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This study investigates work and non-work antecedents for the work–life balance (WLB) development of remote employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Longitudinal data (N = 1,146, T1; N = 737, T2) was collected in May–June 2020 and December 2020 in one multinational company (MNC) in Finland. In data analysis, structural equation modeling (SEM) with a cross-lagged panel model was utilized. The results revealed that during the pandemic, WLB slightly decreased. The quantitative job demands increased and predicted a decreased WLB at T2. Job autonomy decreased but did not have an effect on WLB development or buffer the negative effect of quantitative job demands on WLB. Time saved from commuting was positively related to WLB development, but the number of children living at home and the age of the youngest child had no statistically significant link to WLB development over time (similar finding for men and women). Although care responsibilities from the gender perspective is not the focus of our study, the additional analysis show that WLB at T1 was more challenging for women the more children they had, or the younger the youngest child was. For men, children did not make a difference for their WLB at T1. This finding indicates that WLB has been more challenging for mothers compared to fathers already when our first data had been collected, and the continuance of the pandemic did not change the situation in any direction. This research contributes to the knowledge about work and non-work related demands and resources as antecedents for WLB development during the pandemic. As a practical implication during the pandemic, the authors suggest that employers should follow development for employees’ WLB as a measure of well-being in remote work. In addition, the workload of remote employees should be followed, and time saved from commuting should be preserved as employees’ non-work time and protected from work-related tasks.

Purpose: The psychological contract involves expectations and responsibilities from both employees and organizations. Recently, arguments have emerged that link employee expectations to increasing individual entitlement beliefs which may not involve reciprocity. Equity theory suggests that employees continually assess their personal outcomes for fairness and that these equity perceptions could be affected by entitlement beliefs. The question that then arises is, how do entitled employees pursue these unmet beliefs and what are the implications if these beliefs are met or unmet? Approach: In this chapter, we present a conceptual model proposing that emotion regulation motives (instrumental or hedonic) influence how employees with unmet entitlement beliefs seek to advance their claims. Using equity theory as an underpinning theory, we conceptualize that instrumental and hedonic emotion regulation motives lead to different job satisfaction levels. We also argue that actual job performance moderates this relationship. Originality/Value: Understanding this process is essential as managers may constantly deal with employee entitlement beliefs, and low job satisfaction has been linked to poor employee and organizational outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The design of work has been shown to influence a host of attitudinal, behavioral, cognitive, well-being, and organizational outcomes. Despite its clear importance, scholarly interest in the topic has diminished over the past 20 years. Fortunately, a recent body of research has sought to reenergize research into work design by expanding our view of work design from a narrow set of motivational work features to one that incorporates broader social and contextual elements. In this chapter we seek to review the literature on work design and develop a framework that integrates both job and team design research. We begin by briefly reviewing the history of work design in order to provide needed historical context and illustrate the evolution of job and team design. We then define work design, particularly as it relates to incorporating job and team design elements and transitioning from a view of jobs to one of roles. Following this, we identify a comprehensive set of work design outcomes that provide the basis for understanding the impact that different work characteristics can have on individuals and teams. We then offer an extended discussion of our integrative model of work design, which includes three sources of work characteristics (task, social, and contextual) and the worker characteristics implied by these characteristics. Having defined the range of work and worker characteristics, we then discuss some of the fit and composition issues that arise when designing work, as well as discuss the mechanisms through which the work characteristics have their impact on outcomes. Finally, we discuss research into informal forms of work design.

Despite a burgeoning literature on family-supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB), it is unclear whether supervisors view these behaviors as in-role or discretionary. We proposed a new cognitive motivational construct, FSSB role perceptions (FSSB-RP; that is the extent to which supervisors perceive FSSB as an expected part of their job) and evaluated it as a mediator of the relationship between supervisors' own work–family experiences and FSSB.

We used an online survey of 245 US based supervisors.

We find that FSSB role perceptions is a unique but related construct to FSSB, and that approximately half of our sample of 245 supervisors either do not believe that FSSB is a part of their job or are unsure as to whether it is. Path analyses revealed that supervisors' own experiences of work–family conflict and enrichment are related to engaging in FSSB through role perceptions, especially when a reward system is in place that values FSSB.

These results may influence the design, implementation and dissemination of leader family-supportive training programs.

