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At the dawn of a new decade, as ever more corporations are pursuing sustainable working conditions and advocating employee well-being, employees are increasingly tending to feel fatigued and drained by their work, which compromises their performance. Drawing on the job demands–resources model and social acceleration debate, the authors test a moderated mediation model. Specifically, the authors hypothesise that unreasonable tasks raise perceptions of emotional exhaustion when the pace of work is increased and investigate the moderating role of psychological detachment.

This study used a sample of 245 employees from Europe, all knowledge workers, to test the hypotheses.

Apart from unreasonable tasks being directly related with emotional exhaustion, this relationship was mediated by the perceived work pace. In addition, the authors establish psychological detachment as a relevant moderator for the mediating effect.

Managers and HR practitioners are equipped with a better understanding of the effects of an increasing speed of work, the conditions leading to it and the individual and organizational resources that may help to create healthy and meaningful job positions, which facilitate employee efficiency.

Our study expands the literature on contemporary stressors and adds to what is known about the ‘dark side’ of job demands that affect the organizational bottom-line, as well as the resource-based mechanism that can buffer the negative effects.

Although the literature shows that ethical leadership reduces the risk of burnout, research still lacks a comprehensive understanding of the mediating effects between ethical leadership and burnout. As media reports on working conditions in the academic context often tie the problem of unethical leadership practices to illegitimate tasks, this study focuses on illegitimate tasks as a mediator between ethical leadership and burnout.

The research model is tested using structural equation modeling and data from 1,053 doctoral and postdoctoral students in randomly selected German state universities.

The results significantly support all hypothesized effects, showing direct correlations between (1) ethical leadership and illegitimate tasks, (2) ethical leadership and burnout facets and (3) illegitimate tasks and burnout facets. The relationship between ethical leadership and burnout is thus partially mediated by illegitimate tasks.

The authors recommend three major fields of action for practice. These fields comprise (1) the leadership situation, (2) the leader and (3) the follower.

The presented model is the first that connects the relationship between ethical leadership and burnout with illegitimate tasks and looks at ethical leadership from a stress-as-offense-to-self (SOS) perspective.

This study aims to understand essential work and occupational consequences of employees’ illegitimate task (ILT) experiences (unreasonable and unnecessary task demands) under the influence of vertical collectivist (VC) values.

Data were collected via a survey from 503 teachers in the Turkish public education sector. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

Findings of this study reveal that unnecessary tasks decrease employees’ professional identification and perceived occupational prestige, whereas unreasonable tasks weaken their workplace well-being. Results also show that employees with higher VC orientation feel these adverse effects to a lesser extent.

This study demonstrates that individual-level cultural values play a significant role in understanding task-related dynamics and consequences at the workplace. It brings new theoretical insights to job design and work stress literature regarding what similar factors can mitigate task pressures on employees.

A key practical insight from the findings is that human resources management experts should create a positive task environment where ILT demands are not welcome by analyzing jobs and skill requirements in detail, communicating task decisions regularly with employees and providing them with the necessary work support.

Understanding the impact of ILT can greatly help to assess the quality of the education system and the value of teaching occupation in society.

ILT have been mainly discussed without considering the effect of different cultural orientations. This is the first study empirically showing the diverse effects of two ILT dimensions on essential occupational outcomes in connection to individual-level cultural influences.

Based on achievement motivation theory and two-factor theory, this research aimed to synergize cooperative goal interdependence (refer to possessing incentive factors) and illegitimate tasks (refer to the absence of security factors) and build a triple interaction model in the process of performance pressure affecting employees’ thriving at work.

This research collected 291 valid data through a two-point time-lagged method to test the direct effect of performance pressure on employees’ thriving at work and its moderating mechanism.

Performance pressure has a significant positive effect on employees’ thriving at work. Cooperative goal interdependence imposes an enhanced moderating effect between performance pressure and employees’ thriving at work. Illegitimate task imposes an interfering moderating effect between performance pressure and employees’ thriving at work and further interferes the enhanced moderating effect of cooperative goal interdependence.

Under the premise of advocating for employees to internalize performance pressure originating from the organizational performance management system into their own achievement motivation, leaders should establish incentive systems and security systems for employees to realize self-achievement through the process of goal management and task management.

This research confirmed the joint determination of incentive effect and insecurity effect on employees’ achievement motivation by cooperative goal interdependence and illegitimate task and revealed the boundary conditions of employees’ choice of thriving at work.

This study aims to investigate the influence of illegitimate tasks on frontline hospitality employees’ in-role and extra-role performance via the mediating role of thriving at work and the moderating role of work centrality.

Survey data were collected from 264 supervisor–subordinate pairs from three hotels in Jiangsu, China and analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Illegitimate tasks negatively affected hospitality employees’ in-role and extra-role performance by inhibiting thriving at work. In addition, work centrality strengthened the impact of illegitimate tasks on thriving at work and their indirect effect on in-role and extra-role performance via reduced thriving at work.

First, managers should avoid assignment of unnecessary tasks. However, many tasks that could be viewed as illegitimate must still be performed; the results demonstrate that managers must be mindful of how such tasks are assigned and to whom, and should take steps to minimize and/or manage potential negative reactions to illegitimate tasks.

This study enriches the illegitimate tasks literature by examining its influence on the frontline hospitality employees’ in-role and extra-role performance and highlights a novel mediating mechanism linking illegitimate tasks and employee performance using conservation of resource theory. In addition, this reveals the novel moderating effect of work centrality.

