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The purpose of this paper is to extend the job demands-resources (JD-R) model by including the factor of “personal demands” and conceptualise experience on personal and job dimensions separately as personal thrust and job thrust. Further, different psychological work states that individuals experience through intra-dimensional balance across personal and job dimensions are proposed.

The paper explains various possible psychological work states experienced by a job incumbent by conceptually developing intra-dimensional fluctuations within the person and job dimensions, respectively, as the new concepts of person and job thrust.

Personal thrust and job thrust have been identified as the two dimensions which impact the work state. Complete engagement and complete disengagement have been identified as two ends of a continuum. Complete work engagement is defined as the balance across these two dimensions. Various combinations of balances and imbalances across these two dimensions results in four different states of disengagement identified as work exhaustion, work boredom, work search and work neutrality.

This paper suggests a novel approach to using personal demand to look at work states which would significantly impact existing research in the JD-R model. This paper tries to bridge the gap between work engagement as a construct and the psychological work states as a phenomenon. Further, it is contended that the psychological work states are manifestations of the interactions between the two dimensions identified as personal and job thrust, which could further be developed into various work-related attitudes and behaviours.

Instead of only relying on the engagement/disengagement dichotomy to plan interventions, managers can plan the appropriate interventions depending on the specific disengagement state analysed through personal and job thrust.

The newly developed model of work states explains the fluctuation of an individual across different work states and links the personal and job-related demand–resource balance at the workplace with distal work-related outcomes, thereby significantly extending the JD-R model.

Departing from the Job Demands‐Resources (JD‐R) model, the paper examined the relationship between job demands and resources on the one hand, and employees' evaluations of organizational change on the other hand.

Participants were 818 faculty members within six faculties of a Dutch university. Data were analyzed using multilevel analyses with faculty as the grouping variable.

For the job demands, results show that emotional demands, but not workload, are negatively related to more favorable evaluations of organizational change. Regarding job resources, results show that support from the supervisor, job control, and opportunities for professional development is associated with more favorable evaluations of organizational change. Moreover, job control and support from the supervisor buffered the negative relationship between emotional demands and favorable evaluations of organizational change.

One of the clear implications of this study is that organizations should try to provide their employees with adequate resources together with the ascertaining of jobs with low job demands such that people can fulfill their job without severe adverse working outcomes. If it is impossible to reduce or optimize specific demands, additional job resources should be provided.

The finding that job resources are important in shaping evaluations of organizational change perceptions is consistent with the idea that employees with enough resources will be motivated to do their job and to be motivated to participate in change processes. Employees, who perceive their work environment and their job as highly resourceful, are more likely to anticipate into a pending change effort.

The purpose of this paper is to demystify the role of the personal resource of psychological capital (PsyCap) in the job demands-resources model. The theory suggests that personal resources directly influence perceptions of job demands, job resources, and outcomes. Alternatively, personal resources may moderate the impact of job demands and job resources on outcomes.

A survey of 401 nurses working in the Australian healthcare sector explores the relations among PsyCap, job demands and resources, and psychological well-being and work engagement.

The results suggest that PsyCap directly influences perceptions of job demands and resources and that it directly influences the outcomes of well-being and engagement. Furthermore, job demands and job resources mediate the relation of PsyCap with well-being and engagement, respectively.

The moderation effect of PsyCap was not supported, which suggests that PsyCap relates to perceptions as opposed to being a coping mechanism. This finding therefore narrows the scope of personal resources in this important model.

The importance of this study lies in its exploration of various ways that personal resources can influence this dominant model and in analyzing the global construct of PsyCap as opposed to some of its constituent parts.

This paper sets out to examine proactive personality in relation to job demands, job resources and engagement.

The current study employed a two‐wave complete panel study among 794 Dutch government employees. Based upon the Job Demands‐Resources (JD‐R) model, previous studies, job crafting theories, and Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, hypotheses on the associations of proactive personality with job demands, resources, and engagement were developed.

