Despoina Xanthopoulou, Arnold B. Bakker, Maureen F. Dollard, Evangelia Demerouti, Wilmar B. Schaufeli, Toon W. Taris and Paul J.G. Schreurs
The purpose of this paper is to focus on home care organization employees, and examine how the interaction between job demands (emotional demands, patient harassment, workload…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to focus on home care organization employees, and examine how the interaction between job demands (emotional demands, patient harassment, workload, and physical demands) and job resources (autonomy, social support, performance feedback, and opportunities for professional development) affect the core dimensions of burnout (exhaustion and cynicism).
Design/methodology/approach
Hypotheses were tested with a cross‐sectional design among 747 Dutch employees from two home care organizations.
Findings
Results of moderated structural equation modeling analyses partially supported the hypotheses as 21 out of 32 (66 per cent) possible two‐way interactions were significant and in the expected direction. In addition, job resources were stronger buffers of the relationship between emotional demands/patient harassment and burnout, than of the relationship between workload/physical demands and burnout.
Practical implications
The conclusions may be particularly useful for occupational settings, including home care organizations, where reducing or redesigning demands is difficult.
Originality/value
The findings confirm the JD‐R model by showing that several job resources can buffer the relationship between job demands and burnout.
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Gisela Sender, Gustavo Cattelan Nobre, Sungu Armagan and Denise Fleck
The relationship between job satisfaction and performance is a topic that has been intriguing scholars and managers for a long time. With the flourishing of positive psychology…
Abstract
Purpose
The relationship between job satisfaction and performance is a topic that has been intriguing scholars and managers for a long time. With the flourishing of positive psychology, it has been called the happy-productive worker thesis. New concepts led to new results but still divergent. This study aims to understand the past 20 years of research on the topic, also called the holy grail of the organizational sciences, helping to unwrap conclusions so far.
Design/methodology/approach
Bibliometric analysis was performed with R statistical tool’s support, complemented by content analysis, based on studies from three major databases between 1999 and 2019. The empirical studies were analyzed according to the constructs used, shedding light on when the happy-productive worker thesis is more likely to be confirmed.
Findings
Results show a variety of constructs and instruments used to operationalize the constructs. This lack of convergence accounts for a large part of the general inconclusiveness of the topic. Indicated research gaps can be useful to both academics and practitioners.
Research limitations/implications
Only studies declared as related to the happy-productive worker thesis were considered.
Practical implications
Managers can benefit from considering the findings as a basis for decision-making regarding investments in employee happiness at work, focusing on the aspects of happy constructs that lead to productive criteria.
Originality/value
The application of mixed methods, complementing the bibliometric with thorough content analysis, provided a more detailed overview of current knowledge about the topic, helping to disentangle different concepts that were treated as similar. Thus, it is possible to understand in which situations happy workers are really more productive.
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Muruganantham G., Suresh Paul Antony and Esther Princess George
The study aims to understand the signaling effects of two major recruitment advertisement (ad) contents – job attributes and organizational attributes (OA) – on the perceptions…
Abstract
Purpose
The study aims to understand the signaling effects of two major recruitment advertisement (ad) contents – job attributes and organizational attributes (OA) – on the perceptions and application intentions (AIs) of potential job seekers.
Design/methodology/approach
A fictitious faculty job ad based on existing real ads was created as a stimulus and the responses to the ad were collected from 270 job seekers of the academic domain in India. The partial least square-structural equation modeling was used to test the hypothetical relationships.
Findings
Drawing from the concept of signaling theory and instrumental-symbolic framework, the results revealed that job attributes and OA exhibit strong signals that generate the following perceptual outcomes in a job seeker – organizational attractiveness, attitude and person-organization fit. These perceptual outcomes mediated effectively to induce an AI in a job seeker. Signals from information on job attributes had a more significant effect on the job seeker than signals from information on OA.
Practical implications
The outcome of the study provides preparatory guidelines to academicians, institutional recruiters and recruitment agencies in posting an effective job ad.
Originality/value
From an Indian context, this is the first paper to present distinctive job advertising strategies to be implemented in the academic institutional recruitment communication.
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Bieke Schreurs, Antoine Van den Beemt, Nienke Moolenaar and Maarten De Laat
This paper aims to investigate the extent professionals from the vocational sector are networked individuals. The authors explore how professionals use their personal networks to…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to investigate the extent professionals from the vocational sector are networked individuals. The authors explore how professionals use their personal networks to engage in a wide variety of learning activities and examine what social mechanisms influence professionals’ agency to form personal informal learning networks.
Design/methodology/approach
This study applied a mixed-method approach to data collection. Social network data were gathered among school professionals working in the vocational sector. Ego-network analysis was performed. A total of 24 in-depth, semi-structured, qualitative interviews were analyzed.
Findings
This study found that networked individualism is not represented to its full potential in the vocational sector. However, it is important to form informal learning ties with different stakeholders because all types of informal learning ties serve different learning purposes. The extent to which social mechanisms (i.e. proximity, trust, level of expertise and homophily) influence professionals’ agency to form informal learning ties differs depending on the stakeholder with whom the informal learning ties are formed.
Research limitations/implications
This study excludes the investigation of social mechanisms that shape learning through more impersonal virtual learning resources, such as social media or expert forums. Moreover, the authors only included individual- and dyadic-level social mechanisms.
