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This study aims to explore the role of frontline service employees’ (FSEs) awareness that their job can be substituted by smart technology, artificial intelligence, robotics and algorithms (STARA) in their job autonomy and proactive service performance and when these relationships can be buffered. Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, the study examined the mediating relationship between FSEs’ STARA awareness, job autonomy and proactive service performance and the moderating effects of self-efficacy and resilience on this relationship.

The authors administered two-wave online surveys to 301 South Korean FSEs working in various service sectors (e.g. retailing, food/beverage, hospitality/tourism and banking). The Time 1 survey measured respondents’ STARA awareness, self-efficacy, resilience and job autonomy, and the Time 2 survey assessed their proactive service performance.

FSEs’ STARA awareness negatively affected their subsequent proactive service performance through decreased job autonomy. The negative association between STARA awareness and job autonomy was weaker when FSEs’ self-efficacy was high than when it was low. While the authors observed no significant moderation of resilience, the author found a marginally significant three-way interaction between STARA awareness, self-efficacy and resilience. Specifically, STARA awareness was negatively related to job autonomy only when both self-efficacy and resilience were low. When either self-efficacy or resilience was high, the association between STARA awareness and job autonomy became nonsignificant, suggesting the buffering roles of the two personal resources.

Given that the measurement of variables relied on self-reported data, rater biases might have affected the findings of the study. Moreover, the simultaneous measurement of STARA awareness, self-efficacy, resilience and job autonomy could preclude causal inferences between these variables. The authors encourage future studies to use a more rigorous methodology to reduce rater biases and establish stronger causality between the variables.

Service firms can decrease FSEs’ STARA awareness through training in the knowledge and skills necessary to work with these technologies. To promote FSEs’ proactive service performance in this context, service firms need to involve them in decisions related to STARA adoption and allow them to craft their jobs. Service managers should provide FSEs with social support and exercise empowering and supportive leadership to help them view STARA as a challenge rather than a threat.

Distinct from prior research on STARA awareness and employee outcomes, the study identified proactive service performance as a key outcome in the STARA context. By presenting self-efficacy and resilience as crucial personal resources that buffer FSEs from the deleterious impact of STARA awareness, the study provides practitioners with insights that can help FSEs maintain their job autonomy and proactive service performance in times of digitalization and automation.

As knowledge management increasingly becomes critical for the success of professional service firms, this paper uses social exchange theory to investigate the interactive impact of transformational leadership and organizational innovation on online knowledge sharing by employees in professional service firms. This study aims to investigate the mediating roles of job autonomy and job engagement in this process.

Data were collected from a survey of 350 frontline employees in professional service providers, including banking, telecommunication and insurance. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

The results show that transformational leadership positively affects job autonomy, which in turn has a positive impact on online knowledge sharing through job engagement. Thus, job autonomy and job engagement mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and online knowledge sharing. Finally, organizational innovation moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and job autonomy.

This paper extends the knowledge management literature by studying the impact of transformational leadership on the online knowledge-sharing behavior and exploring the focal roles of job autonomy and job engagement in online-sharing behavior in professional service firms. The findings also provide useful implications for practitioners to help them engage employees in the adoption of digital technologies to optimize outcomes.

The purpose of this study seeks to examine how nonfamily employees' job autonomy and work passion can influence their job satisfaction and intention to quit in family small-to-medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Current, research regarding the determinants of nonfamily employees' job satisfaction and turnover intentions has largely focused on the effects of family influence and family firm characteristics. Accordingly, not much is known of how the job characteristics and emotions of nonfamily employees influence their job satisfaction and intention to quit.

Data were collected from 160 nonfamily employees across 28 family-SMEs. Process macro was used to analyze the mediating role of nonfamily employees' work passion in the relationship between their job autonomy and job satisfaction and intention to quit.

Findings showed that nonfamily employees' job autonomy only had a significant direct effects on their job satisfaction and not their intention to quit. Subsequently, nonfamily employees' work passion was found to only partially mediate the relationship between their job autonomy and job satisfaction.

