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This study aims to examine supervisors' temporal reminders and subordinates' pacing style as they relate to employees' absorption in work tasks, and subsequently creativity.

The study involved a weekly diary study among 32 employees of an IT‐development department of a large multinational. An initial questionnaire measured employees' pacing style and their perceptions of supervisors' temporal reminders, after which participants completed a weekly survey for four consecutive weeks to report on their levels of task absorption and creativity.

Whereas supervisors' temporal reminders related positively with task absorption for individuals who scored high rather than low on the deadline action pacing style, they related negatively to task absorption for those high rather than low on the steady action and the U‐shaped action pacing styles. Moreover, task absorption fluctuated consistently with individual creativity.

The way individuals allocate efforts over time is not only related to the resources they invest in activities but also to their creativity.

The findings suggest that creativity requires that employees find the time and space to fully immerse in their work. Supervisors can facilitate this process by customizing their leadership practices to individual differences in time use.

In an increasingly time‐pressured corporate society, an effective management of temporal strategies is important to ensure sustained employee well‐being as well as the quality of products in terms of creative solutions.

This study is the first to show that supervisors' temporal reminders relate positively to task absorption, and subsequent creativity levels, but only for specific pacing styles.

Torbjörn Åkerstedt, Ph.D. in psychology, 1979, is professor of behavioral physiology at Stockholm University and director of the Stress Research Institute, affiliated to Karolinska institute. He has been President of the Scandinavian Research Society, the European Sleep Research Society, and Secretary General of the World Federation of Sleep Research and Sleep Medicine Societies. He has published more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed journals. The focus of his work has been on sleep regulation, sleep quality, sleepiness and risk, effects of shift work, and stress on sleep and sleepiness.

Work enthusiasm and organizational socialization (Training, Understanding, Coworker Support, and Future Prospects) were compared in two predominantly Chinese regions, i.e., Macau (a former Portuguese territory in China) and Zhuhai in the People’s Republic of China. Data were collected from 276 (96 Macau and 180 Zhuhai) full‐time, line‐level, ethnic Chinese employees in the two regions. Results revealed the Zhuhai employees to be much more enthusiastic at work. The Zhuhai employees also evaluated Training, Understanding, and Future Prospects more highly than did the Macau employees (no differences were found for Coworker Support). Regression analyses revealed Future Prospects to be the strongest predictor of work enthusiasm in Zhuhai, while education and years on the job explained most of the variance for work enthusiasm in Macau. The results of the comparisons are discussed in terms of the similarities and differences in the cultures and economic development of the regions.

For decades research on occupational stress and well-being has been dominated by studies that demonstrated the negative effects of job stressors and lack of resources on employee health and well-being. Although this body of research is highly important and informative, it offers only limited insight into the processes that offset and “undo” the stress process. During recent years, researchers have paid increasing attention to such processes that reduce and reverse the effects of stress (i.e., recovery processes). This 7th volume of Research in Occupational Stress and Well Being is devoted to this growing research area on job stress recovery. The volume includes seven excellent chapters that provide state-of-the-art overviews on this theme, identify research gaps, and provide inspiring suggestions for further research.

The purpose of this study is to examine how two different types of heavy work investment – work engagement and workaholism – are related to family satisfaction as reported by employees and their intimate partner.

In total, 398 Japanese couples completed self-reported questionnaires including the model variables. One year later, participants reported again on their family satisfaction. Structural equation modelling analyses were used to test the hypotheses.

As hypothesized, work engagement was positively related to work-family facilitation, which, in turn, predicted own and partner's family satisfaction, also one year later. In contrast, workaholism showed a positive relationship with work-family conflict, and had an indirect negative effect on own and partner's family satisfaction. The structural relationships between the variables from husbands to wives were similar to those from wives to husbands.

The use of a non-experimental design does not allow for definitive conclusions regarding causality.

The findings contribute to the work-family interface literature by showing how experiences built up at work can have a positive or negative impact on one's partner's family satisfaction. The study highlights a growing need to promote work engagement and discourage workaholism within organizations since engagement has positive and workaholism has negative implications for employees' private life.

This study clearly shows the differences between two important work experiences – work engagement and workaholism. Using the spillover-crossover model, the study sheds a new light on the process through which employee work engagement and workaholism influence one's partner at home.

Applying the job-demand resources model and the psychological contract theory, this paper aims to examine the mediating influence of employee turnover intentions (ETI) on the relationship between strategic human resource management (SHRM) and perceived organisational performance (POP).

With a two-phase data-collection method, 200 complete responses were collected through an online questionnaire survey. This study applied a structural equation modelling to examine the multivariate associations and provided comprehensive outcomes for the proposed hypothesised model.

This study suggests that SHRM has direct significant effects on both ETI and POP; partial mediational effect on POP via ETI; and ETI has negative effect on POP.

This paper suggests that organisations aiming higher POP should encourage SHRM and improve their strategic approaches of HRM. The implications of the study results can help organisations to recognise the adverse effects of ETI and effective SHRM outcomes.

Despite the significant relationship between HRM and organisational performance, limited empirical research has been conducted on the mediational influence of ETI. This paper examines the unique meditational role of ETI on the relationship between SHRM and POP, which has not been utterly observed from employee perspective.

The moderating roles of personal resources in the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model are relatively rarely examined, especially in non-western countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effect of a personal resource (i.e. intrinsic work value orientation) on the relationships between job demands, job resources, and job satisfaction among a large sample of Chinese employees from both mainland China and Taiwan.

Structured questionnaire survey was carried out to collect data from 402 employees in mainland China and 306 employees in Taiwan.

The authors found that intrinsic work value orientation amplified the negative relationship between work constraints (a job demand) and job satisfaction. Meanwhile, intrinsic work value orientation strengthened the positive relationship between autonomy (a job resource) and job satisfaction.

This is one of the few studies that explored the role of personal resources in the JD-R model. One unique contribution of the study is that the authors extended the JD-R model to include the intrinsic work value orientation as a resourceful work value for Chinese employees in two major Chinese societies. Based upon the findings, the authors suggest that personal resources such as work value orientation should be taken into account in the research of the JD-R model. Managerial implications of the findings are also discussed.

The aim of this study was two-fold: first, to examine the noxious effects of presenteeism on employees' work well-being in a cross-cultural context involving Chinese and British employees; second, to explore the role of supervisory support as a pan-cultural stress buffer in the presenteeism process.

Using structured questionnaires, the authors compared data collected from samples of 245 Chinese and 128 British employees working in various organizations and industries.

Cross-cultural comparison revealed that the act of presenteeism was more prevalent among Chinese and they reported higher levels of strains than their British counterparts. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that presenteeism had noxious effects on exhaustion for both Chinese and British employees. Moreover, supervisory support buffered the negative impact of presenteeism on exhaustion for both Chinese and British employees. Specifically, the negative relation between presenteeism and exhaustion was stronger for those with more supervisory support.

Presenteeism may be used as a career-protecting or career-promoting tactic. However, the negative effects of this behavior on employees' work well-being across the culture divide should alert us to re-think its pros and cons as a career behavior. Employees in certain cultures (e.g. the hardworking Chinese) may exhibit more presenteeism behaviour, thus are in greater risk of ill-health.

This is the first cross-cultural study demonstrating the universality of the act of presenteeism and its damaging effects on employees' well-being. The authors' findings of the buffering role of supervisory support across cultural contexts highlight the necessity to incorporate resources in mitigating the harmful impact of presenteeism.