Search results
1 – 10 of over 31000Leena Maren Pundt, Anne Marit Wöhrmann, Jürgen Deller and Kenneth S. Shultz
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of personal motivational goals and the corresponding occupational characteristics of volunteer, work-related activities in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship of personal motivational goals and the corresponding occupational characteristics of volunteer, work-related activities in retirement with life and work satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach
Fully retired individuals working for a non-profit organization in their former professional career field on a non-paid basis were surveyed using an online survey (n=661) to assess their motivational goals, the occupational characteristics of their projects, and satisfaction with life and work.
Findings
Results suggested that post-retirement volunteer workers differentiated between perceived life and work satisfaction. The motives of achievement, appreciation, autonomy, contact, and generativity significantly directly affected life satisfaction and indirectly affected work satisfaction. Occupational characteristics assessing achievement, appreciation, autonomy, contact, and generativity had direct effects on work satisfaction but not on life satisfaction except for occupational autonomy.
Research limitations/implications
The study was cross-sectional and based on self-report data of highly educated German retirees working in volunteer professional positions, thus potentially limiting the generalizability of findings.
Practical implications
Organizations should enable post-retirement volunteer workers to meet their motivation goals by designing work opportunities to fulfill the motivational goals of achievement, appreciation, autonomy, contact, and generativity.
Social implications
Post-retirement activities possess the potential to help solve societal problems by countering the shortage of specialists and managers at the same time that the burden on social security systems is reduced.
Originality/value
The paper presents evidence that different personal motivational goals and occupational characteristics are important in post-retirement activities. The findings imply that work designs created for post-retirement activities should provide a variety of occupational characteristics, such as occupational achievement and appreciation.
Details
Keywords
Diana K. Young, Alexander J. McLeod and Darrell Carpenter
In response to the tech skills gap, this research paper aims to examine the influence of occupational characteristics, gender and work-life balance on IT professionals'…
Abstract
Purpose
In response to the tech skills gap, this research paper aims to examine the influence of occupational characteristics, gender and work-life balance on IT professionals' satisfaction with and commitment to their chosen occupation. In addition, the authors explore occupational differences across these investigated factors.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employed a survey research method and partial least squares (PLS) modeling using 293 responses collected from professionals representing five clusters of Information Technology (IT) occupations. Authors further conducted exploratory post-hoc analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests to check for significant differences in key constructs across five IT occupational clusters.
Findings
Occupational characteristics were found to be significantly related to respondents' occupational satisfaction while work-life balance was associated with their level of occupational commitment. Authors also found that that the influence of work-life balance on occupational commitment was more positive for females than for males. Finally, significant differences were found for task significance, task variety, task autonomy, work-life balance and compensation across the five occupational clusters examined.
Originality/value
A key contribution of this study is the focus on IT professionals' satisfaction with and commitment to their chosen occupation rather than a job, organization or profession. Accordingly, the authors contribute a nuanced understanding of an occupation as a facet of job, professional and career outcomes. Authors also explore how gender moderates the influence of work-life balance on occupational commitment. Finally, rather than treating the IT profession as a unified whole as has been done in most prior studies, authors explore satisfaction and commitment related differences across occupational clusters.
Details
Keywords
Yongqiu Wu, Gideon Maas, Yi Zhang, Fengwen Chen, Senmao Xia, Kiran Fernandes and Kun Tian
Previous experience is a critical factor affecting entrepreneurial activities; however, it has not been fully studied in the existing literature. This study attempts to…
Abstract
Purpose
Previous experience is a critical factor affecting entrepreneurial activities; however, it has not been fully studied in the existing literature. This study attempts to comprehensively reveal the routes and mechanisms of occupational experience that affect entrepreneurial activities and assess the entrepreneurial potential of different occupational practitioners.
Design/methodology/approach
By matching occupational characteristics with entrepreneurs' competence, this study proposes ten hypotheses about how occupational experience affects entrepreneurial entry and performance. This empirical study is based on the Occupational Information Network database and Chinese survey data. Factor and regression analyses were used in the empirical research.
