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The purpose of this paper is to gain a better understanding of the antecedents of the quality of graduates’ jobs when they enter the job market after university graduation.

Survey data collected from 173 Spanish bachelor and master’s degree university graduates at two time points (two months before and six months after graduation, approximately) were analyzed by means of path analysis.

A moderated mediation model was tested, where the relationship between the horizontal fit (HF) between the university degree subject and the student’s job and the quality of the graduate’s job after graduation is mediated by self-perceived employability and moderated by the time devoted to a student job. Results showed that the relationship between HF and job quality was partially mediated by self-perceived employability. However, contrary to the proposed hypothesis, this relationship did not depend on the time devoted to a student job.

This study contributes to improving the understanding about how and why university students’ work experience is related to the quality of their jobs as fresh graduates.

This article aims to provide prospective authors guidelines that will hopefully enable them to submit more competitive manuscripts to journals publishing careers research.

Based on their experience as an author, reviewer and editorial team member, the authors identify the main criteria that a quantitative study must meet to be considered for publication in international peer-reviewed journals covering career-related topics. They emphasize the importance of contributing to the careers literature and of designing the study in accordance with the research question.

Manuscripts are rejected because they are insufficiently innovative, and/or because sample, instruments and design are not appropriate to answer the research question at hand. Cross-sectional designs cannot be used to answer questions of mediation but should not be discarded automatically since they can be used to address other types of questions, including questions about nesting, clustering of individuals into subgroups, and to some extent, even causality.

The manuscript provides an insight into the decision-making process of reviewers and editorial board members and includes recommendations on the use of cross-sectional data.

This study examines whether job crafting is related to service-oriented task performance (i.e. performance aimed at providing high-quality services) through meaningful work and work engagement.

Data were collected from 156 employees of a Dutch unemployment agency (4 days, 531 observations). Multilevel SEM was used to analyze the data.

Results showed that job crafting was related to service-oriented task performance via meaningful work and work engagement. Specifically, seeking resources and seeking challenges were positively related to service-oriented task performance via meaningful work and work engagement, whereas reducing demands was negatively related to service-oriented task performance via meaningful work and work engagement.

The study concludes that seeking resources and seeking challenges are beneficial for service-oriented task performance.

The present study among 242 professionals working in a lung clinic and nursing home was designed to test a model that links supervisory behavior (i.e. leader member exchange (LMX) behavior and conflict management behavior) and reciprocity in the supervisor/subordinate relationship to objectively registered subordinate absenteeism. With respect to LMX‐behavior, a distinction was made between consideration and coaching of a subordinate by the supervisor and filling an assistant role by a subordinate. With respect to conflict management behavior, a distinction was made between openness, distribution, and control. It was hypothesized that subordinates’ feelings of reciprocity with respect to the relationship with their direct supervisor mediate the relation between supervisory behavior and subordinate absenteeism. Results of structural equation modeling showed that this was indeed the case for the relation between LMX‐behavior and subordinate absenteeism. Supervisory conflict management behavior was not directly related to subordinates’ feelings of reciprocity, but only indirectly through LMX‐behavior. Finally, and quite surprisingly, subordinates’ feelings of reciprocity turned out to be positively related to their absence frequency.

The opposite of absenteeism, presenteeism, is the phenomenon of employees staying at work when they should be off sick. Presenteeism is an important problem for organizations, because employees who turn up for work, when sick, cause a reduction in productivity levels. The central aim of the present study is to examine the longitudinal relationships between job demands, burnout (exhaustion and depersonalization), and presenteeism. We hypothesized that job demands and exhaustion (but not depersonalization) would lead to presenteeism, and that presenteeism would lead to both exhaustion and depersonalization over time.

The hypotheses were tested in a sample of 258 staff nurses who filled out questionnaires at three measurement points with 1.5 years in‐between the waves.

Results were generally in line with predictions. Job demands caused more presenteeism, while depersonalization was an outcome of presenteeism over time. Exhaustion and presenteeism were found to be reciprocal, suggesting that when employees experience exhaustion, they mobilize compensation strategies, which ultimately increases their exhaustion.

These findings suggest that presenteeism can be seen as a risk‐taking organizational behavior and shows substantial longitudinal relationships with job demands and burnout.

The study suggests that presenteeism should be prevented at the workplace.

The expected contribution of the manuscript is not only to put presenteeism on the research agenda but also to make both organizations and scientists attend to its detrimental effects on employees' wellbeing and (consequently) on the organization.

