The Effects of US Presidential Elections on Work Engagement and Job Performance

We predicted that presidential election results would spill over to influence the work domain. Individuals who voted for the winning candidate were expected to experience increased engagement, whereas individuals who voted for the losing candidate were expected to experience decreased engagement. We tested these predictions within the context of the 2016 US presidential election. Using a sample of 232 working Americans, work engagement and job performance were assessed one week prior to the election, the day after the election, and one week after the election. Contrary to our prediction, individuals who voted for Trump (the winning candidate) did not report increased work engagement, thereby providing no evidence of positive spillover. However, individuals who voted for Clinton (the losing candidate) were less engaged on the day after the election compared to baseline, demonstrating negative spillover. Downstream, work engagement was positively related to job performance. However, these effects were relatively short-lived, as engagement returned to baseline levels within one week following the election. Our results suggest that elections can have important implications for work-related outcomes. From a practical perspective we suggest that to the extent possible it may be prudent to avoid scheduling important work tasks for the days following presidential elections.     

专念对工作重塑的影响：工作投入的中介作用

基于工作要求-资源理论,检验工作投入在专念与工作重塑之间的中介作用。以238名医务人员为研究对象,开展两阶段的追踪问卷调查。专念对工作重塑有积极的直接预测作用。另外,在横断数据中,工作投入在专念与工作重塑之间的中介作用显著。在纵向数据中,专念(T1)能正向预测工作投入(T2),进而影响工作重塑(T2),中介效应显著。专念(T1)能正向预测工作投入(T1),但工作投入(T1)不能显著正向预测两个月后的工作重塑(T2)。在一定的时间范围内,专念可以通过激发工作投入,进而促进工作重塑行为。     

Exploring the Effects of Job Autonomy on Engagement and Creativity: The Moderating Role of Performance Pressure and Learning Goal Orientation

Purpose

The 21st century work environment calls for team members to be more engaged in their work and exhibit more creativity in completing their job tasks. The purpose of this study was to examine whether team performance pressure and individual goal orientation would moderate the relationships between individual autonomy in teams and individual engagement and creativity.

Design/Methodology/Approach

A sample consisting of 209 team members and 45 team managers from 45 work teams in 14 companies completed survey measures. To test our hypotheses, we used multilevel modeling with random intercepts and slopes because the individual-level data were nested within the team-level data.

Findings

Hierarchical linear modeling showed that team-level performance pressure attenuated the positive relations between job autonomy and three dimensions of engagement. There were also 3-way interactions between job autonomy, psychological performance pressure, and learning goal orientation in predicting three dimensions of engagement and creativity.

Implications

This study highlights the importance of exploring the moderating effect of team-level task characteristics and individual differences on the relationships between job autonomy and individual engagement and creativity. Organizations need to carefully consider both individual learning goals and performance pressure when empowering team members with job autonomy.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies to explore the association between individual job autonomy in teams and individual outcomes in a contingency model. We first introduced team performance pressure as a moderator of job autonomy and examined the 3-way interaction effects of performance pressure, individual job autonomy, and learning goal orientation.

     

Proactive Vitality Management,Work Engagement,and Creativity: The Role of Goal Orientation

This study tested the hypothesis that individuals can proactively manage their own energetic, affective, and cognitive resources in order to be creative at work. Building on proactivity and creativity literatures, we propose a theoretical model in which employees who proactively manage their vitality are more engaged in their work and show improved creative performance. We also tested the boundary conditions of this process. Participants were Dutch employees from various occupations who filled out a background questionnaire and five weekly surveys. The results of multilevel modelling analyses offered support for our model. Weekly proactive vitality management was positively related to changes in weekly creativity through changes in weekly work engagement. As predicted, learning goal orientation strengthened and performance goal orientation weakened the links between proactive vitality management and engagement, and between engagement and creativity. We discuss the theoretical contributions, and indicate how these findings can be used in daily working life.     

Goal Orientation and Work Role Performance: Predicting Adaptive and Proactive Work Role Performance Through Self-Leadership Strategies

This article explores the relationship between goal orientation, self-leadership dimensions, and adaptive and proactive work role performances. The authors hypothesize that learning orientation, in contrast to performance orientation, positively predicts proactive and adaptive work role performances and that this relationship is mediated by self-leadership behavior-focused strategies. It is posited that self-leadership natural reward strategies and thought pattern strategies are expected to moderate this relationship. Workers (N = 108) from a software company participated in this study. As expected, learning orientation did predict adaptive and proactive work role performance. Moreover, in the relationship between learning orientation and proactive work role performance through self-leadership behavior-focused strategies, a moderated mediation effect was found for self-leadership natural reward and thought pattern strategies. In the end, the authors discuss the results and implications are discussed and future research directions are proposed.     

