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Drawing from both the transactional theory of stress and the conservation of resources theory, this paper sets out to investigate the role of demand-specific challenge and hindrance appraisal of emotional demands, as well as time pressure and perceived goal progress within the challenge–hindrance framework.

For this research, 91 employees provided daily diary data for one working week. Focusing on within-persons effects, multilevel moderated mediation models using multilevel path analyses were applied.

Both emotional demands and time pressure exert positive effects on work engagement when people expect resource gain (challenge appraisal), independent of actual resource gain (achievement). Furthermore, results show that goal progress buffers negative effects of perceived blocked resource gain (hindrance appraisal) on both emotional and motivational well-being.

This research proposes an extension and refinement of the challenge–hindrance stressor framework to explain health-impairing and motivational processes of emotional demands and time pressure, combining reasoning from both appraisal and resource theory perspectives. The study identifies demand-specific challenge and hindrance appraisals as mediators linking demands to emotional and motivational well-being, emphasizing the influence of goal progress as a resource on these relations.

This paper aims to investigate, using stakeholder map methodology, showing power, urgency, legitimacy and concerns of different actors, the current state of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Switzerland. Previous research on CSR in Europe has made few attempts to identify stakeholders and their contribution to this topic.

To derive this map, publicly available documents were explored, augmented by 27 interviews with key stakeholders (consumers, media, government, trade unions, non-profit organisations [NPOs], banks, certifiers and consultants) and management of different companies (multinational enterprises [MNEs], small- and medium-sized enterprises [SMEs] and large national companies). Using MAXQDA, the quantified codes given for power, legitimacy and urgency were triangulated between self-reporting, external assessments and statements from publicly available documents and subsequently transferred into stakeholder priorities or, in other words, into positions in the map. Further, the codes given in the interviews for different CSR interests and the results from the document analysis were linked between stakeholders. The identified concerns and priorities were quantitatively analysed in regard to centrality and salience using VennMaker.

The paper identified SMEs, MNEs and cooperating NPOs as being the most significant stakeholders, in that order. CSR is, therefore, not driven primarily by regulators, market pressure or customers. Further network parameters substantiated the importance of SMEs while following an unconventionally informal and idiosyncratic CSR approach. Hence, insights into these ethics-driven, unformalised business models that pursue broader responsibility based on trust, traditional values, regional anchors and the willingness to “give something back” were formed. Examples of this strong CSR habit include democratic decisions and abolished hierarchies, handshake instead of formal contracts and transparency in all respects (e.g. performance indicators, salaries and bonuses).

In total, 27 interviews as primary data that supplements publicly available documents are clearly only indicative.

The research found an innovative, vibrant and practical CSR model that is emerging for reasons other than conventional CSR agendas that are supposed to evolve. In fact, the stakeholder map and the CSR practices may point at a very different role businesses have adopted in Switzerland. Such models offer a useful, heuristic evaluation of the contribution of formal management systems (e.g. as could be found in MNEs) in comparison to the unformalised SME business conduct.

A rarely reported and astonishing feature of many of the very radical SME practices found in this study is that their link to commercial strategies was, in most cases, not seen. However, SMEs are neither the “poor relative” nor the abridged version of CSR, but are manifesting CSR as a Swiss set of values that fits the societal culture and the visionary goals of SME owners/managers and governs how a sustainably responsible company should behave. Hence, as a new stance and argument within CSR-related research, this paper concludes that “informal” does not mean “weak”. This paper covers a myriad of management fields, e.g. CSR as strategic tool in business ethics; stakeholder and network management; decision-making; and further theoretical frameworks, such as transaction cost and social capital theory. In other words, this research closes scientific gaps by at once applying quantitative as well as qualitative methods and by merging, for the first time, network methodology with CSR and stakeholder research.

Drawing on the challenge–hindrance stressor framework and the “too-much-of-a-good-thing” principle, this study examined the curvilinear effects of two emic social challenge stressors (guanxi beliefs and participative decision-making (PDM)) and the moderating effect of an etic social hindrance stressor (perceived organizational politics) on Hong Kong and United States nurses’ job satisfaction.

A quantitative survey method was implemented, with the data provided by 355 Hong Kong nurses and 116 United States nurses. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the degree of measurement equivalence across Hong Kong and US nurses. The proposed model and the research questions were tested using nonlinear structural equation modeling analyses.

The results show that while guanxi beliefs only showed an inverted U-shaped relation on Hong Kong nurses’ job satisfaction, PDM had an inverted U-shaped relation with both Hong Kong and United States nurses’ job satisfaction. The authors also found that Hong Kong nurses experienced the highest job satisfaction when their guanxi beliefs and perceived organization politics were both high.

The results add to the comprehension of the nuances of the often-held assumption of linearity in organizational sciences and support the speculation of social stressors-outcomes linkages.

Managers need to recognize that while the nurturing and development of effective relationships with employees via social interaction are important, managers also need to be aware that too much guanxi and PDM may lead employees to feel overwhelmed with expectations of reciprocity and reconciliation to such an extent that they suffer adverse outcomes and become dissatisfied with their jobs.

First, the authors found that influences of guanxi beliefs and PDM are not purely linear and that previous research may have neglected the curvilinear nature of their influences on job satisfaction. Second, the authors echo researchers’ call to consider an organization’s political context to fully understand employees’ attitudes and reactions toward social interactions at work. Third, the authors examine boundary conditions of curvilinear relationships to understand the delicate dynamics.