Job Challenge Research Articles

Predicting Retirement Upon Eligibility: An Embeddedness Perspective

AbstractConcern over the impact of baby‐boomers' retirement on needed skills and proprietary knowledge has stimulated an interest in identifying workplace factors associated with retirement upon eligibility. Drawing from embeddedness theory, the authors identify work‐based antecedents potentially underlying a related, but distinct, form of withdrawal—retirement upon eligibility. The authors generate and test hypotheses regarding the impact of fit‐, sacrifice‐, and links‐related antecedents using a prospective study design and a national probability sample of some 500 older individuals who, at the time of the initial interview, were within months of becoming—for the first time—eligible to receive such benefits. The findings indicate that, beyond the effects of person‐based antecedents (e.g., age, health, assets, expected retirement income), a combination of fit‐ (i.e., job challenge), sacrifice‐ (i.e., perceived organizational support), and links‐related factors (i.e., stability of close workplace peer relations) have a substantial influence on the decision to retire upon eligibility. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

노동보상이 금융공기업 종사자의 조직유효성에 미치는 영향 -자아효능감의 조절효과 검증-

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of work rewards on the organizational effectiveness including mediator role of self-efficacy, and also the work rewards was divided into three categories of task rewards, organizational rewards and social rewards, organizational effectiveness into two categories of organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Research findings are follows; First, job diversity and job challenge of task rewards, payment of organizational rewards, superior support of social rewards have a positive influence on organizational commitment. Second, job diversity, job challenge and job autonomy of task rewards, superior support of social rewards have a positive influence on job satisfaction of finance public enterprise employees. Third, tested mediator role of selt-efficacy between work rewards and organizational effectiveness, and found out moderating roles between work rewards and organizational commitment, but its role between organizational rewards and job satisfaction was found only in job stability of organizational rewards. In terms of the results of this study, the theoretical and practical implications of the findings were discussed and directions for future research were presented.

Measuring the Immeasurable! An Overview of Stress & Strain Measuring Instruments

Measurement of has been a subject of interest for many researchers and an extensive amount of literature has been devoted to this topic however despite the popularity of stress as a research topic, researchers still do not agree on a common definition of this controversial subject (Rees & Redfern, 2000). According to Person-Environment fit (PE-Fit) theory (French & Kahn, 1962; French et al., 1974), and strain at job comes into action from the interaction of individual with environment and particularly when job challenges pose a threat to individual which ends up in incompatible PE-Fit, leading to related physical and psychological strains (Edwards & Cooper, 1990, French, Caplan, & Harrison, 1982). PE-Fit and Demand-Control (Karasek, 1979) models developed to explain the job and strain have guided the construction of most measures of occupational (Vagg & Spielberger, 1998). This article in particular aims to discuss few of the most important and burnout measurement instruments designed so far and intend to offer recommendations regarding instrument selection. Furthermore this article shall also discuss the pros and cons of assessment approaches in general, with few suggestions for improvement.

Women project managers: the exploration of their job challenges and issue selling behaviors

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to explore women project managers as a group in order to generate new understanding about the present project context within which they work and to promote new research‐based ideas for optimizing their potential in business organizations. To this end, the paper explore their demographics and project characteristics, their project challenges and issue selling moves, and their perspectives on the advantages and disadvantages for women in this profession.Design/methodology/approachData were collected using quantitative and qualitative questionnaire items of 211 female project managers in North America.FindingsThe research results show significant associations among women project managers' career, age, cost of their projects, and their professional certifications. In addition, their challenges and issue‐selling moves produce six factors related to their influence of others. Lastly, the results reveal women's self‐described advantages and disadvantages in the project management profession showing that while women project managers do continue to experience marginalization from gender bias, they are leveraging particular job challenges and issue selling circumstances to their advantage in moving through gender bias.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of this study contribute to our knowledge of important real‐world challenges and career development opportunities for women managing contemporary projects. Several implications for future research that build on women's issue selling in project management are discussed. Suggestions for broadening the sample in future research are also included.Practical implicationsThis paper highlights several important ways in which business organizations can strengthen and optimize their women project managers, and offset second‐generation gender bias.Originality/valueThis is only the second study to consider the real‐world contextual factors of women's projects, and the first study to explore their perspective specifically in terms of their job challenges, issue selling, and self‐described disadvantages and advantages in managing projects. Business organizations are in a unique historical position to uplift their project management capacity and leadership talent through developing and promoting women project managers.

