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The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of leadership on work-family spillovers. Specifically, we analyze the relationships between leadership (leader-member exchange (LMX) with one negative work-family spillover effect (work-family interference) and one positive work-family spillover effect (work-family facilitation). The authors hypothesize that LMX influences work-family spillover via different mediators, rather than one all-encompassing mediator, such as empowerment.

The authors hypothesize that a good relationship with your supervisor (high LMX) diminishes work pressure, which in turn reduces work-family interference. Furthermore, the authors expect that a good relationship with your supervisor positively relates to the meaningfulness of work, as you could get more interesting work and more understanding of your role within the organization. In turn, this will increase work-family facilitation. These hypotheses are tested using a nation-wide survey among Dutch healthcare professionals.

Findings of structural equation modeling (SEM) indeed indicate that high-quality LMX is negatively related to work-family interference, and that this is mediated by work pressure (53 percent explained variance). Furthermore, the authors found that a good relationship with your supervisor is positively related to meaningfulness of work, which in turn positively correlates to work-family facilitation (16 percent explained variance).

The added value of the paper lies in introducing two mediators – work pressure and meaningful work – which worked adequately both theoretically and empirically, instead of the sometimes problematic mediators empowerment and stress; a focus on healthcare professionals; and using sophisticated techniques to test the model (SEM with bootstrapping).

Organizations are continuously under pressure to adapt to changing circumstances. Job proactivity and vitality are important in changing environments. For instance, vital employees can better deal with change because they possess more energy. However, it is still unclear how organizations can stimulate proactivity and vitality. The purpose of this paper is to connect HRM and change management by analyzing how HRM practices can stimulate job proactivity and vitality.

The authors used survey data collected in three large public healthcare organizations in the Netherlands (n=1,507) to investigate the effects of five important HRM practices on proactivity and vitality. Analyses were performed using structural equation modeling.

Results suggest that three HRM practices are particularly effective for improving proactivity and vitality: high autonomy, high participation in decision making and high quality teamwork. Based on these results, the authors discuss the possibilities of using HRM to improve employees’ abilities to deal with organizational change.

This study is one of the first to empirically connect HRM to change management. Furthermore, it uses new concepts derived from positive psychology (job proactivity and vitality) to show how HRM can be beneficial for organizational change.

Public employees are often confronted with aggression from citizens, managers and colleagues. This is sometimes a function of having a monopoly position of many public organizations. As a result, citizens cannot opt for alternative providers when not served well. This could give rise to aggression. Furthermore, increased budget cuts might give rise to higher stress, workload and consequential aggression at times. This paper analyzes articles on workplace aggression, both the three articles of this special issue and more broadly. The purpose of this paper is to provide researchers with methodological and theoretical future research suggestions for new studies on workplace aggression.

Literature review.

By taking new methodological and theoretical routes, scholars can contribute to the analysis and potential solutions concerning workplace aggression in the public sector. First, the authors advise researchers to move beyond cross-sectional surveys. Instead, diary studies, longitudinal studies and experimental methods (such as randomized control trials) should be increasingly used. Furthermore, scholars can focus more on theory development and testing. Future studies are advised to connect workplace aggression to theoretical models (such as the Job Demands-Resources model), to theories (for instance social learning theory) and to public administration concepts (such as public service motivation and trust in citizens).

This is one of the few articles within the public management literature which provides new methodological and theoretical directions for future research on workplace aggression.

The purpose of this paper is to explore to what extent job, organizational, and personal characteristics independently contribute to the prediction of workplace victimization of local government employees in the Netherlands. The existence of interactions between personal and context (job and organizational) characteristics is also explored.

Structured survey data measured the frequency of victimization involving three types of incidents: verbal aggression; threats; and physical violence. Associations with job and personal factors and interaction effects were studied using bivariate and multivariate analyses.

Contact frequency, perceived work stress, and type of job held by local government employees are the strongest correlates of workplace aggression. Self-efficacy in employees’ conflict management skills shows an unexpected positive association with the level of experienced aggression, especially in organizations that have low levels of prevention measures.

Because of the cross-sectional design of the study, no definite causal conclusions can be drawn. Common-method bias in the measurements may have led to systematic bias.

This study presents an integrated model of correlates of public-initiated workplace aggression toward a population that is understudied: namely, local government employees. It also provides first insights into how job, organizational, and personal correlates of workplace victimization interact in this population.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether occupational social contexts differentiate the processing of changes in the employment relationship, as represented by the psychological contract. Specifically, this study investigates the impact of the psychological contract and justice, with negative affectivity (NA), on medical practitioners or administrative staff in healthcare.

Samples of 54 medical practitioners (30 percent) and 122 administrative staff (59 percent), primarily providing public services, responded to a cross-sectional survey. Data were analyzed using multiple regression analyses.

