Of Discovery and Dread: The Importance of Work Challenges for International Business Travelers’ Thriving and Global Role Turnover Intentions

As frequent travel across international borders has become common for an ever‐increasing number of workers, it is essential to understand what helps these international business travelers (IBTs) thrive and embrace their global work responsibilities. This study's purpose is to examine the role of developmental opportunities (i.e., work role challenges) in helping IBTs see frequent travel as a predominantly beneficial experience. By integrating two theories of motivation—conservation of resources theory and the challenge‐hindrance demands framework—I build a moderated mediation model of IBTs’ intent to cease their global work responsibilities (i.e., global role turnover intentions). Using latent moderated structural equation modeling (LMS) I test the model on a sample of 204 IBTs collected at two time‐points. Results show that, through the psychological state of thriving at work, travel frequency has a negative indirect association with IBTs’ global role turnover intentions when IBTs’ work roles are challenging and a positive association when their work lacks challenge. This is primarily the case regarding the challenge of being responsible for others at work. The novelty of IBTs’ work tasks is also a salient challenge but to a lesser extent. This study contributes to literatures on global work, work role design, and thriving

Three Essays on Refining the Challenge and Hindrance Stressors Framework

Job demands, or stressors, are viewed as physical, psychological, social, or organizational aspects of the job that require sustained physical and/or psychological effort (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007) and are traditionally seen as detrimental due to their influence on stress. However, recent advancements suggest that, despite their effect on stress, some demands (i.e., challenge demands) could be instrumental in achieving valued personal and job outcomes, while others (i.e., hindrance demands) would have purely deleterious effects (Cavanaugh, Boswell, Roehling, & Boudreau, 2000). Based on this challenge and hindrance stressors framework, scholars have found differentiated effects of demands in relation to outcomes such as job performance, job satisfaction, and turnover (e.g., LePine, Podsakoff, & LePine, 2005; Podsakoff, LePine, & LePine, 2007). Despite the extensive contribution of the challenge and hindrance stressors framework, the notion that some demands can be beneficial is relatively recent and more research is needed to fully elucidate the nature of stressors. Thus the first purpose of this three-essay dissertation is to identify the important questions that still need to be answered in regard to job demands. The second goal is to examine some of the most pressing issues and begin to refine the challenge and hindrance stressors framework. The first essay represents a comprehensive review of research on job demands. I focus on clarifying specific rather than composite job demands that differ in terms of the extent to which they are deleterious and beneficial in association with desirable work outcomes. While some job demands are clearly deleterious or beneficial, several demands emerged as having mixed effects on work outcomes. That is, this `middle of the continuum\u27 group of job demands tends to have contradictory effects across various studies. To understand these variations in empirical findings, I look at the role of contextual and personal contingencies. The second study is focused on the short-term daily effects of job demands and the interplay between anticipated and unanticipated stressors to examine the daily situational context within which demands occur. Based on Mandler\u27s (1975) theory of interruptions I suggest that unanticipated demands in an already challenging situation would be seen as detrimental by employees despite the fact that in normal circumstances some of these demands would be seen as beneficial. To empirically examine this, I use a daily diary study approach. The results, however, do not find strong support for Mandler\u27s (1975) theory. The purpose of the third essay is to expand the challenge and hindrance stressors framework to the context of global employees, in particular to better understand the experiences of international business travelers (IBTs). Drawing on an integration of role theory (Kahn, Wolfe, Quinn, Snoek, & Rosenthal, 1964; Katz & Kahn, 1978) and the challenge and hindrance stressors framework I propose and test a theoretical model where IBTs\u27 adjustment and subsequent career satisfaction is affected positively or negatively, depending on the types of demands experienced as part of IBTs\u27 participation in work and family roles. Through conducting a two-wave study of IBTs, I find general support for the proposed model of the differentiated effects of work and family challenge and hindrance demands on IBTs\u27 adjustment and career satisfaction . The work role, however, was ultimately found to have a stronger influence on IBTs\u27 subsequent career satisfaction than the family role. Since stressors are a vital part of employees\u27 experiences and an essential building block of management theories, it is necessary to better understand their nature and effects. This dissertation contributes to the literature by (1) offering a clear synthesis of the differentiated effects of work demands, (2) contributing to our understanding of how demands influence employees on a day-to-day basis, and (3) elucidating the effects of work and family demands in the context of international business travel

Factors affecting hoteliers' management decisions for sustainable development

The tourism is one of the fastest growing economic sectors worldwide and an enormous quantities of resources including natural resources are needed to develop it. But its developing creates many risks for the environment, economic and locals of the tourist destinations. The government of destinations and hotels managers should find the right way to drive their business and to protect the environment. The concept of sustainable development is suitable to be applied in the sector of tourism. Its principles reach the balance between environment, economic and the welfare of locals. The sustainable concept and its applying in the tourism and hospitality sectors generate a lot of benefits for the environment, economic and locals. The author of this paper made a research with the hospitality managers in Kavarna municipality about their readiness to implement the sustainable principles and the factors which affect them

Difference equation for tracking perturbations in systems of Boolean nested canalyzing functions