Job satisfaction, burnout and turnover intention in occupational therapists working in mental health

Employee wellbeing is an important issue for mental health services. Poor employee wellbeing (i.e., high levels of burnout or low job satisfaction) is associated with poorer consumer outcomes and higher staff turnover. This study set out to examine factors related to job satisfaction, turnover intention and burnout in a group of occupational therapists in mental health. Thirty-four occupational therapists (response rate approximately 60%) in a metropolitan public mental health service participated in a whole-of-service workforce survey. The survey included measures of job satisfaction, turnover intention, burnout, job hindrances, job challenges and job resources and questions about positive and negative aspects of positions and factors that attracted employees to their current position. Burnout was associated with lower job satisfaction and higher turnover intention. Higher job satisfaction was associated with rewards (remuneration and recognition) as well as cognitively challenging work. The variables most significantly associated with poorer wellbeing (higher turnover intention and burnout) were recipient contact demands (perception that contact with service users or families was demanding), and feelings of stress or fatigue. This study provides a detailed analysis of factors associated with job satisfaction, turnover intention and burnout in a group of occupational therapists working in mental health. To promote workforce wellbeing and enhanced retention, interventions to minimise burnout should be implemented and evaluated. These strategies should focus on enhancing job resources such as supervisor support, feedback and participation in decision making as well as building the personal resilience of occupational therapists working in mental health.

Weekly work engagement and flourishing: The role of hindrance and challenge job demands

Two studies were conducted to examine how home healthcare nurses stay engaged in their work and maintain their psychological well-being. In Study 1, we hypothesized that nurses would perceive work pressure more as a hindrance demand than as a challenge demand, and that the reverse would be true for emotional demands. We approached 120 home healthcare nurses who filled in a survey. Results of a series of paired sample t-tests supported our hypotheses. In Study 2, we used the JD-R model to hypothesize that weekly job demands can either facilitate or undermine the positive impact of personal resources on work engagement and flourishing, depending on the nature of the job demand (hindrance vs. challenge). A sample of 63 nurses filled in a questionnaire at the end of the working week during three consecutive weeks (N=3×63=189 occasions). Results of hierarchical linear modeling showed that emotional job demands strengthened the effect of personal resources on weekly well-being, whereas work pressure undermined this effect. Taken together, the present findings challenge the idea that whether job demands act as hindrances or challenges is the same for all occupations and for all individuals.

The Big Question: Manufacturing Jobs: What Is the Best Way to Create Jobs?

The Big Question: Manufacturing Jobs: What Is the Best Way to Create Jobs?

Does career timing of challenging job assignments influence the relationship with in-role job performance?

To prevent the potential threats of career plateauing for mid-career employees, it has been suggested to give them challenging assignments. This approach is inspired by empirical findings demonstrating that challenging job assignments generally have positive effects on job performance and career development. However, these studies have predominantly investigated the performance effects of job challenge for employees who are in their early career. Drawing on work experience theory and in line with contemporary career theories, we argue that the relationship between challenging assignments and in-role job performance may depend on when people encounter them in their career. Data were collected in a local branch of an international furniture retailer. For early-career employees, a positive relationship emerged between having challenging assignments and peer-rated in-role job performance. For mid-career employees, the relationship exhibited an inverted U-shaped curve, such that challenging assignments have a positive influence on in-role job performance up to some point and then begin to exhibit diminishing returns. Our findings suggest that challenging assignments should be tailored to the experiential background of the employee.

An Explanation of Differences Between Government Offices in Employees' Organizational Citizenship Behaviour

Organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB) includes employees' discretionary actions not explicitly recognized by formal reward systems that in the aggregate promote the effective functioning of the organization (Organ, 1988). The present study was the first group-level investigation of OCB antecedents in governmental organizations using the office or bureau, not the government employee, as the primary unit of analysis. The hypotheses foundational to the investigation posited that aggregate employee perceptions of the importance and challenge of work assigned in an office would predict, in part, the degree of overall job satisfaction, and that all three variables would be associated with the level of OCB reported in an office. The present study was conducted with an organizational survey of all employees in geographically dispersed offices of a state government agency. Altogether 2136 usable questionnaires were returned for an overall response rate of 82 per cent and subsequently partitioned into sixty-five distinct office groups. Results based on a multivariate path model suggested that the overall levels of job importance and job challenge in an office had positive relationships with collective job satisfaction and explained over two-thirds of the variability observed. Job satisfaction did not fully mediate the connection of work importance and work challenge to OCB; all three independent measures were linked directly to the amount of OCB reported in these offices (R 2 = .45). One important implication of the study is that OCB may serve as a compensatory mechanism in government offices for the assignment of somewhat inconsequential tasks and responsibilities.

