Yasir Mansoor Kundi, Shakir Sardar and Kamal Badar
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of threat and challenge appraisals in the relationship between performance pressure and employees' work engagement…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of threat and challenge appraisals in the relationship between performance pressure and employees' work engagement, as well as the buffering role of emotional stability, as a personal characteristic, in this process.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected using a three-wave research design. Hypotheses were examined with a sample of 247 white-collar employees from French organizations.
Findings
Performance pressure is appraised as either threat or challenge. Challenge appraisal positively mediated the performance pressure and work engagement relationship, whereas threat appraisal negatively mediated the performance pressure and work engagement relationship. Emotional stability moderated these effects, suggesting performance pressure was appraised as a challenge rather than a threat, which then enhanced employee work engagement.
Practical implications
This study has shown that employees with high emotional stability who perceived performance pressure as a challenge achieved stronger employee work engagement.
Originality/value
Building on Lazare's theory of stress and Mitchell et al. 's theorization, this research demonstrates mediating and moderating mechanisms driving the role of performance pressure on employee work engagement relationships.
Details
Keywords
Dirk De Clercq, Yasir Mansoor Kundi, Shakir Sardar and Subhan Shahid
This research unpacks the relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational injustice and their counterproductive work behaviour, by detailing a mediating role of…
Abstract
Purpose
This research unpacks the relationship between employees' perceptions of organizational injustice and their counterproductive work behaviour, by detailing a mediating role of organizational identification and a moderating role of discretionary human resource (HR) practices.
Design/methodology/approach
The hypotheses were tested with a sample of employees in Pakistan, collected over three, time-lagged waves.
Findings
An important reason that beliefs about unfair organizational treatment lead to enhanced counterproductive work behaviour is that employees identify less strongly with their employing organization. This mediating role of organizational identification is less salient, however, to the extent that employees can draw from high-quality, discretionary HR practices that promote their professional development and growth.
Practical implications
For management practitioners, this study pinpoints a key mechanism – the extent to which employees personally identify with their employer – by which beliefs about organizational favouritism can escalate into purposeful efforts to inflict harm on the organization and its members. It also reveals how this risk can be subdued by discretionary practices that actively support employees' careers.
Originality/value
This study adds to previous research by detailing why and when employees' frustrations about favouritism-based organizational decision making may backfire and elicit deviant responses that likely compromise their own organizational standing.
Details
Keywords
This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.
Design
This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.
Findings
A study of white-collar workers in France has shown that when performance pressure was seen as a challenge, it had a positive effect on work engagement, but the oppositive was true when it was seen as a threat. Meanwhile, emotional stability moderated the effects as it made employees more likely to see performance pressures as a challenge.
Originality
The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.