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1 – 10 of over 1000Marc van Veldhoven and Luc Dorenbosch
The purpose of this study is to shed more light on the role of employee proactivity (self‐starting, action‐orientated behaviours aimed at greater organisational effectiveness) in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to shed more light on the role of employee proactivity (self‐starting, action‐orientated behaviours aimed at greater organisational effectiveness) in relation to aging and career development. It aims to do this in two ways. First, by investigating how age and HR practices for development initiated by the organisation influence proactivity. Here, proactivity it seeks to study as a career‐relevant outcome. Second, by examining how age, proactivity and HR practices for development influence employee experiences of career opportunities. Here, it aims to use proactivity as career‐relevant predictor.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 619 employees from 47 departments completed a questionnaire, including two scales on proactivity (on‐the‐job and developmental proactivity) as well as a scale on career opportunities. HR and line managers in these departments were interviewed about HR practices directed at career development of the employees. The data combine information from two levels (employee, department) as well as three different sources (employee, line manager, HR manager), and are analysed using multi‐level analysis.
Findings
First, the paper presents the results on proactivity as an outcome: age is positively related to proactivity on‐the‐job but has no association with proactivity towards development. HR practices targeted at career development are positively associated with both types of proactivity. Second, the results on proactivity as a predictor show that career opportunities have a negative association with age, a positive association with proactivity, and a positive association with career development‐orientated HR practices. An additional negative effect on career opportunities is found for the cross‐level interaction between HR practices and age.
Originality/value
This study is original as it combines individual, psychological, and HR perspectives in researching age‐related career issues. It contributes to the literature by showing that age has no negative, but rather a positive impact on proactivity. Proactivity furthermore is sensitive to HR practices for development, implying that organisations can influence the proactivity of their employees. For older employees the study implies that, although organisations tend to offer them fewer HR practices for development, they can offset this disadvantage to some extent by increased proactivity, and thus retain career opportunities.
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William Peter Andrews, Andrew Peter Wislocki, Fay Short, Daryl Chow and Takuya Minami
To replicate the Luton pilot study (Andrews et al., 2011), both by investigating treatment changes using the Human Givens (HG) approach via a practice research network (PRN) and…
Abstract
Purpose
To replicate the Luton pilot study (Andrews et al., 2011), both by investigating treatment changes using the Human Givens (HG) approach via a practice research network (PRN) and by assessing the viability of replacing the 34-item Clinical Outcome in Routine Evaluation Outcome Measure (CORE-OM) with the ten-item version (CORE-10).
Design/methodology/approach
Clients were included if they were offered the HG approach to manage psychological distress and attended at least one measured treatment session following their initial assessment. Pre-post treatment effect size (Cohen's d) was benchmarked against data from Clark et al. (2009). Potential differences in treatment effects based on type of termination (planned vs unplanned) and medication use were examined.
Findings
High correlation between the CORE-10 and CORE-OM and near-identical calculated effect sizes support the utilisation of CORE-10 as a routine outcome measure. Pre-post treatment effect size suggests that clients treated using the HG approach experienced relief from psychological distress.
Research limitations/implications
There was no experimental control nor evidence about the precise components of the HG treatment. Data on problem description and duration may not be reliable.
Practical implications
This larger study, involving thousands of cases in a wide variety of settings, reinforces the findings from the pilot study as to the plausibility of the HG approach in the relief of emotional distress.
Originality/value
The viability of using a ten-item scale to reliably measure treatment effectiveness will allow organisations to assess the quality of their treatment with minimal disruption to their service delivery allowing for true evidence-based practice. A PRN provides a suitable mechanism to assess psychotherapy treatment effectiveness in real-world settings.
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Employees older than 55 years of age have a much lower share in training than other employees. The purpose of this paper is to propose that one of the reasons for this phenomenon…
Abstract
Purpose
Employees older than 55 years of age have a much lower share in training than other employees. The purpose of this paper is to propose that one of the reasons for this phenomenon that has not been taken into account so far is that their training is less effective.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper shows that training of older employees indeed is less effective in the self-assessment of training participants. Training effectiveness is measured with respect to key dimensions such as career development, earnings, adoption of new skills, flexibility or job security. Besides age a broad range of explanatory variables is included as covariates in a large linked employer-employee data set.
