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Employees today face a number of threats to their work and financial well-being (i.e., economic stress). In an aim to provide an agenda and theoretical framework for research on multilevel outcomes of economic stress, the current chapter considers how employees’ economic stress gives rise to emergent outcomes and how these emergent outcomes feed back to influence well-being. Specifically, we draw from Conservation of Resources theory to integrate competing theoretical perspectives with regard to employees’ behavioral responses to economic stress. As employees’ behaviors influence those with whom they interact, we propose that behavioral responses to economic stress have implications for group-level well-being (e.g., interpersonal climate, cohesion) and group-level economic stress. In turn, group-level and individual-level behavioral outcomes influence well-being and economic stress in a multilevel resource loss cycle. We discuss potential opportunities and challenges associated with testing this model as well as how it could be used to examine higher-level emergent effects (e.g., at the organizational level).

This paper examines the influence of stress arousal and burnout as mediators of the negative relations between role stressors and job outcomes (satisfaction, performance, and turnover intentions) among a sample of AICPA members working in public accounting. It extends prior research which examined these linkages (Chong & Monroe, 2015; Fogarty, Singh, Rhoads, & Moore, 2000; Smith, Davy, & Everly, 2007) by evaluating a model that simultaneously incorporates stress arousal and the three fundamental dimensions of burnout, i.e., emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment. This paper also utilizes a recently validated stress arousal measure designed to capture the worry and rumination aspects of arousal posited to be responsible for a number of negative personal outcomes.

The results indicate that role stressors, mediated by stress arousal and the individual burnout dimensions, have a negative influence on job outcomes. In line with predictions regarding the temporal ordering of stress arousal and burnout in the model, each of the job stressors had a significant positive influence on accountants’ stress arousal, and the influence of the individual role stressors on each burnout dimension was either partially or fully mediated via their relations with stress arousal. In turn, the influence of stress arousal on each of the job outcomes was either partially or fully mediated through its relations with emotional exhaustion.

This study applies asymmetric rather than conventional symmetric analysis to advance theory in occupational psychology. The study applies systematic case-based analyses to model complex relations among conditions (i.e., configurations of high and low scores for variables) in terms of set memberships of managers. The study uses Boolean algebra to identify configurations (i.e., recipes) reflecting complex conditions sufficient for the occurrence of outcomes of interest (e.g., high versus low financial job stress, job strain, and job satisfaction). The study applies complexity theory tenets to offer a nuanced perspective concerning the occurrence of contrarian cases – for example, in identifying different cases (e.g., managers) with high membership scores in a variable (e.g., core self-evaluation) who have low job satisfaction scores and when different cases with low membership scores in the same variable have high job satisfaction. In a large-scale empirical study of managers (n = 928) in four (contextual) segments of the farm industry in New Zealand, this study tests the fit and predictive validities of set membership configurations for simple and complex antecedent conditions that indicate high/low core self-evaluations, job stress, and high/low job satisfaction. The findings support the conclusion that complexity theory in combination with configural analysis offers useful insights for explaining nuances in the causes and outcomes to high stress as well as low stress among farm managers. Some findings support and some are contrary to symmetric relationship findings (i.e., highly significant correlations that support main effect hypotheses).

I present and evaluate various explanations for why new workers who were sponsored by oldtimers tend to have better job outcomes (better performance, more satisfaction, and less turnover) than do new workers who were not sponsored.

My evaluations involve searching for evidence that fits (or does not fit) each of the explanations.

The two most popular explanations argue that the job benefits of sponsorship arise because (a) sponsored newcomers have more realistic job expectations than do unsponsored newcomers, or (b) the quality of sponsored newcomers is greater than that of unsponsored newcomers. Unfortunately, these explanations have weak empirical support. A third explanation, largely untested as yet, attributes the performance benefits of sponsorship to social pressures that can arise when someone is sponsored for a job. These pressures include efforts by newcomers to repay the people who sponsored them, efforts by sponsors to assist the newcomers they sponsored after those persons have been hired, and stereotypes among coworkers about the kinds of people who get jobs through sponsors. Although limited as yet, the evidence regarding this new explanation seems promising.

More research on this third explanation for sponsorship effects should be done. Suggestions for how to do such research are reviewed and a relevant experiment is presented.

The ideas and evidence presented here could help employers who want to improve the job outcomes of their new workers. Poor outcomes among such persons are a major problem in many settings.

Although some of my ideas have been mentioned by others, they were not been described in much detail, nor were they tested. My hope is that this chapter will promote new theory and research on the performance benefits of sponsorship, a topic that has been largely ignored in recent years.

Organizations have become increasingly interested in developing their human resources. One tool that has been explored in this quest is mentoring. This has led to a surge in mentoring research and an increase in the number of formal mentoring programs implemented in organizations. This review provides a survey of the empirical work on mentoring that is organized around the major questions that have been investigated. Then a conceptual model, focused on formal mentoring relationships, is developed to help understand the mentoring process. The model draws upon research from a diverse body of literature, including interpersonal relationships, career success, training and development, and informal mentoring. Finally, a discussion of critical next steps for research in the mentoring domain is presented.

