Prosocial Work Research Articles

Enhancing work safety behavior through supply chain safety management in small and medium sized manufacturing suppliers.

Enhancing work safety behaviors among Small and Medium-Sized Manufacturing Suppliers (SMMs) is crucial for establishing a more secure and efficient supply chain. Since the foundation of safety lies in positive prevention, it is crucial that SMMs adopt proactive and pro-social work safety behaviors that transcend mere compliance with standard regulations. Present-day diversified supply chain safety management apply varying degrees of pressures on SMMs. The effectiveness of such pressures, as well as their potential to spawn advanced safety behaviors in SMMs, is a matter of investigation. This research investigates the impact of Supply Chain Safety Management Pressure(SCSMP) on the SMMs' Work Safety Behaviors(WSB). A theoretical framework is constructed, grounded in institutional theory and theory of planned behavior, which earmarks three distinct dimensions of SCSMP: Coercive Pressure(CP), Mimetic Pressure(MP), and Normative Pressure(NP). The survey of 265 SMMs facilitated an assessment of the SMMs' Willingness for Responses(WR), which includes their Willingness for Adaptive Responses(WAR) and Willingness for Co-creative Responses(WCR). Subsequently, the resulting WSB entail Safety Compliance Behavior(SCB), Proactive Safety Behavior(PSB), and Pro-social Safety Behavior(PsSB). Among these, SCB is categorized as a basic safety behavior, while PSB and PsSB which emphasize voluntary, active, and cooperative actions, are classified as advanced safety behaviors. Our research findings underscore the substantial influence of the SCSMP in shaping WSB. WR serves as a critical intermediary, connecting external pressures with internal organizational practices. In particular, WCR is instrumental in the formation of advanced safety behavior. The theoretical contribution of this research is manifested in its enhancement of our comprehension regarding the determinants of WSB among SMMs. Furthermore, it addresses the literature gap in elucidating the effectiveness of supply chain safety management and the mechanisms behind the formation of WSB. The practical significance lies in elevating the overall safety standards throughout the supply chain and minimizing safety-related hazards among SMMs.

Defining Who You Are by Whom You Serve? Strategies for Prosocial–Professional Identity Integration with Clients

Many professionals want to both achieve professional success and contribute to society. Yet, in some professional contexts, these aims are in tension because serving elite clients is considered the pinnacle of professional success, but professionals themselves may view serving this clientele as antithetical to making a societal contribution. Drawing on interviews with 84 architects and designers who self-identify as people seeking to contribute to society—that is, who hold a prosocial identity—we develop theory about how professionals navigate tensions between their prosocial and professional identities and with what consequences for their work with clients. We identified four strategies that professionals used to ease these tensions, all of which gave the prosocially oriented professionals a sense of identity integration. However, these strategies differently shaped professionals’ approach to power relations with the client, depending on the client’s status and the types of knowledge and skills each professional viewed as central to their work. Professionals with marginalized social identities, such as women and ethnic/racial minorities, were more likely than others to embrace working with low-status clients and to use broader definitions of the knowledge and skills required for their work. Our findings contribute to scholarship on professional identity construction and prosocial work.

Beyond assumptions of altruism: Examining nonprofit work with a job fit framework and response surface analysis

AbstractScholars frequently investigate how nonprofit employees, as a group, differ from public or for‐profit employees. However, there is less focus on how motivational profiles vary among nonprofit employees. Particularly as the nonprofit sector professionalizes, the reasons why people seek nonprofit employment are diversifying. Recent work highlights a more individualized understanding of employee motivation, which can lead to more nuanced and tailored human resource management techniques. I amplify this stream of scholarship, guided by a job fit framework and introducing a robust methodological approach from organizational psychology that accounts for interactions between an employee's work preferences and work experiences on outcomes of interest. With two waves of original data on international aid workers, I demonstrate that the experience of prosocial work (i.e., work that aims to help other people) is associated with greater job satisfaction for those with strong prosocial work preferences but can be associated with reduced job satisfaction for those without. These findings necessitate nuanced attention to employees' work preferences, moving beyond assumptions that prosocial work will universally motivate nonprofit employee performance.