The factors that drive supervisors to engage in FSSB are relatively unknown, yet this study suggests the novel construct of FSSB role perceptions and supervisors' own work–family experiences are important factors.

This study aims to provide insight on how work–life initiatives impact employees. Using corporate volunteer programs as an example, the authors examine the role of coworker social influence in shaping the reactions of both employee participants and non-participants of the program. The paper further identifies several factors that may moderate these relationships.

The authors surveyed employees before and after the implementation of a new corporate work–life initiative. 99 employees provided data pre and post. OLS regression and hierarchical linear modeling were used to test hypothesized relationships.

Even in the context of low participation, work–life initiatives engendered positive organization-related perceptions among employees. These positive outcomes were due in part to coworkers' sharing of their volunteer experiences and were most prominent for employees in positions that afforded flexibility, and employees who reported close ties with coworkers.

The study deepens our understanding of employee reactions to work–life programs and underlines the importance of these programs even when employee participation is low. The role of coworker influence as a determinant of employee reactions suggests there may be value in purposefully fostering participants' sharing of volunteer experiences in the workplace.

This study takes a unique approach to examining the role of coworker influence in shaping employee reactions to corporate initiatives.

Drawing on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, the authors examine how working in the hybrid workplace model (telework and flexible work) affects job performance via the intervening role of work engagement.

The authors adopted a quantitative approach and collected data from 277 employees working in universities in Nigeria. Partial least square structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data and test the hypotheses.

The findings reveal that flexible work, not telework, has a significant and positive effect on job performance. It also emerges that flexible work positively affects work engagement, and work engagement significantly mediates the relationship between flexible work and job performance. However, the findings do not support the effect of telework on work engagement and the mediating role of work engagement in the proposed relation between telework and job performance.

The paper provides fresh insights by linking the components of the hybrid workplace model with job performance and employee work engagement and extending the JD-R model to the hybrid workplace setting. The practitioners can benefit from the findings of this study by factoring in the importance of the hybrid workplace model in designing policies and procedures to promote job performance.

The purpose of this study was to test the relationship between intrinsic motivation and work performance among individuals from a broad cross‐section of job types among public employees with the objectives of contributing to self‐determination theory and assisting public management practice and research.

Respondents were drawn from three municipalities located in Norway. A questionnaire was distributed to 2,015 employees through a web‐based tool (Questback), which resulted in complete data from 779 workers, representing a response rate of approximately 39 per cent.

The findings suggest that the relationships between job autonomy and work performance and task interdependence and work performance are partly mediated by intrinsic motivation, while the relationship between supervisor support for autonomy, competence, and development and work performance is fully mediated by intrinsic motivation.

The two most important limitations, which are discussed in more detail at the end of the paper, are the cross‐sectional nature of the study and the reliance on self‐reported questionnaire data.

The results support self‐determination theory and suggest that public and private sector managers should pay more attention to autonomy‐supportive work environments.

First, a recent review of self‐determination theory casts doubt on the performance implications of intrinsic motivation for less complex or interesting tasks. Thus, in order to increase our knowledge of the quality of self‐determination theory as a work motivation theory, empirical research that spans a broad cross‐section of jobs and functions in organisations is needed. Second, and despite the importance of motivation among public employees in an era of transformation to a more business‐oriented approach, there is little empirical research on public sector employee motivation.

This paper aims to explore the content of the psychological contract (PC), i.e. work-family conflict (WFC), family-work conflict (FWC), work overload (WO) and work autonomy (WA) and its impact on well-being (WB), i.e. job satisfaction (JS), family satisfaction (FS), life satisfaction (LS), through the mediation of psychological distress (PD).

The current study has adopted a quantitative approach and a cross-sectional research design with a snowball sampling technique. The sample size consists of 400 employees from the banking sector. SPSS and AMOS 20v has been used for structural equation modelling to give empirical findings from the responses collected.

The current study has checked the relationship between PC and WB through the mediation analysis of PD. WA was not affecting the WB of banking employees. The study found that there was partial mediation. It was also proven that the lower the breach of PC lower the PD, and the higher the WB.

The current study has tried to explain the content of PC among the employees of the banking sector and how that is associated with WB. There was limited work from which showcase the WFC, FWC and WO from the view of PC theory, and it affects different WB, i.e. JS, LS and FS.