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1 – 10 of 266Judith Plomp, Maria Tims, Jos Akkermans, Svetlana N. Khapova, Paul G.W. Jansen and Arnold B. Bakker
The purpose of this paper is to bring together job design and career theory in the examination of how proactive employees optimize their well-being (i.e. job satisfaction and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to bring together job design and career theory in the examination of how proactive employees optimize their well-being (i.e. job satisfaction and perceived health) through job crafting and career competencies. This study offers an integrated account of the pathway from proactive personality to well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected by a cross-sectional self-report survey study among 574 employees working in various organizations.
Findings
The results of structural equation modeling analyses supported the proposed double mediation model: job crafting and career competencies both mediated the positive relationship between proactive personality and well-being. The findings suggest that proactive employees can enhance their well-being both through proactive job redesign and the development of career-related skills and abilities.
Research limitations/implications
This study precludes causal explanations. Future research should further investigate the role of employee proactivity related to contemporary work topics, including temporary contracts and self-employment.
Practical implications
Managers and HR practitioners can optimize employee well-being by focusing on HR policies related to job redesign, as well as investing in training and development of career competencies.
Originality/value
This paper integrates two research domains by exploring how proactive employees take a proactive stance toward their job as well as their career, and investigates how this proactive approach contributes to their well-being. In addition, the authors demonstrated a link between the development of career competencies and employee health.
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Maria Tims, Melissa Twemlow and Christine Yin Man Fong
In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of Career Development International, a state-of-the-art overview of recent trends in job-crafting research was conducted…
Abstract
Purpose
In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of Career Development International, a state-of-the-art overview of recent trends in job-crafting research was conducted. Since job crafting was introduced twenty years ago as a type of proactive work behavior that employees engage in to adjust their jobs to their needs, skills, and preferences, research has evolved tremendously.
Design/methodology/approach
To take stock of recent developments and to unravel the latest trends in the field, this overview encompasses job-crafting research published in the years 2016–2021. The overview portrays that recent contributions have matured the theoretical and empirical advancement of job-crafting research from three perspectives (i.e. individual, team and social).
Findings
When looking at the job-crafting literature through these three perspectives, a total of six trends were uncovered that show that job-crafting research has moved to a more in-depth theory-testing approach; broadened its scope; examined team-level job crafting and social relationships; and focused on the impact of job crafting on others in the work environment and their evaluations and reactions to it.
Originality/value
The overview of recent trends within the job-crafting literature ends with a set of recommendations for how future research on job crafting could progress and create scientific impact for the coming years.
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Maria Tims, Arnold B. Bakker and Daantje Derks
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether job crafting and work enjoyment could explain the well-established relationship between self-efficacy and job performance. The…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether job crafting and work enjoyment could explain the well-established relationship between self-efficacy and job performance. The authors hypothesized that employees would be most likely to engage in proactive job crafting behaviors on the days when they feel most self-efficacious. Daily job crafting, in turn, was expected to relate to daily performance through daily work enjoyment.
Design/methodology/approach
A daily diary study was conducted among a heterogeneous sample of employees (N=47, days=215). Participants completed the survey on five consecutive days.
Findings
The results of multilevel structural equation modeling analyses were generally in line with the hypotheses. Specifically, results indicated that employees who felt more self-efficacious on a given day were more likely to mobilize their job resources on that day. Daily job crafting, in turn, was positively correlated to work enjoyment and indirectly associated with performance. Participants reported elevated levels of performance on the days on which they enjoyed their work most.
Research limitations/implications
Self-reports were used to assess all constructs, which may result in common method bias. However, within-person correlations were moderate, and a two-level CFA indicated that a one-factor model could not account for all the variance in the data.
Originality/value
The findings of this study underscore the importance of daily proactive behavior for employee and organizational outcomes.
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In offering a critical account of project‐based innovation projects, this paper aims to assess the creation and sharing of knowledge from a social constructionist perspective.
Abstract
Purpose
In offering a critical account of project‐based innovation projects, this paper aims to assess the creation and sharing of knowledge from a social constructionist perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
Using findings from an in‐depth longitudinal study of a UK Government Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) programme, the paper shows that the ability to adopt knowledge is linked to the efforts of actors to cope with the uncertainties that emerge from crisis events when actors can transform their social context in ways that allow them to overcome the politicisation of tasks. By conceptualising “knowledge” as a social process, this paper proposes that the individual and collective ability to introduce new meaning is not simply related to the propositional aspects of knowledge (through the acquisition of new systems and practices), it also relies on the socially embedded nature of knowledge – the legitimating role of the local context.
Findings
To ascertain a better understanding of knowledge creation and sharing this paper considers the process through which individuals appropriate knowledge where crisis events disrupt and jeopardise the social relations between the members of the innovation project. Here the paper demonstrates how actors renegotiate participation in projects and therefore reconstitute the context through which such activities are organised.
