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There is strong and growing evidence of the importance of leadership and management factors influence on employee engagement and discretionary effort. However, the problem is that there has been limited recent effort to review where research gaps exit and provide a direction to guide future research. The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrated perspective on the influence of leadership and management factors on employee engagement and discretionary effort.

The review of the literature includes empirical research and case studies related to employee engagement and discretionary effort from various databases such as Business Premier, Cambridge University Press, JSTOR, Springer, Emerald, Wiley, ProQuest and ISI Web of Science. Supporting material was also accessed from reference books regarding similar concepts and theories.

The review provides a current view of the key topics, identifies three key research gaps, suggests a refined, up-to-date definition of both employee engagement and discretionary effort, and proposes a conceptual framework to inform future research. In doing so, it offers new directions for progressing studies on these critical workplace practices and behaviours particularly the inclusion of national culture as a moderating variable when investigating or implementing employee engagement and discretionary effort strategies.

Findings are based on existing literature and require empirical testing. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.

Undertaking a review of the literature is an important part of any research and this review aims to organise, describe and appraise the current literature with a view to gaining a critical perspective for the benefit of researchers.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the structural relationship model among narcissism, work centrality, employee engagement and discretionary effort.

Respecting the quantitative approach, the data were gathered by means of the survey completed by 1,190 respondents of Generation X, Y and Z working in the Thai service and manufacturing industries.

The findings of the study indicated positive associations between narcissism and work centrality, narcissism and employee engagement, work centrality and employee engagement and employee engagement and discretionary effort. It was observed that work centrality played a partially mediating role in the relationships between narcissism and employee engagement, while employee engagement fully mediated the associations between work centrality and discretionary effort, as well as between narcissism and discretionary effort. The structural model demonstrated variations across different generational cohorts, suggesting that the relationships differed among generations. However, the model did not exhibit any variations across different types of industries. Furthermore, the findings from the Thai samples indicated that generational differences had a moderating effect on the path relationships between narcissism and work centrality (with Generation Y having a stronger effect compared to Generation Z and Generation X), narcissism and employee engagement (with Generation Y having a stronger effect compared to Generation Z and Generation X) and narcissism and discretionary effort (with Generation X having a stronger effect compared to Generation Y and Generation Z), all with a significance level of 95%. Additionally, the relationship between employee engagement and discretionary effort showed a significant difference across generations, with Generation Z exhibiting a stronger effect compared to Generation Y and Generation X, at a significance level of 99%.

This study provides empirical evidence supporting the positive relationships between narcissism and work centrality, as well as narcissism and employee engagement, contrary to previous research findings. The results reveal that employee engagement fully mediates the associations between work centrality and discretionary effort, as well as between narcissism and discretionary effort, offering valuable contributions to the existing literature. Furthermore, this study expands on previous research by examining the moderating effect of industry type, specifically comparing manufacturing and service industries. The findings suggest that the model exhibits variations across different generational cohorts, highlighting the importance of considering generational differences in understanding these relationships. However, the model does not exhibit variations across different types of industries.

Labor process research has documented a shift in the nature of control – from techniques that aim to limit worker discretion to consent-oriented controls that are believed to generate greater effort by increasing intrinsic rewards or bonding employees to managers and/or the firm. Over the past several decades, however, growing pressure to increase profits has prompted firms to adopt cost-cutting strategies that have eroded job security, relationships with management and commitment to organizational goals. This study investigates how a changing labor process and rising job insecurity shape workers’ orientations toward work, managers and the firm, and in turn influence workplace behavior. Analyses of content-coded data on 212 work groups confirms that discretion-limiting controls (supervision, technology and rules) are associated with more negative orientations and/or reductions in effort (with variations across distinct forms of control), while investment in workers’ human capital (but not involvement of workers in decision-making) has the reverse effect – ­generating more positive orientations toward work, managers and the firm, and (in turn) promoting discretionary work effort and limiting covert effort restriction. Implications of insecurity are more complex. Both layoffs and temporary employment reduce commitment to the organization, but layoffs generate conflict with management without reducing effort, whereas temporary employment limits effort without producing conflict. We illuminate underlying processes with evidence from the qualitative case studies.

This paper aims to investigate the impact of pay-for-performance (PFP) perception and pay level satisfaction on work attitudes (job satisfaction, turnover intention and affective commitment) and extra-role behaviors (discretionary effort and interpersonal helping), and further, how three aspects of conditional factors – intrinsic motivation, leader–member exchange (LMX) and perceived organizational support (POS) – moderate the main-effect relationships.

The study was conducted at a Chinese private-owned company in the beauty industry, and a survey was conducted with the frontline employees in each office, asking information about their perceptions and attitudes toward the PFP scheme implemented in the company, work attitudes and performance, individual characteristics and their perceptions of group and organizational characteristics.

Results show that PFP perception and pay level satisfaction are significant predictors of work attitudes and extra-role behaviors. Further, depending on the specific work outcome examined, the three conditioning factors are found to strengthen the hypothesized main-effect relationships. The findings of the study have important theoretical and practical implications for the implementation of PFP schemes in organizations.