This paper studies the spread of perturbations through networks composed of Boolean functions with special canalyzing properties. Canalyzing functions have the property that at least for one value of one of the inputs the output is fixed, irrespective of the values of the other inputs. In this paper the focus is on partially nested canalyzing functions, in which multiple, but not all inputs have this property in a cascading fashion. They naturally describe many relationships in real networks. For example, in a gene regulatory network, the statement “if gene A is expressed, then gene B is not expressed regardless of the states of other genes” implies that A is canalyzing. On the other hand, the additional statement “if gene A is not expressed, and gene C is expressed, then gene B is automatically expressed; otherwise gene B\u27s state is determined by some other type of rule” implies that gene B is expressed by a partially nested canalyzing function with more than two variables, but with two canalyzing variables. In this paper a difference equation model of the probability that a network node\u27s value is affected by an initial perturbation over time is developed, analyzed, and validated numerically. It is shown that the effect of a perturbation decreases towards zero over time if the Boolean functions are canalyzing in sufficiently many variables. The maximum dynamical impact of a perturbation is shown to be comparable to the average impact for a wide range of values of the average sensitivity of the network. Percolation limits are also explored; these are parameter values which generate a transition of the expected perturbation effect to zero as other parameters are varied, so that the initial perturbation does not scale up with the parameters once the percolation limits are reached

Bruxism, Bruxomania - Causes and treatment with a brace and thermoforming technology

Бруксизмът е несъзнателен акт на търкане и триене на зъбите. Често това става по времна сън и по тази причина човек даже и не подозира за заболяването си. Наблюдава се при всички възрасти, дори и при децата. При леки форми не създава проблеми. При по-тежки е причина за болки в долночелюстната става, напрежение или болки в мускулите, повишена чувствителност в зъбите, разрушаване на зъбните корони, главоболие. Най-разпространеният метод за лечение е изработването на шина, с която пациентът спи през нощта. Целта на настоящата публикация е чрез проучване на литературни източници да се опише състоянието бруксизъм, методите за лечение и по-конкретно термоформинг технологията за изработване на шината при бруксизъм.Bruxism is defined as an unconscious act of teeth grinding and clenching. The process frequently occurs during sleep and a person does not even suspect his/her illness. Bruxism is present at all ages, even in childhood. It does not cause any problems if present in its mild forms. In more serious forms, it can cause pain in the lower jaw joint, pressure or pain in the muscles, increased teeth sensitivity, teeth crown damage, and headache. The most common method of treatment is the manufacturing of a brace which the patient wears at night.By researching various literary resources the current publication aims at describing the state of bruxism, the methods of treatment and more precisely the application of thermoforming technology for brace manufacture in bruxism

Comparative study of quality characteristics of Kashkaval cheese from fresh and chilled curd

The influence of chilledcurd on Kashkavalcheese microbiological, functional, textural and sensorial characteristics was studied. It was found that salting the curd in a hot solution influenced to a greater degree the microflora reduction from the starter culture in Kashkaval cheese obtained fromfresh curd. In terms of species composition, Streptococcusssp. had a higher survival rate compared to Lactobacillusssp. During maturation, this trend changed and the number of Lactobacillusssp. increased, while that of Streptococcus ssp. remained constant and even slightly decreased in both studied samples. Melting and textural characteristics of the two studied cheese samples did not differ significantly at the end of the maturation process. The overall scores of the sensory profile were higher in the cheese obtained from fresh curd but no statistical differences (p>0.05) between separate sensory indices were established. The obtained results indicated that "Cagliata"can be successfully used as an alternative raw material for fresh curd in the production of Kashkaval cheese.publishedVersio

Embryonic stem cell-specific microRNAs contribute to pluripotency by inhibiting regulators of multiple differentiation pathways

The findings that microRNAs (miRNAs) are essential for early development in many species and that embryonic miRNAs can reprogram somatic cells into induced pluripotent stem cells suggest that these miRNAs act directly on transcriptional and chromatin regulators of pluripotency. To elucidate the transcription regulatory networks immediately downstream of embryonic miRNAs, we extended the motif activity response analysis approach that infers the regulatory impact of both transcription factors (TFs) and miRNAs from genome-wide expression states. Applying this approach to multiple experimental data sets generated from mouse embryonic stem cells (ESCs) that did or did not express miRNAs of the ESC-specific miR-290-295 cluster, we identified multiple TFs that are direct miRNA targets, some of which are known to be active during cell differentiation. Our results provide new insights into the transcription regulatory network downstream of ESC-specific miRNAs, indicating that these miRNAs act on cell cycle and chromatin regulators at several levels and downregulate TFs that are involved in the innate immune respons

Young children’s screen time during the first COVID-19 lockdown in 12 countries

Older children with online schooling requirements, unsurprisingly, were reported to have increased screen time during the frst COVID-19 lockdown in many countries. Here, we ask whether younger children with no similar online schooling requirements also had increased screen time during lockdown. We examined children’s screen time during the frst COVID-19 lockdown in a large cohort (n= 2209) of 8-to-36-month-olds sampled from 15 labs across 12 countries. Caregivers reported that toddlers with no online schooling requirements were exposed to more screen time during lockdown than before lockdown. While this was exacerbated for countries with longer lockdowns, there was no evidence that the increase in screen time during lockdown was associated with socio-demographic variables, such as child age and socio-economic status (SES). However, screen time during lockdown was negatively associated with SES and positively associated with child age, caregiver screen time, and attitudes towards children’s screen time. The results highlight the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on young children’s screen time

COVID-19 first lockdown as a window into language acquisition : associations between caregiver-child activities and vocabulary gains

The COVID-19 pandemic, and the resulting closure of daycare centers worldwide, led to unprecedented changes in children’s learning environments. This period of increased time at home with caregivers, with limited access to external sources (e.g., daycares) provides a unique opportunity to examine the associations between the caregiver-child activities and children’s language development. The vocabularies of 1742 children aged8-36 months across 13 countries and 12 languages were evaluated at the beginning and end of the first lockdown period in their respective countries(from March to September 2020). Children who had less passive screen exposure and whose caregivers read more to them showed larger gains in vocabulary development during lockdown, after controlling for SES and other caregiver-child activities. Children also gained more words than expected (based on normative data) during lockdown; either caregivers were more aware of their child’s development or vocabulary development benefited from intense caregiver-child interaction during lockdown