.
Design/methodology/approach
This inductive, exploratory study employed data from 13 focus group interviews (n=72) in four organizations to investigate the emergence and experience of job boredom.
Findings
Three types of job boredom was found. Each type involved distinct temporal experiences: inertia, acceleration and disrupted rhythm at work. The findings suggest that different types of job boredom involve specific conditions that hamper the activation of individual capabilities and disrupt temporal experience accordingly.
Research limitations/implications
Extending the conceptualization of job boredom may enable better understanding of the variety of consequences often associated with the phenomenon.
Practical implications
It is also important for organizations to recognize that there are different types and various preconditions of job boredom in white-collar work, as it may have a negative impact on employee well-being and performance.
Originality/value
The results indicate that job boredom is a more nuanced phenomenon than earlier believed. By identifying job boredom in white-collar work as an experience with various forms and respective preconditions, this study expands the understanding of the phenomenon and its emergence.
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Marjo‐Riitta Parzefall and Jari Hakanen
It has been hypothesized that perceived contract fulfilment is positively associated with affective commitment, leading also to reduced turnover intentions, and with mental…
Abstract
Purpose
It has been hypothesized that perceived contract fulfilment is positively associated with affective commitment, leading also to reduced turnover intentions, and with mental health, and that these relationships are fully mediated by work engagement. Employing the job demands resources (JDR) model, the purpose of this study is to examine the motivational and health‐enhancing properties driven by perceived employer psychological contact fulfilment.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses were tested in a sample of 178 Finnish employees using structural equation modelling.
Findings
The hypotheses were supported. Perceived psychological contract fulfilment had both motivational (psychological contract → work engagement → affective commitment → reduced turnover intentions) and health‐enhancing (psychological contract → work engagement → mental health) effects.
Originality/value
The findings highlight the centrality of perceived psychological contract fulfilment to employees, and the importance of work engagement as a positive affective‐cognitive state at work.