Among medical staff, psychological contract obligations were associated with lower commitment and psychological distress, whereas fulfillment was associated with higher commitment and job satisfaction, yet higher distress. Distributive justice was associated with lower distress, and NA was associated with higher distress. Among administration staff, fulfillment was associated with commitment and job satisfaction, and NA was associated with lower job satisfaction and higher distress. Essentially, reforms are likely to have more impact on less powerful occupations.

Psychological contract fulfillment is a key predictor of hospital employees’ commitment and satisfaction, placing clinicians, particularly, under pressure. To retain employees, hospitals must keep their promises. Further, occupational power activates the role of obligations, with practitioners having negative outcomes and holding the organization to account until the obligations are fulfilled.

This study highlights the differential nature of the psychological contract among healthcare employee groups, with differences depending on occupational power.

In Dutch detainee care custodial transport police officers experience high levels of aggression and violence from detainees. Being a first of its kind in the Netherlands, the purpose of this paper is to unravel the true nature and origins of such workplace aggression against transport officers and focuses on the role of street-level leadership and leadership by management for its mitigation and prevention.

Unique in such closed institutions as the prison system, the study employs an extensive mixed methods approach, combining observations, interviews and survey data collected among transport officers and detainees in 2012-2013.

The research shows that within the exercised street-level leadership of transport officers especially staff orientation towards detainees has great impact. Perceived inappropriate treatment is likely to increase detainees’ aggressive behaviours, with potentially detrimental effects such as heightened levels of officers’ job stress, decreased safety and decreased quality of detainee transport. The solutions offered indicate that while transport officers could benefit from a supportive staff orientation, transport police management might need to pay more attention to rule enforcement leadership within their efforts to optimize working conditions.

The major practical implication of this research is the potential impact of training in affecting the decisions of frontline public employees in a way that their street-level leadership practices manifest the organizational values and alignment with societal values to ensure an adequate public sector service delivery.

This paper utilizes diffusion of innovation theory in order to investigate and understand the relationships between human resource (HR) policies on employee change-related outcomes. In addition, the purpose of this paper is to explore the role of leader vision at different hierarchical levels in the organization in terms of the relationship of HR policy with employee change-related outcomes.

This quantitative study was conducted in one large Australian government department undergoing major restructuring and cultural change. Data from 624 employees were analyzed in relation to knowledge of HR policies (awareness and clarity), leader vision (organizational and divisional), and change-related outcomes.

Policy knowledge (awareness and clarity) does not have a direct impact on employee change-related outcomes. It is the implementation of policies through the divisional leader that begins to enable favorable employee outcomes.

Future research should employ a longitudinal design to investigate relationships over time, and also examine the importance of communication medium and individual preferences in relation to leader vision.

This research extends the application of diffusion of innovation theory and leader vision theory to investigate the relationship between HR policy, leader vision, and employees’ change-related outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the impact of management and colleagues on the perception of work harassment and outcomes of local government employees in Australia and the USA.

Completed surveys from local government employees (265 from the USA and 250 from Australia) were analysed using structural equation modelling and an ANOVA.

The results depict support for the overall measurement and structural models showing that workplace relationships impact on work harassment, and in turn employee outcomes (psychological wellbeing and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour-Individual (OCB-I)), although not all paths were accepted for each country. Statistically significant differences were found between the Australian and USA samples for both the measurement and structural models, with the sample from the USA showing much higher levels of satisfaction with workplace relationships, higher levels of psychological wellbeing, OCB-I, and lower perceptions of work harassment.

The findings provide implications that Australian and US local government employees, positioned closest to the public, experience work harassment probably as a result of chronic under-resourcing both in terms of manpower and other resources, and coupled with unrealistically high-performance targets. The results depict that such work harassment is resulting in lower psychological wellbeing (USA only) and lower extra-role behaviour associated with OCB-I (Australia and USA).

The value of this paper is that it benchmarks the impact of workplace relationships on work harassment for local government employees across two Anglo-American countries.

When knowledge is shared, it flows beyond individual level to add to organizational knowledge. The purpose of this paper is to seek an insight into the role of servant leadership in leveraging knowledge sharing among public employees, thereby enriching organizational knowledge in public organizations. The study also investigates the individual-level mediation effect of public service motivation (PSM), as well as organization-level moderating effect of corporate social responsibility (CSR) for the relationship between servant leadership and knowledge sharing.

The data on the research variables were collected from 562 employees and 197 department managers in public organizations of electricity, telephone, and water industries in Vietnam context.

Research results provided evidence for the mediating effect of PSM for the servant leadership-knowledge sharing linkage. This linkage was also found to be positively moderated by CSR.

This research extends PSM literature by shedding light on the mediating role of PSM for the effect of servant leadership on knowledge sharing, thereby demonstrating the convergence of servant leadership, knowledge sharing, and PSM research streams.