Employees' entrepreneurial behavior, innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking can contribute to business performance and success, making it important for the organization…
Abstract
Purpose
Employees' entrepreneurial behavior, innovativeness, proactiveness and risk-taking can contribute to business performance and success, making it important for the organization. Yet, little is known about how management can promote their employees' entrepreneurial behaviors. Based on workplace resources theories, the present study tested a serial mediation model. Empowering leadership predicts employees' resources of role breadth self-efficacy and meaningful work via demand-ability fit and need-supply fit, which subsequently lead employees to exhibit entrepreneurial behaviors.
Design/methodology/approach
Korean employees (n = 200) working in a variety of industries participated in a two-wave survey with a five-week time lag.
Findings
Structural equation modeling supported a serial mediation model showing how empowering leadership can promote employees' person-job fit. Increased person-job fit was related to enhanced employees' role breadth self-efficacy and meaningful work, which in turn predicted entrepreneurial behaviors. Alternative models with more direct paths did not improve model fit, highlighting the roles of the mediators. Empowering leadership is an important resource facilitating entrepreneurial activities through its influence on employees' fit perceptions and resources.
Originality/value
The present study contributes to entrepreneurial behavior literature by showing the importance of job and personal resources in explaining the determinants of employees' entrepreneurial behavior.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential effects of empowering leadership on followers’ subjective career success through psychological empowerment, protean career…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the potential effects of empowering leadership on followers’ subjective career success through psychological empowerment, protean career orientation, and career commitment.
Design/methodology/approach
Full-time employees working in the USA were recruited through Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. Participants answered surveys at three separate points over a six-week period (n=261). Structural equation modeling and bootstrapping were used to verify the indirect effect of empowering leadership on career satisfaction controlling for common method variance and growth need strength.
Findings
Empowering leadership was positively related to followers’ subsequent psychological empowerment, which in turn predicted protean career attitudes and career commitment, but only career commitment had a significant relationship with career satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
Empowering leadership behaviors focus on potentially career-enhancing factors, including providing followers with the confidence, inspiration, and authority to assume control of their work lives. Empowering leaders benefit their followers’ careers, and psychological empowerment and career commitment may be important mechanisms in the empowering leadership-career success relationship when their effects are considered simultaneously. Employees’ development of a protean career orientation has less direct effect on subjective career success than simple commitment to a career.
Originality/value
Empowering leadership has been overlooked in career literature. The findings advance the understanding of how empowering leader behaviors could help employees’ subjective career success in a serial mediation model. Additionally, the study empirically demonstrates that psychologically empowered employees are more likely to engage in protean career actions and navigate their own career goals.
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Ashita Goswami, Prakash Nair, Terry Beehr and Michael Grossenbacher
The purpose of this paper is to examine affective events theory (AET) by testing the mediating effect of employees’ positive affect at work in the relationships of leaders’ use of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine affective events theory (AET) by testing the mediating effect of employees’ positive affect at work in the relationships of leaders’ use of positive humor with employees’ work engagement, job performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs); and the moderating effect of transformational leadership style on the relationship between leaders’ use of positive humor and subordinate’s positive affect at work.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were obtained from 235 full-time employees working for a large information technology and business consulting corporation. Moderated mediation (Hayes, 2013) was performed to test the proposed model.
Findings
Leaders’ positive humor was related to creation of subordinates’ positive emotions at work and work engagement. Positive emotions at work did not mediate between leaders’ humor and performance or OCBs. In addition, leaders’ use of transformational leadership style made the relationship between leaders’ positive humor and employees’ positive emotions at work stronger.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides evidence of the positive relationship of leaders’ positive humor with employees’ positive emotions at work and work engagement. Such knowledge may help to inform the training workshops in humor employed by practitioners and potentially create a more enjoyable and fun workplace, which can lead to greater employee engagement.
Originality/value
AET helps explain effects of leader humor, but the effects of are complex. Leader’s use of even positive humor is most likely to have favorable effects mainly depending on their leadership style (transformational) and if their humor successfully leads to positive emotions among employees.
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Procedural justice consists of employees' fairness judgments about decision-making processes used to allocate organizational rewards and has been linked to positive work outcomes…
Abstract
Purpose
Procedural justice consists of employees' fairness judgments about decision-making processes used to allocate organizational rewards and has been linked to positive work outcomes. The study drew from social exchange and reciprocity theories to examine a model proposing psychological empowerment and organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) as two psychological processes explaining the relationship of procedural justice with employees' work effort and thriving.
