Search results

Algorithms are widely used to manage various activities in the gig economy. Online car-hailing platforms, such as Uber and Lyft, are exemplary embodiments of such algorithmic management, where drivers are managed by algorithms for task allocation, work monitoring and performance evaluation. Despite employing substantially, the platforms face the challenge of maintaining and fostering drivers' work engagement. Thus, this study aims to examine how the algorithmic management of online car-hailing platforms affects drivers' work engagement.

Drawing on the transactional theory of stress, the authors examined the effects of algorithmic monitoring and fairness on online car-hailing drivers' work engagement and revealed the mediation effects of challenge-hindrance appraisals. Based on survey data collected from 364 drivers, the authors' hypotheses were examined using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The authors also applied path comparison analyses to further compare the effects of algorithmic monitoring and fairness on the two types of appraisals.

This study finds that online car-hailing drivers' challenge-hindrance appraisals mediate the relationship between algorithmic management characteristics and work engagement. Algorithmic monitoring positively affects both challenge and hindrance appraisals in online car-hailing drivers. However, algorithmic fairness promotes challenge appraisal and reduces hindrance appraisal. Consequently, challenge and hindrance appraisals lead to higher and lower work engagement, respectively. Further, the additional path comparison analysis showed that the hindering effect of algorithmic monitoring exceeds its challenging effect, and the challenge-promoting effect of algorithmic fairness is greater than the algorithm's hindrance-reducing effect.

This paper reveals the underlying mechanisms concerning how algorithmic monitoring and fairness affect online car-hailing drivers' work engagement and fills the gap in the research on algorithmic management in the context of online car-hailing platforms. The authors' findings also provide practical guidance for online car-hailing platforms on how to improve the platforms' algorithmic management systems.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how family support affects challenge and hindrance appraisals, which in turn, influence entrepreneurs’ venture exit intention drawing on the challenge-hindrance job stressor model, family support, and the venture exit literature.

An experimental study (Study 1) was conducted to establish the relationships among family support, challenge and hindrance appraisals, and entrepreneurs’ venture exit intention. Two survey studies (Study 2 and Study 3) were conducted to extend the external validity of findings in Study 1 and to examine whether the theoretical framework holds in both the US and Chinese contexts.

All three studies demonstrate that family support decreases entrepreneurs’ venture exit intention by reducing hindrance appraisal. Study 3 also shows the mediating role of challenge appraisal in the family support – venture exit intention relationship.

This research contributes to the family embeddedness perspective not only by showing its relevance to the venture exit context but also by validating the relationship of family support with cognitive appraisals and venture exit intention in two cultural contexts. It also contributes to venture exit research by highlighting the unique role of cognitive appraisals in the formation of entrepreneurs’ venture exit intention.

Drawing from both the transactional theory of stress and the conservation of resources theory, this paper sets out to investigate the role of demand-specific challenge and hindrance appraisal of emotional demands, as well as time pressure and perceived goal progress within the challenge–hindrance framework.

For this research, 91 employees provided daily diary data for one working week. Focusing on within-persons effects, multilevel moderated mediation models using multilevel path analyses were applied.

Both emotional demands and time pressure exert positive effects on work engagement when people expect resource gain (challenge appraisal), independent of actual resource gain (achievement). Furthermore, results show that goal progress buffers negative effects of perceived blocked resource gain (hindrance appraisal) on both emotional and motivational well-being.

This research proposes an extension and refinement of the challenge–hindrance stressor framework to explain health-impairing and motivational processes of emotional demands and time pressure, combining reasoning from both appraisal and resource theory perspectives. The study identifies demand-specific challenge and hindrance appraisals as mediators linking demands to emotional and motivational well-being, emphasizing the influence of goal progress as a resource on these relations.

This study aims to explore the associations linking employees’ challenge-hindrance appraisals toward artificial intelligence (AI) to service performance while considering the dual mediating roles of job crafting and job insecurity, as well as the moderating role of AI knowledge.

A survey was administered to a sample of 297 service industry employees. This study examined all the hypotheses with Mplus 8.0.

This study confirms that challenge appraisal toward AI has an indirect positive influence on service performance via job crafting (motivation process), whereas hindrance appraisal toward AI has an indirect negative influence on service performance via job insecurity (strain process). Meanwhile, AI knowledge, serving as a key personal resource, could strengthen the positive impacts of challenge appraisal toward AI on job crafting and of hindrance appraisal toward AI on job insecurity.

Organizational decision-makers should first survey employees’ appraisals toward AI and then adopt targeted managerial strategies. From the perspective of service industry employees, employees should adopt proactive coping strategies and enrich their knowledge of AI to meet the challenges brought by this technology.

The primary contribution of this study is that we enrich the literature on AI by exploring the dual mediators (i.e. job crafting and job insecurity) through which AI awareness affects service performance. Moreover, this study advances our understanding of when appraisals toward AI influence job outcomes by identifying the moderating role of AI knowledge.

The purpose of this study is to explore a balanced understanding of the relationship between perceived occupational stigma and social workers’ proactive behaviors in China. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, this study explored the mediating role of threat and challenge appraisals, as well as the moderating role of trait resilience.

Data were collected using a time-lagged research design. The hypotheses were examined using a sample of 338 social workers in China.

