“Everything Will Be Fine”: A Study on the Relationship between Employees’ Perception of Sustainable HRM Practices and Positive Organizational Behavior during COVID19

Sustainable human resource management practices represent one of the main organizational strategy to survive and to prosper within the fast-moving current scenario. According to this view, sustainability is strictly linked to the consideration of the unique and distinctive value that each human resource means for organizations. The recent COVID19 pandemic is having a serious impact on organizations and on their employees, it is profoundly changing the working modalities, mainly introducing smart working practices that were showed to have significant consequences on workers’ wellbeing. This study aims to investigate employees’ perception of sustainable HRM in the frame of the COVID19 emergency, exploring if and to what extent perceptions of involvement and organizational support together with individual coping strategies associated with organizational change could influence positive organizational behaviors, namely organizational engagement and extra-role behavior. The research involved 549 participants who completed a self-report online questionnaire encompassing psycho-social measures of the abovementioned variables. Results confirmed the important role played by sustainable HRM practices both for the capitalization of human resources and of organizational performance in a time of great uncertainty and global crisis. Implications for theory and HRM practice development were also discussed

Does the end justify the means? The role of organizational communication among work‐from‐home employees during the covid‐19 pandemic

During the first months of 2020, the world, and Italy at an early stage, went through the Covid‐19 emergency that had a great impact on individual and collective health, but also on working processes. The mandatory remote working and the constant use of technology for employees raised different implications related to technostress and psycho‐physical disorders. This study aimed to detect, in such a period of crisis and changes, the role of organizational communication considering the mediating role of both technostress and self‐efficacy, with psycho‐physical disorders as outcome. The research involved 530 workers working from home. A Structural Equations Model was estimated, revealing that organizational communication is positively associated with self‐efficacy and negatively with technostress and psycho‐physical disorders. As mediators, technostress is positively associated with psycho‐physical disorders, whereas self‐efficacy is negatively associated. As regards mediated effects, results showed negative associations between organizational communication and psycho‐physical disorders through both technostress and self‐efficacy. This study highlighted the potential protective role of organizational communication that could buffer the effect of technostress and enhance a personal resource, self‐efficacy, which is functional to the reduction of psycho‐physical disorders. This study contributed to literature underlying the role of communication in the current crisis and consequent reorganization of the working processes

SELF-EFFICACY AND WORK PERFORMANCE: THE ROLE OF JOB CRAFTING IN MIDDLE-AGE WORKERS

In the last years, the scientific interest on job crafting within the Job demands-resources theory has been increased. The paper aimed to examine the role of job crafting in the relationship between self-efficacy and performance at work. Based on Job demands-resources theory, we hypothesized that employees with higher levels of self-efficacy would be most likely to make proactively changes in their own jobs in order to perform well. Specifically, we hypothesized that job crafting may mediate the positive effects between self-efficacy and work performance and organizational citizenship behaviours. Participants were 361 employees of different Italian organizations. Results from SEM showed the positive effect of self-efficacy on job crafting, work performance, and organizational citizenship behaviours. Furthermore, job crafting partially mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and work performance and totally mediated the relationship between self-efficacy and organizational citizenship behaviours. Findings suggest that job crafting can play a crucial role in the influence of personal resources, as self-efficacy, and the performance at work. Findings suggest that job crafting can play a crucial role in the influence of personal resources, as self-efficacy, and the performance at work

A New Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT) to Assess the Quality of Life at Work in the Italian Academic Context

The present study provides evidence for a valid and reliable tool, the Academic Quality at Work Tool (AQ@workT), to investigate the quality of life at work in academics within the Italian university sector. The AQ@workT was developed by the QoL@Work research team, namely a group of expert academics in the field of work and organizational psychology affiliated with the Italian Association of Psychologists. The tool is grounded in the job demands-resources model and its psychometric properties were assessed in three studies comprising a wide sample of lecturers, researchers, and professors: a pilot study (N = 120), a calibration study (N = 1084), and a validation study (N = 1481). Reliability and content, construct, and nomological validity were supported, as well as measurement invariance across work role (researchers, associate professors, and full professors) and gender. Evidence from the present study shows that the AQ@workT represents a useful and reliable tool to assist university management to enhance quality of life, to manage work-related stress, and to mitigate the potential for harm to academics, particularly during a pandemic. Future studies, such as longitudinal tests of the AQ@workT, should test predictive validity among the variables in the tool