Design/methodology/approach
Three-waves of data with one-month time lags were obtained from 346 full-time US employees. Structural equation modeling tested the hypotheses.
Findings
Results supported the model. Procedural justice at Time 1 was positively related to psychological empowerment and OBSE at Time 2, which both led to employees' work effort and thriving at Time 3.
Originality/value
The study provided a theoretical explanation for procedural justice resulting in better work effort and thriving: Psychological empowerment and OBSE may provide a bridge for the effects of procedural justice on employees’ work effort and thriving.
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Misty M. Bennett, Terry A. Beehr and Lana V. Ivanitskaya
The purpose of this paper is to examine work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict, taking into account generational cohort and life cycle stage differences.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict, taking into account generational cohort and life cycle stage differences.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey participants (428 employed individuals with families) represented different generations and life cycles. Key variables were work/family characteristics and centrality, work-family and family-work conflict, and age.
Findings
Generational differences in both directions were found. Gen X-ers reported the most work-family conflict, followed by Millennials and then Baby Boomers. Baby Boomers exhibited family-work conflict the most, followed by Gen X-ers, and then Millennials, a surprising finding given generational stereotypes. Some of these differences remained after controlling for children in the household (based on life cycle stage theory) and age. Millennials were highest in work centrality, whereas Baby Boomers were highest in family centrality. Employees with children ages 13-18 reported the most work-family conflict, and employees with children under the age of six reported the most family-work conflict.
Research limitations/implications
This study found that generation and children in the household make a difference in work-family conflict, but it did not support some of the common generational stereotypes. Future studies should use a time-lag technique to study generational differences. To reduce work-family conflict, it is important to consider its directionality, which varies across generations and life cycle stages.
Practical implications
This informs organizations on how to tailor interventions to help employees balance work/life demands.
Originality/value
This study is the first to simultaneously examine both generation and life cycle stage (children in the household) in regard to work-family conflict.
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Robert J. Taormina and Jennifer H. Gao
Work enthusiasm and organizational socialization (Training, Understanding, Coworker Support, and Future Prospects) were compared in two predominantly Chinese regions, i.e., Macau …
Abstract
Work enthusiasm and organizational socialization (Training, Understanding, Coworker Support, and Future Prospects) were compared in two predominantly Chinese regions, i.e., Macau (a former Portuguese territory in China) and Zhuhai in the People’s Republic of China. Data were collected from 276 (96 Macau and 180 Zhuhai) full‐time, line‐level, ethnic Chinese employees in the two regions. Results revealed the Zhuhai employees to be much more enthusiastic at work. The Zhuhai employees also evaluated Training, Understanding, and Future Prospects more highly than did the Macau employees (no differences were found for Coworker Support). Regression analyses revealed Future Prospects to be the strongest predictor of work enthusiasm in Zhuhai, while education and years on the job explained most of the variance for work enthusiasm in Macau. The results of the comparisons are discussed in terms of the similarities and differences in the cultures and economic development of the regions.
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Shadid N. Bhuian, Eid. S. Al‐Shammari and Omar A. Jefri
The authors explore the nature of commitment, job satisfaction and job characteristics, and the nature of the interrelationships among these variables concerning expatriate…
Abstract
The authors explore the nature of commitment, job satisfaction and job characteristics, and the nature of the interrelationships among these variables concerning expatriate employees in Saudi Arabia. An examination of a sample of 504 expatriate employees reveals that these employees are, by and large, indifferent with respect to their perceptions of commitment, job satisfaction, and job characteristics. In addition, the results provide strong support for (1) the influence of job satisfaction on commitment, (2) the influence of job variety on commitment, and (3) the influence of job autonomy, identity, and feedback on job satisfaction.
Discusses the results of a study designed to investigate how salesmanagers experience job stress. Considers the particular extra jobresponsibilities of managers compared with…
Abstract
Discusses the results of a study designed to investigate how sales managers experience job stress. Considers the particular extra job responsibilities of managers compared with salespeople as stress factors. Concludes that over‐involvement and general dissatisfaction with life are more important job stress factors for sales managers than are personal characteristics.
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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/methodology/approach
This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.
Findings
One of the most unexpected findings was that Baby Boomers showed the most family–work conflict followed by Generation X-ers and then Millennials. Meanwhile, Generation X-ers reported the most work–family conflict followed by Millennials and Baby Boomers. Another unexpected finding was that employees with children aged between 13 and 18 reported the biggest work–family conflict.
Practical implications
This paper provides strategic insights and practical thinking that have influenced some of the world’s leading organizations.
Originality/value
The briefing saves busy executives 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.