Work characteristics and determinants of job satisfaction in four age groups: university employees’ point of view

Contains fulltext : 79843.pdf (publisher's version ) (Closed access)PURPOSE: To investigate (a) differences in work characteristics and (b) determinants of job satisfaction among employees in different age groups. METHODS: A cross-sectional questionnaire was filled in by 1,112 university employees, classified into four age groups. (a) Work characteristics were analysed with ANOVA while adjusting for sex and job classification. (b) Job satisfaction was regressed against job demands and job resources adapted from the Job Demands-Resources model. Results : Statistically significant differences concerning work characteristics between age groups are present, but rather small. Regression analyses revealed that negative association of the job demands workload and conflicts at work with job satisfaction faded by adding job resources. Job resources were most correlated with more job satisfaction, especially more skill discretion and more relations with colleagues. CONCLUSIONS: Skill discretion and relations with colleagues are major determinants of job satisfaction. However, attention should also be given to conflicts at work, support from supervisor and opportunities for further education, because the mean scores of these work characteristics were disappointing in almost all age groups. The latter two characteristics were found to be associated significantly to job satisfaction in older workers

Practical guidelines for rigor and reproducibility in preclinical and clinical studies on cardioprotection

The potential for ischemic preconditioning to reduce infarct size was first recognized more than 30 years ago. Despite extension of the concept to ischemic postconditioning and remote ischemic conditioning and literally thousands of experimental studies in various species and models which identified a multitude of signaling steps, so far there is only a single and very recent study, which has unequivocally translated cardioprotection to improved clinical outcome as the primary endpoint in patients. Many potential reasons for this disappointing lack of clinical translation of cardioprotection have been proposed, including lack of rigor and reproducibility in preclinical studies, and poor design and conduct of clinical trials. There is, however, universal agreement that robust preclinical data are a mandatory prerequisite to initiate a meaningful clinical trial. In this context, it is disconcerting that the CAESAR consortium (Consortium for preclinicAl assESsment of cARdioprotective therapies) in a highly standardized multi-center approach of preclinical studies identified only ischemic preconditioning, but not nitrite or sildenafil, when given as adjunct to reperfusion, to reduce infarct size. However, ischemic preconditioning—due to its very nature—can only be used in elective interventions, and not in acute myocardial infarction. Therefore, better strategies to identify robust and reproducible strategies of cardioprotection, which can subsequently be tested in clinical trials must be developed. We refer to the recent guidelines for experimental models of myocardial ischemia and infarction, and aim to provide now practical guidelines to ensure rigor and reproducibility in preclinical and clinical studies on cardioprotection. In line with the above guideline, we define rigor as standardized state-of-the-art design, conduct and reporting of a study, which is then a prerequisite for reproducibility, i.e. replication of results by another laboratory when performing exactly the same experiment

The Theory of Planned Behaviour as a Frame for Job Crafting: Explaining and Enhancing Proactive Adjustment at Work

Rapid changes in the work environment require employees to proactivity shape their job characteristics to sustain motivation, energy, and performance. Traditionally, job redesign was mainly a top-down process, where the management of an organisation was in charge of defining the most appropriate job description of a mansion. Today, such an approach does not respond anymore to the challenges of the work environment, and awareness has developed among scholars and practitioners about the importance of empowering individuals to let them adjust their job characteristics to reach organisation goals, i.e. through job crafting interventions. In this theoretical contribution, we propose the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) as a framework to design positive psychology interventions aiming to enhance adaptive job crafting behaviours. We argue that the TPB provides a solid foundation to explicate the mechanisms by which job crafting positive interventions are expected to exert their effects on behaviour. Such an approach allows targeting the content and the tools of the interventions based on participants\u2019 needs, effectively addressing the causal determinants of behaviour and behaviour change in multicultural organisational contexts

Developing multiple careers: dealing with work-life interaction

Inclusive organizations should be aware that in managing their careers, individuals may be motivated to fulfill values related to their different roles. Social dialogue at national and organizational level has been oriented to negotiate a range of work–life policies (WLPs). Under certain circumstances, WLPs are effective to reduce the negative interference between work and non-work (work–life conflict, WLC). However, the use of WLPs can have severe social and career development consequences specifically for vulnerable groups. From a positive perspective, work and non-work may interact positively (work–life enrichment, WLE). Therefore, inclusive organizations should value what each employee brings to their business roles from other roles and should enrich work to provide employees with resources to effectively perform in other roles. Based on results from empirical research, we provide evidence on working conditions—(WLPs) and work–life culture (WLCU) that may reduce WLC and increase WLE. We aim to establish some key issues on working conditions to be negotiated through social dialogue between the supervisors and the employees—ground floor. This chapter provides with best practices for supervisors to facilitate social dialogue at ground floor and for employees to enhance their participation in social dialogue to proactively manage their career

The missing link: Fairness as the ultimate determinant of service profitability?!

Fairness is widely considered a key driver of human behavior. Organizational behavior (OB) research focuses on fairness as an employee attitude driver. Marketing research highlights fairness perceptions as a key determinant of both purchase intentions and purchase behavior. Yet, to our best knowledge, no explicit attempt has been made to bridge the two phenomena. Using deductive reasoning and delineation methods, we posit that, through the diffusion of customer experience, value perception, attitudes, and behaviors, a symbiosis of OB and marketing research ultimately influences organizational performance. Our corresponding conceptual framework determines fairness perceptions’ influence on employee attitudes and service productivity by means of proposition development. In turn, this leads to an increase in customer satisfaction, consumer purchasing, and re-purchasing behavior, and – ultimately – profitability