Effective employee strategies for remote working::An online self-training intervention

This paper examines whether employees' strategies to recognize (through self-recognition) and regulate (through job crafting, work-family management, and recovery) their internal and external demands and resources help them retain their well-being and performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also examines whether an online self-training intervention can stimulate the use of these strategies. A randomized control trial with a waitlist control group and pre-post measure (N intervention group = 62, N control group = 77) was executed, consisting of four modules with videos, exercises, and three assignments. Participants of the intervention group reported improved self-recognition (noticing, self-focused emotional intelligence), job crafting (seeking resources and challenges), recovery (psychological detachment and relaxation), and reduced work-family conflict. Moreover, the intervention group reported reduced fatigue and increased happiness with life and task performance after the intervention. Improvements in self-focused emotional intelligence, relaxation, and reduced work-family conflict could explain the progress of these distal outcomes. This study reveals the strategies that can help employees to maintain high levels of well-being and performance while working from home and how to improve them using an evidence-based self-training intervention

Crafting for sustainability:a daily diary study and self-training intervention on proactive employee engagement in sustainability

This research aims to stimulate employee engagement in sustainability by investigating whether self-initiated and trained job crafting functions as a behavioural tool to engage more in sustainability in daily work. Using a daily diary design in Study 1, we found that employees’ general attitude and perceptions of control towards sustainability predicted daily sustainability intentions which related to daily sustainability behaviour. Importantly, optimizing demands mediated the intention-behaviour gap. In Study 2, we tested a self-training intervention in which participants were encouraged to work on daily self-set crafting for sustainability goals. Results showed that the intervention group had increased sustainability intentions after the training. Furthermore, participants who actively followed the training increased more in optimizing demands throughout the training than control participants. The self-training did not affect overall proactive sustainability behaviour but resulted in increased specific sustainability activities through optimizing demands. Stimulating job crafting seems promising for implementing sustainability into organizational life

Daily Job Crafting and Adaptive Performance During Organizational Change:The Moderating Role of Managers' Influence Tactics

Is job crafting relevant for adaptive performance in the absence of managers’ effective influence tactics and the presence of ineffective tactics? Based on job demands-resources and conservation of resources theories, we examined whether employee daily job crafting behaviors (i.e., resources seeking, challenges seeking, demands reducing) interact with overall managers’ influence tactics during times of organizational change in explaining change outcomes. Twenty-nine hotel employees completed a questionnaire to evaluate their managers’ influence tactics, and then a diary for five consecutive workdays to assess daily job crafting behaviors and daily adaptive performance during a large-scale change. Multilevel analyses revealed that daily seeking resources related positively to adaptive performance particularly when specific managers’ influence tactics were low. These findings imply that employees compensate for the absence of managers’ influence tactics by seeking resources in order to facilitate their own adaptation to organizational changes

Implementing Job Crafting Behaviors:Exploring the Effects of a Job Crafting Intervention Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior

This article presents a combined motivational and volitional intervention based on the theory of planned behavior aimed at promoting expansion-oriented job crafting behaviors. Participants were employees working in different companies, assigned to either an intervention (n = 53) or a control group (n = 55). Results of a field study (including premeasure, postmeasure, and weekly diaries) indicated that the intervention enhanced participants’ perceptions of behavioral control referred to job crafting and awareness regarding others’ engagement in job crafting. Latent change growth modeling showed that participation in the intervention led to participants shaping their job crafting intentions during the weeks, which translated into more frequent job crafting behaviors at the end of the study period. Besides, the intervention served to trigger weekly work-related flow experiences in terms of high absorption while working. Findings suggest that job crafting interventions can benefit from the inclusion of self-regulatory strategies complementing goal setting

New directions in burnout research

Burnout is a phenomenon that has received considerable research attention in the past 50 years. As such, there is advanced knowledge on its prevalence, conceptualization, predictors, and outcomes. Although the literature has advanced, research on burnout is still topical. Burnout originated in the seventies but remains a contemporary problem because of persistent environmental stressors and challenges for employees and organizations as a whole. The current special section aims to stimulate knowledge on unresolved issues by bringing together contributions related to 1) the role of cognition in burnout research, 2) the development of burnout over time, 3) contextual antecedents of burnout, and 4) the prevention of and recovery from burnout. It is our hope that we will see more high-quality research and evidence-based practice related to burnout

Supplier sustainability: A comprehensive review and future research directions

Sustainability is not a one-player task. Organizations have started to realize that their supply chains have a significant social and environmental impact, usually greater than their own operations, and managing sustainability at suppliers is crucial for supply chain-wide sustainability. Supplier sustainability management (SSM) research is fast evolving across multiple disciplines but lacks an interdisciplinary review to guage the progress made, and to decide the path forward. Heightened global focus on sustainability compels us to explore research avenues in SSM for meaningful progress. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive review of SSM research including the most recent work. We propose the Motivation-Measure-Analyze-Improve-Govern (MMAIG) framework for supplier sustainability, identify the limitations of current SSM research in enabling this framework, and propose future research directions. Our key observations are that (a) current SSM research is heavily focused on measuring and monitoring supplier sustainability, and (b) supplier sustainability improvement/development research is limited and the majority of it is about sustainable supplier selection. The future research directions that we propose are centered around (a) optimizing the investments towards supplier sustainability through collaboration, proposing mechanisms that consider risks, liabilities, and gains of all parties, and (b) considering behavioral aspects to overcome SSM implementation issues. Organizations can achieve efficient improvement in supplier sustainability by using a collaborative approach that is data-driven and trust-based. We discuss several mechanisms within our MMAIG framework that can help organizations in their collaborative approach

