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The ubiquity of smartphones has changed how people communicate, work and entertain. In view of conservation of resources theory and the positive spillover effect, this study explores the effect of non-work-related instant messaging (IM) in the workplace on daily task performance.

The authors use the experience sampling method to collect day-level data from 75 employees over a period of 10 workdays. Multilevel path analysis is used to test the hypotheses.

Non-work-related IM exerts a significant negative indirect effect on daily task performance through diminished cognitive engagement. This negative indirect effect disappears when social support is high, thereby showing the function of social support as a neutralizer of the detriment of non-work-related IM on daily task performance.

The findings suggest that organizations can neutralize the harm of non-work-related IM in the workplace by promoting social support perceived by employees.

This study advances the technology and management literature by developing and testing a balanced perspective on the ambivalent effect of workplace smartphone use that considers social and cognitive resource implications.

The study aims to examine whether job resourcefulness affects task performance through job crafting at the within-person level.

The data were collected from employees of the tour and travel firms and their supervisors. Multilevel structural equation modeling (MSEM) was used for analysis due to the repeated data structure, for example, days (n = 900) nested in individuals (n = 180).

Results show a positive association between job resourcefulness and task performance, with the full mediation of job crafting at the within-person level.

The study concludes that variation in job resourcefulness impacts job crafting and task performance at the within-person level.

Age is one of the critical factors used by many organizations to determine employees' performance. It is being considered in the retirement process of construction professionals. However, age as a critical factor is not considered in the recruitment of a specific set of workers in the construction industry. Therefore, this study investigated the significant relationship between the ages of tradespeople and their performance in construction projects. The study also explored the age at which performance begins to decline and proposes strategies that can be used to sustain their effectiveness before the official retirement age.

Mixed methods research designs were adopted in the study. To be precise, physical observations, interviews and questionnaires were the instruments used for data collection in the mixed methods research design.

The outcomes of the study revealed that the age groups of tradespeople in the Nigerian construction industry are 16–30 (group one), 31–45 (group two) and 46–58 (group three) respectively. Group three is the prevalent age group. It was also discovered that performance begins to decline at 53 years. The age-performance decline of tradespeople in Nigerian construction projects can be delayed through certain strategies such as regular strength training exercises and an adequate nutritional lifestyle.

The study enables construction managers to have an adequate understanding of the negative influence of old age on the performance of tradespeople in construction projects. This will enable construction firm managers to recruit from the age range of 16–52 and stop retiring employees within this age bracket, consequently curbing the skills gap which is prevalent in the study context and the global construction industry. The study is limited to tradespeople performance in construction firms in Abuja, Nigeria where there are several ongoing projects on a daily basis.

The study enables project managers to estimate the number of tradespeople required for a particular task and consequently save the aged tradespeople from health risks associated with excessive workloads.

This paper is the first of its kind to be conducted in the study context, to establish the specific age at which performance begins to decline among construction tradespeople.

Substantial research has examined the self-concept, but little work has investigated the contents and structure of the self-concept in combination within performance settings, particularly from a within-person perspective. Thus, this research developed and examined a conceptual framework based on Greenwald et al. (2002) to understand how core self-evaluations (CSE) and self-concept clarity (SCC) interact to influence motivational orientation with implications for performance dimensions.

Full-time employees (N = 138) completed daily measures of CSE, SCC, motivational orientation, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) and counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) over the course of three weeks.

Multilevel modeling indicated CSE influences motivational orientation, SCC can moderate these relationships and motivational orientation relates to OCBs and counterproductive work behaviors.

This work contributes to this research area by developing and examining an integrative conceptual framework involving aspects of self-concept, motivation and performance from a within-person perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to explore and theorize the process of managerial feedback in relation to change in small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

This research embraces a qualitative methodology in the context of manufacturing SMEs. Drawing on 30 in-depth interviews, and observations conducted with various managers in six SMEs operating in three countries, it is argued that managers benefit more by using daily, ongoing, feedback as a trigger of change in their organizations.

The findings suggest that there is an overall view that managers appear to be reluctant to change existing processes using formalized feedback mechanisms, which runs counter-intuitive to the literature. In contrast, informal methods of feedback work better in enhancing organizational change. Moreover, another two features of feedback enhance this process, namely, benefits oriented and confidence oriented. As such, this study contributes to existing knowledge and practice by proposing a three-fold form of feedback through which managers expand their perspectives of feedback from feeding-back to feeding-forward thereby enhancing the opportunities of triggering change.

Feedback should merely be considered as a dynamic and socially constructed managerial practice. A practice where actors not only exchange information and share knowledge, but also act, react and interact with each other as they constantly rethinking the change process. The proposed aspect of feedback emphasizes knowledge therapeutically and in combination with the dialogical discourse (practical illustration) that increases the odds for capturing change as a natural, rather than exceptional.

Practitioners, as such, may wish to consider the terminology used when it comes to studying change and its implementation in a crisis context. Using deformalized managerial feedback mechanisms to tackle a formal phenomenon like “change” could help avoid employees perceiving a negative connotation, causing resistance or confusion and feeling threatened. Therefore, the authors suggest that practitioners, during development initiatives on modernizing or altering organizational processes, consider replacing the term “change” as a formal concept.

It is an investigation from an exploratory perspective in studying and understanding the causes, factors and modalities that trigger managerial feedback toward organizational change in manufacturing SMEs.