Is it bad because it is boring? Effects of idle time on employee outcomes

ABSTRACT Idle time is a period during which employees cannot complete their work tasks for reasons beyond their control. It has previously been shown to have negative consequences for employees’ performance and well-being. To shed light on the mechanisms underlying these effects, we argue based on affective events theory and action regulation theory that idle time is an event that leads to boredom. Since boredom is a negative affective experience that motivates employees to do something about their situation, it may reduce job satisfaction and increase extra-role behaviour (i.e., prosocial and counterproductive) and turnover intentions. We tested our hypotheses using a sample of 1,036 employees who participated in a five-wave longitudinal study across 12 months. Results showed that, at both the within-person and between-person levels, idle time was positively associated with boredom, which, in turn, was associated with lower job satisfaction, higher counterproductive work behaviour, and higher turnover intentions, but not with prosocial work behaviour. These associations were robust when additionally controlling for work environment features (e.g., working from home), dispositions (e.g., personality), and demographic characteristics. Thus, idle time seems to be a boring and mostly negative experience for employees. Employees and managers should organize work to avoid boredom whenever possible.

The Role of Social Comparison Orientation in the Effect of Alturistic Leadership Perception on Prosocial Work Behavior: An Application in Hospitality Businesses

Amaç – Bu çalışmanın amacı konaklama işletmelerindeki çalışanların alturistik liderlik algılarının prososyal hizmet davranışları üzerindeki etkisinde sosyal karşılaştırmanın rolünü belirlemektir. Yöntem/Metodoloji/Dizayn- Araştırmanın evrenini 4 ve 5 yıldızlı konaklama işletmeleri çalışanları oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmada kolayda örnekleme yöntemi kullanılarak Antalya ilinde faaliyet gösteren 4 ve 5 yıldızlı konaklama işletmelerinde çalışan 437 kişiden veriler elde edilmiştir. Elde edilen veriler Yapısal Eşitlik Modeli kullanılarak analiz edilmiştir. Sonuçlar- Araştırma sonucunda katılımcıların alturistik liderlik algısının prososyal hizmet davranışlarını ve sosyal karşılaştırma yönelimlerini olumlu yönde etkilediği, sosyal karşılaştırma eğiliminin ise prososyal hizmet davranışı üzerinde etkisinin bulunmadığı tespit edilmiştir. Katılımcıların alturistik liderlik algılarının prososyal hizmet davranışları üzerindeki etkisinde sosyal karşılaştırma yöneliminin negatif yönde düzenleyici bir etkiye sahip olduğu ancak, aracı etkisinin bulunmadığı belirlenmiştir. Katkı/Farklılıklar- Literatür incelendiğinde alturistik liderlik algısı, prososyal hizmet davranışı ve sosyal karşılaştırma yönelimi arasındaki etkileşimi inceleyen çalışmaya rastlanmamıştır. Bu nedenle araştırma literatürdeki bu boşluğun doldurulması açısından katkı sağlayacaktır. Ayrıca araştırmadan elde edilen sonuçlar sektörde faaliyette bulunan konaklama işletmelerinin sahip ve yöneticilerine çalışanların alturistik liderlik algısı, prososyal hizmet davranışı ve sosyal karşılaştırma yönelimi konuları ile ilgili eğilimini göstermesi açısından uygulamaya yönelik yol gösterebilecektir.