Research limitations/implications
Based on a single case study, this research offers a limited view of context. The study is also based on the appropriation of practices linked to TQM. Future work should look at a range of contexts and technologies to ascertain differentiation in the way the social context mediates knowledge communication.
Originality/value
This paper offers a critical account of knowledge management and innovation. It stands in contrast to more mainstream positivist accounts.
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This paper uses newly compiled data from two surveys of female home workers undertaken by the Women’s Industrial Council in London in 1897 and 1907 to investigate various issues…
Abstract
This paper uses newly compiled data from two surveys of female home workers undertaken by the Women’s Industrial Council in London in 1897 and 1907 to investigate various issues related to their work and wages. The reports detail the occupations, average weekly earnings and hours, marital status, and household size, composition, and total income of approximately 850 female home workers, offering a unique, and as yet unused, opportunity to explore the labor market characteristics of the lowest-paid workers in the early twentieth century. Analysis of the data reveals that the female home workers who were surveyed were drawn overwhelmingly from poor households. Home workers were older than female factory workers, most were married or widowed, and the majority of married workers reported that their husbands were out of work, sick, disabled, or in casual or irregular work. Weekly wages and hours of work varied considerably by industry, but averaged about 7–9s. and 40–45 hours per week, with many workers reporting the desire for more work. The relationship between hours of work (daily and weekly) and hourly wages was negative, and the wives and daughters of men who were out of the labor force due to unemployment or illness tended to work longer hours at lower wages, as did women who lived in households where some health issue was present. These findings lend support to contemporary perceptions that women driven into the labor force by immediate household need were forced to take the lowest-paid work, whether because they lacked skill and experience or bargaining power in the labor market.
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This paper investigates the substance of institutions in the context of business ethics. In particular, I test a theory of stakeholder attention to resource commitments by firms…
Abstract
This paper investigates the substance of institutions in the context of business ethics. In particular, I test a theory of stakeholder attention to resource commitments by firms that implement the Ethics and Compliance Officer (ECO) position, from 1990 to 2008. Results support the hypothesized curvilinear relationship between resource commitments and stakeholder attention – while both high and low levels of ECO implementation generate low levels of reported ethics transgressions (the former due to good firm behavior and the latter due to stakeholder disengagement), moderate ECO implementation produces elevated transgression reports (due to raised expectations and increased engagement). Contrary to extant theory, results are consistent across both internal and external firm stakeholder groups.
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Maria Ek Styvén and Tim Foster
The purpose of this paper is to analyse factors influencing the propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip, across a sample of Millennial and Generation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse factors influencing the propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip, across a sample of Millennial and Generation Z consumers in three different countries.
Design/methodology/approach
An online survey was sent to consumers between 16 and 30 years in Sweden, UK and India. Structural equation modelling and multigroup analysis was conducted to compare results between countries and generations.
Findings
Young travellers’ need for uniqueness (NFU) and opinion leadership (OL) with regard to travel tends to increase their propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip. Reflected appraisal of self is strongly related to NFU and OL and may therefore indirectly influence the propensity to share. Some differences were found between generations and countries.
Research limitations/implications
Future research could consider comparisons between travellers from younger and older generations. The hypotheses formulated in this study could be tested in other countries. Further adaptions or extensions of existing NFU scales to fit in the travel and tourism context are suggested.
Practical implications
Millennial and Gen Z consumers will constitute an increasing part of travellers and visitors in the future. Through a better understanding of their behaviour, tourism managers can design strategies to engage them and increase electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM).
Originality/value
This study contributes by addressing the lack of research on “self”-related drivers of eWOM in general social media during the trip, and by providing an international perspective through cross-cultural comparisons.
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Maria Ek Styvén, Tim Foster and Åsa Wallström
The purpose of this study is to characterize consumers with high impulse buying tendency (IBT) by comparing them with low-IBT consumers in an online shopping context.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to characterize consumers with high impulse buying tendency (IBT) by comparing them with low-IBT consumers in an online shopping context.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected through a postal survey to a random sample of Swedish citizens, resulting in 144 responses, which were analysed statistically..
Findings
Results indicate that high-IBT consumers, compared to those with low IBT, are on average younger, more likely to be female and more frequent online shoppers with higher levels of trust in the internet. However, they seem more likely than low-IBT consumers to abandon their online shopping carts before completing the purchase, often because of need uncertainty.
Practical implications
The findings can give retailers a better understanding of consumers with high IBT and thereby increase the possibility to target and communicate with them more effectively. This is an interesting opportunity as both multi-channel shopping and impulse buying behaviour is likely to become even more common in the future.
Originality/value
The study contributes to the understanding of impulsive consumers, as it addresses the role of situational and socio-demographic attributes of high-IBT consumers compared to low-IBT consumers. The differences in online purchases, intentions to buy fashion online, shopping cart abandonment and trust in the internet suggest that even if IBT is a relatively stable and general personal trait, the tendencies to act on buying impulses may be more context-specific.
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