Challenges and resilience: managers' perceptions of firm performance following M&As

We study M&As, resilience and performance, identifying links between managers’ perceptions of performance and resilience, using trans-national organisational-level survey evidence (N=3613) and follow up semi-structured in-depth interviews with managers involved in M&As and demerger. Drawing on the resilience and M&A literature, we identify reasons why employees in acquired firms may be less resilient in coping with the resultant changes than those of the acquirer and why this will negatively impact perceptions of performance. We explore the causes and consequences of variations in resilience and performance within firms that acquire others, and in those that have been demerged. As anticipated, we find that although managers in acquired firms tended to report worse performance than those in acquiring firms, both tended to be more positive than firms that had not taken part in an M&A at all. We draw out implications for theory and practice

Building resilience and performance in turbulent times: The influence of shared leadership and passion at work across levels

The COVID-19 pandemic has tested health care professionals to the extreme. This study investigated the re-enchanting effect of shared leadership and passion at work in the context of public health care. This study advances on the Self-Determination Theory to suggest that shared leadership has a positive effect on resilience and performance through passion at work at different levels of analysis. A sample of 518 physicians working in Spanish public hospitals was used. The results showed that shared leadership was associated with team and individual outcomes via passion at work at team level, while no significant mediating effect was found for passion at work at the individual level. The theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed, limitations are considered, and future research directions are suggested

Flexibility I-deals and prosocial motives: a trickle-down perspective

Growing concerns of maintaining the best talent have contributed to the rising number of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) at the workplace. I-deals refer to the personalised work arrangements between employees and their employers where the terms benefit both parties. Despite the acknowledgment that supervisors are key in creating i-deals, research to date has overlooked their role. Drawing on prosocial motives and social learning theory, we explore an overall model of what triggers employee flexibility i-deals and the consequences of such i-deals on employee outcomes. In so doing, we explore one of the key yet untested assumptions of i-deals theory: that they are intended to be mutually beneficial. We investigate our model with matched supervisor – employee data (n = 186) collected in El Salvador and Chile. Findings reveal that there is a positive association between supervisors’ prosocial motives and employees’ flexibility i-deals. Moreover, prosocial motives of supervisors trickle-down and shape employees’ functioning at work (i.e. work performance and deviant behaviours) and lead them to be more prosocially motivated through employees’ flexibility i-deals

FSSBs and Elderly Care: Exploring the Role of Organizational Context on Employees’ Overall Health and Work–Family Balance Satisfaction

Fierce competition coupled with an increasing presence of dual-earning couples and blurred boundaries between work and family, increasingly render work–family lives of employees important. In this context, one strategy to enable employees achieve greater work–family interface is via Family Supportive Supervisor Behaviors (FSSBs), defined as supervisors’ informal discretion to implement family-friendly policies at work. Inspired by the growth in research on FSSBs, the over-arching goal of this study is to explore (a) the triggers of FSSBs from an organizational context perspective and (b) the role of FSSBs as a mechanism to translate the impact of organizational context on subordinates’ overall health and work–family balance satisfaction. Furthermore, we expand our model by integrating the (c) role of supervisors’ and subordinates’ elderly care responsibilities as an individual boundary condition to explain how the FSSBs unfold and for whom they are most effective. Using the Work–Home Resources model (i.e., W-HR model; Ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012), we test our hypotheses with matched data of subordinates and their supervisors collected in El Salvador and Peru. Our model was largely supported. Findings point to the importance of organizational and supervisor support as well as the importance of involvement with elder-care responsibilities in driving FSSBs and enhancing employee perceptions of health and their work–family balance satisfaction

Flexibility I-deals and Prosocial Motives: A Trickle-Down Perspective

© 2021 The Author(s). Growing concerns of maintaining the best talent have contributed to the rising number of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) at the workplace. I-deals refer to the personalised work arrangements between employees and their employers where the terms benefit both parties. Despite the acknowledgment that supervisors are key in creating i-deals, research to date has overlooked their role. Drawing on prosocial motives and social learning theory, we explore an overall model of what triggers employee flexibility i-deals and the consequences of such i-deals on employee outcomes. In so doing, we explore one of the key yet untested assumptions of i-deals theory: that they are intended to be mutually beneficial. We investigate our model with matched supervisor – employee data (n = 186) collected in El Salvador and Chile. Findings reveal that there is a positive association between supervisors’ prosocial motives and employees’ flexibility i-deals. Moreover, prosocial motives of supervisors trickle-down and shape employees’ functioning at work (i.e. work performance and deviant behaviours) and lead them to be more prosocially motivated through employees’ flexibility i-deals

Family motivation of supervisors: Exploring the impact on subordinates’ work performance via family supportive supervisor behaviors and work–family balance satisfaction