Findings
The paper finds that main reason for the differences in training effectiveness during the life cycle is that firms do not take into account differences in training motivation. Older employees get higher returns from informal and directly relevant training and from training contents that can be mainly tackled by crystallised abilities. Training incidence in the more effective training forms is, however, not higher for older employees. Given that other decisive variables on self-assessed effectiveness such as training duration, financing and initiative are not sensitive to age, the wrong allocation of training contents and training forms therefore is the critical explanation for the lower effectiveness of training.
Originality/value
This paper therefore shows to human resource managers why old employees rate training effectiveness lower and indicates what can be done in order to improve training effectiveness of old employees. It uses a large and detailed data set entailing more than 6,000 employees from about 150 establishments.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating impact of work engagement on the relationship between three developmental job resources (i.e. autonomy, task variety, and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the mediating impact of work engagement on the relationship between three developmental job resources (i.e. autonomy, task variety, and feedback) and proactive work behaviors. It also attempted to explore the moderating role of job fit (demands-abilities (D-A) fit and needs-supplies (N-S) fit) in the proposed model.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 225 employees in 20 small and medium-size enterprises in Istanbul, Turkey. Hypotheses were tested using hierarchical multiple regressions and hierarchical moderated regressions.
Findings
It was found that engagement mediated the relationships between job autonomy, task variety, and proactive behaviors. Results also revealed that the relationships between autonomy, task variety, and engagement were positive and significant only for the employees with low D-A fit while the positive impact of engagement on proactive behaviors existed only for those employees with high N-S fit. The conditional indirect impact of job resources on proactive behaviors was strongest when the D-A fit was low and the N-S fit was high while this effect was non-significant when the D-A fit was high and the N-S fit was (either) low or high.
Research limitations/implications
The generalizability of the findings is limited. Moreover, as the data are cross-sectional, it is not possible to derive causal inferences about the hypothesized relationships.
Practical implications
Organizations should provide their employees with more autonomy and task variety to enhance their engagement and proactivity. Moreover, organizations need to consider their employees’ level of job fit when they provide certain job resources.
Originality/value
This study tests the mediating role of engagement on the relationships between three developmental job resources and proactive behaviors. It also sheds light on the moderating role of job fit in the proposed mediation model.
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Christian Stamov‐Roßnagel and Guido Hertel
The purpose of this paper is to establish a theory‐based and empirically grounded platform to assess age‐related changes in work motivation, and to derive motivational…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to establish a theory‐based and empirically grounded platform to assess age‐related changes in work motivation, and to derive motivational interventions in personnel management.
Design/methodology/approach
The general approach is one of conceptual transfer: to cast work psychological phenomena in lifespan psychological terms to generate the tenets.
Findings
Rather than declining uniformly, older workers' motivation develops in a multidirectional, multilevel way. Motivation decline in certain types of work tasks goes with stable motivation and even motivation gains in other tasks as a function of a variety of task characteristics. These age‐related changes may be captured in a worker's motivation profile, which is functional for positive affect regulation.
Practical implications
The conceptualisation suggests a more differentiated approach to job design and human resource management, considering age‐related changes at multiple levels simultaneously instead of focusing on major age effects only.
Originality/value
The conceptual clarity of work motivation research is enhanced by distinguishing global and task‐specific levels of motivation that may dissociate in older workers. By transferring up‐to‐date findings and concepts from Lifespan Psychology to Organisational Psychology, further research is stipulated in both fields.
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Lucie Pierre, Nicola Cangialosi and Guillaume R. M. Déprez
Healthcare organizations require more proactive behaviors from nursing professionals. However, nurse managers’ proactivity has rarely been analyzed in the literature and little is…
Abstract
Purpose
Healthcare organizations require more proactive behaviors from nursing professionals. However, nurse managers’ proactivity has rarely been analyzed in the literature and little is known about the antecedents and consequences of their proactive behavior at work. This study examines the relationships between job characteristics (i.e. job autonomy and job variety), psychological empowerment, proactive work behavior and job effectiveness indicators (i.e. innovative work behavior, job performance). We tested a model in which psychological empowerment and proactive work behavior sequentially mediate the relationship between job characteristics and job effectiveness.
