Positive Job Attitudes Research Articles

Factors Affecting Internship Satisfaction among Tourism Majors: A Case Study

This study investigates the major factors affecting internship satisfaction among tourism majors and identifies the key elements that enhance it. Methods including Item-Objective Congruence (IOC), pilot testing, and Multiple Linear Regression (MLR) were used. The findings reveal that the working environment has the greatest impact on internship satisfaction, followed by job attitude and career expectations, while perceived supervisor support has an insignificant effect. The study concludes that fostering a positive job attitude, aligning internships with career expectations, and establishing a favorable working environment are crucial for enhancing internship satisfaction.

Evidence of community health workers’ delivery of physical rehabilitation services in sub-Saharan Africa: a scoping review

ObjectivesTo map the evidence and scope of physical rehabilitation services delivered by community health workers (CHWs) in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).DesignScoping reviewData sourcesPubMed, Scopus, Cochrane Central and databases within the EBSCOhost...

The psychometric properties of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale on a Zimbabwean population

Orientation: Work engagement has been found to be related to positive job attitudes such as job involvement, job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and low turnover intention.Research purpose: The primary goal of this study was to test the psychometric properties of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) on a Zimbabwean sample.Motivation for the study: The UWES is a widely used measure of work engagement. Therefore, there is a need to assess the reliability and construct validity of the UWES in a Zimbabwean sample owing to the paucity of studies on its psychometric properties in this setting.Research approach/design and method: A cross-sectional survey research design was employed (N = 304). A non-probability sample of 304 participants from selected security organisations was studied. The UWES was used to measure work engagement, and its reliability was evaluated using SPSS. Construct validity was assessed through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using LISREL.Main findings: Moderately high levels of reliability were found for the UWES subscales. A poor model fit with the data was found for first-order measurement models through CFA.Practical/managerial implications: The UWES demonstrated a reasonable fit for the 9-item scale CFA model tested in this study. Moderately high reliability coefficients were recorded for all the subscales of the UWES.Contribution/value-add: The study promotes the use of reliable and valid instruments in Zimbabwe by confirming the psychometric properties of the UWES.

Does job crafting affect employee outcomes via job characteristics? A meta‐analytic test of a key job crafting mechanism

AbstractJob crafting refers to the self‐initiated work behaviours employees use to change their job characteristics. According to job design theory, these crafting‐induced changes in job characteristics should impact employee outcomes. Job characteristics can therefore be proposed as a key mechanism through which job crafting affects employee outcomes and we present cross‐sectional meta‐analytic structural equation modelling of this key mechanism (K = 58 independent samples, N = 20,347 employees). Results show significant indirect effects between task resource crafting and employee outcomes (well‐being and positive job attitudes) via task resources, and significant indirect effects between social job crafting and employee outcomes (well‐being and positive job attitudes) via social resources. Results also indicated that challenge and hindrance demand crafting increase job strain via increases in job demand. Overall, our findings indicate that job characteristics are an important job crafting mechanism, that employees may have difficulty in crafting job demands in ways that produce beneficial outcomes, and that future research needs to consider simultaneously the range of mechanisms through which job crafting affects outcomes.

"Attitudes to voices": a survey exploring the factors influencing clinicians' intention to assess distressing voices and attitudes towards working with young people who hear voices.

Due to the general psychopathological vulnerability of young people who hear distressing voices, research has stressed the importance for clinicians to assess this experience in youth. Nonetheless, the limited literature on the topic comes from studies with clinicians in adult health services and it primarily reports that clinicians do not feel confident in systematically assessing voice-hearing and doubt the appropriateness of doing so. We applied the Theory of Planned Behavior and identified clinicians' job attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and perceived subjective norms as putative predictors of their intent to assess voice-hearing in youth. Nine hundred and ninety-six clinicians from adult mental health services, 467 from Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) and Early Intervention in Psychosis (EIP) services and 318 primary care clinicians across the UK completed an online survey. The survey gathered data on attitudes toward working with people who hear voices, stigmatizing beliefs, and self-perceived confidence in voice-related practices (screening for, discussing and providing psychoeducation material about voice-hearing). Responses from youth mental health clinicians were compared with professionals working in adult mental health and primary care settings. This study also aimed to identify what youth mental health clinicians believe about assessing distressing voices in adolescents and how beliefs predict assessment intention. Compared to other clinicians, EIP clinicians reported the most positive job attitudes toward working with young voice-hearers, the highest self-efficacy in voice-hearing practices, and similar levels of stigma. Job attitudes, perceived behavioral control and subjective norms explained a large part of the influences on clinician's intention to assess voice-hearing across all service groups. In both CAMHS and EIP services, specific beliefs relating to the usefulness of assessing voice-hearing, and perceived social pressure from specialist mental health professionals regarding assessment practices predicted clinician intention. Clinicians' intention to assess distressing voices in young people was moderately high, with attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioral control explaining a large part of its variance. Specifically in youth mental health services, promoting a working culture that encourages opening and engaging in discussions about voice-hearing between clinicians, and with young people, and introducing supportive assessment and psychoeducation material about voice-hearing could encourage conversations about voices.