Guided by the cognitive-affective system theory of personality (CAPS), this study aims to investigate the parallel mediating effects of cognitive and affective cynicism on the relationship between illegitimate tasks and employees’ adaptive performance. It also proposes growth need strength as a moderating variable for relationships between illegitimate tasks and employees’ adaptive performance.

Using a time-lagged design, data were gathered from 330 frontline hotel employees in China.

The authors found that the presence of illegitimate tasks is negatively associated with employees’ adaptive performance, this relationship being mediated by cognitive and affective cynicism. Growth need strength weakens the negative impacts of cognitive and affective cynicism on employees’ adaptive performance. In addition, the indirect effect of illegitimate tasks on employees’ adaptive performance via cognitive and affective cynicism is stronger for employees with lower levels of growth need strength.

Hotel managers must heed the negative impact of illegitimate tasks. Furthermore, they should underscore the importance of promoting a harmonious and positive organizational culture and atmosphere. Naturally, hotel managers must also establish effective communication with employees, assisting them in fostering a desire for excellence in their work.

This study provides valuable insights for the hospitality industry by investigating how illegitimate tasks hold sway over hotel employees’ adaptive performance. The study uses a moderated dual-path model to uncover the mechanisms behind this impact and the influence of boundary conditions, thereby expanding the understanding of the topic.

Based on conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study aims to examine the impact of daily illegitimate tasks on employees' daily silence and daily voice behavior, as well as the mediating role of daily ego depletion and the moderating role of trait mindfulness.

Through daily diary approach, 81 employees were followed for 10 consecutive workdays. Multilevel analysis was employed to examine the hypothesized relationships.

The results showed that daily illegitimate tasks are positively related to daily silence behavior and negatively related to daily voice behavior; daily ego depletion plays a mediating role in these relationships. Trait mindfulness moderates the effect of daily illegitimate tasks on daily ego depletion and the indirect effect of daily illegitimate tasks on daily silence and daily voice.

Managers should be mindful of minimizing the assignment of illegitimate tasks. Additionally, it is recommended that the organization provide training courses for employees to help them reduce ego depletion. Finally, organizations should focus on fostering high levels of mindfulness among their employees.

This study contributes to the existing literature by investigating the immediate impact of illegitimate tasks on employee voice and silence at within-person level. By doing so, it enhances comprehension of the consequences associated with illegitimate tasks. Meanwhile, this study offers additional insights into the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions of the effect of illegitimate tasks from a resource perspective.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze cross-national and cross-cultural similarities and differences in perceptions and conceptualizations of workplace bullying among human resource professionals (HRPs). Particular emphasis was given to what kind of behaviors are considered as bullying in different countries and what criteria interviewees use to decide whether a particular behavior is bullying or not.

HRPs in 13 different countries/regions (n=199), spanning all continents and all GLOBE cultural clusters (House et al., 2004), were interviewed and a qualitative content analysis was carried out.

Whereas interviewees across the different countries largely saw personal harassment and physical intimidation as bullying, work-related negative acts and social exclusion were construed very differently in the different countries. Repetition, negative effects on the target, intention to harm, and lack of a business case were decision criteria typically used by interviewees across the globe – other criteria varied by country.

The results help HRPs working in multinational organizations understand different perceptions of negative acts.

The findings point to the importance of cultural factors, such as power distance and performance orientation, and other contextual factors, such as economy and legislation for understanding varying conceptualizations of bullying.

Drawing on conservation of resource (COR) theory, the authors investigated relationships between bullying during work from home, turnover intention and meaningfulness of work among home-based teleworkers.

The authors used three-wave data from 212 home-based teleworkers to investigate the authors' hypotheses.

Findings reveal that bullying during home-based teleworking exacerbates teleworkers' emotional exhaustion and intention to quit. Further, the authors also found that the interrelationship between bullying during work from home and the intention to leave was positively moderated by the meaningfulness of work.

The authors' research helps understand how bullying stimulates teleworkers' turnover intention. Further, the authors find a counterintuitive impact of the meaningfulness of work on the relationship between bullying during work and turnover intention. The findings will help managers better manage home-based teleworkers.

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to reveal the relationship between perceived bullying and the features of a favourable working environment; and second, to indicate bullying factors that especially worsen the working environment and working environment factors that contribute to the bullying experiences.

In Spring 2014, 864 staff members—including teachers, researchers, administrators, project workers and service staff—from nine Estonian universities answered an e-mail questionnaire.

It was revealed that “professional understating”, “unreasonable work-related demands” and “work-related malpractice” are forms of bullying that negatively affect the working atmosphere. “Appreciation”, “vertical trust”, “predictability” and “quality of leadership” are working environment factors that contribute to the experiences of bullying. Experiences of “professional understating” seem to reduce feelings related to all features of a favourable working atmosphere. A lack of “appreciation” appears to be a key environment feature that also plays a role in workplace bullying.

In Estonian universities, first, “professional understating” negatively affects the feelings of “appreciation”; in contrast, a lack of “appreciation” contributes to feelings of “professional understating”. Second, “unreasonable work-related demands” is a sign of a shortage of “vertical trust” and the opposite of “trust” between management and employees, which obviously decreases perceived “workload”. The present results can be applied in at least three contexts: cultural and institutional studies, leadership practices and personal work control.

The detailed examination showed that it is possible to reveal certain bullying factors that specifically affect certain environment factors and find out particular working environment features that contribute specifically to certain kinds of bullying.