Search results

With the spread of information communication technologies (ICTs) at work, online voice has become an emerging form of employee voice. Online voice is a double-edged behavior for organizations and employees. The purpose of this paper is to examine a model in which online voice is positively correlated with workplace cyberbullying and to examine the moderating role of chronic job strain and moral efficacy on that correlation.

A total of 760 cases from 152 full-time Chinese workers in public sector employment were collected through the experience sampling method.

The results showed that online voice is positively correlated with workplace cyberbullying on a daily basis. Chronic job strain amplifies this relationship, while moral efficacy buffers it. Furthermore, the amplifying effect of chronic job strain is mediated by a lack of moral efficacy.

This research has implications for understanding the boundary conditions of the relationship between online voice and workplace cyberbullying.

This study aims to investigate how to manage the stressors that facility managers (FMs) face with the aim of reducing their stress and strain levels.

Using the job demands-resources (JD-R) model, stressors are operationalized from job demands, job resources and personal resources constructs. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data from FMs based in Singapore.

FMs have significantly high levels of stress, but they are able to manage this well. Job demands that cause stress and strain are those relating to insufficient time to complete the work and difficulties in handling the work. The lack of job resources in terms of lack of organizational support and inadequate stress mitigation programs are associated with high levels of stress and strain.

The limitations are the relatively small sample size and absence of a database of FMs in Singapore, and correlation is not causation when determining the association between stressors and stress and strain.

Based on the recommendations, employers and FMs may manage the specific stressors identified so that FMs’ stress and strain levels are under control to enable them to work optimally.

This research discovered that the JD-R model is moderated by certain features of facilities management and FMs. When these features are present, FMs are predisposed to more stressors, and higher stress and strain. For the facilities management profession, the discovery is that there are significantly more job demands: for in-house FMs compared to those working for outsourced firms; for FMs who need to carry out estate and asset management, landlord activities and facility planning compared to FMs who focus on operations and maintenance; and for FMs who work longer than five days compared to those who work a five-day week.

The purpose of this paper is to further the understanding of public sector line managers' work-related well-being and health in relation to job strain, gender and workplace social support.

An online survey was sent to all senior and middle line managers (N = 357) in three administrative departments of Iceland's largest municipality. The response rate was 64.7%. Multivariate logistic regression was used to analyse the data.

A minority of respondents experience high job strain. However, for these managers, the risk of experiencing emotional exhaustion is about fivefold, compared to those not experiencing high job strain. Social support is an important buffering against job strain and enhances well-being. Female managers are more likely than their male counterparts to report myositis, back or shoulder pain and sleeping difficulty.

The study emphasises that workplace social support attenuates the negative impact of job strain on line managers' work-related well-being. Furthermore, it demonstrates that in a society at the forefront in gender equality, gender differences in health symptoms exist among line managers in the public sector – a finding that highlights the importance of studying all aspects of workplace well-being by gender. This calls for future research using a more comprehensive survey data and interviews to shed light on the pathways through which female line managers' health is negatively affected.

Knowledge relating to well-being and health of line managers in the public sector is scarce. This study contributes to filling that gap. As work-related well-being is often gender-blind, the value of the study is also the investigation of the gender patterns in the authors’ data.

This exploratory study aims to examine the usefulness of distinguishing between the cognitive and emotional components of job insecurity.

This cross‐sectional survey study was undertaken in a sample of 600 civil servants. A series of regressions are employed to test proposed hypotheses.

Results support the treatment of the components of job insecurity as separate variables. The cognitive and emotional components differed in their associations with predictors and consequences. Locus of control and employment dependence moderated several relationships. For example, employment dependence moderated the relationship between job insecurity and job loss strain.

The study design was cross‐sectional and, thus, cause‐effect relationships cannot be discerned. Also, since it was undertaken in the public sector, it needs to be cross‐validated in the private sector so that the generalizability of its results can be established. The study points to the utility of separately measuring the components of job insecurity in future research. Also, the role of employment dependence deserves further study given its role as a predictor of job loss strain and as a significant moderator variable.

In supporting the treatment of job security and job loss strain as separate variables, this study suggests that one should consider how to reduce the negative effects of a lack of job security on job loss strain. This is especially important since job loss strain is associated with negative psychological and physiological symptoms. In today's rapidly changing environment, people who feel they have limited extra‐organizational opportunities appear to be particularly vulnerable. Human resource management practices that enhance employee mobility may help to manage their sense of dependence.

This paper addresses two major gaps in the job security literature: it develops a comprehensive model using a two‐component approach to job insecurity; and investigates the potential role of employment dependence as both a cause of insecurity's components and a moderator in the causes → insecurity → consequences model.

There is a large literature devoted to the stresses and strains of work and work‐related activities. This research effort shows no sign of abating. The aim of this paper is to highlight and discuss several centrally important questions and assumptions in the nature of this research which, in our view, require more careful consideration in future work.

This research aims to explore the relationship between work time demands, work time control and supervisor support in the Australian construction industry.

A survey was undertaken with waged and salaried construction workers in two construction organizations (n=261).

Work time demands were positively correlated with time‐ and strain‐based work interference with family life (WIF) but inversely correlated with time‐ and strain‐based family interference with work (FIW). Work‐family enrichment was inversely correlated with work time demands and positively correlated with both work time control and social support from one's supervisor. Respondents with high work time demands and low work time control (or low supervisor support) reported the highest levels of time‐ and strain‐based WIF. The lowest levels of WIF were reported by respondents in low work time demands and high work time control (or high supervisor support) jobs classifications. However, jobs high in both work time demands and work time control reported the highest levels of work‐to‐family enrichment.