The empirical relationship between transformational leadership and job attitudes: mediating role of psychological capital – a study of healthcare in India

PurposeThe goal of this research is to investigate the association between transformational leadership style, psychological capital and job attitude (job satisfaction and organization commitment). Transformational leadership's effects on these job attitudes were also analysed in terms of the mediating effects of psychological capital.Design/methodology/approachThe authors received 296 authentic questionnaires from the para-medical staff working in different public and private healthcare institutes in Jammu and Kashmir, India, and these were then analysed by using SEM with SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 19.FindingsResults implied that transformational leadership increased the levels of employees' job attitudes. The results further displayed that transformational leadership and psychological capital in the workplace are positively associated. The results also showed that psychological capital was positively linked with job attitudes. Moreover, psychological capital serves as a mediating construct between transformational leadership and job attitudes.Practical implicationsThe outcomes of this research will help in comprehending the significance of transformational leadership and psychological capital. Further, these research findings affirm the effectiveness of transformational leadership and psychological capital in forecasting positive job attitudes in the Indian work context. The administrators and policymakers in the healthcare sector can implement these concepts to reduce negative job outcomes.Originality/valueThis study expanded on Deci et al.’s (2017) existing self-determination theory model by incorporating leadership style and psychological capital as workplace context and autonomous intrinsic factors, respectively, into the self-determination theory model to study work behaviours of job satisfaction and commitment. This study contributes to existing self-determination theory knowledge by proposing and testing psychological capital as a mechanism for determining the effect of transformational leadership on job attitudes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment).

Job characteristics, job attitudes and employee withdrawal behaviour: A latent change score approach

AbstractEmployee withdrawal is a critical issue for organisations and has been the topic of extensive research. Although much turnover research used between‐person designs, this study focused on the impact of within‐person changes in job characteristics on job attitudes and withdrawal behaviour, using the challenge‐hindrance stressor as our main theoretical framework. The focus was on the job characteristics workload (a challenge stressor), emotional demands (a hindrance stressor) and autonomy (a job resource) and on positive (dedication) and negative (organisational cynicism) job attitudes as process variables. Latent change score modelling based on data of 1530 Dutch employees collected in three waves across 2 years showed that changes in workload, emotional demands and autonomy resulted in changes in organisational cynicism, which, in turn, related to changes in turnover intentions, but not absenteeism. Changes in autonomy were related to changes in dedication, which, in turn, were associated with changes in turnover intentions, but not absenteeism. This study highlights the importance of investigating within‐person changes in job characteristics in explaining changes in job attitudes and employee withdrawal behaviour. From a practical perspective, this study shows how job design affects dedication and organisational cynicism and hence can contribute to combat employee withdrawal behaviour.

Facilitate Affective Commitment and Organizational Citizenship Behavior of the Technology Employees in the Chinese IT Companies

This study aims to understand the antecedents of affective commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (OCBO) of technology employees in Chinese IT Companies. Job satisfaction, which is a positive job attitude is identified as the mediator for the relationships between family-supportive supervisor (FSS), challenge job demands, and affective commitment and organizational citizenship behavior (OCBO) of the technology employees in the Chinese IT Companies. IT industry is a promising industry in China. However, the Chinese IT companies have an overtime culture, which is highly related to the commitments of the technology employees. PLS-SEM (partial least squares structural equation modeling) by Smart PLS 3.2 version software is adopted for the data analysis, which includes the measurement model and structural model analysis. 304 technology employees from three Chinese IT companies participated in this research survey. After the data analysis, challenge job demands and FSS are positively related to job satisfaction while FSS is directly connected with affective commitment and OCBO of the technology employees in Chinese IT companies. Moreover, job satisfaction plays a positively mediating role between the exogenous variables and endogenous variables in this study. The current research provides useful insights into the strategies taken that could enhance affective commitment and OCBO of the technology employees in Chinese IT companies.

