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This paper aims to capture the challenges faced by large industrial firms in implementing employee green behaviour. It uses the gamification-based Octalysis framework for identifying motivational drives and entwins it to self-efficacy theory seeking to motivate and engage the employees through game techniques.

This paper uses qualitative approach where semi-structured interviews were conducted through snowball sampling technique with managers in senior positions in power sector holding significant decision-making authority. The interviews were transcribed and were analysed thematically.

This study offers compelling evidence that industrial firms are grappling to inculcate pro-environmental behaviour largely losing on incentivising motivation. Gamification can provide an enjoyable framework balancing intrinsic and extrinsic motivational drives.

This study offers a framework applicable to organisations across sectors, addressing challenges in implementing green behaviour by leveraging four phases of game mechanics. It tackles issues related to motivation and demand for incentives by striking a balance between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations.

This research stands out by incorporating game mechanics, specifically designed through Octalysis, to boost self-efficacy and encourage green behaviour among employees. Furthermore, it is in harmony with Sustainable Development Goals and circular principles.

Understanding employees’ multi-dimensional motivations is at the core of realizing the potential of a well-designed human resource (HR) system. This study aims to investigate whether the effects of HR practices on employee motivations, and their performance would be dependent on the service orientation of HR department.

The authors collected data in two surveys: a pilot survey and a main survey with a two-wave design. The pilot survey with 93 respondents was to verify the newly developed HR service orientation scale. In the main survey, a total of 276 supervisor-subordinate pairs from 48 companies were valid for analysis.

The authors find support for their hypothesis that promotion-oriented motivation mediates the relationship between discretionary HR practices and employee outcomes [in-role performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)]. Furthermore, the indirect effect of discretionary HR practices on employee outcomes is stronger when the HR service orientation is higher. Transactional HR practices, however, are not evidenced to relate to employee prevention-focused motivation and outcomes.

The findings illustrate a comprehensive process of HR practices on employees’ multi-dimensional motivations. High service skills of HR professionals in handling internal employees’ needs could amplify employees’ promotion-focused motives, which in turn increase their in-role performance and OCB.

In sum, the authors' study contributes to both human resource management (HRM) and employee motivation literature by demonstrating the different impacts of discretionary and transactional HR practices on employees’ motivations. In addition, by revealing HR service orientation as an important contingency factor, the authors shed greater light on when and how HR practices can motivate employees.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of leaders' managerial coaching on followers' organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), creativity and task performance. This study also examined the mediating role of intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy, recognizing the follower’s attitude and cognition as essential elements of behavioral changes.

This study collected data from 20 companies across multiple industries in South Korea, and a total of 386 leader–follower dyads' data were used.

The results show that leaders' coaching is positively associated with OCB directly, but a direct impact of coaching on creativity and task performance was not supported. The results also showed that intrinsic motivation partially mediates the effect of coaching on OCB and fully mediates the effect of coaching on creativity and task performance. Self-efficacy played a role as a full mediator between coaching and task performance.

This study considered both the cognitive and affective aspects of managerial coaching and examined the influence of managerial coaching on the followers' in-role and extra-role behaviors (i.e. OCB, creativity and task performance) using responses from both the leaders and the followers at multiple organizations. Specifically, the results of this study empirically illustrated that managerial coaching by leaders serves as a mechanism mediated through intrinsic motivation and self-efficacy, linking to employees' OCB, creativity and task performance. This provides a clear explanation of the processes through which managerial coaching impacts employees and offers insights into the specific aspects that organizational leaders should focus on when engaging in managerial coaching.

This study examines how team-level mediating mechanisms (i.e. team psychological safety and team helping behaviour) facilitate the relationship between employees' ingratiation and performance ratings.

The data were collected from 180 customer service teams working in Pakistan's hospitality industry through multiple sources using a paper and pencil questionnaire.

