Search results

With the growing need for employees to be innovative, public-sector organizations are investing in employee training. This study aims to examine the effects of a combined Lean Six Sigma and innovation training, using action learning, on public-sector employees’ creative role identity and innovative work behavior.

The authors studied a public service agency in Singapore in which a five-day Lean Innovation Training was implemented, using a combination of Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools, with a simulation on day one and subsequent team-based project coaching, spread over six months. The authors administered pre- and postintervention surveys among all the employees, and initiated group interviews and observations before, during and after the intervention.

Creative role identity and innovative work behavior had significantly improved six months after the intervention, enabled through senior management’s transformational leadership. The training induced managers to role-model innovative work behaviors while cocreating, with their employees, a renewal of their agency’s core processes. The three completed improvement projects contributed to an innovative work culture and reduced service turnaround time.

Starting with a role-playing simulation on the first day, during which leaders and followers swapped roles, the action-learning type training taught all the organizational members to use various Lean Six Sigma and Creative Problem-Solving tools. This nimble Lean Innovation Training, and subsequent team-based project coaching, exemplifies how advancing the staff’s creative role identity can have a positive impact.

In a rapidly shifting market, organizations seek more diverse and innovative employee development interventions. Yet, these initiatives may have limited impact without employees’ engagement. This conceptual paper aims to propose self-leadership as a value-added strategy for promoting both individual and organizational development.

The authors conducted a conceptual analysis with three case examples. The cases were purposefully selected, aiming to comprehend how the concept of self-leadership has been applied within organizations and to identify real-life examples where self-leadership has been adopted as an organizational strategy.

This study demonstrates that self-leadership plays a significant role in facilitating human resource development (HRD) initiatives. Specifically, the authors illustrate how self-leadership interventions in companies empower individuals to take charge of their development, aligning personal and organizational goals. When effectively applied, self-leadership strategies positively impact HRD practices in the areas of training and development, organization development and career development, yielding benefits for both employees and employers.

This study addresses knowledge gaps in the emerging field of self-leadership in HRD by providing three companies’ examples of how self-leadership can add value to HRD. The findings offer unique insights into the synergy between self-leadership and HRD, benefiting academics interested in this line of inquiry and HRD practitioners seeking innovative approaches to employee and organizational development.

Drawing on COR theory and based on a person-centered approach, this study aims to explore profiles of both leadership behavior (transformational leadership, abusive supervision) and well-being indicators (cognitive irritation, emotional exhaustion). Additionally, we consider whether certain resource-draining (work intensification) and resource-creating factors (leader autonomy, psychological contract fulfillment) from the leaders' work context are related to profile membership.

The profiles are built using LPA on data from 153 leaders and their 1,077 followers. The relationship between profile membership and correlates from the leaders' work context is examined using multinomial logistic regression analyses.

LPA results in an interpretable four-profile solution with the profiles named (1) Good health – constructive leading, (2) Average health – inconsistent leading, (3) Impaired health – constructive leading and (4) Impaired health – destructive leading. The two groups with the highest sample share – Profiles 1 and 3 – both show highly constructive leadership behavior but differ significantly in their well-being indicators. The regression analyses show that work intensification and psychological contract fulfillment are significantly related to profile membership.

The person-centered approach provides a more nuanced view of the leadership behavior – leader well-being relationship, which can address inconsistencies in previous research. In terms of practical relevance, the person-centered approach allows for the identification of risk groups among leaders for whom organizations can provide additional resources and health-promoting interventions.

Employer branding (EB) has become a powerful tool for organizations to attract employees. Recruitment communication ideally reveals the image that companies want to portray to potential employees to attract talents with the right skills and competences for the organization. This study explores the impact of EB on employer attractiveness by testing how pre-existing employee preferences interact with EB and how this interaction affects employer attractiveness.