Implication of sestrin3 in epilepsy and its comorbidities

Epilepsy is a serious neurological disorder affecting about 1% of the population worldwide. Epilepsy may arise as a result of acquired brain injury, or as a consequence of genetic predisposition. To date, genome-wide association studies and exome sequencing approaches have provided limited insights into the mechanisms of acquired brain injury. We have previously reported a pro-epileptic gene network, which is conserved across species, encoding inflammatory processes and positively regulated by sestrin3 (SESN3). In this study, we investigated the phenotype of SESN3 knock-out rats in terms of susceptibility to seizures and observed a significant delay in status epilepticus onset in SESN3 knock-out compared to control rats. This finding confirms previous in vitro and in vivo evidence indicating that SESN3 may favour occurrence and/or severity of seizures. We also analysed the phenotype of SESN3 knock-out rats for common comorbidities of epilepsy, i.e., anxiety, depression and cognitive impairment. SESN3 knock-out rats proved less anxious compared to control rats in a selection of behavioural tests. Taken together, the present results suggest that SESN3 may regulate mechanisms involved in the pathogenesis of epilepsy and its comorbidities

Employability as a compass for career success: a time-lagged test of a causal model

This study aimed at verifying the causal assumptions of a recent employability model examining the associations of employability with different clusters of predictors, and with both subjective and objective career success as outcomes. Through a time-lagged research design, antecedent variables were assessed at time 1, employability at time 2 and career success at time 3. The initial sample included 1288 Italian employees. Among them, 680 participated to the second survey, and 600 to the third/last survey (attrition rate = 53.4%). Structural equation modelling analyses were implemented to examine associations between variables. Employability mediated the associations between core self-evaluations, proactive personality and educational level on one side, and subjective career success on the other side. In regards to objective career success, employability mediated the effects by core self-evaluations and proactive personality. Several implications for both research (i.e. employability and career success literature) and practice (individual- and organizational-level interventions) can be drawn

Job crafting and well-being at work: an exploratory analysis during health emergency period

INTRODUCTION: During the health emergency in 2020, in order not to interrupt production processes and at the same time to protect the health of citizens and workers, alternative working methods were adopted different from the traditional ones, to which workers were directed without any previous notice or specific training. AIMS: The purpose of the research is to explore the relationships between meaning of work, job crafting and emotional exhaustion during the first month of lockdown in the Italian territory. The study therefore aims to identify possible strengthening factors related to working well-being. METHODS: The different constructs were detected through an online questionnaire from 11 March to 2 April 2020, involving 405 subjects. After verifying the reliability of the constructs, a mediation model was performed using nonparametric structural equations (PLS-SEM). RESULTS: Model's constructs show adequate reliabilities. The study highlights the total mediation of job crafting in the relationship between the meaning of work and emotional exhaustion. In particular, the regression relationship between meaning of work and emotional exhaustion is equal to c'=-0.04, p=0.480. On the contrary, the relationship between the meaning of work and job crafting is a=0.44 (p<0.001), and the one between job crafting and emotional exhaustion is b=-0.14, p=0.014. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggest that job crafting can be considered a factor able to buffer workers' emotional exhaustion and can guide new lines of intervention, in particular in relation to post-emergency reactivation

"Everything will be fine”: a study on the relationship between employees’ perception of sustainable HRM practices and positive organizational behavior during COVID19

8openopenManuti, Amelia; Giancaspro, Maria Luisa; Molino, Monica; Ingusci, Emanuela; Russo, Vincenzo; Signore, Fulvio; Zito, Margherita; Cortese, Claudio GiovanniManuti, Amelia; Giancaspro, Maria Luisa; Molino, Monica; Ingusci, Emanuela; Russo, Vincenzo; Signore, Fulvio; Zito, Margherita; Cortese, Claudio Giovann