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The purpose of this paper is to elaborate the picture of the motivators for information seeking by comparing two cognitive psychological approaches to motivation: self-determination theory (SDT) and expectancy-value theories (EVTs).

The study draws on the conceptual analysis of 31 key investigations characterizing the nature of the above theories. Their potential is examined in light of an illustrative example of seeking information about job opportunities.

SDT approaches motivation by examining the degree to which one can make volitional choices while meeting the needs of autonomy and competence. Information-seeking behaviour is most volitional when it is driven by intrinsic motivation, while such behaviours driven by extrinsic motivation and amotivation are less volitional. Modern EVTs approach the motivators for information seeking by examining the individual’s beliefs related to intrinsic enjoyment, attainment value, utility value and relative cost of information seeking. Both theories provide useful alternatives to traditional concepts such as information need in the study of the motivators for information seeking.

As the study focusses on two cognitive psychological theories, the findings cannot be generalised to all represent all categories relevant to the characterisation of triggers and drivers of information seeking.

Drawing on the comparison of two cognitive psychological theories, the study goes beyond the traditional research approaches of information behaviour research confined to the analysis of information needs.

Job-seeking success relates to engagement with specific job-seeking strategies, so it is important to understand the beliefs that job-seekers have of them. Using multiple methods, this study aims to establish a typology of the beliefs job-seekers have about strategies, create and validate a measure of these beliefs and relate them to job-seeking behavior.

In the first sample, the authors interviewed 77 job-seekers about their job-seeking strategy beliefs. The authors then created a measure and verified its psychometric properties using 396 job-seekers. Finally, using a sample of 628 job-seekers, the authors continued their evaluation of the measure and related strategy beliefs to job-seeker motivation and behavior.

The authors initially identified 21 beliefs about job-seeking strategies. The authors ultimately found support for 15 dimensions, replicating the factor structure across samples. Strategies are perceived to differ on most beliefs, and eight beliefs had unique relationships with job-seeker effort and/or motivation.

The study results can help organizations and job-seekers increase job-seeking motivation by targeting specific beliefs found to have the strongest relationships with strategy use.

This is the first measure of job-seeking strategy beliefs that generalizes across strategies. Furthermore, the authors establish several beliefs that have the strongest relationships with job-seeking motivation.

Summer vacation employment plays an important role in the financial survival of students in higher education. Examines what job search methods are used and questionnaire evidence is analysed to establish how success in job search is dependent on a number of control and job search variables. Finds that for students seeking temporary full‐time employment, a search process including either the use of Job Centres and/or responses to newspaper advertisements increases the probability of gaining work. However, females were found to be less likely to gain full‐time temporary work than males. The success of those students seeking part‐time employment was improved by the use of a private employment agency. A mature student was found to be more likely to obtain a job in all of the models.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of the attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help between career adaptability and active job search behavior of older workers in South Korea.

From a review of related literature, six study hypotheses were developed to test the structural relationship between the variables.

This study identified that attitudes toward seeking professional psychological help mediated the relationship between career adaptability, the value of career coaching and active job search behavior.

A successful job search requires the use of substantial self-control and self-regulation skills, and there can be effective training in all these skills of self-disciplining when older workers can find a high level of value from career coaching programs.

Despite the growing popularity of career support programs, the quality of career coaching programs and participants’ perceived value toward them are critical to illicit positive outcomes of such programs. This study supports this premise by revealing a structural relationship between career adaptability, perceived value of career coaching, attitudes toward seeking professional career help and active job search behavior.

The family business literature indicates that non-family employees (NFEs) working in private family firms often feel marginalized effecting their ability to flourish at work and contribute to the organization beyond their defined job roles. Therefore, this study examines whether enabling NFEs to craft their own jobs, leads them to reappraise their position in the organization, thus influencing workplace flourishing (WF) and supervisor-assessed extra-role behaviour (ERB).

Building on the Conservation of Resources theory, a set of hypotheses is posited relating the three dimensions of job crafting (resource seeking, challenge seeking and job demand reduction) to ERB, through WF as a mediator. The hypotheses are tested through matched employee–supervisor data collected from 256 individuals working in private family firms, where 232 were NFEs while 24 individuals were supervisors.

The result generated through PLS-SEM indicates that all three dimensions of job crafting have a positive influence on WF. In the case of direct effect on ERB, only the direct relationship between challenge seeking and ERB was significant. However, the relationships between all three dimensions of job crafting and ERB became positive and significant through WF as mediator.

The implications of this study is that merely empowering NFEs to craft their own jobs may not lead them to contribute to the organization beyond their routine tasks. However, if they appraise such empowerment as a resource gain sufficient enough for them to feel that there are flourishing at the workplace, and then it is likely to influence their commitment to the organization to exhibit significant ERB. The study however is limited, as other potential exogenous variables that influence ERB were not considered.

This study presents evidence for family business owners and managers to provide the pertinent resource support to their NFEs, so that they can flourish and contribute to the employer.

The current study contributes to the under-researched and fragmented literature on NFEs working in family firms. Furthermore, this appears to be among the first study that looks into workplace flourishing and ERB among NFEs in the realm of family business.

In this study, the authors aim to explain the mechanism between transformational leadership and job crafting. They predict that job-based psychological ownership (job-based PO) mediates the relationship between transformational leadership and job crafting. Furthermore, job-based PO is more effective when employees have a high level of affective organizational commitment.