Wrist orthoses are used by occupational therapists to decrease pain, support weak muscles and protect tissues during healing. However, use of wrist orthoses has been observed to produce compensatory movements in other upper extremity joints. This paper aims to determine whether wearing wrist orthoses produced compensatory movements of the elbow in addition to the shoulder when performing drinking and hammering tasks.

Two twin-axis electrogoniometers were positioned on the elbow and shoulder to track joint movement. The four conditions were drink with orthosis, hammer with orthosis, drink without orthosis and hammer without orthosis. Joint movement was defined as total angular excursion of the joint throughout the performance of the task. Separate 2 × 2 (joint × orthosis) repeated measures analyzes of variance (ANOVA) were used to evaluate differences in joint excursion of the elbow and shoulder joints between orthosis conditions for each task.

Wearing a wrist orthosis did not change the amount of joint excursion compared to not wearing an orthosis during the drinking and hammering tasks.

Findings suggest that wrist orthoses do not result in statistically significant changes in elbow and shoulder joint movements during simulated drinking and hammering tasks.

Using a career lens, the purpose of this paper is to examine the psychological factors related to the career success (e.g. performance and adjustment) of self-initiated expatriates (SIEs).

This research examines the previously unstudied relationship between career adaptability and career success. Data were collected by surveying 273 SIEs employed in professional jobs in China.

As hypothesized, career adaptability was positively related to performance as well as to adjustment. Psychological availability mediated the relationships of career adaptability with performance and with adjustment. Contrary to expectations, supportive supervision did not moderate the relationship between career adaptability and either performance or adjustment.

Because the data were collected in a single, self-report survey, future studies should collect longitudinal data so that the effects of changes in career adaptability on adjustment and performance can be determined. In addition, as all of the participants were professionals, future research should examine SIEs employed in blue-collar jobs.

As this is the first study to consider how career adaptability may influence SIEs’ performance and adjustment, it offers unique insights into the work experiences of SIEs. Additionally, this study examines the theoretical underpinnings of career construction theory, namely, the previously hypothesized but untested relationship between career adaptability and adjustment.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the specific practices of management in the dispatching unit and to identify mechanisms for supporting transfer of shop floor knowledge embedded in operating manufacturing equipment.

The paper applies an inductive and a case study approach for exploring three empirical cases that represent different manufacturing facility relocation processes and differences in the applied managerial practices.

The paper identifies two important gaps in international production literature when firms relocate equipment to other sites; a time gap (from dismantling to re-assembly of production facilities) and a space gap (from the current to the new site abroad). These gaps are important for understanding why relocation processes are difficult and what management can do to facilitate such processes.

The paper identifies four issues that management faces in the dispatching context when relocating manufacturing facilities.

The paper gives new insights to a limited literature of shop floor knowledge transfer when relocating manufacturing facilities.

This empirical paper aims to assess how social media can foster workplace learning within a globally dispersed project environment. In general, there are few studies on the use of social media in organizations, and many of these emphasize on issues related to knowledge transfer. Although learning traditionally has been as acquisition of knowledge, increasingly researchers point to learning-as-participation occurring through work collaboration. Social media promise increased opportunities for communication and collaboration, extending the context of collaboration beyond the local setting. However, there exists limited research on how social media can foster workplace learning, for example, between globally dispersed colleagues.

The study is based on an exploratory, in-depth single case study of an international professional service firm’s implementation of an internal wiki system to address the research question: how are social media utilized in an organization to foster workplace learning among its dispersed individual experts? Data are gathered in 35 semi-structured interviews, as well as documents studies and observations. Data are coded and analyzed utilizing the context and learning factors of workplace learning.

The paper shows how the wiki system enables hybrid knowledge management strategies linked to virtual collaboration on daily project tasks, involving documentation, search, interaction and knowledge exchange, as well as socialization and learning from practice among dispersed groups and individuals. The learning mechanisms involved in virtual collaboration do not differ much from what is reported on face-to-face workplace learning, however, the context factors are extended beyond the local setting.

The findings identify four determinants for using the wiki that can be of use to other organizations implementing similar virtual collaboration technology. First, the wiki must directly relate to the daily work by offering interactive and updated information concerning current project challenges. Second, the system must enable transparency in the daily project work to allow search. Third, the intention with the search is of lesser degree to identify encyclopedic information than it is to visualize individual competence. Fourth, the quality assurance of the data posted at the wiki is important.

The study reveals how an international knowledge-based organization can utilize social media to leverage knowledge and experiences from multiple geographically dispersed projects by enabling virtual collaboration. Extant empirical research on workplace learning emphasizes on face-to-face interactions in groups, for example, when engineers, or accountants, in teams interact and collaborate at client premises. However, there exists limited knowledge concerning how workplace learning can be achieved through virtual collaboration.

The aim of this paper is to show the ways of setting quality objectives, their attributes and the conditions under which they can perform a motivational function.

Collecting relevant data, the authors used the results of previous research and theoretical assumptions concerning quality objectives. Subsequently, they carried out a survey and exemplification research based on participatory observations, document content analysis and interviews.

Goals are set mainly by top management, but the communication process itself is insufficient; the needs of system users are not taken into account. In the opinion of the employees, quality objectives are measurable and objective, although not very ambitious. For quality objectives to fulfil a motivational function, they should be objective and measurable. Also, the allocation of tasks among employees needs to be fair. Furthermore, quality objectives have to play a greater role in remuneration systems.

This paper is one of the first publications on the role and function of quality objectives. Its advantage is that it defines the conditions under which such objectives can have a motivational effect and encourage employees to pursue the improvement of their products and services.