Practical implications
By investigating the social mechanisms that shape informal learning ties, this study provides insights how professionals can be stimulated to build rich personal learning networks in the vocational sector.
Originality/value
The authors extend earlier research with in-depth information on the different types of learning activities professionals engage in in their personal learning networks with different stakeholders. The ego-network perspective reveals how different social mechanisms influence professionals’ agency to shape informal learning networks with different stakeholders.
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Integrating relationship marketing and management research, the author explores internal selling (i.e., a salesperson’s internally focused efforts intended to identify, solicit…
Abstract
Integrating relationship marketing and management research, the author explores internal selling (i.e., a salesperson’s internally focused efforts intended to identify, solicit, and use internal sales resources to support external selling activities) as a unique source of salespeople role stress and examine its contingent outcomes. The conceptual model suggests that internal selling as a job demand and stressor leads to increased salespeople role stress. However, a number of situational (i.e., selling organization market orientation, service climate, and seller–buyer relationship) and individual factors (i.e., networking ability and psychological capital of the salespeople) serve as job and personal resources to moderate the internal selling–outcome relationships, such that when such resources are adequate, internal selling will reduce role stress and increase sales performance. The author also examines situational (i.e., customer solutions offering and formalization of the selling organization) and individual (i.e., salespeople power and social status) antecedents of internal selling. The model provides useful insights and practical guidance for selling organizations to recognize mechanisms associated with internal selling in their organizations, and to intentionally design within organization support systems to enhance salespeople well being and enable them to participate effectively in the relational process of selling. The chapter stresses the need to develop context-specific stress models for different occupations and job roles.
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This chapter discusses how the control and strategic management of resources plays a role in the occupational stress process. Building upon prior resource theories of stress, the…
Abstract
This chapter discusses how the control and strategic management of resources plays a role in the occupational stress process. Building upon prior resource theories of stress, the idea is developed that control of external and internal resources, and not resource acquisition or maintenance, is a vital element that contributes to a strain response to workplace demands. This can occur at the level of objective resources (resources needed to cope with demands), and it can occur at the level of perceived resources (the individual’s perception of resource control). The chapter also discusses the importance of resource management strategies that individuals engage in, as well as both internal and external resource management resources. Several common stressors are discussed in resource control terms, and the role of power and politics in strategic resource management is discussed.
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Muruganantham Ganesan, Suresh Paul Antony and Esther Princess George
Grounded in the concept of signaling theory and instrumental-symbolic framework, the purpose of this paper is to develop a model to examine the impact of print job advertisement…
Abstract
Purpose
Grounded in the concept of signaling theory and instrumental-symbolic framework, the purpose of this paper is to develop a model to examine the impact of print job advertisement (ad) dimensions (message contents) and organizational familiarity on job seeker’s perception of attitude, organizational attractiveness, and application intention.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a theoretical exploration based on existing literature.
Findings
The presence of instrumental and symbolic attributes in print job advertisement such as job and work characteristics, aesthetics, employee testimonial/picture, corporate image enhancing statements, organizational culture-enhancing statements, and human resource offerings are more likely to play influential roles in creating favorable attitude, organizational attractiveness, and application intention in a job seeker. Apart from this, organizational familiarity plays a moderating role on job seeker’s attitude formation and in gaining organizational attractiveness.
Practical implications
The study offers a clear guideline to recruiting organizations, HR managers, recruitment agencies, or consultants on how to design a recruitment advertisement to pool a large number of potential applicants. The study also throws light on testing the effectiveness of a recruitment advertisement, similar to commercial ads. Moreover, the outcome of testing would help the recruiters understand the pulse of the job seeker toward the ad, job, and organization.
Originality/value
This study theoretically clarifies the role of instrumental and symbolic attributes or dimensions of job ads and the role of organizational familiarity in inducing positive attitude formation and organizational attractiveness, in the process that cultivates application intention in a potential job seeker.
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I.M. Jawahar, Bert Schreurs and Shawn J. Mohammed
In spite of the recent meta-analysis by Martin et al. (2016), we have very little insight about the theoretical mechanism explaining the leader–member exchange–counterproductive…
Abstract
Purpose
In spite of the recent meta-analysis by Martin et al. (2016), we have very little insight about the theoretical mechanism explaining the leader–member exchange–counterproductive work behavior (LMX–CWB) relationship. Drawing on social cognitive theory, the purpose of this paper is to test if occupational self-efficacy functions as a mediating mechanism to explain the relationship between LMX quality and counterproductive performance directed toward the supervisor. In addition, based on the conservation of resources theory, the paper investigates if supervisor–subordinate relationship tenure acted as a second-stage moderator of this mediated relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used two-wave time-lagged data from a sample of 189 high-tech professionals to test the hypotheses, controlling for age, sex, and trust.
Findings
The results of this paper showed that occupational self-efficacy carried the effect of LMX quality on counterproductive performance, but only for workers who have longer supervisor–subordinate relationship tenure.
Originality/value
This paper is unique in proposing and testing a social cognitive mechanism to explain the relationship between LMX quality and counterproductive performance. As Johns (2017) advocated, the authors incorporated length of time, a contextual variable into this study by investigating supervisor–subordinate relationship tenure as moderating the proposed mediated relationship.