A quasi-experiment among 289 final-year students was used to test the relationships between EB, perceived employer image, person-organization (P-O) fit and employer attractiveness, and the potential moderating variables of pre-existing preferences, in this case operationalized as locational preferences. Students are randomly assigned to four vacancies: one with and one without EB cues in two different locations: Groningen and Amsterdam. The authors used standard scales for attractiveness, perceptions of an employer and person-organization fit. The authors test the relationships using a regression analysis.

Results suggest that if respondents have previous predispositions, then their preference can be enhanced using an EB-targeted strategy. Based on these results, the authors can conclude that EB and related practices can be successful avenues for organizations in the war for talent, particularly if they reaffirm previous preferences of potential employees.

The research is original in the way it provides empirical evidence on the relationship between EB and attractiveness, particularly when previous employee preferences exist. This is of value to employers using EB as a tool to influence employer attractiveness.

This paper aims to determine the impact of perceived virtuality on team dynamics and outcomes by adopting the Input-Mediators-Outcome (IMO) framework. Further, it also investigates the mediating role of team processes and emergent states.

The authors collected survey data from 315 individuals working in virtual teams (VTs) in the information technology sector in India using both offline and online questionnaires. They performed the analysis using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM).

The authors investigated two sets of hypotheses – both direct and indirect (or mediation interactions). Results show that psychological empowerment and conflict management are significant in managing VTs. Also, perceived virtuality impacts team outcomes, i.e. perceived team performance, team satisfaction and subjective well-being.

The interplay between the behavioural team process (conflict management) and the emergent state (psychological empowerment) was examined. The study also helps broaden our understanding of the various psychological variables associated with teamwork in the context of VTs.

Findings from this study will aid in assessing the consequences of virtual teamwork at both individual and organisational levels, such as guiding the design and sustainability of VT arrangements, achieving higher productivity in VTs, and designing effective and interactive solutions in the virtual space.

The study examined the interplay between behavioural team processes (such as conflict management) and emergent states (such as psychological empowerment). The study also theorises and empirically tests the relationships between perceived virtuality and team outcomes (i.e. both affective and effectiveness). It may serve as a guide to understanding team dynamics in VTs better.

This exploratory study attempts to enhance the current understanding of the research and practice of VTs within a developing economy.

The purpose of this study was to investigate how to generate innovative work behaviors among Millennial and Generation Z sport employees and its impact on their career satisfaction and psychological well-being.

The authors used structural equation modeling to examine the relationships among predictors of job engagement, innovative work behaviors, career satisfaction and psychological well-being. The model was tested across managerial sport employees of Division I athletics departments (N = 224).

The highlights of the study include job engagement's positive relationship with innovative work behaviors and the positive influence of innovative work behavior on career satisfaction and psychological well-being.

These findings signify the importance of considering job engagement and innovative work behaviors to develop a positive work experience for Millennial and Generation Z sport employees. Doing so is thought to be a critical step in cultivating an organizational competitive advantage via younger generations of sport employees.

Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to examine the effects of servant leadership and despotic leadership on employees’ happiness at work (HAW) through job crafting.

To test the hypothesized relationships, the data were collected from 309 Pakistani employees. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the data.

The findings showed that servant leadership is an optimal leadership style for creating employees’ HAW. In addition, job crafting was found to mediate the effects of servant leadership on employees’ broad-based positive attitudinal outcome (HAW). Moreover, results showed that despotic leadership negatively influences employees’ HAW through job crafting.

This study is novel as it investigates how newer forms of positive (servant) and negative (despotic) leadership styles influence employees’ multidimensional attitudinal outcome (HAW) via job crafting. By doing so, this research extends the nomological network of servant leadership, despotic leadership, job crafting and HAW.

This paper aims to explore the mechanisms by which employees’ happiness at work (HAW) can be promoted. Drawing on the social exchange theory (SET), this study examined the relationships among discretionary human resource (HR) practices, perceived organizational support (POS), meaning of work (MOW) and HAW.

A three-path mediation model was developed to test the proposed relationships. The data were collected from Pakistani business professionals (n = 361), and hypotheses were tested using the PROCESS macro for SPSS .