Condemned to precarity? Criminalised youths, social enterprise and the sub-precariat

PurposeThe paper aims to consider whether social enterprise, who are growing in number and seemingly a politically popular alternative to mainstream employment are a potential conduit for social change. Discussions relating to the value of (stable) employment in reducing and preventing (re)offending are not new. For many ex-offenders, a multitude of barriers stand between them and access to the labour market. As a potential conduit for social change, social enterprises are a growing and seemingly politically popular alternative to mainstream employment.Design/methodology/approachFocusing on the qualitative lived experiences of young people (aged between 16 and 18) with criminal convictions enrolled in one such enterprise, this paper examines the extent to which work-integrated social enterprise can assist in overcoming existing barriers to the labour market.FindingsThe paper highlights the value of social enterprise(s) in addressing the complex needs and precarities of criminalised youths, promoting social inclusion and assisting with progression into future employment. The paper also discusses the limitations of social enterprise(s) in overcoming external structural barriers to meaningful employment for those with an offending history and the implications for young people who aspire to more than precariat work.Originality/valueJustice-orientated social enterprises are allowing young people with criminal records the opportunity to build social capita and access precarious work, previously unattainable for many. By focusing on the concept of “precarity”, this paper builds upon existing research on the collateral consequences of criminal convictions offering insights into the various challenges facing criminalised youths attempting to build a positive pro-social work identity within contemporary labour markets

Aging Increases Prosocial Motivation for Effort

Social cohesion relies on prosociality in increasingly aging populations. Helping other people requires effort, yet how willing people are to exert effort to benefit themselves and others, and whether such behaviors shift across the life span, is poorly understood. Using computational modeling, we tested the willingness of 95 younger adults (18–36 years old) and 92 older adults (55–84 years old) to put physical effort into self- and other-benefiting acts. Participants chose whether to work and exert force (30%–70% of maximum grip strength) for rewards (2–10 credits) accrued for themselves or, prosocially, for another. Younger adults were somewhat selfish, choosing to work more at higher effort levels for themselves, and exerted less force in prosocial work. Strikingly, compared with younger adults, older people were more willing to put in effort for others and exerted equal force for themselves and others. Increased prosociality in older people has important implications for human behavior and societal structure.

Ideal Levels of Prosocial Involvement in Relation to Momentary Affect and Eudaimonia: Exploring the Golden Mean

Aristotle believed that happiness and success result from cultivating virtue at the mean between deficiency and excess - the golden mean. Some evidence suggests there is a golden mean of hours spent volunteering, where well-being benefits are maximized. Our study examined potential linear and nonlinear functions in the amount of time spent in prosocial work (PSW) in a day on the outcomes of eudaimonia, high arousal negative affect, and high arousal positive affect in a sample of high-commitment volunteers and prosocial leaders. In addition to nonlinear functions, interactions were explored. For example, we found that those who spend less time per week in PSW experience less negative affect when they spend more hours per day in PSW; however, those who spend more time per week in PSW experience more negative affect when they spend more hours per day in PSW. Additional findings for positive affect and eudaimonia will be discussed.

Prosocial Behavior and Contributors to Older Adults’ Well-Being in Daily Life

This symposium reports findings from a national experience-sampling study of 165 older adults (mean age=71, range=60-88 years) who are heavily involved in prosocial activity, contributing to their communities as leaders or high-commitment volunteers in social-purpose organizations. Gerontological research has linked prosocial activity to a set of positive outcomes for the older adults who engage in it (e.g., better health and reduced mortality), including global measures of well-being such as life satisfaction. However, little is known about the contributors to these individuals’ momentary well-being. Four presentations address this gap in knowledge. In the first presentation, Dwight Tse revisits the concept of successful aging as a within-person variable with day-to-day variations. Experience sampling data revealed great variations in successful aging indicators, and successful aging was associated with better well-being as hypothesized. In the second presentation, Ajit Mann extends beyond general control beliefs and explores the diversity in distribution of control beliefs across various daily activities (e.g., active leisure, prosocial activity, socializing, etc.), in addition to investigating the relationship between later life control diversity and subjective well-being. In the third presentation, Kelsey Finley explores Aristotle’s concept of the golden mean (an ideal state between deficiency and excess) for the number of hours spent in prosocial work on momentary well-being outcomes. In the fourth presentation, Jeanne Nakamura examines the relationship between global meaning in life and meaningful engagement in the moment, illuminating variation in this relationship through a comparison of the prosocial leaders and high-commitment volunteers.