The multi-level structural equation modelling results showed that team psychological safety and helping behaviour fully mediated the relationship between ingratiation and performance ratings.

The study has offered some implications for theory and practices.

This study showed that ingratiation might be a helpful impression management tool within a team context. Such an influence technique nurtures a psychologically safe climate and encourages peers to help each other perform mutual tasks within the hospitality context.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the structural relationship model among narcissism, work centrality, employee engagement and discretionary effort.

Respecting the quantitative approach, the data were gathered by means of the survey completed by 1,190 respondents of Generation X, Y and Z working in the Thai service and manufacturing industries.

The findings of the study indicated positive associations between narcissism and work centrality, narcissism and employee engagement, work centrality and employee engagement and employee engagement and discretionary effort. It was observed that work centrality played a partially mediating role in the relationships between narcissism and employee engagement, while employee engagement fully mediated the associations between work centrality and discretionary effort, as well as between narcissism and discretionary effort. The structural model demonstrated variations across different generational cohorts, suggesting that the relationships differed among generations. However, the model did not exhibit any variations across different types of industries. Furthermore, the findings from the Thai samples indicated that generational differences had a moderating effect on the path relationships between narcissism and work centrality (with Generation Y having a stronger effect compared to Generation Z and Generation X), narcissism and employee engagement (with Generation Y having a stronger effect compared to Generation Z and Generation X) and narcissism and discretionary effort (with Generation X having a stronger effect compared to Generation Y and Generation Z), all with a significance level of 95%. Additionally, the relationship between employee engagement and discretionary effort showed a significant difference across generations, with Generation Z exhibiting a stronger effect compared to Generation Y and Generation X, at a significance level of 99%.

This study provides empirical evidence supporting the positive relationships between narcissism and work centrality, as well as narcissism and employee engagement, contrary to previous research findings. The results reveal that employee engagement fully mediates the associations between work centrality and discretionary effort, as well as between narcissism and discretionary effort, offering valuable contributions to the existing literature. Furthermore, this study expands on previous research by examining the moderating effect of industry type, specifically comparing manufacturing and service industries. The findings suggest that the model exhibits variations across different generational cohorts, highlighting the importance of considering generational differences in understanding these relationships. However, the model does not exhibit variations across different types of industries.

This study analyzes, from the perspective of social exchange theory, the influence of empowering leadership on contextual performance mediated by perceived organizational support (POS) and affective organizational commitment (AOC).

A survey was carried out with 182 employees of the Best Companies to Work in Brazil. Data analysis was performed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and by fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA).

Results demonstrate that empowering leadership directly influences higher contextual performance and indirectly through the mediation of AOC, but not through POS. Serial mediation confirms that the model's variables self-promote each other to ultimately foster higher performance. Furthermore, all solutions to obtain high contextual performance include empowering leadership in the dimension of trust in the high performance of employees.

The statistical support for the serial mediation indicates that empowering leadership promotes POS, which influences AOC that finally promotes the employee's contextual performance. However, this study's model does not include employees' task performance; our results add to the contextual performance literature.

The study highlights the role of the empowering leadership style in the organizational context, an aspect that deserves attention from the managers and organizations due to its effect on employee performance.

The study adds a new framework to the literature, which can be used by organizations to promote contextual performance. The variables, which include contextual and individual factors, foster the employee's contextual performance in a joint and self-promoting way. Contextual performance exceeds the manager's technical attributions; it covers psychological and discretionary behaviors.

The present study aims to examine the relationship between real earnings management and earnings persistence and also to test how the group affiliation of the firms influences this relationship.

The study draws the sample of listed non-financial firms in the Indian market from the year 2011 to 2018 and applies panel least squares regression with industry and year fixed effects. Future performance of a firm is measured by one year leading value of return on assets. The interaction term of real earnings management and return on assets is used to measure the impact of real earnings management on earnings persistence. The firm-specific controlling variables are also included in the empirical model. The robustness of the results is tested by sub-dividing the sample into group affiliated and non-group affiliated firms.