Analyses revealed that proactive personality was associated with an increase in engagement 18 months later. Moreover, proactive employees perceiving high social support reported the highest levels of engagement over time.

A first shortcoming is that proactive personality was only measured at one point in time, which restricted the testing of causal relationships of proactive personality with engagement. Second, this study only measured engagement as outcome measure and third variables may have affected the associations of proactive personality with job demands and resources and engagement. Third, only small effect sizes of proactive personality (and job demands and resources) on engagement over time were found. With regard to theoretical implications, this study suggests a refinement of the JD‐R model by perceiving proactive personality as a personal resource which coincides with job resources such as social support and/or is triggered by (low) external job demands in increasing engagement.

Since this study's findings suggest that proactive personality is a personal resource with beneficial effects on employees' levels of work‐related engagement, employers are advised to promote the behavior expressed by proactive employees. When employees are under challenged due to a low level of quantitative job demands or when they want to optimize their work environment in case of high job demands, proactive personality may have a positive impact on their engagement over time, in particular when combined with high levels of support from their colleagues and supervisor.

This study's value consists of its innovative effort to relate proactive personality to engagement 18 months later. In addition, the longitudinal design of this study made it possible to examine the associations of proactive personality, job demands and resources with engagement over time.

Using the job demands-resources (JD-R) model as a theoretical framework, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how job demands and job resources affect older employees’ desired retirement age, through an energy-depletion and a motivational process. Furthermore, the importance of gain and loss cycles (i.e. recursive effects) for the desired retirement age was investigated.

A two wave full panel design with 2,897 older employees ( > 50) served to test the hypotheses. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test the measurement and research model. Cross-lagged analyses tested the presence of gain and loss cycles.

Results from cross-lagged analyses based on two waves over a one-year period indicated the presence of both a gain and a loss cycle that affected the desired retirement age.

This is the first longitudinal study applying the JD-R model to a retirement context. Limitations relate to employing only two waves for establishing mediation, and using self-reports.

Because work conditions can create a cycle of motivation as well as a cycle of depletion, organizations should pay special attention to the job resources and demands of older workers. The findings can inspire organizations when developing active aging policies, and contribute to interventions aimed at maintaining older employees within the workforce until – or even beyond – their official retirement age in a motivated and healthy way.

This is the first longitudinal study applying the JD-R model to a retirement context and finding evidence for gain and loss cycles.

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how employed single-parents differ from parents in two-parent families in their experience of work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC). Looking at job-related as well as family-related demands and resources, this research investigated to what degree these demands and resources contribute to differences in WFC and FWC, how their relevance in predicting conflicts varies between single parents and other parents and the role of compositional differences in work and family demands and resources.

Cross-sectional linear regression analyses were applied to analyze a random sample of employees in large work organizations in Germany. The sample included 3,581 parents with children up to the age of 25, of whom 346 were single parents.

The results indicated that single parents face more FWC, but not more WFC, than other parents. For all parents, job demands such as overtime, supervising responsibilities and availability expectations were associated with higher levels of WFC, whereas job resources such as job autonomy, support from supervisors and flexible working hours were associated with lower levels of WFC. In predicting FWC, family demands and resources played only a minor role. However, results provide only scant evidence of differences between single parents and other parents in terms of the effects of job and family demands and resources.

This study offers interesting insights into the diversity of WFC and FWC experiences in Germany. It provides first evidence of the impact of job and family demands and resources on both directions of work–family conflicts among employed single parents as a specific social group.

The purpose of this paper is to examine relationships among job demands, job resources, burnout, organizational commitment, and staff turnover intentions in a volunteer workforce setting.

To test empirically the positive and negative forces on the burnout – commitment – turnover relationship, this study uses 190 questionnaires collected from museum volunteers who also hold paid service jobs. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling.