The authors collected time-lagged data through a paper–pencil survey from the sales department of large pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan.

The findings of this study suggest that job-based PO mediates the positive relationship between transformational leadership and job crafting. Moreover, the relationship of job-based PO with job crafting is moderated by affective organizational commitment such that the relationship was stronger at the high levels of affective organizational commitment than that of the low levels of affective organizational commitment.

On practical grounds, job crafting can be useful for individuals and organizations. On individuals’ side, it helps them to balance their job demands and resource; on organizations’ side, it provides a solution to the ongoing problem of disengaged employees and suggests managers identify new ways to support employees with their job redesign.

This study suggests that job-based PO and affective organizational commitment are important factors that influence the relationship between transformational leadership and job crafting.

Workplace thriving (WT), self-job crafting (SJC), and workplace belongingness (WB) have been shown to lead to positive outcomes for organizations and their employees. However, there seems to be a dearth of insights into the relationship between the three constructs, and non-existent in the context of non-family employees (NFEs) working in private family firms. Therefore, this study examines whether enabling NFEs to craft their own jobs leads them to reappraise their position in the organization, thus influencing both WB and WT.

Leaning on the conservation of resources (COR) theory and with the support of the self-determination theory (SDT), a set of hypotheses is posited relating the dimensions of SJC (seeking resources, seeking challenges and job-demand reduction) to WT, through WB as a mediator. The hypotheses are tested through partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) by collecting survey data from 256 NFEs working in private family firms in Oman.

The results indicate that all three dimensions of job crafting have a positive influence on WB. In the case of direct effect on WT, only the relationship between seeking challenges and WT was significant. However, the relationships between all 3 dimensions of SJC and WT became significant through WB as mediator.

The implication of this study is that merely empowering non-family employees to craft their own jobs may not lead them to thrive in private family firms. However, if they appraise such empowerment as significant resource-gain that leads them to feel that they belong to the organization, then it is likely to enhance WT.

This study presents evidence for private family firms that by emphasizing on creating a sense of belongingness among their non-family employees, they can create a workplace where such employees can thrive.

Three novel contributions are presented through this research: (1) this appears to be the first study that integrates the COR theory with SDT to enrich the fragmented literature on NFEs in family firms by presenting an integrated framework that links SJC, WB and WT, (2) the study presents nuanced insights into the relationships between the dimensions of SJC and WT and (3) finally, this study provides evidence on the mediating role of WB between dimensions of SJC and WT, which seems to be overlooked in the past.

Drawing on the work design growth model (WDGM), this paper aims to explore the relationship between job complexity and employee creativity through feedback-seeking and the moderating effect of team leaders with a growth creative mindset.

The authors used an online survey to test the hypotheses. Data was collected in three waves from 74 supervisors and 349 paired employees in China.

Job complexity had a positive association with employees’ feedback-seeking, which further linked to employee creativity. This indirect effect was stronger in work teams with leaders endorsing a growth creative mindset.

Job complexity has become prevalent in organizations today. Taking daily complexity as a resource for nurturing employee creativity may balance organizations’ costs on formal training and give them more initiatives in long-term development. In addition, as the growth creative mindset is relatively easy to assess and change, it may bring insights in terms of creativity development.

By empirically testing the behavioural mechanism of WDGM, the learning and development perspective of work design offers a new explanation of the relationship between job complexity and employee creativity. The authors further extend WDGM by identifying leaders’ growth creative mindset to be a boundary condition.

This paper synthesizes the extant feedback literature, focusing on how feedback affects an auditor’s learning, performance, and motivation. Performance feedback is an important component in the auditing environment for ensuring quality control and for developing and coaching staff auditors. However, the literature on feedback in the audit environment is fragmented and limited making it difficult to assess its behavioral effects on auditors. This paper has three main objectives. The first is to review some of the influential research in psychology and management to identify key variables and issues that appear to be critical in the study of behavioral consequences of feedback in organizational settings. The second is to review performance feedback research specifically in auditing to identify the areas previously examined and synthesize the findings. The third is to suggest a variety of future research opportunities that may assist in developing an understanding and knowledge of the behavioral effects of feedback on auditors. The literature analysis has significant implications for audit research and practice. In particular, the analysis provides important insights into understanding who, how, and when performance feedback should be given to improve its effectiveness in the audit environment.

Although social networks are considered influential to employment outcomes, little is known about the behavioural manifestation of networking during job search. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of networking amongst 16–24 year old active jobseekers living in Scotland.

A sequential, mixed methods approach was applied to gather data, including interviews (no. of participants=7), a focus group (no. of participants=6) and a survey questionnaire (no. of participants=558). The study design was underpinned by a prominent model from the field of Information Science. As such, job search networking has been treated as an information behaviour.

The findings show that young people acquire different types of information from network contacts throughout job search, and that frequent networking is associated with positive outcomes. This is especially true of engaging with family members, acquaintances and employers. However, barriers such as a lack of confidence or awareness mean that few young people make the most of their social contacts when seeking work.

Careers professionals can use this knowledge to advise clients on maximising the potential of social networks as sources of job search information.

A key contribution of this work is that it provides a detailed insight into a topic that has been neglected in previous studies: that of the process of job search networking as an information behaviour.