Fair Work: Crowd Work Minimum Wage with One Line of Code

Accurate task pricing in microtask marketplaces requires substantial effort via trial and error, contributing to a pattern of worker underpayment. In response, we introduce Fair Work, enabling requesters to automatically pay their workers minimum wage by adding a one-line script tag to their task HTML on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Fair Work automatically surveys workers to find out how long the task takes, then aggregates those self-reports and auto-bonuses workers up to a minimum wage if needed. Evaluations demonstrate that the system estimates payments more accurately than requesters and that worker time surveys are close to behaviorally observed time measurements. With this work, we aim to lower the threshold for pro-social work practices in microtask marketplaces.

Employee Life Satisfaction and Social‐Capital Factors Relating to Organizational Citizenship

This study examines whether life satisfaction could influence social-capital factors of interest to managers looking for pro-social employees willing to do extra work and willing to help contribute to a positive environment. Employee data were analyzed (n = 7134) from the 2006 Social Capital Community Survey (SCCS) to analyze the role life satisfaction plays in influencing active pro-social work behavior in employees. Regression analysis results showed that employees with greater life satisfaction engage in more organizational citizenship behavior, feel calmer and less emotionally exhausted at the end of the day, are more likely to trust their coworkers, are more likely to be members of a neighborhood association or work on a community project, and are more likely to participate and volunteer. The degree of employees' life satisfaction was shown to influence their active orientation towards work due to their greater social-capital proclivities, which reflect organizational citizenship behavior.

Organizational form and pro-social fantasy in social enterprise creation

Why do social entrepreneurs retain their faith in social entrepreneurship despite the organizational tensions and anxieties inherent to this field of practice? In this article, we employ the psychoanalytic concept of fantasy to advance knowledge on social enterprise creation. The research analyses qualitative data relating to the adoption of the Community Interest Company, a bespoke organizational form for social enterprise. We argue that social entrepreneurs adopt a specific organizational form because it represents a fantasmatic object that supports their desire for pro-social work. This fantasmatic form appears to temporarily neutralize tensions and anxieties while preserving attachments to pro-social ideals. Our first contribution is to extant research on the role of fantasy in social enterprise. Specifically, we elucidate how social enterprise creation is riven with fantasy-laden attachments to ideals of pro-social work that promise to counteract concerns about future viability as well as competing social and for-profit missions. Our second contribution is to highlight the role that organizational form choice plays in effectively managing such tensions and anxieties as it provides a robust anchor for pro-social desires. Fantasmatic attachments to pro-social work and organizational form thus emerge as integral to social enterprise creation.

Implicit and Explicit Motivation Crowding in Prosocial Work

Public and nonprofit organizations often emphasize the prosociality of their employees as critical to performance, given the prosocial nature of the missions of these organizations. However, whether prosocial motivations translate to prosocial work behaviors is not always clear. Such assessments are complicated by the inherent difficulty in accurately assessing prosociality in the workplace, as it is potentially prone to social desirability bias. In this article, we examine whether one’s explicit, or stated, prosocial motivation is as resilient to motivation crowding as one’s implicit motivation. We find that explicit prosocial motivation is much more susceptible to motivation crowding than implicit prosocial motivation when performance expectations allow material self-interest to be more easily maximized. Moreover, mission match, or the extent to which an individual agrees with the specific mission of an organization, shows consistency across performance regimes. These findings have implications for our theoretical understanding of prosocial motivation and for its value in real-world applications. Additionally, our research highlights the importance of considering implicit dimensions of work motivation in relation to explicit dimensions in the potential for motivation crowding.