민간항공 조종사 직무만족에 대한 항공사 오류관리문화의 영향

This study was conducted to confirm the effect of the organizational fairness and airline error management culture that can affect the job satisfaction of airline pilots. Organizational fairness includes distribution justice, procedural justice, and interaction justice in detail, and error management culture is defined as a culture in which an organization maintains the view that its members’ errors occurred in the process of interacting with an uncertain environment. This study found that organizational fairness does not have a significant impact on the job satisfaction of civil aviation pilots, and the higher error management culture level of airlines, the better the job satisfaction of captains. Also, this study found the modulation effect of airline error management culture proportionally affects two of the detailed components of organizational fairness which are the distribution justice and interaction justice. Therefore, effort to promote the error management culture of airline is expected to be an effective measure of strengthening captains’ positive job attitude, and would improve efficiency and safety of the air transport.

Italian Validation of the 12-Item Version of the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT-12).

The Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) has shown satisfactory validity evidence in several countries, with the 23-item version of the instrument reporting adequate psychometric properties also in the Italian context. This paper is aimed to present results from the Italian validation of the 12-item version of the BAT. Based on a sample of 2277 workers, our results supported the factorial validity of a higher-order model represented by 4 first-order factors corresponding to the core dimensions of burnout, namely exhaustion, mental distance, and emotional and cognitive impairment. The measure invariance of the BAT-12 between data collected before and during the COVID-19 pandemic was supported. However, ANCOVA results suggest a higher score on the second-order burnout factor on data collected during the COVID-19 pandemic in comparison with earlier data. In line with the JD-R model, the BAT-12 total score reported a positive association with job demands (i.e., workload, time pressure, and role conflict) and a negative association with job resources (i.e., job autonomy, coworkers’ support) and personal resources (i.e., optimism, social self-efficacy, and task self-efficacy). Additionally, the BAT-12 showed a negative association with work engagement components (i.e., vigor, dedication, and absorption) and positive job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, affective commitment). All in all, our results identify the Italian version of the BAT-12 as a brief and reliable tool for measuring burnout among workers.

Extending Theory of Planned Behavior to Understand Service-Oriented Organizational Citizen Behavior.

The financial crisis of 2007–2008 and the COVID-19 pandemic have caused many enterprises to suffer great losses. Thus, companies have to take measures such as pays cut, furloughs, or layoffs, which caused dissatisfaction among employees and triggered labor disputes. Therefore, this study explores the service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior based on the decomposed theory of planned behavior in order to understand the behavioral intentions of employees through their mental states, job attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. This study conducted questionnaire surveys for employees in different industries, collected 281 valid questionnaires, and applied Structural Equation Model for the analysis. The results show: (1) employees believe organizational justice in the organization is important, and when they feel treated fairly, their job attitudes and beliefs are enhanced. (2) Employees’ job attitudes and beliefs support service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior, in other words, they have positive job attitudes and beliefs and will actively provide better service to customers. (3) When employees are treated reasonably and fairly by the organization and have positive job attitudes (job satisfaction and organizational commitment) and perceived behavior control, their spontaneous service-oriented organizational citizenship behavior is stimulated, thus increasing organizational development.

The role of teachers in assessing educational quality

The purpose of this paper is to answer the question "Can teachers do the educational quality evaluation tasks?", in the context of lacking experts or well-trained staff to do this task in low and middle-income countries, such as Vietnam. In this study, the training on knowledge, soft skill, performance, and attitude were tested as the tool improving the teachers' performance in evaluating education quality. The study was based on a quasi-experimental design, cross-disciplinary, and mixed-evaluation methods. The study is cross-disciplinary as it examines the difference between the comparison and intervention group concerning personal factors and job attitude. The findings indicate that providing knowledge, soft skill practice, and positive job attitude help to improve the staff's performance in assessing the quality of education. The findings presented in this paper provide evidence of effectiveness of the education quality evaluation skills training in schools.

Lived Experience as a Protective Factor for Mental Health Workers.