The results suggest that POS mediates the relationship between discretionary HR practices and HAW. Also, MOW mediated the relationship between discretionary HR practices and HAW. Hence, both POS and MOW were found to be independent mediators. Further, the data provided support for the serial mediation of POS and MOW in the relationship between discretionary HR practices and HAW.

This research provides insights to organizations and their management on how discretionary HR practices can enhance employees’ POS, MOW and HAW.

The findings show that discretionary HR practices are associated with employees’ HAW. In addition, two mediators (POS and MOW) were found to serially mediate the aforesaid relationships. These findings are novel, as no prior research has used this nascent methodological approach to deepen our understanding by examining the associations between discretionary HR practices, POS, MOW and employees’ HAW.

Effective customer journey design (ECJD) is considered a key variable in customer experience management and an essential source of brand meaning and pro-brand behavior. Although previous research has confirmed its importance for driving brand attitudes and loyalty, the role of consumer-brand identification as a social identity-based influence in this relationship has not yet been discussed. Drawing on construal level and social identity theories, this paper aims to investigate whether effective journeys and the resulting overall journey experience are equally powerful in driving brand loyalty among customers with different levels of consumer-brand identification.

The present article develops and tests a research model using data from the European and US service sectors (N = 1,454) to investigate how and when ECJD affects service brand loyalty.

Across two cultural contexts, four service industries and 33 service brands, the results reveal that ECJD is a crucial driver of service brand loyalty for customers with low consumer-brand identification. Moreover, the findings show that different aspects of journey effectiveness positively impact the valence of customers’ experience related to those journeys – a process that is ultimately decisive for their brand loyalty.

This study is unique because it generates theoretical and practical knowledge by combining the literature streams of customer journey design, customer experience and branding. Furthermore, this work demonstrates that consumer-brand identification is a critical boundary condition to be considered in the relationship between ECJD and brand loyalty in services.

Society is critically dependent on an adequate supply of hospital doctors to ensure optimal health care. Voluntary turnover amongst hospital doctors is, however, an increasing problem for hospitals. The aim of this study was to systematically review the extant academic literature to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the current knowledge base on hospital doctor turnover and retention. In addition to this, we synthesise the most common methodological approaches used before then offering an agenda to guide future research.

Adopting the PRISMA methodology, we conducted a systematic literature search of four databases, namely CINAHL, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Web of Science.

We identified 51 papers that empirically examined hospital doctor turnover and retention. Most of these papers were quantitative, cross-sectional studies focussed on meso-level predictors of doctor turnover.

Selection criteria concentrated on doctors who worked in hospitals, which limited knowledge of one area of the healthcare environment. The review could disregard relevant articles, such as those that discuss the turnover and retention of doctors in other specialities, including general practitioners. Additionally, being limited to peer-reviewed published journals eliminates grey literature such as dissertations, reports and case studies, which may bring impactful results.

Globally, hospital doctor turnover is a prevalent issue that is influenced by a variety of factors. However, a lack of focus on doctors who remain in their job hinders a comprehensive understanding of the issue. Conducting “stay interviews” with doctors could provide valuable insight into what motivates them to remain and what could be done to enhance their work conditions. In addition, hospital management and recruiters should consider aspects of job embeddedness that occur outside of the workplace, such as facilitating connections outside of work. By resolving these concerns, hospitals can retain physicians more effectively and enhance their overall retention efforts.

Focussing on the reasons why employees remain with an organisation can have significant social repercussions. When organisations invest in gaining an understanding of what motivates their employees to stay in the job, they are better able to establish a positive work environment that likely to promote employee well-being and job satisfaction. This can result in enhanced job performance, increased productivity and higher employee retention rates, all of which are advantageous to the organisation and its employees.

The review concludes that there has been little consideration of the retention, as opposed to the turnover, of hospital doctors. We argue that more expansive methodological approaches would be useful, with more qualitative approaches likely to be particularly useful. We also call on future researchers to consider focussing further on why doctors remain in posts when so many are leaving.