Job Insecurity and Turnover Intentions: Gender Differences and the Mediating Role of Work Engagement

The present study tests an integrative model that considers differential gender effects for the mediating role of work engagement on the relationship between job insecurity and turnover intentions in a predominantly Muslim country. Job insecurity was divided into two aspects: general concerns about losing one’s job and concerns about losing the privileges (such as career advancement, stimulating work, competence, and pay development) that come from one’s specific job. Data were collected from 309 private banking employees (107 women, 202 men, with a mean age of 33.58) in Marmara region, Turkey. The results of multi-group path analysis partially support the hypotheses. The differential gender effects for the mediating effect of work engagement were supported only on the concerns about losing job privileges→turnover intention linkage, but not on the concerns about losing the job itself→turnover intention linkage. Moreover, the mediating effect of work engagement on the relationship between concerns about losing job privileges and turnover intention was found to be stronger for women than for men. For men, work engagement acts only as a partial mediator, suggesting that concerns about the loss of job privileges exerts its effects on turnover intentions both directly and indirectly. Although the direct effect of concerns about losing the job itself on turnover intention is significant, the indirect effect through work engagement turns out to be nonsignificant for both genders. Our findings are discussed considering the business environment in Turkey as a Muslim country.     

Linking Proactive Personality to Creative Performance: The Role of Job Crafting and High-Involvement Work Systems

This study proposed that job crafting serves as a mechanism reflecting how proactive personality affects creative performance, and this study explored whether these relationships are moderated by high-involvement work systems. Drawn from the conservation of resources theory to develop a cross-level moderated mediation model, a three-wave longitudinal study was conducted with 346 employees and their supervisors in 27 high technology firms in China. This study found that proactive personality was positively related to creative performance and that job crafting mediated the relationship between proactive personality and creative performance, and an indirect effect of proactive personality on creative performance through job crafting was significant when high-involvement work systems was low but not high. Thus, the research results indicate that when human resource management involves less participatory management, incentive rewards, extensive training and information sharing, proactive employees can draw from their personality to craft their job tasks, relations and cognitions, thereby improving creative performance. The theoretical and managerial implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed.     

Prior Related Work Experience and Job Performance: Role of personality

In contrast to the general notion, recent studies presented a negative or insignificant relationship between prior related work experience (PRWE) and job performance (JP) and suggestively attributed the theoretically inconsistent results to individual factors. Using a sample of 688 sales persons in the insurance industry, the present study found support for the positive relationship between PRWE and JP. Further, the study found the moderation effect of personality factors on the above relationship. Implication of the study to the practitioners and the academia is discussed.     

Looking on the Bright Side: The Positive Role of Organisational Politics in the Relationship between Employee Engagement and Performance at Work

Scholars have largely focused on the negative consequences of organisational politics for employees' performance. In contrast, we maintain that organisational politics has positive aspects and moderates the relationship between employee engagement and behaviors at work such as knowledge sharing, creativity, proactivity, and adaptivity. Using data from 253 high‐tech employees and their supervisors in Israel, our findings demonstrate that perceptions of organisational politics strengthen the relationship between employee engagement and these behaviors. When engaged employees perceive their workplace to be political, they are more proactive, creative, and adaptive, and more likely to share their knowledge with their peers. These findings confirm the challenge/opportunity stressor theory regarding perceptions of organisational politics and suggest that whether politics is viewed as positive or negative depends on the employees' point of view. For those who are engaged and more actively involved in their jobs, politics can be regarded as a challenge and even an opportunity for obtaining more resources to improve their performance. Implications for the development of theory and practice in this area are discussed.     