Design/methodology/approach
A cross-sectional study was conducted among nurse middle managers from a French hospital (N = 321). A hypothetical model was developed based on existing theory. Structural equation modeling was used to test the hypotheses.
Findings
Results show that psychological empowerment and proactive work behavior fully mediate the relationship between job characteristics and innovative work behavior, and partially mediate the relationship between job characteristics and job performance.
Originality/value
This study provides insights for understanding how job characteristics can contribute to fostering the proactivity of nurse middle managers and how their proactive work behavior can be positively related to innovative work behavior and job performance. Findings raise several implications for hospital administrators and upper management seeking new ways to enhance nurse middle managers' proactive work behavior and push further their effectiveness at work.
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Karolina Pawłowska-Cyprysiak and Katarzyna Hildt-Ciupińska
The issue of educational activity of elderly people is very important. It is an area not only closely related to the productivity of the employees in the company and their…
Abstract
Purpose
The issue of educational activity of elderly people is very important. It is an area not only closely related to the productivity of the employees in the company and their retention but also to the broadly understood quality of life of the elderly. The purpose of this study was to develop a model of conditions for the willingness to learn in the case of older employees.
Design/methodology/approach
The study group consisted of employees aged 50+, the so-called older employees. The selection of the group was intentional. The questionnaires were completed by employees of companies that agreed to participate in the survey.
Findings
To identify the direct predictors of the willingness to participate in training, a logistic regression analysis was carried out. The model allows to explain 19.1% of the variance of the dependent variable. Higher age value reduces the chance that a person will want to participate in training, while higher number of employees in the company, the need to learn new things at work, greater emotional demands and a greater sense of effectiveness increase these chances.
Originality/value
Research on training and the willingness to learn is more often carried out among younger employees than the group of employees 50+. Defining what influences the willingness to learn among this group allows to design activities aimed on development and satisfying needs of older employees in this area.
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Laura Innocenti, Silvia Profili and Alessia Sammarra
Drawing on social exchange theory, prior research suggests that the adoption of human resources (HR) practices in the areas of training and development helps to maximize…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on social exchange theory, prior research suggests that the adoption of human resources (HR) practices in the areas of training and development helps to maximize employees’ positive work attitudes. However, while research has generally assumed that HR practices influence all employees in the same way, there is much evidence that employees’ motives and needs change with age, suggesting that older workers may react differently to the same HR practices as compared to younger colleagues. This study seeks to shed light on this important and under-explored issue, analyzing whether the effect of HR development practices on job satisfaction (JS) and affective commitment is moderated by age in a sample of 37 companies located in Italy, involving a total of 6,182 employees. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
Applying a multilevel approach, the results confirm a positive influence of HR development practices in increasing JS and affective commitment and show that this positive relationship weakens with age.
Findings
Indeed, HR development practices were associated with lower JS and affective commitment for the oldest employees. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed suggesting the need to attribute greater consideration to age diversity when tailoring HR practices to improve their effect on employees’ positive work attitudes.
Originality/value
At the theoretical level, the paper contributes to the HRM literature debate, as the role of intervening variables – such as age – in the relationship between HR practices and employees’ attitudes is still an open issue. At the methodological level, the paper tested the hypotheses using a multilevel regression model. The paper combined data at individual and the organizational levels and adopted a multilevel approach in order to provide a better understanding of the way age can moderate the HRM-employee attitudes relationship.
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The modern concept of labor hoarding emerged in early 1960s, and soon became a standard part of mainstream economists’ explanation of the working of labor markets. The concept…
Abstract
The modern concept of labor hoarding emerged in early 1960s, and soon became a standard part of mainstream economists’ explanation of the working of labor markets. The concept represents the convergence of three important elements: an empirical finding that labor productivity was procyclical; a framing of this finding as a “puzzle” or anomaly for the basic neoclassical theory of the firm, and a proposed resolution of the puzzle based on optimizing behavior of the firm in the presence of costs of hiring, firing, and training workers. This paper recounts the history of each of these elements, and how they were woven together into the labor hoarding concept. Each history involves people associated with various research traditions and motivated by an array of questions, many of which were unrelated to the questions that the modern labor hoarding concept was ultimately created to address.
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