Conceptualizing calling: Cluster and taxometric analyses

Research on work as a calling has proliferated within the last decade, but researchers continue to conceptualize the construct in diverse ways, potentially creating confusion and a lack of coherence as research accumulates. This study applies two typological research strategies to better understand the latent structure of calling, and differences among people who find the construct personally relevant. First, using a sample of 588 U.S. undergraduate students who self-identified as having a calling, the taxometric method was used to test the presence of discrete types or categories within calling's latent structure. The indicator set was analyzed using three statistically non-redundant taxometric procedures (i.e., MAXEIG, MAMBAC, and L-Mode). Results revealed that calling is not represented by discrete taxa (categories), instead the differences in calling lie along a continuous (dimensional) latent structure. While having a singular latent structure, evidence suggests calling is likely a multidimensional construct, which allows for different points of emphasis expressed by people who perceive a calling. A two-step cluster analysis was then applied to examine participants' vocational identity characteristics. A two-cluster solution was supported, differentiated by the relative importance placed on work and self-enhancement values versus religion and prosocial work values. Implications for research on calling and career counseling practice are discussed.

Payments for environmental services supported social capital while increasing land management

Payments for environmental services (PES) programs incentivize landowners to protect or improve natural resources. Many conservationists fear that introducing compensation for actions previously offered voluntarily will reduce social capital (the institutions, relationships, attitudes, and values that govern human interactions), yet little rigorous research has investigated this concern. We examined the land cover management and communal social capital impacts of Mexico's federal conservation payments program, which is a key example for other countries committed to reducing deforestation, protecting watersheds, and conserving biodiversity. We used a regression discontinuity (RD) methodology to identify causal program effects, comparing outcomes for PES participants and similar rejected applicants close to scoring cutoffs. We found that payments increased land cover management activities, such as patrolling for illegal activity, building fire breaks, controlling pests, or promoting soil conservation, by ∼50%. Importantly, increases in paid activities as a result of PES did not crowd out unpaid contributions to land management or other prosocial work. Community social capital increased by ∼8-9%, and household-level measures of trust were not affected by the program. These findings demonstrate that major environmental conditional cash transfer programs can support both land management and the attitudes and institutions underpinning prosocial behavior. Rigorous empirical research on this question can proceed only country by country because of methodological limitations, but will be an important line of inquiry as PES continues to expand worldwide.

The Persistence of Prosocial Work Effort as a Function of Mission Match

AbstractThe authors use an online experiment to test the proposal that “mission match” leads to persistent prosocial work effort, whereby employees go above and beyond remunerated job responsibilities to deliver a public good. First, the importance of mission match to persistent prosocial work effort in public and nonprofit organizations is discussed. Then a real‐effort experiment is used to test whether mission match is associated with the persistence of individual work effort under conditions of unreasonable performance expectations. Findings show that subjects’ narrow identification with the mission of the particular organization on whose behalf they are working is a more important determinant of persistence than the extent to which one reports self‐sacrifice as a motivation toward service. Moreover, reported self‐sacrifice does not appear to reinforce the relationship between mission match and persistent prosocial work behavior.

Development and Initial Validation of a Multidimensional Flourishing Scale Relating It to Calling, Prosocial Work Motivation and Flow in the Workplace

The purpose of this paper is to present a new multidimensional scale to measure “flourishing”, as well as to explore the relations between flourishing, calling, prosocial work motivation and flow. Study 1 describes the development of multidimensional flourishing scale using exploratory factor analysis (EFA) in a sample of 305 adults ranging in age from 22 to 79 years (M = 43.92 years; SD = 7.33) from Buenos Aires, Argentina. The Multidimensional Flourishing Scale contained three reliable subscales: social wellbeing, psychological wellbeing and emotional wellbeing, which demonstrated moderate 1‐month test–retest reliability and a good internal consistency reliability coefficient. Study 2 reports a good fit to a three‐factor structure using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in a sample of 256 adults ranging from 22 to 59 years of age (M = 38.54 years; SD = 9.01) from Buenos Aires. The CFA results establish empirical support for the Multidimensional Flourishing Scale and confirm the three‐dimensional measurement instrument to assess the facets of Keyes’ (2005) conceptualization of flourishing. Finally, the Multidimensional Flourishing Scale was found to correlate in expected directions with different ways of relating to work: calling and job, work flow and prosocial work motivation.