Work Engagement: Investigating the Role of Transformational Leadership,Job Resources,and Recovery

While the relationship between job resources and engagement has been well established, a greater understanding of the upstream factors that shape job resources is required to develop strategies to promote work engagement. The current study addresses this need by exploring transformational leadership as an upstream job resource, and the moderating role of recovery experiences. It was hypothesized that job resources would mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and engagement. Recovery experiences were expected to moderate the relationship between resources and engagement. A sample of 277 employees from a variety of organizations and industries was obtained. Analysis showed direct relationships between: transformational leadership and engagement, and transformational leadership and job resources. Mediation analysis using bootstrapping found a significant indirect path between transformational leadership and engagement via job resources. Recovery experiences did not significantly moderate the relationship between job resources and engagement. To date, the majority of published literature on recovery has focused on job demands; hence the nonsignificant result offers insight of a potentially more complex relationship for recovery with resources and engagement. Overall, the current study extends the JD-R model and provides evidence for broadening the model to include upstream organizational variables such as transformational leadership.     

社会自我效能感与工作幸福感和工作绩效的关系：职场排斥的中介作用

从资源保存理论出发,分析社会自我效能感与工作幸福感及工作绩效之间的关系,并检验职场排斥的中介作用。对188名员工及其上司进行问卷调查,结果显示员工的社会自我效能感与其感受到的职场排斥有显著负向关系;职场排斥与工作幸福感和工作绩效有显著负向关系;职场排斥在社会自我效能感与工作幸福感和工作绩效之间发挥中介作用。这表明高社会自我效能感的员工能够削弱受到的职场排斥,进而体验到更高的工作幸福感,并获得更好的工作表现。     

工作倦怠和工作投入的整合

工作投入是近期组织心理学家引入的一个新概念,这是一种重视员工职业发展的积极心理学视角的工作追求,它与传统职业健康心理学工作倦怠的整合研究,越来越引起人们的关注。积极心理学研究取向推动了整合研究的实施;能量和认同量表为整合研究提供了测量工具;员工健康的积极和消极双过程模型是整合研究的主要模型;整合研究具有重要的理论和实践价值,更有利于提高员工的身心健康。今后的整合研究应当在研究方法上增加访谈研究、个案研究和追踪研究;在研究内容上多研究积极心理因素;在研究范围上加强跨文化的比较研究;在整合途径上进一步对现有的整合模型进行改进和创新。     

From Passive to Proactive Motivation: The Importance of Flexible Role Orientations and Role Breadth Self-efficacy

Despite the widely held belief that a proactive workforce is necessary for competitive advantage, research investigating how to assess and promote such change is limited. Two potentially important precursors to proactivity include flexible role orientation (FRO) and role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE). These concepts have been shown to have construct validity and to be distinct from related dispositional variables, but their discriminant validity in terms of outcome variables has not been demonstrated. In this article, I show that FRO and RBSE are factorially distinct from outcomes commonly used in organisational research (job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and job strain). I also show that, as expected, the proactive motivation and traditional outcome variables have different relationships with various predictor variables. I outline the study implications, and suggest a broader research agenda on proactive motivation.     

The Daily Motivators: Positive Work Events,Psychological Needs Satisfaction,and Work Engagement

This study examines the motivational effects of daily positive work events. Drawing on self-determination theory, we investigated the motivational mechanism of two clusters of commonly encountered positive work events—achievement and recognition events—from a within-person perspective. Specifically, we argue that achievement events and recognition events influence subsequent work engagement through satisfying different psychological needs. We tested our model using experience-sampling data from 200 full-time employees over eight workdays. As hypothesised, after controlling for positive affect as an additional mediator, both achievement and recognition events had positive effects on work engagement through psychological needs satisfaction. The results also revealed that achievement and recognition work events had differentiated effects in satisfying different psychological needs. These results shed light on the motivational function of positive work events above and beyond the affective mechanism and explicate the processes through which different types of positive work events relate to work engagement.     

教师工作满意感与工作绩效:职业倦怠的中介效用

本研究通过考察398名幼儿园和小学教师的工作满意感、职业倦怠和工作绩效状况,采用纵向研究方法,借助于结构方程模型建构,以揭示其工作满意感、职业倦怠与工作绩效三者之间的关系。结果表明,(1)工作满意感对工作绩效存在显著的影响;(2)工作满意感通过职业倦怠中情感耗竭维度的中介作用影响教师的工作绩效;(3)职业倦怠中人格解体维度和成就感低落维度对工作绩效没有显著影响。     

Relational Job Characteristics and Work Engagement: Mediation by Prosocial Motivation

