Job crafting and extra-role behavior: The role of work engagement and flourishing

This study investigates whether crafting of job demands and resources relates positively to extra-role behavior (i.e. contextual performance and creativity) through work engagement and flourishing. We collected data from 294 employees and their supervisors regarding employees' contextual performance and creativity. Results show that seeking resources had a positive indirect relationship with contextual performance through work engagement, and with creativity through work engagement and flourishing. Reducing demands had negative indirect relationships with both contextual performance and creativity through work engagement. We conclude that particularly seeking resources has important implications for extra-role behavior and discuss the practical implications of these findings.     

The relationship between perceived organizational support and work engagement: The role of self-efficacy and its outcomes

Introduction/objectiveThe objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between perceived organizational support and work engagement. On the one hand, we examined an underlying mechanism of this relationship, i.e. self-efficacy. On the other hand, we studied the outcomes of this relationship in terms of employees’ job satisfaction, psychological strains and performance.MethodAn online questionnaire was administrated to employees of two private companies. Employees’ performance was then evaluated by their direct supervisors. In total, 265 employees and 112 supervisors participated in the study.ResultsOur results indicated that self-efficacy partially mediates the relationship between perceived organizational support and work engagement. Furthermore, work engagement increased job satisfaction, reduced psychological strains and enhanced extra-role performance.ConclusionThis study contributes to the development of both work engagement literature and organizational support theory. The implications and limitations of this research are discussed in detail.     

Recherche de feedback et performance au travail : l’effet modérateur des orientations vers les objectifs

This paper examines the relationship between the search for positive and negative feedback and job performance, as rated by supervisors, as a function of employees’ goal orientations (learning, performance, and avoidance). Based on a study among 197 employees from various industries, the relationship between the search for positive feedback and job performance was found to be stronger and positive when either learning, performance, or avoidance goal orientation was high, revealing the effects consistently favorable of positive feedback. In contrast, the search for negative feedback exerted a negative effect on job performance among employees who held a high performance goal orientation. We discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the effects of feedback-seeking behavior on job performance.     

Nonlinear associations between job insecurity and adaptive performance: The mediating role of negative affect and negative work reflection

This study aimed at investigating the association between employee-rated job insecurity and supervisor-rated adaptive performance. We hypothesized a nonlinear association between job insecurity and adaptive performance, expecting negative affect and negative work reflections to mediate this relationship. Using a sample of 131 employee–supervisor dyads, path analysis revealed a curvilinear relation between job insecurity and supervisor-rated adaptive performance, indicating medium job insecurity being linked to the lowest adaptive performance. Bootstrapping confirmed that negative affect and negative work reflection both mediated the nonlinear association between job insecurity and adaptive performance. After a time lag of 16 weeks, 71 supervisors again rated their employees’ adaptive performance. Path analysis confirmed a nonlinear association between employees’ job insecurity (T1) and supervisor-rated adaptive performance (T2). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

When can feedback-seeking behavior result in a better performance rating? Investigating the moderating role of political skill

Feedback-seeking behavior is generally used to acquire job-related information that enables performance improvement. However, it can also be a form of impression management that improves an employee’s reputation. In this study, we show that employees who hold an image enhancement motive are more likely to seek feedback from their supervisors. Further, this feedback-seeking behavior mediates the relationship between the image enhancement motive and task performance ratings, consistent with the self-concept enhancing tactician (SCENT) model. However, we additionally incorporate socioanalytic theory to demonstrate that this indirect effect is moderated: the image enhancement motive translates into greater feedback-seeking behavior and task performance ratings only for employees with high political skill, who are capable of acting on their image enhancement motive successfully.     

Drive and Direction: Empathy with Intended Targets Moderates the Proactive Personality–Job Performance Relationship via Work Engagement

Proactive employees are self-starting and driven. Thus, they typically exhibit high levels of work engagement. While work engagement reflects the degree to which employees are attentive and absorbed when performing their work tasks, it does not guarantee effective job performance unless their actions are strategic. We draw on Grant and Ashford’s (2008) proactivity framework to develop a drive and direction contingency model that expands our understanding of how and when proactive personality predicts job performance via work engagement. We argue that employee’s drive (represented by the positive relation of proactive personality with work engagement) predicts job performance only when the employee also has high (vs. low) empathy with their intended targets, such as customers. Empathy with intended targets allows employees to understand and feel their targets’ concerns and feelings, thus providing a direction that guides their work engagement to address their targets’ interests and predict job performance. Results from a multiple-source (employees, supervisors, and organizational records) lagged (T1–T2) field study and a lab experiment support our model. We discuss the implications, limitations, and future directions of our findings.     

