Not all job demands are equal: Differentiating job hindrances and job challenges in the Job Demands–Resources model

This study aimed to integrate the differentiation between two types of job demands, as made in previous studies, in the Job–Demands Resources (JD-R) model. Specifically, this study aimed to examine empirically whether the differentiation between job hindrances and job challenges, next to the category of job resources, accounts for the unexpected positive relationships between particular types of job demands (e.g., workload) and employees' work engagement. Results of confirmatory factor analyses supported the differentiation between the three categories of job characteristics in two samples (N ₁ = 261 and N ₂ = 441). Further, structural equation modelling confirmed the hypotheses that job hindrances associate positively with exhaustion (i.e., the main component of burnout) and negatively with vigour (i.e., the main component of work engagement). Job resources displayed the reversed pattern of relations. Job challenges were positively related to vigour. Rather unexpectedly, they were unrelated to exhaustion. Based on these findings, we discuss the importance of the differentiation between different types of job demands in the JD-R model for both theory and practice.     

Personality in teams: Its relationship to social cohesion,task cohesion,and team performance

This study continued past research on the relationship between personality composition in teams and social cohesion and team performance (Barrick, Stewart, Neubert, & Mount, 1998). Results from the Barrick et al. sample (N = 50) were compared with data from two new samples, one comprising drilling teams in the US (N = 24), and the other comprising student teams in The Netherlands (N = 25). Furthermore, this study examined the relationship between personality composition and task cohesion, usually considered to be a stronger predictor of team performance than social cohesion. Results partly confirmed the relationships between personality composition, cohesion, and team performance that were found previously. Minimum levels of conscientiousness and agreeableness contributed positively to both task cohesion and team performance. High mean levels of extraversion and emotional stability contributed positively to social cohesion. Some results differed across the three samples, stressing the importance of task characteristics as a factor influencing relationships between team personality, team processes, and team performance. Although significant relationships were found between social cohesion, task cohesion, and performance, cohesion measures did not mediate relationships between personality composition and team performance.     

Keep the fire burning: Reciprocal gains of basic need satisfaction,intrinsic motivation and innovative work behaviour

Drawing on insights from self-determination theory, we explored the dynamic relationship between intrinsic motivation and innovative work behaviour (IWB) over time. Specifically, we investigated how basic need satisfaction influences IWB through its effect on intrinsic motivation and how IWB in turn affects basic need satisfaction as measured the next day (i.e., a reciprocal relationship). The current study used a longitudinal design comprising a 6-day period and relied on multi-source data from 76 students in industrial product design and electronic engineering who participated in an innovation boot camp. In general, results provided support for the mediating role of intrinsic motivation in the relationship between basic need satisfaction and IWB, as well as the reciprocal relationship between basic need satisfaction and IWB.     

Book review

This article suggests that envy is entwined with leadership in a number of complex and potentially problematic ways. It examines how aspects such as skill, power, authority, and prestige that are associated with leadership may evoke the envy of subordinates and colleagues. Envy may also be stirred up in the leader s family, friends, and colleagues outside the organization. Equally, leaders themselves may be prone to feeling envious of subordinates, colleagues, and others who they feel may threaten their position. Based on research using psychoanalytic concepts, it is suggested that because envy is so painful to bear it is often consigned to the unconscious, so that those who are envious are unaware or only partly aware of the extent and nature of their feelings. This can result in the subtle, indirect and often insidious expression of envy which undermines leadership and interferes with the effective running of the organization.     

Team innovation and team effectiveness: The importance of minority dissent and reflexivity

Past research suggests that minority dissent in teams may foster team innovations. It is hypothesized, however, that minority dissent would predict team innovations only when teams have high levels of reflexivity - the tendency to overtly reflect upon the group's objectives, strategies, and processes and adapt them to current or anticipated circumstances. This hypothesis was tested in a field study involving a heterogeneous sample of 32 organizational teams performing complex, ill-defined tasks. Results showed more innovation and greater team effectiveness under high rather than low levels of minority dissent, but only when there was a high level of team reflexivity. Avenues for future research are discussed.     

Occupational well-being as a mediator between job insecurity and turnover intention: Findings at the individual and work department levels

This study examined the relationship between job insecurity and turnover intention by applying occupational well-being (exhaustion, vigour) as a mediator. The study was inspired by two theories: the conservation of resources and emotional contagion theories. We investigated the relationships at the individual and work department levels by utilizing Multi-Level Structural Equation Modeling (ML-SEM) with the aim of clarifying whether the mediating mechanism was similar at both levels. In addition, we examined the relationships across the levels (cross-level interactions). Self-report data for the study were obtained from Finnish University staff (N = 2137 individual respondents from 78 work departments). The analyses resulted in three main findings. First, job insecurity, turnover intention, and occupational well-being were found, to some extent (2–6%), to be shared experiences within work departments. Second, we found that low occupational well-being (high exhaustion, low vigour) partly mediated the relationship between job insecurity and turnover intention at both levels of analysis. Third, the results on cross-level interactions revealed that the lower the level of well-being at the work department level, the stronger the negative effect of job insecurity on well-being at the individual level. Thus, if poor well-being characterizes the work department, this may strengthen the negative relationship between job insecurity and well-being at the individual level.     

Automatic–heuristic and executive–analytic processing during reasoning: Chronometric and dual-task considerations

Human reasoning has been shown to overly rely on intuitive, heuristic processing instead of a more demanding analytic inference process. Four experiments tested the central claim of current dual-process theories that analytic operations involve time-consuming executive processing whereas the heuristic system would operate automatically. Participants solved conjunction fallacy problems and indicative and deontic selection tasks. Experiment 1 established that making correct analytic inferences demanded more processing time than did making heuristic inferences. Experiment 2 showed that burdening the executive resources with an attention-demanding secondary task decreased correct, analytic responding and boosted the rate of conjunction fallacies and indicative matching card selections. Results were replicated in Experiments 3 and 4 with a different secondary-task procedure. Involvement of executive resources for the deontic selection task was less clear. Findings validate basic processing assumptions of the dual-process framework and complete the correlational research programme of K. E. Stanovich and R. F. West (2000).     

Psychiatric chrono‐epidemiology: its relevance for the study of aggression

Chrono‐epidemiology is the study of the distribution of health events according to time. The time intervals taken into account have cyclic patterns and include circadian, weekly, seasonal, and circannual rhythms. In the behavioural field, chrono‐epidemiology can be and has been applied to studies concerning the causes of death (suicide and homicide), clinical events such as admissions to and contacts with mental healthcare services, and the seasonal distribution of crime involving the use of violence. Frequently reported findings include clear circadian and seasonal rhythms present in the phenomenon of suicide (rhythms more evident in the case of violent suicide); seasonal rhythms in the expression of aggression by patients hospitalised for mental illness; and a circannual recurrence of crimes with a violent component. The intrinsic circadian and seasonal rhythms of some neuronal systems, particularly those of serotonin, involved in the control of mood and impulses, are thought to favour the behavioural rhythms observed, although the contribution of socio‐environmental factors, such as the fluctuation of supportive networks according to time, is also acknowledged. By demonstrating non‐casual recurrence of certain behaviour and by exploring the socio‐biological basis of the rhythms beneath these recurrences, chrono‐epidemiology may offer important etiologic and preventive clues to the understanding of the biological and environmental correlates of aggressive behaviour. Aggr. Behav. 28:477–490, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.