By focusing on the concepts of job autonomy and work passion, the study adds additional insights about the drivers of nonfamily employees' pro-organizational attitudes in family-SMEs. Also the study represents one of the first efforts in the literature to establish a link between job autonomy and the work passion of nonfamily employees with respect to their job satisfaction.

Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study aims to develop and test a model of moderated mediation in the relationship between job autonomy and employee life satisfaction, focusing on the mediating role of work–family enrichment (WFE) and the moderating role of segmentation preference.

Using a time-lagged research design, data were collected from 314 employees representing various organisations in Vietnam. The PROCESS macro in SPSS 20.0 was used to analyse the relationships.

The results indicate a positive relationship between job autonomy and employees’ life satisfaction, mediated by WFE. Additionally, the indirect effect of job autonomy on life satisfaction via WFE was weaker when employees preferred high work–family segmentation.

The study suggests that organisations can enhance employee life satisfaction by increasing job autonomy and promoting WFE. Organisations can establish a more supportive and engaging work environment that promotes well-being by tailoring these interventions to suit employees’ segmentation preferences.

This study contributes to the literature by shedding light on how organisational factors influence employee life satisfaction. It provides the first empirical evidence of a relationship between job autonomy and life satisfaction. It also explores the potential mediation effect of WFE and the moderating effect of segmentation preference.

The authors examine the interactive effects of work engagement and work autonomy in enhancing job crafting behaviour and performance.

Dyadic data from a sample of 320 white-collar employees in an Indian manufacturer are analysed through structural equation modelling.

The level of job crafting is highest when both work engagement and work autonomy are high. Job crafting fully mediates the interactive effect of work engagement and autonomy on task performance and partially on contextual performance.

There is value in reviewing organisational constraints on employee autonomy to foster the ways in which highly motivated workers can craft their jobs and, thus, maximise their performance.

This study demonstrates the interactive effects of work engagement and autonomy in enhancing job crafting and, through this mechanism, employee performance.

Knowledge sharing is a key part of enterprise knowledge management, which helps to develop and use knowledge-related resources and ultimately achieve organizational goals. This study aims to theoretically discuss and empirically investigate the mechanism by which the intention to share knowledge is influenced by employees’ attitudes, social pressure and job characteristics.

Based on the theory of planned behavior, this study uses primary data collected from technology companies in the Yangtze River Delta region of China based on a longitudinal tracking research method of different variables at two different points in time. The data from 287 questionnaires were investigated by hierarchical regression analysis and processed with SPSS 21.0.

The findings suggest that attitudes toward knowledge sharing, perceived social norms and job autonomy positively affect knowledge-sharing intentions. Job autonomy plays a moderating role in the relationship between perceived social norms and knowledge-sharing intentions. Specifically, job autonomy positively moderates the effect of pro-sharing norms on knowledge-sharing intentions and negatively moderates the effects of subjective norms on knowledge-sharing intentions.

This study brings together employees’ and work-related characteristics to systematically explore the influence of employees’ personal evaluations of knowledge sharing. Additionally, by empirically distinguishing between subjective and pro-sharing norms, the study contributes to a better understanding of the antecedents of knowledge sharing and other voluntary behaviors at the individual level.

The ever-demanding role of employees in the hospitality sector stimulates job crafting. This study examines the relationship between inclusive leadership and job-crafting dimensions under the mediating role of work engagement through the lens of conservation of resources (COR) theory. It also aims to analyse the boundary condition of job autonomy between inclusive leadership and work engagement.

The data were collected in 3-time lags from 319 front-line workers in the hospitality sector. The adopted and adapted questionnaires were executed through a deductive approach and an applied research method. The data were analysed through SmartPLS by applying the structural equation modelling (SEM) technique.

This study provides evidence for a predictive relationship between inclusive leadership and job-crafting dimensions under the mediating psychological mechanism of work engagement. Additionally, the moderating role of job autonomy is established in the unique context of the hospitality sector of an underdeveloped country, Pakistan.