Psychological contracts and innovative behavior: a moderated path analysis of work engagement and job resources

This study explored the relationships between psychological contract types and innovative behavior. We focused on the mediating effect of work engagement and the moderating effect of job resources (organizational and social resources). Participants were 267 dyads of research and development engineers and their supervisors from 30 high‐tech companies. Moderated path analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings showed that: (a) work engagement fully mediated the negative relationship between transactional contracts and innovative behavior; in addition, it also fully mediated the positive relationship between relational contracts and innovative behavior; and (b) job resources attenuated the former and strengthened the latter mediating effects. These findings contribute to understanding how, why, and when psychological contract types lead to innovative behavior via work engagement.     

不同社交媒体使用目的对员工工作绩效的影响机制

基于工作要求-资源理论, 本研究探讨了两种社交媒体使用目的对员工工作绩效影响的内部作用机制, 进而分析两种社交媒体使用目的对员工工作绩效的影响效果。通过369份“领导者-下属”匹配数据, 研究发现：(1)基于工作、社交的社交媒体使用均促进员工工作绩效; (2)基于工作、社交的社交媒体使用均通过工作投入影响工作绩效, 基于社交的社交媒体使用还通过关系冲突影响工作绩效; (3)社交媒体的工作使用和社交使用对员工工作绩效的影响存在相互替代关系。本研究结果不仅从理论上拓展了社交媒体使用的研究视角, 为后续研究提供新的理论框架, 同时通过比较分析为组织管理社交媒体使用提供了新思路。     

When Does Job Insecurity Lead to Feedback-Seeking Behavior? The Counterintuitive Moderating Role of Perceived Organizational Support

A competitive business environment makes organizations increasingly dependent on their employees to proactively seek feedback aimed at improving job performance and requires organizations to frequently engage in restructuring activities that may cause employees to experience job insecurity. This poses an important theoretical puzzle regarding the relationship between job insecurity and feedback-seeking behavior. This study clarifies this relationship by addressing the moderating role of perceived organizational support and provides a mechanism that explains the mechanism behind the moderating process. This study builds a mediated moderating model by drawing from the uncertainty reduction and social exchange theories. By analyzing data collected from 567 employees of manufacturing enterprises in China, we find that the relationship between job insecurity and feedback-seeking behavior is negative under conditions of high perceived organizational support and is positive under conditions of low perceived organizational support. Collectivism value can mediate the moderating role of perceived organizational support.     

Supervisor Reactions to Avoidance Job Crafting: The Role of Political Skill and Approach Job Crafting

Avoidance job crafting refers to employees proactively changing work boundaries by reducing tasks and/or interactions with others. Although avoidance job crafting may help employees to address work demands, if noticed by others, specifically supervisors, it may trigger negative reactions from them. While previous research posits that job crafting is largely unnoticed by supervisors, using a dyadic supervisor-employee study (N = 141 dyads), we found that supervisors were in fact aware of their employees’ avoidance job crafting, which related to a reduction in supervisor support. This relationship was moderated by employee political skill (but not approach job crafting), such that high avoidance job crafting in combination with high political skill resulted in fewer negative outcomes, presumably because supervisors were less likely to notice their employees’ avoidance job crafting. In a second, vignette study (N = 92 supervisors), we experimentally replicated the relation between observed avoidance job crafting and negative supervisor reactions, and found that this relation can be explained by supervisors perceiving avoidance job crafting as destructive work behavior. Our findings introduce the supervisor perspective to the job crafting literature and highlight the importance of engaging in avoidance job crafting in a skillful way that aligns with the external context.     

Do Employees Know How Their Supervisors View Them? A Study Examining Metaperceptions of Job Performance

This study investigated employees’ views about how their supervisors would rate their job performance (i.e., employees’ metaperceptions). Two hundred forty employees from a high-tech firm provided self- and metaperception job performance ratings, and their supervisors also provided ratings of the employees’ performance. The study produced several notable findings, including that metaperceptions were more strongly related to supervisory ratings than were self-ratings, that meta-accuracy was stronger for task versus contextual performance, and that employees who engaged in more impression management behavior exhibited higher meta-accuracy. Discussion focuses on the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.     

领导-团队投入匹配对团队绩效的影响：团队满意度氛围的作用

基于领导-团队匹配的视角,研究以133名领导和645名成员的团队配对数据,采用二次多项式回归与响应面分析对领导工作投入与团队投入氛围的一致性匹配和不一致性匹配,以及团队满意度氛围如何影响团队绩效进行了探讨。结果发现：领导工作投入与团队投入氛围一致与不一致相比,团队绩效较好;并且一致性匹配具有加强效应,即当领导工作投入与团队投入氛围一致时,团队绩效随着双方投入的增加而提高;同时,团队满意度氛围在领导-团队投入的一致性匹配与团队绩效的线性关系中起到部分中介作用。     

Job crafting and job performance: A longitudinal study

In this three-wave study (N = 288), we examined whether job crafting intentions and work engagement led to actual job crafting behaviours and, in turn, to higher levels of prospective work engagement and job performance. We used the Job Demands-Resources model as a theoretical framework and defined job crafting as the self-initiated changes that employees make in their job demands and resources. One month after reporting their job crafting intentions, respondents rated their actual job crafting behaviours. Again one month later, they rated their levels of work engagement, in-role performance, and organizational citizenship behaviour towards individuals (OCBI). Results of structural equation modelling showed that job crafting intentions and work engagement significantly related to actual job crafting, which, in turn, related to higher levels of work engagement, while controlling for job characteristics. Results further showed that engaged employees performed better on their in-role tasks but did not perform more OCBIs. The findings suggest that employees can increase their own work engagement and job performance through job crafting.     