This study tested the relation between perceived social impact, social worth, and work engagement in the military, and mediating effects of prosocial motivation. We tested hypotheses using structural equation modeling analysis in a field study with 322 officers and sergeants and 1,045 soldiers of the Portuguese Army. Results confirmed that perceived social impact and social worth were associated with work engagement. Furthermore, regardless of the rank category, perceived social impact was associated with higher prosocial motivation, which in turn was associated with higher work engagement. In the soldiers subsample, results further indicated that soldiers’ perceived social worth was associated with higher prosocial motivation, which in turn was related to higher work engagement. The direct effects of perceived social impact and social worth on work engagement, and the mediating role of prosocial motivation supported the hypothesis that perceptions of social impact and social worth may strengthen the motives to “do good” (prosocial motivation), leading to an upward spiral that cultivates work engagement among members of the military.     

The Relationship of Coworker Incivility to Job Performance and the Moderating Role of Self-Efficacy and Compassion at Work: The Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Approach

Purpose

This study examined the relationship between coworker incivility and job performance via emotional exhaustion, and the moderating effect of employee self-efficacy and compassion at work on the relationship.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Drawing on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model, we hypothesized an indirect relationship between coworker incivility and job performance through emotional exhaustion. Also, we predicted that the positive relationship between coworker incivility and emotional exhaustion would be weaker for employees with high self-efficacy and compassion experience at work. Surveys were gathered at two time points, 3 months apart, from 217 frontline employees of a five-star hotel in South Korea.

Findings

The results indicated that coworker incivility was negatively related to job performance and that the link was fully mediated by emotional exhaustion. Employees’ self-efficacy buffered the negative outcomes of coworker incivility, whereas experienced compassion at work did not moderate the relationship between coworker incivility and emotional exhaustion.

Implications

This study advances understanding of the negative consequences of coworker incivility and the ways to attenuate such negative effects. We suggested emotional exhaustion as a key psychological mechanism and revealed self-efficacy belief as a boundary condition related to coworker incivility.

Originality/Value

With a focus on emotional exhaustion, this study addresses the call for a better understanding of the psychological mechanism involved in workplace incivility. Also, we discovered the role that personal resources play in mitigating the negative effects of coworker incivility. Finally, we extend the literature by theorizing the boundary conditions of coworker incivility using the JD-R approach.

     

A Curvilinear Relationship Between Work Engagement and Job Performance: the Roles of Feedback-Seeking Behavior and Personal Resources

Drawing from conservation of resources theory, this study examines the curvilinear relationship between employees’ work engagement and their job performance; the authors also hypothesize that employees’ feedback-seeking behavior is a pertinent boundary condition that mitigates this curvilinear relationship. Personal resources likely mediate the work engagement–job performance relationship too. Data gathered from 190 employees and their supervisors in Ukraine (study 1) and from 171 employees and their supervisors in Pakistan (study 2) reveal that although work engagement enhances job performance, the effect occurs at a declining rate as work engagement increases. Feedback-seeking behavior moderates this curvilinear relationship, so the decline in the rate at which work engagement enhances job performance is mitigated by higher levels of feedback-seeking behavior. Furthermore, after controlling for the role of feedback-seeking behavior, the curvilinear effect of work engagement on job performance is mediated by personal resources (i.e., self-efficacy, optimism, and resilience). These findings have significant implications for research and practice.

     

From Puddles to Potholes: The Role of Overvalued Beliefs in Emotional Problems

The bygone notion of a “fixed idea” has evolved into an appreciation for overvalued beliefs, automatic thoughts, irrational beliefs, and dysfunctional attitudes and the role they can play in the lives of many clients. Overvalued beliefs are common and can be destructive when they guide the client toward extreme emotional reactions, disruptive behavioral patterns or create negative views of self or others. Overvalued beliefs become problematic when they are not aligned with commonly accepted views of reality, they are rigidly maintained despite insufficient evidence, and they create maladaptive self-perpetuating patterns. A metaphor is used to explain how minor puddles can evolve into major potholes, creating lasting damage. The destructive power of puddles shares some similarities with the subtle influence of overvalued beliefs on a client’s emotional and interpersonal functioning. Psychotherapy can help clients to confront the misguided accuracy, limited utility, and exaggerated potency of their beliefs. Therapy can help clients to disengage from the directive power of their beliefs, learning to tolerate various thoughts without reacting at an emotional or behavioral level.