A Study on the Relationships among Intrinsic Motivators, Psychological Empowerment, Affective Commitment and Service Quality

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships among intrinsic motivators, psychologicalempowerment, affective commitment, and service quality among hotel industry employees. For this study, data were collected from 233 hotel employees in Seoul Metropolitan City with self-administered questionnaires and analyzed using structural equation modelling technique. This study found that two job characteristics variables(job challenge and job autonomy) had positive effects on hotel employees' psychological empowerment; that three job characteristics variables(job challenge, job variety and job autonomy) and psychological empowerment had positive effects on hotel employees' organizational commitment; and that psychological empowerment and organizational commitment had positive effects on hotel employees' service quality. Key Words : Intrinsic Motivators, Psychological Empowerment, Organizational Commitment, Service Quality, Hotel Employees. Received 29 June 2013, Revised 20 July 2013Accepted 20 July 2013Corresponding Author: Sun-Bae-Kim(Hoseo University)Email: sunbkim@gmail.comⒸ The Society of Digital Policy & Management. All rights reserved. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.otg/licenses/by-nc/3.0), which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is ISSN: 1738-1916 properly cited.

Proactive personality and job performance: The role of job crafting and work engagement

The article examines the role of proactive personality in predicting work engagement and job performance. On the basis of the literature on proactive personality and the job demands–resources model, we hypothesized that employees with a proactive personality would be most likely to craft their own jobs, in order to stay engaged and perform well. Data were collected among 95 dyads of employees ( N = 190), who were working in various organizations. The results of structural equation modeling analyses offered strong support for the proposed model. Employees who were characterized by a proactive personality were most likely to craft their jobs (increase their structural and social job resources, and increase their job challenges); job crafting, in turn, was predictive of work engagement (vigor, dedication, and absorption) and colleague-ratings of in-role performance. These findings suggest that, to the extent that employees proactively adjust their work environment, they manage to stay engaged and perform well.

A PI-based Control Scheme for Primary Cascaded H-Bridge Rectifier in Transformerless Traction Converters

Cascaded H-Bridge rectifier (CHBR) is a more attractive solution in traction application for its transformerless structure. Because of the currents of different cells are exactly the same one, it is a challenge job to regulate the voltages of cells with only one current controller. In this paper, a PI-based control scheme is presented to deal with the voltages balance issue in CHBR. To satisfy the demand of rectifier such as unity power factor and regulated output DC voltages, the proposed control scheme consists of two parts. One is for shaping the grid current waveform and regulating the sum of DC-link voltages of all the cells; the other one is for balancing DC-link voltages. The latter is more concerned in this paper and is discussed in detail especially. Simulations and experiments are carried on. The results verified the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed scheme.

An ergonomic evaluation of tasks of healthcare unit personnel in different shifts in General Hospitals in West Bengal

Background: The job challenges faced by healthcare unit personnel are psychological, temporal and physically demanding. Studies on psychological stress on nurses are available but unfortunately studies on physiological load or temporal analysis of tasks of nurses or attendants in general hospitals in India have not been reported so far. Objective: The study aims at evaluating the perception of workload in different shifts among healthcare unit personnel and to develop better ergonomic management protocols. Participants: The study population comprised 150 staff nurses and 175 attendants working in three government hospitals in West Bengal, India. Method: The amount of time spent by nurses and attendants performing different tasks were recorded throughout the shifts using an activity analysis chart along with perceived exertion rating and heart rate throughout the shifts. Results: About 26.8% of the total working time throughout the day was spent in “direct care”. In case of general duty attendants 24.4% of the duty time was spent in indirect care. Time spent in different tasks differed by shifts. More leisure time occurs in the night shift compared to the morning and afternoon shifts but duration of shift was longer (11 to 12 hours). Perceived exertion rating of healthcare unit personnel in night shift was more compared to other shifts but physiological response did not reflect that. Conclusion: There were temporal variations of job demand in healthcare units. So, ergonomic orientation of layouts of departments, arrangement of activities, ergonomic way of keeping the records and use of proper communication system, recommended reducing the stress of healthcare unit personnel.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ijosh.v2i2.6566 International Journal of Occupational Safety and Health, Vol 2. No 2 (2012) 14-22

Do Job Demands Matter to Adaptive Selling Behavior?

Using the Job-Demands Resources (JD-R) model, the present paper conceptualizes salespeople’s job demands as a job challenge and examines the relationship between job demands and adaptive selling be...