Findings
This study verifies that different occupational practitioners have varied entrepreneurial potential. Occupational experience, including occupational uncertainty, market contact and social capital, gained from previous experience significantly affects entrepreneurial entry. Meanwhile, occupational characteristics, including management experience, marketing experience, social capital, financial capital, risk-taking ability and creativity, accumulated from previous experience, have a significant impact on entrepreneurial performance.
Originality/value
This study is a pioneering attempt to reveal the relationship between occupational experience and entrepreneurial activities. The transmission mechanism of previous experiences affecting entrepreneurial activities is comprehensively revealed by relaxing the assumption of a representative occupation. These findings provide a theoretical foundation for empirical evidence and have important practical value.
Details
Keywords
It is well-known that the majority of women work in a limited number of occupations characterized by a proportionately high number of female workers. Moreover, workers in these…
Abstract
It is well-known that the majority of women work in a limited number of occupations characterized by a proportionately high number of female workers. Moreover, workers in these female-dominated (FD) occupations earn less, on average, than workers in traditionally male or integrated occupations (McPherson & Hirsch, 1995). This occupational wage differential is widely accepted as a partial explanation for the pervasive gender wage-differential. However, it is unclear why an individual would enter into a FD occupation if the wages are lower than in nonfemale-dominated (NFD) occupations. It is also unclear if women who choose FD occupations could earn more in occupations that are NFD. Therefore, attributing a portion of the gender wage differential to occupational differences may be incorrect. Indeed, differences in the occupational choices of men and women will only explain the wage differential between genders if females in FD occupations could expect to earn higher wages elsewhere.
The purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelation between two important dimensions of gender segregation: education and occupation. It further investigates the gender wage…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the interrelation between two important dimensions of gender segregation: education and occupation. It further investigates the gender wage gap.
Design/methodology/approach
The author uses a three-way additive decomposition of the mutual information index – an index based on the concept of entropy. A non-parametric wage decomposition method that uses matching comparisons is used for measuring the wage gap.
Findings
The results show that the extent of gender segregation in India is higher in urban areas than that in rural areas. Most of the observed segregation in rural labour markets originates from educational outcomes, whereas in urban markets it is due to occupational profile of individuals. The findings of the wage decomposition analysis suggest that education in rural areas also explains a sizeable part of the gender wage differential. Nevertheless, a large share of the wage gap remains unexplained in both rural and urban areas.
Originality/value
While much research has looked at occupational segregation, less attention has been paid to educational segregation. The paper uses a unique approach to understand the joint effect of occupation and education in explaining gender segregation.
Details
Keywords
Jutta Viinikainen, Petri Böckerman, Marko Elovainio, Christian Hakulinen, Mirka Hintsanen, Mika Kähönen, Jaakko Pehkonen, Laura Pulkki-Råback, Olli Raitakari and Liisa Keltikangas-Järvinen
A prominent labour market feature in recent decades has been the increase in abstract and service jobs, while the demand for routine work has declined. This article examines…
Abstract
Purpose
A prominent labour market feature in recent decades has been the increase in abstract and service jobs, while the demand for routine work has declined. This article examines whether the components of Type A behaviour predict workers' selection into non-routine abstract, non-routine service and routine jobs.
Design/methodology/approach
Building on the work by Barrick et al. (2013), this article first presents how the theory of purposeful work behaviour can be used to explain how individuals with different levels of Type A components sort into abstract, service and routine jobs. Then, using longitudinal data, it examines whether the components of Type A behaviour predict occupational sorting. Estimations were performed based on the linear regression method.
Findings
The results show that the Type A dimension “leadership” was associated with a higher level of abstract and service job tasks in occupation. High eagerness-energy and responsibility were also positively linked with occupation's level of abstract tasks. These results suggest that workers sort into jobs that allow them to pursue higher-order implicit goals.
Originality/value
Job market polarisation towards low-routine jobs has had a pervasive influence on the labour market during the past few decades. Based on high-quality data that combine prime working-age register information on occupational attainment with information about personality characteristics, the findings contribute to our knowledge of how personality characteristics contribute to occupational sorting in terms of this important job aspect.