When clients do not seem to be improving, mental health workers have more negative job attitudes, experience higher levels of client-related burnout, and are more interested in leaving the field. Nonetheless, it is unclear whether all mental health workers are equally susceptible to burnout caused by feelings that their clients are not improving. Specifically, people with lived experience of mental illness are intimately familiar with their own recovery challenges and thus may be less susceptible to this source of burnout. To test this possibility, mental health providers (N=179) from a nongovernmental community mental health organization in Australia completed a survey assessing their perceptions of client improvement from treatment, their feelings of client-related burnout, and a range of organizational outcomes (job satisfaction, job engagement, workplace well-being, and intentions to resign). Moderated mediation analyses revealed that although mental health providers who felt that their clients were not improving experienced client-related burnout, lived experience served as a buffer. Staff with lived experience were less susceptible to burnout associated with perceptions that their clients were not improving from treatment. Mental health providers with lived experience also reported more positive job attitudes compared with providers without lived experience. Given the high rates of burnout in the mental health profession, future research should examine why lived experience appears to buffer staff from burnout when they believe that their clients are not improving. This knowledge could aid in the development of interventions to boost resilience, engagement, and longevity in the field.

Managing Teachers' Job Attitudes: The Potential Benefits of Being a Happy and Emotional Intelligent Teacher.

According to the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions, the frequency of positive emotions is associated with the development of positive attitudes, cognitions, and behaviors in organizational contexts. However, positive and negative attitudes at work might also be influenced by different personal and job resources. While emotional intelligence has been significantly associated with positive job attitudes and personal well-being, no studies have yet examined the joint role of teacher happiness and emotional intelligence in key teacher job attitudes. The present study assesses whether emotional intelligence interacts with levels of teacher happiness to jointly explain important teacher job attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction and turnover intention). A total sample of 685 teaching professionals (431 female) filled out a battery of scales including subjective happiness, emotional intelligence, job satisfaction, and turnover intention. Our results revealed that subjective happiness was significantly associated with both higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intention. Likewise, emotional intelligence was positively related to happiness and job satisfaction, and negatively related to turnover intention. Finally, interaction analysis showed the main effects of happiness and emotional intelligence in explaining teacher job attitudes. Beyond the main effects, the interaction effects of happiness and emotional intelligence were significant in predicting all teachers' job attitude indicators, even controlling for the effects of their sociodemographic variables. This work expands our knowledge about the role of teachers' positive emotions in the development of positive work attitudes, and also supports the inclusion of emotional skills in future teacher preparation programs as resources to facilitate work-related well-being.

Mitigating Effect of Psychological Capital on Employees' Withdrawal Behavior in the Presence of Job Attitudes: Evidence From Five-Star Hotels in Malaysia.

High turnover rate is one of the striking features of the hotel industry and one of the most significant challenges. High turnover rate causes substantial costs for recruitment, selection and training in hotels, on the other hand, it also leads to negative consequences such as the decline of organizational performance and service quality. Thus, it is necessary to search for the root causes of turnover and put forward solutions. This study was designed to examine the impact of psychological capital (PsyCap), organizational commitment (OC), and job satisfaction (JS) on turnover intention among hotel employees. Additionally, it aimed to test the mediating roles of job satisfaction (JS) and organizational commitment (OC). The data were obtained from 228 hotel customer-contact employees with a time lag of two weeks in three waves in Kuala Lumpur based on convenience sampling. A series of structural equation modeling analyses were utilized to investigate hypothesized relationships. The results reveal that there exists a significant and negative impact of PsyCap on employees’ turnover intention and this correlation is partially mediated through two job attitudes. That is to say, to retain hotel talents, five-star hotel management should take proper measures to help employees obtain and maintain positive psychological resources such as PsyCap, on the other hand, how to cultivate positive job attitudes and strengthen their sense of identification and belonging for their organizations is supposed to be more focused on.

The Work Agentic Capabilities (WAC) Questionnaire: Validation of a New Measure

Agentic capabilities refer to the basic capabilities of mind that, according to social cognitive theory, allow people to proactively influence their functioning and external context. This study presents a new scale, namely the Work Agentic Capabilities (WAC) questionnaire, that consists of 28 items and measures forethought capability, self-regulation capability, self-reflection capability and vicarious capability in the organizational context. Accordingly, an exploratory (N = 290) and a confirmatory factor analysis (N = 300) demonstrated a four-factor structure. Agentic capabilities were positively correlated with psychological capital and its dimensions i.e., self-efficacy, hope, optimism and resiliency), positive job attitudes (work engagement and job satisfaction), proactive organizational behaviours (job crafting and organizational citizenship behaviours), perceived job performance, and promotion prospects. Finally, we discuss meaningful differences in the mean values of agentic capabilities associated with sociodemographic and organizational variables. Results suggest that the WAC questionnaire can be reliably used to measure agentic capabilities.