Services-based organisations need to endure the inclusive leadership style by establishing work engagement practices. Engaged employees result in better job-crafting behaviours through better training and subsequent performance.

This study established that work engagement and job autonomy are imperative forces that impact the relationship between inclusive leadership and job-crafting dimensions. The research study has time-lagged data and conveys meaningful theoretical and practical implications.

Drawing upon the job demands-resources model, the purpose of this study is to investigate the differential relevance of contextual antecedents for job crafting dimensions (i.e. increasing structural and social job resources) and consequently for various aspects of work performance (in-role and extra-role performance). Despite considerable research on the role of job autonomy and social support in predicting job crafting, little attention has been paid to how problem-solving, a knowledge job characteristic, relates to job crafting dimensions.

Survey data were collected from 282 employees belonging to different information technology companies in Romania. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the hypothesized relations.

Problem-solving was positively related to both job crafting dimensions, whereas social support was positively related only to increasing social job resources. Unexpectedly, job autonomy predicted increasing structural resources only when social support was high, as the post-hoc analysis indicated. Furthermore, increasing structural job resources fully mediated the relationship of problem-solving with in-role performance and different types of extra-role behaviors, whereas increasing social resources did not act as a mediator.

The current study is the first to show that problem-solving is an important predictor for job crafting. Furthermore, this study contributes to the literature by revealing that crafting structural resources represents an important mechanism that explains the positive relationship between work design (i.e. problem-solving) and different performance facets.

This study aims to explore the double-edged sword effect of work connectivity behavior after-hours (WCBA) on employees’ occupational mental health. Drawing on job demand-resource theory, the authors examined the double mediating mechanism of work autonomy and work-family conflict on the relationship of WCBA, work engagement and work burnout. At the same time, the authors examined the moderating role of responsiveness from superiors, hoping to clarify how WCBA brings employees positive experiences (engagement) or negative experiences (burnout).

Under the mediating mechanism of work autonomy and work-family conflict, the authors built a dual-path model and moderated mediation model to examine the effect of WCBA on work engagement and burnout. Two-stage paired data were collected from various industries in China by distributing questionnaires to employees. The hypotheses were tested using the structural equation model and the bootstrap test method.

The results showed that WCBA positively affects work engagement and burnout. Work autonomy plays a mediating role both in the relationship between WCBA and work engagement and in the relationship between WCBA and work burnout. In addition, work-family conflict plays a mediating role both in the relationship between WCBA and work burnout and in the relationship between WCBA and work engagement. Responsiveness from superiors not only moderated the relationship between WCBA and work autonomy and between WCBA and work-family conflict but also moderated the mediating effects of work autonomy and work-family conflict.

This study examined the double-edged sword effect of WCBA on employees’ occupational mental health, the dual mediation of work autonomy and work-family conflict and the moderating effect of responsiveness from superiors. This study can enrich the understanding of the effects of WCBA as well as the influential factors and boundary conditions related to employees’ occupational mental health. Organizations (represented by superiors) and individuals were integrated into one model, providing a new perspective for studying WCBA. The research will help managers and individuals gain a comprehensive understanding of WCBA, and how to enhance its positive effects and circumvent its negative effects.

This study aims to examine the role of location autonomy (i.e. autonomy over where to work) in shaping employee mental distress during their working days.

A total of 316 employees from 6 organizations in the UK provided data for 4,082 half-day sessions, over 10 working days. Random intercept modeling is used to analyze half-day data nested within individuals.

Results show that location autonomy, beyond decision-making autonomy and work-method autonomy, is positively associated with the perception of task-environment (TE) fit which, in turn, contributes to lower mental distress during each half-day session. Results of supplementary analysis also show that location autonomy can contribute to higher absorption, task proficiency and job satisfaction via TE fit during each half-day session.

This study reveals the importance and uniqueness of location autonomy in shaping employees' outcomes, offering implications for how organizations can use this in the work–life flexibility policies to support employee mental health.