Perceived occupational stigma is appraised as both a challenge and a threat simultaneously. Challenge appraisal positively mediated perceived occupational stigma and proactive behavior, whereas threat appraisal negatively mediated this relationship. Trait resilience moderated the effect of threat appraisal, suggesting that perceived occupational stigma was appraised as a threat when trait resilience was lower (rather than higher), which then reduced social workers’ proactive behaviors.

This study enriches the literature on perceived occupational stigma by identifying the relationship and mechanism of perceived occupational stigma-proactive behaviors and a boundary condition from the theoretical perspective of cognitive appraisals. It demonstrates both the positive and negative aspects of perceived occupational stigma as appraised by social workers in relation to an important workplace outcome of proactive behaviors. In addition, it offers a fresh approach by exploring perceived occupational stigma from the perspective of social workers.

Although the appraisal of a situation as challenging has positive effects on performance and stress-related outcomes, the situational and individual characteristics that make challenge appraisal likely are far from clear. The purpose of this paper is to test these characteristics based on a review of the conceptualizations of challenge and the associated positive effects.

Potential characteristics of challenge are tested in two policy-capturing studies using a full factorial experimental design.

Results reveal that situations are appraised as more challenging than threatening when goal importance, task difficulty and controllability are high rather than low.

These results indicate that challenge and threat are distinguished through the means a person believes to have available to cope with demands, an aspect of controllability.

This paper provides a first experimental test of characteristics of challenging situations.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating role of threat and challenge appraisals in the relationship between performance pressure and employees' work engagement, as well as the buffering role of emotional stability, as a personal characteristic, in this process.

Data were collected using a three-wave research design. Hypotheses were examined with a sample of 247 white-collar employees from French organizations.

Performance pressure is appraised as either threat or challenge. Challenge appraisal positively mediated the performance pressure and work engagement relationship, whereas threat appraisal negatively mediated the performance pressure and work engagement relationship. Emotional stability moderated these effects, suggesting performance pressure was appraised as a challenge rather than a threat, which then enhanced employee work engagement.

This study has shown that employees with high emotional stability who perceived performance pressure as a challenge achieved stronger employee work engagement.

Building on Lazare's theory of stress and Mitchell et al. 's theorization, this research demonstrates mediating and moderating mechanisms driving the role of performance pressure on employee work engagement relationships.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a balanced and nuanced understanding of the relationship between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and employee thriving at work by aiming to consider the “dark-side” of HPWS and to uncover the “black box.”

This research draws from data from 377 employees nested in 77 work teams and tests a multilevel moderated mediation model using multilevel path analysis.

The findings indicate that employees appraise HPWS as both a challenge and a hindrance simultaneously. The challenge appraisal associated with HPWS positively influences employees' thriving at work whereas hindrance appraisal of HPWS negatively influences thriving experience. The results also support the hypothesized relationships in which servant leadership moderates the indirect effect of HPWS on employee thriving via challenge and hindrance appraisals accordingly.

This research demonstrates both positive and negative sides of HPWS as evaluated by employees in relation to an important employee outcome of thriving at work. It enriches the strategic HRM literature by identifying the “black box” of HPWS-employee outcomes and associated boundary condition from the theoretical perspective of cognitive appraisals.

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating role of appraisals in three stressor–well-being relationships: (1) the mediating role of challenge appraisals in the relationship between daily skill demands and daily work engagement, (2) the mediating role of hindrance appraisals in the relationship between daily interruptions and daily depletion and (3) the mediating role of threat appraisals in the relationship between daily emotional demands and daily anxiety. We also examined the moderating influence of conscientiousness on the daily skill demands–challenge appraisal relationship, the moderating role of extraversion on the daily interruptions–hindrance appraisal relationship and the moderating influence of neuroticism on the daily emotional demands–threat appraisal relationship. Supplemental analyses also examined the moderating influence of the aforementioned personality traits on the respective direct effects of stressors on well-being outcomes.

We tested our hypotheses using a 5-days experience sampling design in a sample of 114 working adults and employed multilevel modeling.

All hypothesized mediating mechanisms were supported, however, the majority of moderation hypotheses were not supported.

We sought to extend the relatively recent advancement in the challenge–hindrance framework to provide additional evidence of the utility of distinguishing between challenge, hindrance and threat stressors. Although not supported, this is the one of the first papers to test the moderating influence of personality traits on the stressor–appraisal relationship.

This study aims to examine the effect of restaurant employees’ challenge-hindrance appraisals toward smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and algorithms (STARA) awareness on individual competitive productivity (ICP) and explore the mediating roles of employees’ work engagement and organizational commitment on the relationship between challenge-hindrance appraisals and ICP.

Data were collected through an online survey. One hundred and ninety employees who worked at full-time and non-management positions in the USA quick-service restaurants participated. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for the data analysis.

The study identified that restaurant employees’ challenge appraisals toward STARA awareness positively influenced ICP. This relationship is positively mediated by employees’ work engagement.

This study makes practical contributions to human resource practices in restaurants. Employees’ challenge appraisals toward STARA awareness transmit the job insecurity stressor to a higher level of ICP. Restaurant managers should provide employees with adequate resources and support for non-management employees’ professional competency growth. Quick-service restaurants can enjoy a competitive advantage in the market by enhancing employees’ CP.

This study enriches the literature on the CP model, cognitive appraisal theory and person-environment fit theory. The study investigated employees’ challenge and hindrance appraisals toward emerging STARA awareness and emphasized their distinct characteristics to drive ICP in the quick-service restaurant sector.