Details
Keywords
J. Bruce Gilstrap, Jaron Harvey, Milorad M. Novicevic and M. Ronald Buckley
Research vitality addresses the perseverance that faculty members in the organization sciences experience in maintaining their research quantity and quality over an extended…
Abstract
Purpose
Research vitality addresses the perseverance that faculty members in the organization sciences experience in maintaining their research quantity and quality over an extended period of time. The purpose of this paper is to offer a theoretical model of research vitality.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors propose a model consisting of individual and situational factors which influence the motivation and commitment of a professor to continue to conduct quality research over an extended period of time. Additionally, the authors identify benefits that may accrue when faculty members possess research vitality and discuss human resource management implications for schools engaged in hiring, tenuring, promoting, and socializing faculty members. A set of propositions about research vitality and contextual factors that influence this construct are presented and discussed.
Findings
An individual‐level construct that represents a time related measure of the quality and quantity of individual contributions to the scholarly discipline of management is developed. Every individual in the organizational sciences field has the capability to contribute in a meaningful way.
Research limitations/implications
The model presented has a number of personal implications and departmental implications such as how to predict research vitality in junior faculty members.
Practical implications
The framework should be used for understanding one element of success in the organizational sciences.
Originality/value
The paper develops a model of research vitality to explain why some faculty continue to be productive, even in the face of a challenging research process.
Details
Keywords
Bastian Ravesteijn, Hans van Kippersluis and Eddy van Doorslaer
Health is distributed unequally by occupation. Workers on a lower rung of the occupational ladder report worse health, have a higher probability of disability and die earlier than…
Abstract
Health is distributed unequally by occupation. Workers on a lower rung of the occupational ladder report worse health, have a higher probability of disability and die earlier than workers higher up the occupational hierarchy. Using a theoretical framework that unveils some of the potential mechanisms underlying these disparities, three core insights emerge: (i) there is selection into occupation on the basis of initial wealth, education and health, (ii) there will be behavioural responses to adverse working conditions, which can have compensating or reinforcing effects on health and (iii) workplace conditions increase health inequalities if workers with initially low socio-economic status choose harmful occupations and don’t offset detrimental health effects. We provide empirical illustrations of these insights using data for the Netherlands and assess the evidence available in the economics literature.
Details
Keywords
Jorgen Hansen and Roger Wahlberg
This paper examines the relationship between the gender wage gap and occupational gender segregation in Sweden. The results show that the gender wage gap varies substantially…
Abstract
This paper examines the relationship between the gender wage gap and occupational gender segregation in Sweden. The results show that the gender wage gap varies substantially across occupations. It is small in male-dominated occupations and relatively large in female-dominated occupations. Further, as much as 30% of the overall gender wage gap in Sweden can be attributed to occupational segregation by gender. Finally, the return to work experience for women is substantially higher in male-dominated occupations than in female-dominated occupations, suggesting that the cost for work interruptions are lower in female-dominated occupations than in male-dominated occupations. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that women choose occupations in which the penalty for work interruptions is low. Thus, occupational segregation may arise because of gender differences in preferences for occupational characteristics and not necessarily because of discriminatory practices by employers.
Occupational preferences and subsequent turnover behaviour are part of a complex relationship between employees and their occupational and organizational labour markets. Both…
Abstract
Occupational preferences and subsequent turnover behaviour are part of a complex relationship between employees and their occupational and organizational labour markets. Both markets contribute to matching skills and jobs. Differences in individual and occupational attributes can predict the direction and intensity of preferences for alternative organizations, occupations and job locations. Occupational preferences, which reflect the attractiveness of alternative positions within and outside the employing organization, are examined as central antecedents of occupation‐specific turnover behaviour. The results of a logistic regression analysis, based on a cross‐sectional occupational representative data set of 700 medical sector employees and a follow‐up sample of 81 “quitters”, suggest that turnover behaviour is influenced by organizational and occupational employment opportunities and occupational preferences.
Details