Key questions regarding work engagement

This article discusses the concept of work engagement and summarizes research on its most important antecedents. The authors formulate 10 key questions and shape a research agenda for engagement. In addition to the conceptual development and measurement of enduring work engagement, the authors discuss the importance of state work engagement. Further, they argue that the social context is crucial and may set the stage for a climate for engagement with an important role for management. Engaged employees conserve their own engagement through a process of job crafting. After discussing possible dark sides of engagement and the relationship between engagement and health, the article closes with a discussion of organizational interventions to increase work engagement.     

The long arm of time pressure at work: Cognitive failure and commuting near-accidents

This study tests whether cognitive failures mediate effects of work-related time pressure and time control on commuting accidents and near-accidents. Participants were 83 employees (56% female) who each commuted between their regular place of residence and place of work using vehicles. The Workplace Cognitive Failure Scale (WCFS) asked for the frequency of failure in memory function, failure in attention regulation, and failure in action execution. Time pressure and time control at work were assessed by the Instrument for Stress Oriented Task Analysis (ISTA). Commuting accidents in the last 12 months were reported by 10% of participants, and half of the sample reported commuting near-accidents in the last 4 weeks. Cognitive failure significantly mediated the influence of time pressure at work on near-accidents even when age, gender, neuroticism, conscientiousness, commuting duration, commuting distance, and time pressure during commuting were controlled for. Time control was negatively related to cognitive failure and neuroticism, but no association with commuting accidents or near-accidents was found. Time pressure at work is likely to increase cognitive load. Time pressure might, therefore, increase cognitive failures during work and also during commuting. Hence, time pressure at work can decrease commuting safety. The result suggests a reduction of time pressure at work should improve commuting safety.     

Employee reactions to flattening organizational structures

This article examines the effectiveness of a newly introduced integrative structure and its impact on employee job perceptions in an aircraft maintenance organization. It is not common to find studies, that relate such changes to lower level employee reactions. The implementation of the change programme involved a system-wide approach incorporating both structural and cultural change. Using a retrospective methodology we assessed employee reactions to the changes introduced. We found that both intrinsic job satisfaction and job characteristics perceptions improved in the new integrative organization. The fact that positive findings have been identified when other studies found no relationship between such changes and attitudinal outcomes illustrates the efficacy of a system-wide approach to change. Extrinsic satisfaction and organizational commitment however did not improve. This can perhaps be explained by the fact that the latter areas are concerned with factors outside the direct completion of the job and may take much longer to change if indeed they can be shown to change over time at all.     

Towards a multilevel approach of employee well-being

In this commentary, I respond to Ilies, Aw & Pluut’s (Intraindividual models of employee well-being: What have we learned and where do we go from here?, European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, in press) call for a theory that distinguishes between traits and states of employee well-being. I use Job Demands–Resources theory to illustrate how we may integrate within- and between-person approaches and findings to design an overall multilevel model of employee well-being. My perspective builds on Ilies et al. and recent findings of research combining relatively stable “traits” with fluctuating states of employee well-being. My goals with this commentary are three-fold: (1) give more insight into possible differences between variables at different levels of analysis; (2) use research to show how trait and state levels of (predictors of) employee well-being may interact; (3) propose a multilevel model that may stimulate future research on the topic.     

Stability and change model of job resources and work engagement: A seven-year three-wave follow-up study

Using the stability and change model, conservation of resources theory and the job demands-resources model, this study aimed to determine: (1) the extent to which work engagement and job resources can be explained by a component reflecting stability and a component reflecting change in these constructs, and (2) the strength and direction of the relationship between work engagement and job resources when their stable components are controlled for. The study was carried out among 1,964 Finnish dentists over a seven-year time period (2003–2010), using a three-wave dataset. Some of the dentists had changed jobs during the follow-up, and therefore the research questions were validated among groups of job stayers and job changers. The stability and change models were examined using structural equation modelling. The results showed that 69–77% of the variance of dentists’ work engagement, and 46–49% of the variance of job resources was explained by the component reflecting stability. However, although there was a positive relationship between job resources and work engagement, the primary direction of this relationship could not be determined. Either job resources or work engagement may be considered as the initiator of this relationship. Job change did not affect the results.     

Memory Deficits Among Alcoholics: Performance on a Selective Reminding Task

ABSTRACT

This article compared alcoholics and healthy controls on the Buschke Selective Reminding Task. Alcoholics demonstrated deficits in memory and learning when compared to healthy controls, even when controlling for age. Examination of the alcoholic sample initially showed that age predicted memory deficits; however, age was no longer a significant predictor once the number of years of heavy drinking was entered into the regression equation. Findings suggest a direct link or mechanism of action between alcohol use and memory impairments, above and beyond effects of age or education.     

Metabolic Syndrome and Cognitive Function in Healthy Middle-Aged and Older Adults without Diabetes

ABSTRACT

Objective: Few studies have addressed whether the metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its individual components are associated with cognitive function in middle-aged and older populations, as well as whether specific areas of cognition are more affected than others. We examined the cross-sectional association between MetS and six areas of cognitive function in healthy cognitively intact adults without diabetes (n?=?853, mean age 61 years) randomized in two intervention trials. Methods: The National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) criteria were used to identify subjects with MetS. Cognitive function was assessed with a neuropsychological battery. A principal components analysis was used to extract five uncorrelated factors interpreted to represent five areas of cognition, and a measure of global cognition was calculated. Results: MetS was weakly but non-significantly associated with lower verbal learning (β?=??.14 [SE(β)?=?0.09], p?=?.15). As the number of MetS criteria increased, scores on global cognition (p trend?=?.01), verbal learning (p trend?=?.06) and semantic memory (p trend?=?.04) decreased. Hypertension was the only MetS risk factor that was independently correlated with lower verbal learning (β?=??.17 [SE(β) =?0.08], p?=?.04), semantic memory (β?=??.26 [SE(β)?=?0.08], p?=?.001) and global cognition (β?=??.15 [SE(β)?=?0.07], p?=?.04). Conclusion: This study adds to the evidence of an association between MetS and lower cognitive function among healthy middle-aged and older adults without CVD and diabetes, as well as confirms the correlation between hypertension and lower cognition.     

Aging Extends the Time Required to Switch Cognitive Set

ABSTRACT

The Attentional Blink (AB) refers to a decrease in the chance of detecting a second target in a rapid sequence of items if it occurs within approximately 500 ms of a first target. In this study the efficiency of establishing and switching cognitive set for older adults (mean age 71.62 years) relative to young adults (mean age 21.33 years) was investigated. Three increasingly complex conditions of the AB paradigm were employed, each of which required participants to identify a coloured square (T1) and a letter (T2) within a stream of distracters. Accuracy of identification of T2 decreased for both young and older adults as complexity increased. In Condition 1, selection criteria for both targets were fully specified, while T1 acted as a direct cue to the selection criteria for T2 in Condition 2. Older participants took longer to establish cognitive set in this condition. Condition 3 contained an added requirement to activate a pre-determined rule for T2 selection. The basic requirement to establish cognitive set ‘online’, however, seemed to disguise any additional potential problems associated with the additional load required for Condition 3 for older adults. Younger adults were cognitively slowed in Condition 3 relative to Condition 2, suggesting that it is the need to use an internally generated cue to switch cognitive set that requires extra time for them. The significantly larger AB demonstrated by the older participants indicated an impaired ability to rapidly establish cognitive set. The findings are discussed in light of the current literature on cognitive aging, the AB and task switching.