Family supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) have emerged as a powerful resource of informal support for the well-being and development of employees. However, research to date offers limited insight into the antecedents and underlying processes that may trigger FSSBs. We investigate the association between family motivation of supervisors and FSSBs, and how the latter mediates the association between supervisors’ family motivation and subordinates’ work performance. Furthermore, we examine the role of supervisors’ satisfaction with their work–family balance as a contextual variable influencing our proposed associations. We draw on FSSB and perspective taking theory as over-arching frameworks for our hypotheses. Using matched and multisource supervisor-subordinate data collected from an organization in Chile (196 subordinates and 75 supervisors), our findings revealed that FSSBs are mechanisms linking supervisors’ family motivation to subordinates’ work performance. Interestingly, this positive association is moderated by supervisors’ satisfaction with their work–family balance, such that the mediation of FSSBs is stronger for supervisors who are not satisfied with their work–family balance

Family motivation of supervisors: Exploring the impact on subordinates’ work performance via family supportive supervisor behaviors and work–family balance satisfaction

Family supportive supervisor behaviors (FSSB) have emerged as a powerful resource of informal support for the well-being and development of employees. However, research to date offers limited insight into the antecedents and underlying processes that may trigger FSSBs. We investigate the association between family motivation of supervisors and FSSBs, and how the latter mediates the association between supervisors’ family motivation and subordinates’ work performance. Furthermore, we examine the role of supervisors’ satisfaction with their work–family balance as a contextual variable influencing our proposed associations. We draw on FSSB and perspective taking theory as over-arching frameworks for our hypotheses. Using matched and multisource supervisor-subordinate data collected from an organization in Chile (196 subordinates and 75 supervisors), our findings revealed that FSSBs are mechanisms linking supervisors’ family motivation to subordinates’ work performance. Interestingly, this positive association is moderated by supervisors’ satisfaction with their work–family balance, such that the mediation of FSSBs is stronger for supervisors who are not satisfied with their work–family balance

Seeking an "i-deal" balance: Schedule-flexibility i-deals as mediating mechanisms between supervisor emotional support and employee work and home performance

Requests for flexible work practices have become commonplace, with the aim of helping employees perform more effectively in both their private and work lives. One path for employees to secure flexible work is through the negotiation of individualized work arrangements, also known as “i-deals”. This study provides valuable insights into the nomological network of scheduleflexibility i-deals by drawing on the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory. We propose that, via resource accumulation, schedule-flexibility i-deals are a mechanism through which the emotional support of supervisors promotes employees' family performance and reduces deviant work behaviors. Drawing further on the COR framework, we examine two boundary conditions that guide employees' resource investment: perception of family-friendly environment and prosocial motivation. We collected multi-source data from employees working in South America and tested our hypotheses using structural equation modeling. Our results provide support for the key mediating role of schedule-flexibility i-deals. Moreover, the indirect relationship between supervisors' emotional support and family performance through schedule-flexibility i-deals is stronger in family-friendly organizational contexts, as well as when employees are prosocially motivated. Our results also show that, contrary to the expected effect, when prosocial motivation is high, employee supervisors' emotional support is positively linked to deviant behaviors. We contribute to the literature by emphasizing the roles of perceived resources at the levels of leaders (i.e., supervisors' emotional support), context (supervisors' perceptions of a family-friendly environment), and individuals (employees' prosocial motivation). We demonstrate the importance of these resources in establishing and sustaining schedule-flexibility i-deal

Perceptions of support trickle down: Effects on energetic resources via psychological empowerment

Mireia Las Heras and Didem Taser contributed equally to this study.Data availability statement: The data of this manuscript are available upon reasonable request from the corresponding author Didem Taser. The data are not made publicly available.Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Supervisor perceptions of support are key, as they can influence their subordinates' perceptions of support and well-being. Using a weekly diary data set of subordinates and their supervisors in Chile, we tested a trickle-down effect of perceived supervisor support across three hierarchical levels: upper managers, supervisors, and non-managerial employees. Drawing on the conservation of resources (COR) and social exchange theories as well as crossover research, we find that our model is largely supported. The findings revealed that supervisors' perceived support from managers (PMS) relates to subordinates' perceptions of support from their own supervisors (PSS). In turn, subordinates' PSS is positively associated with their emotional resource possession and sleep quality. Beyond these relationships, subordinates' psychological empowerment mediates the positive relationships between subordinates' PSS and their emotional resources as well as sleep quality. These findings suggest that supervisors who feel supported reciprocate with the more supportive treatment of subordinates, which likely enhances psychological empowerment, in turn driving the accumulation of emotional and physical resources