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A work orientation represents a person’s beliefs about the meaning of work – the function work plays in the person’s life and the constellation of values and assumptions the person holds about the work domain. Research has suggested that adults tend to favor one of three primary work orientations: job, career, or calling. Empirical studies have shown that adults with different primary work orientations tend to experience different work and career outcomes; however, scholars have not analyzed how or why an individual first develops a work orientation. In this study, we take a first step toward investigating the origins of adults’ work orientations.

We propose hypotheses drawing on extant literature on the development of work values and occupational inheritance. We test hypotheses using a retrospective research design and survey methodology, with a sample of working adults.

Work orientations are developed through socialization processes with parents during adolescence. There are different patterns of development across the three work orientation categories: stronger calling orientations are developed when both parents possess strong calling orientations; stronger career orientations develop in accordance with fathers’ career orientations; and job orientations are related more to the nature of the adolescent’s relationship with parents than with parents’ own work orientations.

This research provides the first empirical study of the origin and development of work orientations.

This research offers insight into ways generations are connected through the perceived meaning of their work, even as the nature of work changes. We encourage future scholars to use this as a starting point for research on the development of work orientations, and to continue exploring these questions using additional methods, particularly longitudinal study designs.

The moderating roles of personal resources in the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model are relatively rarely examined, especially in non-western countries. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effect of a personal resource (i.e. intrinsic work value orientation) on the relationships between job demands, job resources, and job satisfaction among a large sample of Chinese employees from both mainland China and Taiwan.

Structured questionnaire survey was carried out to collect data from 402 employees in mainland China and 306 employees in Taiwan.

The authors found that intrinsic work value orientation amplified the negative relationship between work constraints (a job demand) and job satisfaction. Meanwhile, intrinsic work value orientation strengthened the positive relationship between autonomy (a job resource) and job satisfaction.

This is one of the few studies that explored the role of personal resources in the JD-R model. One unique contribution of the study is that the authors extended the JD-R model to include the intrinsic work value orientation as a resourceful work value for Chinese employees in two major Chinese societies. Based upon the findings, the authors suggest that personal resources such as work value orientation should be taken into account in the research of the JD-R model. Managerial implications of the findings are also discussed.

An increasing number of students delay graduation or graduate without a job, because they are not ready to make a career decision. In addition, the growing number of young adults who are not in education, employment or training (NEET) has become a social concern in South Korea. To facilitate career decision-making of undergraduates, this study examined the effects of work value orientation and academic major orientation on career decision-making self-efficacy (CDMSE). The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships among South Korean undergraduates’ intrinsic work value orientation, extrinsic work value orientation, academic major satisfaction and CDMSE.

Based on the literature review, this study tested a research model using structural equation modeling with survey results of 217 undergraduates.

The research results indicated that intrinsic work value orientation influenced academic major satisfaction and CDMSE. However, extrinsic work value orientation turned out to influence neither academic major satisfaction nor CDMSE. Academic major satisfaction also seemed to affect the CDMSE of the students in this study.

This study contributes to the field of career development by explaining the significance of undergraduates’ intrinsic work value orientation and academic major satisfaction on career decision-making. Whereas most research has focused on the effects of CDMSE, this study investigated the factors that influence undergraduates’ CDMSE.

“Academic values” is one of the most popular terms used in the higher education literature. But how do we study academic values? Besides autonomy, freedom, and collegiality, the “values” in “academic values” often remains implicit, leaving a conceptual gap in the literature. Moreover, autonomy, freedom, and collegiality may reflect the shared normative expectations as part of the value system of a profession, rather than the value orientation at the individual level. To examine the latter, this chapter proposes a conceptual framework adapted from the studies of work values in applied psychology. As a heuristic device, the academic work value framework consists of six ideal-typical value orientations belonging to three dimensions: work autonomy, social orientation, and value of knowledge. The framework's relevance and usefulness are evaluated by revisiting relevant literature on academic orientations. The result shows a spectrum of value positions in academic work, from the “old school” values to the “entrepreneurial” ones to the hybrid orientations. Overall, this framework provides a potential approach to operationalize the concept of academic values for empirical research. At the same time, as a heuristic device, it is open for reflection, critique, and further development.

The purpose of this paper is to integrate work values research with the Job Demands–Resources model to assess the role that work value orientations play in self-employed workers’ subjective well-being.

The paper analyzes unique data on freelancers participating in an online labor market (n=9,984).