The findings of the study reveal that opportunistic earnings management has a significant impact on earnings persistence when real earnings management is measured through abnormal increase in operating cash flows and abnormal reduction in discretionary expenditure. On the other hand, signalling earnings management has a significant impact on earnings persistence when real earnings management is measured through abnormal increase in the level of production. The results also reveal that REM has more negative implications on group affiliated firms compared to non-group affiliated firms supporting the theory of entrenchment effect.

This is the first study in the Indian context which tests the implications of real earnings management on earnings persistence by using three alternative measures of real earnings management. The study contributes to the existing literature on the implications of real earnings management in emerging markets like India.

Emotions are an important aspect of work performance but are often overlooked, especially amongst preschool teachers whose work environment is laden with emotional job demands. The present study aims to examine the mediating role of emotional exhaustion in the relationship between emotional labour and contextual performance.

Using a cross-sectional design, data were obtained from 288 preschool teachers in the Tema Metropolis in the Greater Accra region of Ghana. The study's hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling with maximum likelihood estimation in AMOS 21.0.

The structural equation modelling analyses revealed that deep acting had a direct positive relationship with contextual performance, whereas the direct relationship between surface acting and contextual performance was not statistically significant. Furthermore, deep acting and surface acting were indirectly related to contextual performance via emotional exhaustion.

The study's findings underscore the need for educational institutions and managers to create a supportive environment for teachers engaging in emotional labour, and to ensure that emotional labour is not overburdening teachers.

The study contributes to the literature on teachers' engagement in discretionary behaviours by elucidating emotional exhaustion as a linking mechanism between emotional labour and contextual performance in a non-Western context. This is one of the few studies to link emotional labour to contextual performance in the educational context.

This study examines the relationship between leader–member exchange (LMX) and employee discretionary work behaviors in terms of job crafting, innovative work behavior and knowledge-sharing behavior by focusing on the mediating role of psychological safety.

Multi-source and multi-wave data were collected from 284 employees in the banking sector of Pakistan.

The findings reveal a positive relationship between LMX and psychological safety. Psychological safety, in turn, is positively related to discretionary work behaviors (i.e. job crafting, innovative work behavior and knowledge-sharing behavior). Moreover, psychological safety fully mediates the relationship between LMX and discretionary work behaviors.

Drawing upon the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study introduces psychological safety as a mediating mechanism in the relationship between LMX and three important discretionary work behaviors.

New Public Management-informed pay-for-performance policies are common in public sectors internationally but can be controversial with delivery agents. More attention is needed on contingent forms of bottom-up implementation of challenging policies, in emerging market economies, for professionals who face tensions between policies and their codes of practice. Street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) mediate policy implementation through discretionary practices; health professionals have enhanced space for discretion based on autonomy derived from professional status. The authors explore policy implementation, adaptation and resistance by physicians, focusing on payments for health workers in Turkey.

The researchers conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with 12 physicians in Turkish hospitals and thematic analysis of interview transcripts, using a blended (deductive and inductive) approach.

The policy fostered discretionary behaviours such as cherry-picking (high volume, low risk procedures) and pro-social rule-breaking (e.g. “upcoding”), highlighting clinical autonomy to navigate within policy restrictions. Respondents described damage to relationships with patients and colleagues, and dissonance between professional practice and perverse policy incentives, sometimes leading to disengagement from clinical work. Policymakers were perceived to be detached from the realities experienced by SLBs. Tensions between the policy and professional values risked alienating physicians.

This study utilises participant self-reported perceptions of discretionary behaviours. Further work may adopt alternative methods to explore the relationship between self-reporting and observed practice.

The authors contribute to research on differentiated, contingent roles of groups with high scope for discretion in bottom-up implementation, pointing to the potential for policy-professional role conflicts between top-down P4P policies, and the values and codes of practice of professional SLBs.