An employee perspective of human resource development practices in the public sector: the role of organizational and supervisor support

This article adopts an employee-level perspective, which is currently lacking in the public sector literature, and responds to the call for additional research concerning factors that affect public employees’ job attitudes and work behaviours. Based on a survey of civil servants, this study explored the antecedents and outcomes of perceived investment in employee development. Our research demonstrates the significant role of organizational support on employees’ perceptions of development. Furthermore, supervisor support mediated the relationship between organizational support and perceived investment in employee development. This finding sheds light on the role of supervisors as agents who represent or personify the organization. Also, consistent with the job demands–resources model and social exchange theory, we indicate that public employees within a workplace that provides substantial training and developmental incentives are more likely to report greater levels of organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviour. Perceived investment in employee development was found to act as an important mediator between the relationships of organizational support and employees’ outcomes, and supervisor support and employees’ outcomes. Points for practitioners When human resources budgets are increasingly restricted, non-monetary motivators can be a feasible alternative to high-cost financial rewards. It is suggested that not only will employee development practices benefit public organizations in terms of better-trained and better-qualified employees, but employees’ perceptions of organizations’ investments in employee development also create a felt obligation among public employees to reciprocate with positive job attitudes and work behaviours.

Increased Business Value for Positive Job Attitudes during Economic Recessions: A Meta-Analysis and SEM Analysis

ABSTRACT Using a database of 171 studies across 62,965 organizational units with job attitude data and business performance outcomes ranging from 1994 to 2015, we tested the hypothesis that positive employee job attitudes relate more strongly to business unit success during bad economic times than during favorable economic times. Results showed that although the relationship between favorable job attitudes and unit-level performance is positive and generalizable across all time periods, the relationships between job attitudes and all business success outcomes studied (profitability, productivity, turnover, and customer perceptions) were substantially stronger during the recession years of 2001, 2002, 2008, and 2009 in comparison to other years. Favorable employee job attitudes may provide extra assistance that helps business units continue to achieve under challenging economic conditions.

Predicting Job Satisfaction in Military Organizations: Unpacking the Relationship Between Emotional Intelligence, Teamwork Communication, and Job Attitudes in Spanish Military Cadets.

Although prior research has extensively examined the association of emotional intelligence (EI) with various job attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction), empirical and systematic investigation of this link within military institutions has captured considerably less attention. The present research analyzed the relationship between EI, teamwork communication, and job satisfaction among Spanish military cadets. We tested the potential unique contribution of EI to job satisfaction over and above demographics (i.e., gender and age), proactive personality, and resilience. Moreover, we also examined whether EI was indirectly linked to job satisfaction via its relationship with teamwork communication. A sample of 363 cadet officers of the Spanish General Military Academy completed questionnaires assessing EI, teamwork communication, proactive personality, resilience, and job satisfaction. Hierarchical regression analysis revealed that EI exhibited incremental variance (ΔR2 = 5.2%) in predicting job satisfaction (B = 0.539, 95% CI [0.306,0.771]) even after accounting for demographics, proactive personality, and resilience. Additionally, mediation analysis showed that the association of EI with job satisfaction was partially driven by enhanced teamwork communication. This research provides empirical evidence suggesting a pathway (i.e., effective teamwork communication) through which EI could help military cadets to experience higher job satisfaction. Implications for future academic programs including EI and teamwork communication to promote positive job attitudes among military personnel are discussed.

Demographic Variables and Stress Management Among Cataloguers in University Libraries in Cross Rivers State

This study investigated demographic variables and stress management among cataloguers in university libraries in Cross Rivers State. It was undertaken as a descriptive survey research design. The population of the study was 25 professional and para-professional librarians (i.e. UNICAL = 12, CRUTECH 9 and A.T.U = 4). The sample size was also 25 using the census sampling technique. The researcher used the whole population as sample because, it was small. The instrument titled “Demographic Variables and Stress Management among Cataloguers Questionnaire (DVSMCQ) was used to elicit information from the respondents. The instrument was validated by experts in the field of study. Reliability test was by test- retest method using Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) which yielded reliability coefficient of 0.78 meaning that, the instrument was reliable, consistent and good for this study. Mean and standard deviation was used to answer the research questions while the t-test was used to test the hypotheses. The findings revealed that there is a significant difference between the independent variable (age, gender, marital status and academic qualification) and dependent variable (stress management) among cataloguers. In conclusion, females are more stressed in the job when compared with their male counterparts. It was recommended among others that cataloguers should develop positive job attitude to work and not wait until accreditation, before doing their job in order to avoid stress. Keywords: Demographic, Variables, Stress Management, Cataloguers, Libraries DOI : 10.7176/IKM/9-9-01 Publication date :October 31 st 2019