The results suggest that work‐family conflict and work‐family enrichment should be treated as two distinct concepts in work‐family research and that the job demands‐control theory is helpful in explaining work‐family conflict but that alternative theories are needed to explain positive work‐family interactions.

The practical implication of the research is that reducing work time demands may be helpful in reducing work‐family conflict but that the provision of work domain resources is probably required to enable positive work‐family interactions.

Previous work‐family research has focused on job demands and resources separately, while the job strain literature has focused on the impact of job demands and the key resources of social support. The originality of this research is that it examines the extent to which different configurations of job demand and resource can explain experiences at the work‐family interface.

This article seeks to apply the challenge–hindrance conceptualization of demands to a model that relates stressors to emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. Supervisory support, a resource, is posited as a precursor to demands, and work–family conflict (WFC) and interpersonal conflict (IPC) at work are expected to mediate the demand–strain and job satisfaction relationships.

This cross‐sectional self‐report survey included a sample of 600 government employees in Canada.

In addition to directly influencing job satisfaction, supervisory support reduces strain and increases motivation by decreasing hindrances and interpersonal conflict. Also, although, challenge and hindrance demands are both positively associated with strain, task complexity is positively associated with job satisfaction, whereas role ambiguity and interpersonal conflict are negatively associated with job satisfaction. Furthermore, work–family conflict and interpersonal conflict fully mediate the effects of supervisory support, role conflict, and task complexity on strain, and they reduce the effects of ambiguity on strain. Thus, these factors have limited effects on strain by themselves; rather, they act on strain through emotional demands.

Some challenges have a strong connection with resources, yet also induce strain. Future models should incorporate the challenge‐hindrance approach to classifying demands and should examine challenge demands that motivate people to engage in stressful activities. Also, although work‐family conflict and interpersonal conflict at work concern different spheres, future research should incorporate both spheres and employ emotional demands as mediating variables.

Given that some challenges can be motivating yet stressful, the consequences of interventions can be difficult to forecast. Results point to the importance of carefully designing interventions and the role of WFC and IPC as potential levers in managing strain arising from complex jobs and other types of challenges.

This paper considers a unique model of demands, resources, and outcome variables that contributes to the knowledge about how to address stress.

This paper reports on the results of a study aimed at identifying the relative influence of generic and job‐specific stressors experienced by a cohort of Australian managers. The results of a regression analysis revealed that both the generic components of the job strain model (JSM) and job‐specific stressors were predictive of the strain experienced by participants. However, when looking at the total amount of variance that is explained by the predictor variables, the combined influence of job demand, job control and social support contributed 98 per cent of the explained variance in job satisfaction and 90 per cent of the variance in psychological health. The large amount of variance explained by the JSM suggests that this model provides an accurate account of the work characteristics that contribute to the strain experienced by managers and no augmentation is needed.

Past research on self-employment and health yielded conflicting findings. Integrating predictions from the Stressor-Strain Outcome model, research on challenge stressors and allostatic load, we predict that physical and mental health are affected by self-employment in distinct ways which play out over different time horizons. We also test whether the health impacts of self-employment are due to enhanced stress (work-related strain) and differ for man and women.

We apply non-parametric propensity score matching in combination with a difference-in-difference approach and longitudinal cohort data to examine self-selection and the causal relationship between self-employment and health. We focus on those that transit into self-employment from paid employment (opportunity self-employment) and analyze strain and health over four years relative to individuals in paid employment.

Those with poorer mental health are more likely to self-select into self-employment. After entering self-employment, individuals experience a short-term uplift in mental health due to lower work-related strain, especially for self-employed men. In the longer-term (four years) the mental health of the self-employed drops back to pre-self-employment levels. We find no effect of self-employment on physical health.

Our research helps to understand the nonpecuniary benefits of self-employment and suggests that we should not advocate self-employment as a “healthy” career.

This article advances research on self-employment and health. Grounded in stress theories it offers new insights relating to self-selection, the temporality of effects, the mediating role of work-related strain, and gender that collectively help to explain why past research yielded conflicting findings.

Online labour markets (OLMs) have recently become a widespread phenomenon of digital work. While the implications of OLMs on worker well-being are hotly debated, little empirical research examines the impact of such work on individuals. The highly competitive and fast-paced nature of OLMs compels workers to multitask and to perform intense technology-enabled work, which can potentially enhance technostress. This paper examines the antecedents and well-being consequences of technostress arising from work in OLMs.

The authors draw from person–environment fit theory and job characteristics theory and test a research model of the antecedents and consequences of worker technostress in OLMs. Data were gathered from 366 workers in a popular OLM through a large-scale online survey. Structural equation modelling was used to evaluate the research model.

The findings extend existing research by validating the relationships between specific OLM characteristics and strain. Contrary to previous literature, the results indicate a link between technology complexity and work overload in OLMs. Furthermore, in OLMs, feedback is positively associated with work overload and job insecurity, while strain directly influences workers' negative affective well-being and discontinuous intention.

This study contributes to technostress literature by developing and testing a research model relevant to a new form of work conducted through OLMs. The authors expand the current research on technostress by integrating job characteristics as new antecedents to technostress and demonstrating its impact on different types of subjective well-being and discontinuous intention. In addition, while examining the impact of technostressors on outcomes, the authors consider their impact at the individual level (disaggregated approach) to capture the subtlety involved in understanding technostressors' unique relationships with outcomes.