The Effects of Daily Job Conditions on the Quality of Family Life

In this study we aimed to have a closer look at the consequences of daily work life on employees’ family life. Whereas previous studies mainly looked at consequences of work for the individual employee, we examine the effects of daily job demands and resources on the quality of the interactions for the family as a unit. Moreover, the recently extended version of the Job Demands – Resources model, distinguishing between challenge and hindrance job demands, was tested on diary data. On five consecutive days employees reported their job conditions (job demands, job resources) and work experiences (work engagement and exhaustion) right after work, while they reported their affective states (positive and negative affect) at home before going to sleep. Partners rated the daily family quality. The results showed that hindrance demands had mainly detrimental consequences on family quality, while partners rated the quality of family interactions higher when employees had experienced more challenge demands and more job resources at work. The process whereby daily job conditions affect daily family quality could be partially ascribed to the spillover of affective states from work to the family domain. We conclude that employees daily work life has wider consequences than their own experiences and outcomes. Jobs with plenty of challenging tasks and resources seem to benefit the family as a whole.

Investigating link between job characteristics and job satisfaction of extension workers

Job nature in extension services is associated with works in rural areas, which needs extension workers to show high levels of interest and job satisfaction. A survey of 52 extension workers was conducted in Markazi Province of Iran to explore the relationship between job characteristics and job satisfaction among extension workers using Bray Field and Rothe Job Satisfaction Index. The study found that the majority of the extension workers (65.5%) belonged to the intermediate level of job satisfaction, followed by 29.1 and 5.5% belonging to high and low levels of job satisfaction, respectively. Regression results also explained 30% of the variances in the job satisfaction. Two independent variables that accounted for the explained variances were the job challenge level (22%) and extension workers' ability to serve rural communities (8%). These results may be useful to policy makers both in the public and private sector and directors in general.

Job Design and Innovative Work Behavior: One Size Does Not Fit All Types of Employees

As innovative employees become imperative for an organizations’ success, research identified job design as a crucial variable in promoting innovative work behavior (IWB) (Hammond et al., 2011). Using the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model of Bakker & Demerouti (2007), this article contributes to the literature as it uses recent insights on the distinction between job challenges and job hindrances (Van den Broeck et al., 2010) and distinguishes between blue- and white-collar employees. Using survey data of 893 employees of various organizations the findings generally confirm the JD-R model, although important differences were found between blue-collar and white-collar employees regarding the relation of organizing and routine tasks with IWB. Job content insecurity further was found to be very detrimental for blue-collar IWB. These findings have important HR and political implications as they show that there is no ‘one size fits all’ HR solution for innovation.

Work Engagement, Organisational Commitment, Job Resources and Job Demands of Teachers Working Within Disadvantaged High Schools in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa

The study determined the relationship between work engagement, organisational commitment, job resources and job demands of teachers (N = 117) working within two historically disadvantaged high schools in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. A cross-sectional design was used (N = 117). Participants completed the following self-report measures: a demographic questionnaire, the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES; Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, & Bakker, 2002), Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ; Allen & Meyer, 1990) and the Job Demands-Resources Scale (JDRS; Jackson & Rothmann, 2005). Findings indicated job resources and challenge job demands to be positivly related to work engagement, while hindrance job demands were found to be negativly related to work engagement. Job resources were found to be predictive of work engagement. Work engagement mediated the relationship between job demands and organizational commitment.

Explaining the Pathways between Approach-Avoidance Personality Traits and Employees’ Job Search Behavior

Research suggests that certain personality characteristics lead to greater (or lesser) withdrawal from work, yet little research has examined exactly how personality translates into withdrawal behavior. To address this question, the present study demonstrated that the approach-avoidance personality traits of extraversion and neuroticism each showed simultaneous positive and negative effects on job search behaviors of employed individuals depending on the mediating mechanism involved (i.e., ambition values, job search self-efficacy, perceived job challenge, work burnout, perceived financial inadequacy, and job satisfaction). Our findings extend theoretical insights on the pathways linking dispositional traits and employee withdrawal behaviors, and suggest how employers can more precisely anticipate and mitigate employees’search for new employment.

Organizational identification among young software professionals in India

Building organizational identification is of importance to the software industry in India which has problems with attracting and retaining talented employees. This article examines the role of internalized organizational values, top management trust, and job challenge on organizational identification. Trust in senior management and organizational values are predictive of organizational identification. Perception of paternalistic management moderates the relationship between job challenge and organizational identification, such that those who perceive a higher level of paternalism exhibit a stronger positive relationship between job challenge and organizational identification. The article extends the nomological net of organizational identification to knowledge workers and paternalistic cultures.