Consistent with previous studies, both job demands and job resources have significant impacts on burnout. Job resources have positive significant impact on organizational commitment. Both burnout and organizational commitment have significant impacts on volunteers’ turnover intentions.

An integrated understanding would require different theoretical approaches to volunteering in various settings to determine cross-influences. Moderator analyses might clarify the predictability of job demands and resources. A multilevel research design would provide further insights.

To retain their volunteer workforce, firms should grant volunteers sufficient autonomy and allow them to determine their work processes, which not only reduces burnout but also satisfies psychological control needs. Constructive feedback from colleagues offers better organizational support to volunteers.

This study identifies and empirically tests key indicators of job demands and job resources for volunteers who also hold paid jobs. It helps explain inconsistent reports of the burnout – organizational commitment link by raising the possibility that it is context specific rather than generic.

This paper aims to identify longitudinal associations between job demands, job resources and experience of meaning at work.

Using data from a longitudinal survey study among 6,299 employees in Danish eldercare who were divided into 301 work‐groups, experience of meaning at work was predicted from a series of job demands and job resources measured at individual level and group level.

A combination of individual‐level and group‐level measures of job demands and job resources contributed to predicting meaning at work. Meaning at work at follow‐up was predicted by meaning at work at baseline, role ambiguity, quality of leadership, and influence at work at individual level and emotional demands at group level. Individual‐level measures of job demands and job resources proved stronger predictors of meaning at work than group‐level measures.

Psychosocial job demands and job resources predict experience of meaning at work.

Experience of meaning at work constitutes an important organizational resource by contributing to the capacities of employees to deal with work‐related stresses and strains, while maintaining their health and well‐being.

Experience of meaning at work is positively associated with well‐being and reduces risk for long‐term sickness absence and turnover. Attention towards enhancing employee experiences of meaning at work may contribute towards the ability of western societies to recruit the necessary supply of labour over the coming decades.

This is the first study to provide longitudinal, multi‐level evidence on the association between job demands, job resources and experience of meaning at work.

The main purpose of this study was to examine which job resources are most valuable for research productivity, depending on varying teaching demands.

Data was collected from 324 management faculty at research, balanced and teaching (i.e. respectively low-, moderate- and high-teaching demands) public universities in the United States.

Results showed that no single job resource predicted research productivity across all three types of schools. At research schools (i.e. low-teaching demands), productivity was positively associated with job resources including summer compensation, level of protection for untenured faculty and number of research assistant hours, while negatively associated with travel funding. At balanced schools (i.e. moderate-teaching demands), research output was positively associated with time allocated to research, grant money, travel funding and conference attendance, while negatively associated with amount of consulting hours. At teaching schools (i.e. high-teaching demands), the only significant resource was time allocated to research.

This paper can help management faculty and business school leaders understand what resources are most appropriate given the teaching demands associated with the specific institution, and by further helping these institutions attract and retain the best possible faculty.

This study extends prior work on academic research performance by identifying resources that can help faculty publish given different levels of teaching demands. This is important as teaching demands tend to be relatively stable within an institution, while they can vary greatly across types of institutions.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on home care organization employees, and examine how the interaction between job demands (emotional demands, patient harassment, workload, and physical demands) and job resources (autonomy, social support, performance feedback, and opportunities for professional development) affect the core dimensions of burnout (exhaustion and cynicism).

Hypotheses were tested with a cross‐sectional design among 747 Dutch employees from two home care organizations.

Results of moderated structural equation modeling analyses partially supported the hypotheses as 21 out of 32 (66 per cent) possible two‐way interactions were significant and in the expected direction. In addition, job resources were stronger buffers of the relationship between emotional demands/patient harassment and burnout, than of the relationship between workload/physical demands and burnout.

The conclusions may be particularly useful for occupational settings, including home care organizations, where reducing or redesigning demands is difficult.

The findings confirm the JD‐R model by showing that several job resources can buffer the relationship between job demands and burnout.