Multidimensional fit (MDF) has been coined as “elusive” and relevant to an individual’s social identity and self-concept, unfolding over time as individuals assess their fit relative to Person-Organization, Person-Vocation, Person-Job, and Person-Team Fit. In this chapter, the literature as it relates to the refugee employment journey, MDF, and HRM practices that facilitate or inhibit MDF is reviewed. Furthermore, in this study, the process-oriented view of the refuge path highlights the complexity of their experience, noting an array of antecedents as they relate to country, host country and individual differences, interventions through NGOs, refugee resettlement agencies, and organizations, as well as the less explored entrepreneurial path. These diverse paths and the process of finding fit, and the obstacles refugees face, are viewed through the lens of shocks and reassessment of MDF throughout their journey. Finally, the study’s outcomes illustrate individual wellbeing factors, organizational level benefits, as well as community level benefits to MDF.

Using data collected from professionals in a large U.S. national public accounting firm, we explored gender differences in perceived levels of role stress and job outcomes as well as the effects of a healthy lifestyle as a coping mechanism for role stress, burnout, and related job outcomes. Our large sample size (1,681) and equal participation by women (49.7 percent) and men (50.3 percent) allowed us to analyze the causal relationships of these variables using a previously tested multi-disciplinary research model (Jones, Norman, & Wier, 2010). We found that women and men perceive similar levels of role stress as defined by role ambiguity and role overload, and that women perceive less role conflict. Men and women perceive similar levels of job satisfaction and job performance. Contrary to earlier studies, women do not report higher levels of turnover intentions. Results show that efforts of the public accounting firms over the past decade may be somewhat successful in reducing the levels of role stress and turnover intentions among women. Another plausible explanation could be that an expansionist theory of gender, work, and family (Barnett & Hyde, 2001) may now be responsible for improved well-being of females to the point where the genders have converged in their experience of role stress and job outcomes in public accounting.

Drawing on Bandwidth Fidelity Theory (Cronbach, 1970; Cronbach & Gleser, 1965), this chapter argues for more specificity with regard to conceptualizing and measuring variables in the field of behavioral ethics. We provide an example of how this might be accomplished, by building on recent work on organizational support that emphasizes more specific facets of perceived organizational support (POS). We introduce the concept of perceived organizational support for ethics (POS-E) and test its predictive power on a sample of 4,315 employees from manufacturing and technology firms. We find support for our assertions that ethics-specific support is a better predictor of ethics-related outcomes (e.g., pressure to violate ethical standards, preparedness to handle ethical violations) and general support (POS) is a better predictor of more general organizational outcomes (i.e., job satisfaction). Theoretical and practical implications of these results and the importance of moving toward more specific versus general constructs in the field of behavioral ethics are discussed.

Recent years have seen an explosion in the study of emotions in organizations, and although emotions play a central role in the job stress process, their role is largely neglected in empirical stressor–strain studies. Our chapter aims to build consensus in the literature by showing that discrete emotions provide a mechanism through which stressors exert their impact on well-being. By examining a larger domain of stressors, emotions, and well-being, we begin to develop and expand upon the nomological network of emotions. In an effort to build on the job demands–resources (JD-R) model, which includes both job demands (i.e., negative stimuli such as time pressure) and resources (i.e., positive stimuli such as autonomy), we include both negative and positive discrete emotions with the expectation that negative emotions will generally be linked to demands and positive emotions will be linked to resources. We also propose that there may be circumstances where demands trigger negative discrete emotions and lead to greater experienced strain, and conversely, where resources arouse positive discrete emotions, which would positively affect well-being. The model in our chapter sheds light on how discrete emotions have different antecedents (i.e., job demands and resources) and outcomes (e.g., satisfaction, burnout, performance), and as such, respond to calls for research on this topic. Our findings will be of particular interest to organizations where employees can be trained to manage their emotions to reduce the strain associated with job stressors.

High-involvement work processes (HIWPs) are associated with high levels of employee influence over the work process, such as high levels of control over how to handle individual job tasks or a high level of involvement at team or workplace level in designing work procedures. When implementations of HIWPs are accompanied by companion investments in human capital – for example, in better information and training, higher pay and stronger employee voice – it is appropriate to talk not only of HIWPs but of “high-involvement work systems” (HIWSs). This chapter reviews the theory and practice of HIWPs and HIWSs. Across a range of academic perspectives and societies, it has regularly been argued that steps to enhance employee involvement in decision-making create better opportunities to perform, better utilization of skill and human potential, and better employee motivation, leading, in turn, to various improvements in organizational and employee outcomes.

However, there are also costs to increased employee involvement and the authors review the important economic and sociopolitical contingencies that help to explain the incidence or distribution of HIWPs and HIWSs. The authors also review the research on the outcomes of higher employee involvement for firms and workers, discuss the quality of the research methods used, and consider the tensions with which the model is associated. This chapter concludes with an outline of the research agenda, envisaging an ongoing role for both quantitative and qualitative studies. Without ignoring the difficulties involved, the authors argue, from the societal perspective, that the high-involvement pathway should be considered one of the most important vectors available to improve the quality of work and employee well-being.