Intrinsic work values are associated with greater subjective well-being, whereas extrinsic work values are associated with lower subjective well-being. Consistent with the buffer hypothesis, intrinsic work value orientation reduces the negative effect of working hours on worker’s well-being, and extrinsic orientation enhances the negative effect.

This paper calls into question the importance of working conditions relative to worker values when assessing the role that job demands and resources play in the new economy. As work becomes more demanding and employment relations more flexible, personal resources such as work value orientations may become increasingly important for worker’s well-being.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of three work‐value orientations — cosmopolitan, local and bureaucratic, on teachers' activities in the high‐school system. The research supported the notion that the bureaucratic orientation is not in conflict with the two other orientations and hence its effect on teachers' activities is not opposite to that of the local cosmopolitan orientation. Two hundred and sixty‐two high‐school teachers participated in the study. They answered mailed questionnaires which sought biographical data, measures of the three work value orientations and measures of five groups of school activities. Results indicated that teachers' activities are affected by their work‐value orientations. The bureaucratic orientation was not found to be in conflict with the two other orientations, but rather complementary to the local one in its effect on teachers' activity. The teachers who rated high in all three orientations were also the most involved in all five groups of school activities.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relation among work values and protean and boundaryless career orientations.

A sample of 238 employees aged 16 to 65 years from the French-speaking region of Switzerland completed two different work values scales as well as protean and boundaryless career attitudes scales. To assess the relationships among these constructs, correlations, multiple regression, and exploratory factorial analysis techniques were used.

Results suggested that protean and boundaryless career orientations were significantly positively related to intrinsic, social, and status work values. A boundaryless-organizational mobility orientation was significantly negatively associated with extrinsic/material work values.

Results have important implications for understanding which work values are typically endorsed by people with a protean or a boundaryless career orientation.

The present study contributes to the understanding of protean and boundaryless careers by clarifying the relationships among these career orientations and work values.

Examines the relationships between cultural values and preferences for human resource management (HRM) policies and practices in a sample of Taiwanese employees. Specifically, seeks to examine patterns of Chinese national culture in Taiwan, to identify the preferences of employees for specific HRM policies and practices, and to explore the extent to which individual cultural value orientations shape individual preferences for HRM policies and practices. Presents findings from data based on 452 employees from the shopfloor to senior management positions in seven Taiwanese organisations. By controlling the measure of national culture in terms of value orientations, it is found that they account for from only 5 per cent to 10 per cent of the total individual variance in HRM preference. A factor analysis supports the view that national culture value orientations represent a separate construct to both work values and more traditional measures of work outcomes, such as job satisfaction and commitment.

The purpose of this study is to compare the perceptions of work values among different generational groups (Boomers, Generation 386, Generation X and Millennials) in the Korean Government sector.

Using a sample of 1,084 employees working in the Korean Government sector, this study compared generational differences in work values with seven dimensions: detail, aggressiveness, team orientation, outcome orientation, people orientation, innovation and organization orientation.

This study found that Millennials had the most significant differences in aggression, team-orientation, innovation and organization-focus, compared to Generation 386. Millennials were less aggressive and more team-oriented and innovative than Generation 386. Millennials also put less value on the organization compared to Generation X and Generation 386, indicating that Millennials are less willing than other generations to sacrifice their individual needs for the needs of the organization. Generation X had higher values in supportiveness, fairness and respect for individuals than Generation 386.

This study adds to the current literature by empirically examining how employees’ work values are influenced by the generational differences of the workers.

Millennial-generation employees need to stimulate their creativity to produce innovative ideas, services and products for organizations to flourish and succeed. The main purpose of this research was to discover the mechanism through which organization identification influences employees' creativity in the Chinese organizational context. Particularly, we proposed the mediating role of work engagement and the moderating role of work values in the relationship.

A questionnaire survey was utilized to collect the data from 281 employees working in China. Hierarchical regression was utilized to analyze the data.

The findings reveal that organizational identification significantly influences the creativity of millennial employees; work engagement plays a positive mediating role between organizational identification and employee creativity. Moreover, work values of millennial generation employees, specifically utilitarian orientation, intrinsic preferences, interpersonal harmony and innovation orientation have a positive moderating effect between work engagement and employee creativity.

This study recognizes and analyzes the mechanism underlying the influence of organizational identification and recommends that work engagement is a crucial mediator of the complicated relationship between organizational identification and employee creativity. Consequently, this study is the key effort for millennial employees’ work values and engagement to explore employee creativity in Chinese cultural context and also suggests important theoretical and practical implications.