The findings contribute to the scholarship on PFP schemes in two ways. First, the findings show that PFP perception and pay level satisfaction are important for understanding employee work attitudes and extra-role behaviors. Second, the investigation of the moderating roles that intrinsic motivation, LMX and POS play in the relationships of PFP perception and pay level satisfaction with the work outcomes provides evidence to the limited understanding about the conditions that may strengthen or weaken the effectiveness of PFP schemes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the framing and rhetorical devices employed by luxury brands to build CSR-based, ethical corporate identities while managing complexities of the CSR-luxury paradox, the perceived clash between the self-transcendent values of CSR, and the self-enhancement values of luxury.

Qualitative frame analysis was conducted to create detailed frame matrices for each dimension of CSR message content, followed by quantitative content analysis to establish the extent of usage of these frames across 43 luxury brand websites in the apparel, beauty, jewelry, and watch categories.

Luxury brands predominantly framed their CSR efforts as discretionary, driven by altruistic motives. They foregrounded brand over social issue and highlighted substantial input into CSR efforts consistently over a period. CSR efforts were put into programs that were congruent with the brands’ business and that conveyed impact in abstract terms, evoking emotions over logic. Such framing across the CSR message-dimensions of issues, motives, importance, commitment, fit, and impact reflected a sophisticated understanding of communicating to a socially and environmentally conscious demographic while simultaneously aligning with the central, enduring, and distinctive characteristics of luxury.

This study contributes to emerging empirical work on CSR as a tool to build ethical corporate identity. This study also adds to the literature on identity management and CSR communication in the luxury industry, a sector that exceeded €1 trillion in retail sales in 2016.

Using classic and contemporary perspectives on work, this paper examines how and why extrinsic and intrinsic job rewards, work–life conflict, and flexible hours are related to mismatches between actual and preferred hours of work. We find that making raises, bonuses, and promotions contingent on job performance has little effect on actual or preferred work hours. Discretionary effort, as signaled by higher actual and preferred hours, is more common when people find their work meaningful. Work-to-life conflict, in contrast, generates a desire for fewer hours because people who report it prefer average hours but work many. Offering men flexible hours can partially offset that problem by increasing their appetite for work.

The purpose of the paper is to present a model of leadership fulfiling the need of our times: The leadership psychological contract (LPC). In the current socio-economic environment of uncertainty and unprecedented change, both business environments and the community at large are marked by leadership crises. This instability makes an understanding of the relational aspects impacting the relationship between leaders and their constituencies both important and urgent. Now, more than ever before, extraordinary leadership is required. The psychological contract (PC) is recognised as one of the most emergent areas in organisational research. Its contribution to the leadership domain, however, is as yet undiscovered.

This paper addresses this deficiency by integrating contemporary leadership and PC literature. This paper also addresses criticisms raised in the leadership literature in the past 25 years relating to the scarce leadership research conducted at the unit/team level, despite the rhetoric that the main aim of leadership is in the collaborative domain, as well as the impact of leaders on emotional constructs and motivational or ‘extra-role’ behaviours.

The LPC is a predictive model that comprises three dependent variables (fulfillment of expectations, trust and fairness) – which constitute the health of the contract or the leader’s integrity/credibility, and four dependent variables (affective commitment, satisfaction, discretionary effort and innovation), which constitute the ‘consequences of the contract’ or the leader’s impact. The LPC model complements previous models of transformational leadership and leader–member exchange theory and addresses various criticisms and recommendations made in literature.

Frameworks such as authentic leadership, ethical leadership, moral leadership, spirituality and leadership each emphasise positive leader – follower relations. Taking into account the LPC and incorporating it into theory and practice should allow researchers to predict leadership effectiveness more completely and effectually than existing positive leadership approaches. The LPC model aims to enhance and refresh the value of effective and ethical leadership approaches that are emerging in response to the current socioeconomic landscape and leadership crises.

In the past decade internal communication began to take on a new identity as it supports the many change efforts underway in organizations today. Change communication – how internal messaging effects individual behavior change – is a key element for an organization undergoing transformation. Although research points to the need to communicate during change, very little information is available on what the outcomes are of an internal communication strategy that can positively influence individual behavior change during transformation. This chapter enhances current knowledge on this topic by investigating the relationship of awareness and understanding of change messages to individual behavior change through the case study examination of the intentional organizational transformation experienced in a large, consumer packaged goods (CPG) company.

This paper aims to present an empirical study of the effect of high performance work practices on commitment and citizenship behaviour in the health care sector. The theory suggests that individual employees are willing “to go the extra mile” when they are given the opportunity to develop their abilities and to participate, and when they are motivated.

The data were gathered in a Dutch general hospital using employee questionnaires. Medical specialists were not included in the study.

The results of the study suggest that employee development (e.g. skills training, general training, and task enrichment) and employee involvement (e.g. job autonomy, participation in decision making) are important HR practices in creating a high performance work climate in a health care organisation.

The data come from one hospital and the analysis is cross‐sectional. However, the importance of the study lies in its focus on the individual employee perspective rather than the organisational level analyses which currently predominate in the HRM and performance debate.

The training and development of health care employees can increase their affective commitment. Increasing employee involvement can also help stimulate citizenship behaviour.

The paper looks at the non‐profit sector, whereas the majority of previous HR research has focused on multinational companies.