The value of job crafting for work engagement,task performance,and career satisfaction: longitudinal and quasi-experimental evidence

We examine how job crafting (i.e. seeking resources, seeking challenges, decreasing demands) increases the person-job fit of employees. In Study 1, we studied job crafting’s effects over time. 111 employees filled out a questionnaire at two time points with 6 months in between. We found that seeking resources behavior at Time 1 positively affected work engagement, task performance, and career satisfaction at Time 2. Decreasing demands at Time 1 negatively affected work engagement, task performance, and career satisfaction at Time 2. In Study 2, we tested a job crafting intervention using a quasi-experimental design (i.e., intervention group, N = 60, and a control group, N = 59). The intervention was successful, as participants in the intervention group increased seeking resources and decreasing demands behaviors. Furthermore, seeking resources behavior was the main driver of increased participants’ work engagement, task performance, and career satisfaction.     

Work engagement and voluntary absence: The moderating role of job resources

The present study examined the moderating role of job resources, namely, organizational trust, the quality of employees’ relationship with their manager, and the motivating potential of jobs, on the negative relationship between work engagement and voluntary absence. Employee survey results and absence records collected from the Human Resources department of a construction and consultancy organization in the United Kingdom (n = 325) showed that work engagement was negatively related to voluntary absence, as measured by the Bradford Factor. Furthermore, the results showed that organizational trust and the quality of employees’ relationships with their line managers ameliorated the negative effect of relatively low levels of engagement on voluntary absence. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

上司人际公平如何影响员工工作结果:有中介的调节效应

本文探讨了上司的人际公平怎样影响员工工作满意度和人际层面组织公民行为,以及这种影响何时更强或更弱。通过对237名在职人员调查,结果发现:(1)员工的上司信任在人际公平与工作满意度、人际层面组织公民行为之间具有部分和完全中介作用;(2)上司权力对人际公平效应具有调节作用:当上司权力较高时,人际公平显著影响员工对他的信任,进而影响工作满意度和人际层面组织公民行为;而当其权力较低时,人际公平的影响不明显。     

The Relationship between Workplace Incivility and Helping Behavior: Roles of Job Dissatisfaction and Political Skill

This article investigates the mediating role of job dissatisfaction in the relationship between employees’ perceptions of workplace incivility and their helping behavior, as well as the buffering role of political skill in this process. Three-wave, time-lagged data collected from employees and their supervisors revealed that employees’ exposure to workplace incivility diminished their helping behavior through their sense of job dissatisfaction. This mediating role of job dissatisfaction was less salient, however, to the extent that employees were equipped with political skill. For organizations, this study accordingly pinpoints a key mechanism—namely, unhappiness about their job situation—through which rude coworker treatment links to lower voluntary workplace behaviors among employees, and it reveals how this mechanism can be better contained in the presence of political skill.     

Examination of a Perceived Cost Model of Employees’ Negative Feedback-Seeking Behavior

The present study extends the feedback-seeking behavior literature by investigating how supervisor-related antecedents (i.e., supervisors’ expert power, reflected appraisals of supervisors, and supervisors’ emotional intelligence) influence subordinates’ negative feedback-seeking behavior (NFSB) through different cost/value perceptions (i.e., expectancy value, self-presentation cost, and ego cost). Using data collected from 216 supervisor-subordinate dyads from various industries in Taiwan, we employ structural equation modeling analysis to test our hypotheses. The results show that expectancy value mediates the relationship between supervisor expert power and subordinates’ NFSB. Moreover, self-presentation cost mediates the relationship between reflected appraisals of supervisors’ and subordinates’ NFSB. Theoretical and practical implications of this study are also discussed.     

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.     

“激将法”会激发还是打击员工?感知能力不被领导信任的“双刃剑”效应

感知能力不被领导信任是信任研究的重要内容。已有研究普遍认为感知不被领导信任会对员工的自我产生不利影响。相反, 传统领导方式“激将法”则认为领导的不信任可以刺激员工展现更好的自我。为了解释上述矛盾, 本研究基于自我评价理论和心理逆反理论, 采用实验研究和多源多时间点问卷调查研究方法, 探讨了感知能力不被领导信任对员工自我的“双刃剑”效应及边界条件。研究结果表明, 当员工感知领导能力较强时, 感知能力不被领导信任会通过降低员工的工作效能感削弱员工的工作努力和绩效表现; 当员工感知领导能力较弱时, 感知能力不被领导信任会通过增强员工证明自我能力动机提升员工的工作努力和绩效表现。