Examining the Nature and Effects of Psychological Contract: Case Study of an Indian Organization

This study investigates psychological contract contents and the effects of different types of psychological contracts on the work outcomes of employees in an Indian organization. Analysis of case study interviews and secondary data suggests that employee expectations can be categorized into relational and transactional psychological contracts. The contents of these contracts, while largely similar to those in the West, reflected certain aspects that are unique to the sociocultural context of employment relationships in India. Further, the fulfillment or breach of these psychological contracts led to different effects on work outcomes. Relational psychological contracts affected long‐term affective work outcomes, such as prosocial work behaviors, psychological ownership, and engagement. Transactional psychological contracts had stronger effects on turnover intentions and attitude to work. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Kobiety Galerii „Dziesiątka”

Prezentowany materiał powstał w związku z realizowanym od roku 2005 w Szkole Policealnej Pracowników Służb Społecznych programem Galeria „Dziesiątka”. W pierwszej edycji spotkań z zaproszenia do udziału w programie skorzystały trzy wyjątkowe kobiety. Wyjątkowe z racji swojej działalności zawodowej i społecznej, z racji ponadprzeciętnego zaangażowania w czynieniu „dobra” na rzecz drugiego człowieka. „Człowiek jest zbyt cenny, by posiadać go na wyłączność – dzielmy się ze sobą ludźmi, których poznać warto” – słowa te w sposób jak najbardziej czytelny oddają idee Dziesiątki, a opracowany materiał jest działaniem umożliwiającym szczególną formę dzielenia się z innymi tym, co najcenniejsze – drugim człowiekiem. Mam nadzieję, że to krótkie opracowanie pozwoli czytelnikom na bliższe poznanie trzech jego bohaterek – kobiet, które poznać warto.

Media image of sport volunteering during the UEFA Euro 2012™ and the motives for social work and its style of volunteers working in Poznan and in Poland

Background:Volunteering in sport is the most popular and media form of pro-social work in Europe. In Poland, to such activity the conditions are still creating by the largest growth of numbers of institutions active in the public sector in the field of sport, recreation, tourism and hobbies. Interest in volunteering at sport events is increasing, especially among young people. The media image of sport volunteering is adopted by the organizer with chosen promotional strategy. The associated expectations of the participants, their motivation and style of behaving during participation in volunteer project as a consequence are also factors determining the media image of sport volunteering. Aim:The aim of the study is to compare the style of engaging in social work of their participants and motives of taking that kind of work by volunteers working in Poznan.Material and Method:The analysis included data available on the Internet regarding to organization of volunteer work during the UEFA Euro 2012™ in Poland and Ukraine as well as literature review regarding to the motivation to unpaid work in Poland. The motives of engaging in to volunteering as well as style of that work was compared between groups of participants of volunteering at UEFA Euro 2012™ in Poznan and Poland. Results:Volunteering at UEFA Euro 2012™ was separated on two areas, sports and urban and was coordinated by different organizers. The convergence between the motivational climate created by organizers of two independent volunteer projects at UEFA Euro 2012™ and motives for social work of its participants is visible. Encouraging volunteers to unpaid work in sport area of tournament by presenting it as a possibility to feel the sports atmosphere was similar to motives and significant more often reported by its volunteers than volunteers working in urban zone. Altruistic motives underlying in social activities significantly more often were reported by volunteers working in urban area of tournament where motivational climate was introduced as a possibility to feel the social dimension of tournament. Material profits of volunteering in both areas of tournament were significantly more often higher rated by volunteers working in the urban zone of tournament.Analysis of style of engaging in pro – social activity showed that volunteers working in sport zone of tournament significantly higher were involved in this type of work and significantly higher presents a regularity in this type of work. However experience in sport volunteering was the domain of volunteers working in urban zone. Conclusions:The implementation of the adopted strategy for creating the media image of the Official Volunteer Program at UEFA Euro 2012™ is related with motives for undertaking voluntary work of its participants. Motives for undertaking voluntary during UEFA Euro 2012™ as well as style of engaging in such work are different between volunteer working in different zones of tournament.