The main objective of this study is to apply broaden‐and‐build theory to occupational wellbeing. More specifically, it seeks to test whether positive emotions “build” resources and to what extent they contribute to work engagement through an increase in personal or job resources. Additionally, it aims to hypothesize that positive emotions, resources, and work engagement are reciprocally related to each other in a way akin to a gain cycle.

In order to test whether positive emotions, personal and job resources, and work engagement are related over time, a structural equation model was constructed. The model was based on two waves of data, with a time lag of six months.

Results show a reciprocal relationship between positive emotions and personal resources. Furthermore, there is a causal effect of personal resources on work engagement and a reversed causal effect of work engagement on positive emotions. Most surprising is the fact that no relationships with job resources are found to be significant.

Because the authors exclusively used self‐report measures to assess positive emotions, resources, and work engagement, the cross‐paths might have been inflated.

The results underline the importance of increasing both positive emotions and the level of personal resources in order to create an engaged workforce.

The study adds to the existing literature in the sense that the research model entailed positive emotions as a “novel” variable in the context of resources and work engagement. The model recognized the building capacity of positive emotions as well as the potential of personal resources in predicting work engagement.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effects of an individual oriented positive psychology intervention on positive emotions, self‐efficacy, and work engagement.

The online self‐enhancement intervention program consists of three types of online assignments: happiness assignments, goal setting assignments, and resource building assignments. The authors expected the self‐enhancement intervention group to show a significantly stronger increase in the outcome variables compared to a self‐monitoring control group.

The results revealed that the self‐enhancement group showed a stronger increase in positive emotions and self‐efficacy compared to the control group, but not on engagement. Additional analyses showed that the positive effects of the self‐enhancement intervention are present for employees who are initially low in engagement, but not for those medium or high in engagement.

The study was conducted via a semi‐public web site. The participants were all working in different organizations throughout the country and did not have the advantage of having the support of their supervisors and colleagues who were participating in a similar intervention.

Positive psychology interventions should target employees who are low in engagement, because they have the most unused potential and therefore have more to gain.

Traditionally speaking, individual interventions are carried out when something is wrong or malfunctioning, and with the sole objective of fixing it. The intervention presented in this paper includes the entire workforce, because it is based on the belief that improving employee well‐being is relevant for all.

The purpose of this study is to examine the moderating role of regulatory focus in the job demands‐resources model.

A questionnaire survey was conducted among 146 teachers in secondary education. It was expected that detrimental effects of job demands (i.e. workload, interpersonal conflict) on emotional exhaustion would be more pronounced among individuals with a strong prevention focus (oriented towards safety and security). Favorable effects of job resources (i.e. autonomy, social support) on motivational outcomes were expected to be more pronounced among individuals with a strong promotion focus (oriented towards growth and development).

The hypotheses regarding the moderating role of prevention focus were confirmed, but the moderating effect of promotion focus appeared to be exactly opposite to expectations. The effect of job resources on motivational outcomes was more pronounced for individuals with a weak promotion focus.

To the best of one's knowledge, this is the first study to examine the role of regulatory focus in the job demands‐resources model. The study shows that regulatory focus is important in explaining individual responses to job demands and resources and may therefore be a relevant factor in career development.

This paper aims to explore, which characteristics of activity-based offices are related to the position of workers on the burnout – engagement continuum.

Literature review and an online survey amongst knowledge workers in the Netherlands, which provided data of 184 respondents from 14 organisations. The data has been analysed by descriptive statistics, bivariate analyses, factor analyses and path analysis, to test the conceptual model.

Five physical work environment constructs were identified of which three showed to have significant relations with employees’ position on one of the three dimensions of the burnout – engagement continuum. Distraction has a direct and indirect (through overload) negative relation with the individual strain (meaning increased exhaustion). Office comfort has indirect positive relations (through recognition and appreciation) with the interpersonal strain (meaning increased involvement). The possibility for teleworking has an indirect positive relation (through control) on the self-evaluation strain (meaning increased efficacy).

The findings show that in the design and management of a healthy physical work environment, corporate real estate managers and human resource managers should particularly pay attention to lowering distraction, providing comfortable workplaces and considering the option of teleworking to some extent.

This paper provides new insights into the impact of distinct activity-based workplace characteristics on workers’ position on the burnout – engagement continuum.