Predictive maintenance for industry 5.0:behavioural inquiries from a work system perspective

Predictive Maintenance (PdM) solutions assist decision-makers by predicting equipment health and scheduling maintenance actions, but their implementation in industry remains problematic. Specifically, prior research repeatedly indicates that decision-makers often refuse to adopt the data-driven, system-generated advice in their working procedures. In this paper, we address these acceptance issues by studying how PdM implementation changes the nature of decision-makers’ work and how these changes affect their acceptance of PdM systems. We build on the human-centric Smith-Carayon Work System model to synthesise literature from research areas where system acceptance has been explored in more detail. Consequently, we expand the maintenance literature by investigating the human-, task-, and organisational characteristics of PdM implementation. Following the literature review, we distil ten propositions regarding decision-making behaviour in PdM settings. Next, we verify each proposition’s relevance through in-depth interviews with experts from both academia and industry. Based on the propositions and interviews, we identify four factors that facilitate PdM adoption: trust between decision-maker and model (maker), control in the decision-making process, availability of sufficient cognitive resources, and proper organisational allocation of decision-making. Our results contribute to a fundamental understanding of acceptance behaviour in a PdM context and provide recommendations to increase the effectiveness of PdM implementations.</p

How work-self conflict/facilitation influences exhaustion and task performance: A three-wave study on the role of personal resources

Although work and family are undoubtedly important life domains, individuals are also active in other life roles which are also important to them (like pursuing personal interests). Building on identity theory and the resource perspective on work-home interface, we examined whether there is an indirect effect of work-self-conflict/facilitation on exhaustion and task performance over time through personal resources (i.e. self-efficacy and optimism). The sample was composed of 368 Dutch police officers. Results of the three-wave longitudinal study confirmed that work-self-conflict was related to lower levels of self-efficacy, whereas work-self-facilitation was related to improved optimism over time. In turn, self-efficacy was related to higher task performance, whereas optimism was related to diminished levels of exhaustion over time. Further analysis supported the negative, indirect effect of work-self-facilitation on exhaustion through optimism over time, and only a few reversed causal effects emerged. The study contributes to the literature on inter-role management by showing the role of personal resources in the process of conflict or facilitation over time

The Life Crafting Scale: Development and Validation of a Multi-Dimensional Meaning-Making Measure

Finding meaning in our lives is a central tenet to the human experience and a core contributor to mental health. Individuals tend to actively seek the sources of meaning in their lives or consciously enact efforts to create or “craft” meaning in different life domains. These overall “Life Crafting” behaviors refer to the conscious efforts individuals exert to create meaning in their lives through (a) cognitively (re-)framing how they view life, (b) seeking social support systems to manage life challenges, and (c) actively seeking challenges to facilitate personal growth. Specifically, these behaviors are actioned to better align life goals, personal needs, values, and capabilities. However, no psychological assessment instrument currently exists to measure overall life crafting. As such, the purpose of this paper was twofold: to conceptualize life crafting and to develop, validate and evaluate a robust measure of overall life crafting. A mixed-method, multi-study research design was employed. First, nine participants were interviewed to determine the methods or techniques used to craft meaningful life experiences. These methods/techniques were used as indicators to create an initial item pool which was then reviewed by a panel of experts to ensure face validity. Second, in Study 1, the factorial structure of the instrument was explored by gathering data from a convenience sample (N = 331), with the results showing support for a three-factor structure of life crafting, consisting of (a) cognitive crafting, (b) seek social support, and (c) seek challenges. Finally, in Study 2 (N=362), the aim was to confirm the factorial structure of the Life Crafting scale and to determine its level of internal consistency, partial measurement invariance across genders, and criterion validity (meaning in life (β = 0.91), mental health (β = 0.91), work engagement (β = 0.54), and job burnout (β = -0.42)). The results supported a second-order factorial model of Life Crafting, which comprised of three first-order factors (cognitive crafting, seeking social support, and seeking challenges). Therefore, the Life Crafting Scale can be used as a valid and reliable instrument to measure- and track the effectiveness of life crafting interventions

Team boosting behaviours:Development and validation of a new concept and scale

In teams, some people are truly noticed when present, and sorely missed when absent. Often they are described as the “life of the party”, but in a formal team context, we refer to their behaviors as “team boosting behavior”. These behaviors have the potential to affect the team’s processes. In three consecutive studies, we conceptualized these behaviors and developed and validated a questionnaire to measure them. In Study 1, we defined team boosting behaviors as the extent to which team members exhibit mood-enhancing, energizing, and uniting behaviors, directed towards team members. In Study 2, we developed and validated an instrument to measure team boosting behaviors using a sample of team members in work and sports teams (N = 385). Results supported a three-factor structure and indicated positive relationships with conceptually similar constructs. In Study 3, we cross-validated the three-factor structure among the members of 120 work teams and offer evidence for convergent and criterion validity of the Team Boosting behavior scale. The behaviors related positively to a positive team climate, team work engagement, and leader-rated team performance. The scale provides a useful tool for future empirical research to study the role of individual team boosting behaviors in shaping team processes and outcomes