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

Job 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

Spin polarization of the L-gap surface states on Au(111)

The electron spin polarization (ESP) of the L-gap surface states on Au(111) is investigated theoretically by means of first-principles electronic-structure and photoemission calculations. The surface states show a large spin-orbit induced in-plane ESP which is perpendicular to the in-plane wavevector, in close analogy to a two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit interaction. The surface corrugation leads to a small ESP component normal to the surface, being not reported so far. The surface-states ESP can be probed qualitatively and quantitatively by spin- and angle-resolved photoelectron spectroscopy, provided that the initial-state ESP is retained in the photoemission process and not obscured by spin-orbit induced polarization effects. Relativistic photoemission calculations provide detailed information on what photoemission set-ups allow to conclude from the photoelectron ESP on that of the surface states.Comment: 22 pages with 8 figure

Nano-ploughed Josephson junctions as on-chip radiation sources

A new technique is presented which enables the fabrication of highly transparent Josephson junctions in combination with mesoscopic devices. We utilize a modified AFM tip to plough grooves into superconducting material, thus defining a weak link. This weak link is made within the superconducting split-gates, which are used to electrostatically form a conventional quantum dot and serves as a source of millimeter wave radiation around 100 GHz. We show the characteristics of typical junctions built and discuss their high-frequency properties. We find that the millimeter wave emission of the weak link leads to a bolometric effect in the case of quantum point contact spectroscopy