Compensating need satisfaction across life boundaries: A daily study

Self-determination theory suggests that satisfaction of an individual’s basic psychological needs (for competence, autonomy, and relatedness) is key for wellbeing. This has gained empirical support in multiple life domains, but little is known about the way that need satisfaction interacts between work and home. Drawing from ideas of work-home compensation, we expect that the benefits of need satisfaction in the home domain are reduced when needs are satisfied in the work domain. We tested this hypothesis with a daily diary study involving 91 workers. Results showed that individuals particularly benefit from satisfaction of their need for competence in the home domain when it is not satisfied during the working day. No such interactions were found between the needs for autonomy or relatedness. Our study highlights that the interaction of need satisfaction across domains represents a boundary condition for the beneficial effects of need satisfactio

Citizenship Pressure as a Predictor of Daily Enactment of Autonomous and Controlled Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Differential Spillover Effects on the Home Domain

This study questions the exclusive discretionary nature of organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) by differentiating between autonomous OCB (performed spontaneously) and controlled OCB (performed in response to a request from others). We examined whether citizenship pressure evokes the performance of autonomous and controlled OCB, and whether both OCB types have different effects on employees’ experience of work-home conflict and work-home enrichment at the within- and between-person level of analysis. A total of 87 employees completed two questionnaires per day during ten consecutive workdays (715 observations). The results of the multilevel path analyses revealed a positive relationship between citizenship pressure and controlled OCB. At the within-person level, engaging in autonomous OCB resulted in an increase of experienced work-home conflict and work-home enrichment. At the between-person level, enactment of autonomous OCB predicted an increase in experienced work-home enrichment, whereas engaging in controlled OCB resulted in increased work-home conflict. The divergent spillover effects of autonomous and controlled OCB on the home domain provide empirical support for the autonomous versus controlled OCB differentiation. The time-dependent results open up areas for future research

Identifying nurses' rewards: a qualitative categorization study in Belgium

BACKGROUND: Rewards are important in attracting, motivating and retaining the most qualified employees, and nurses are no exception to this rule. This makes the establishment of an efficient reward system for nurses a true challenge for every hospital manager. A reward does not necessarily have a financial connotation: non-financial rewards may matter too, or may even be more important. Therefore, the present study examines nurses' reward perceptions, in order to identify potential reward options. METHODS: To answer the research question "What do nurses consider a reward and how can these rewards be categorized?", 20 in-depth semi-structured interviews with nurses were conducted and analysed using discourse and content analyses. In addition, the respondents received a list of 34 rewards (derived from the literature) and were asked to indicate the extent to which they perceived each of them to be rewarding. RESULTS: Discourse analysis revealed three major reward categories: financial, non-financial and psychological, each containing different subcategories. In general, nurses more often mentioned financial rewards spontaneously in the interview, compared to non-financial and psychological rewards. The questionnaire results did not, however, indicate a significant difference in the rewarding potential of these three categories. Both the qualitative and quantitative data revealed that a number of psychological and non-financial rewards were important for nurses in addition to their monthly pay and other remunerations. In particular, appreciation for their work by others, compliments from others, presents from others and contact with patients were highly valued. Moreover, some demographical variables influenced the reward perceptions. Younger and less experienced nurses considered promotion possibilities as more rewarding than the older and more senior ones. The latter valued job security and working for a hospital with a good reputation higher than their younger and more junior colleagues. CONCLUSION: When trying to establish an efficient reward system for nurses, hospital managers should not concentrate on the financial reward possibilities alone. They also ought to consider non-financial and psychological rewards (in combination with financial rewards), since nurses value these as well and they may lead to a more personalized reward system

How Does Experiencing a Positive Day at Work Make Me a Better Partner at Home?

A substantial body of spillover literature focused on the negative spillover from the work to the home domain, such that work experiences not only influence work, but also exert influence beyond the work domain. Yet, to date, less work-home research focused on positive spillover effects and the underlying mechanisms explaining these effects. In this study, we aim to examine how positive work experiences can improve employees’ private spousal life. Specifically, we explored how daily positive work experiences can make an employee more psychologically available as a partner at home (i.e., to be physically, emotionally and cognitively available). To that end, we investigated the mediating role of both interpersonal capitalization (i.e., reflecting on and sharing positive experiences, emotions and thoughts) and psychological detachment (i.e., abstaining from work-related thoughts, feelings and experiences after working hours). Data were collected of 55 employees during five consecutive working days. Multilevel path analyses found no support for a direct relation between daily positive work experiences and an employee’s psychological availability in the evening. Daily positive work experiences do relate positively with interpersonal capitalization, which in turn relates positively with being a psychological available partner at home. Whereas daily positive work experiences do not relate significantly to psychological detachment, being able to mentally and physically leave one’s work behind does make an employee psychologically more available. Our study has implications for practice, such that although interpersonal capitalization and psychological detachment seem semantic opposites they can co-occur and improve employees’ private life.status: publishe

Making WOP research inclusive: Why do we firmly neglect 20 percent of the working population (and is this a problem)?

When looking at how theories are formed and empirical evidence is gathered in work and organizational psychology (WOP) studies it becomes clear that scholars focus almost exclusively on the â average employeeâ , being a highly educated white-collar employee (most often a knowledge worker). These employees indeed represent a large â if not the largestâ part of the working population in Europe. Nevertheless, a significant proportion of the active population consists of low and medium educated employees often performing blue-collar or highly routinized jobs, jobs that are not likely to disappear in the near future. So the question arises why we point all our research attention to knowledge workers, managers, doctors, sales representatives, teachers etc.? Is WOP research suffering from a systematic bias in its research populations? The aim of the workshop is to reflect on how we can and why we should (or should not) make WOP research more inclusive in the light of the existing labor market demands and supplies. We will specifically focus on low and medium educated employees (or currently unemployed employees) and lowskilled jobs. Thereby we want to create a lively debate about whether the exclusive focus on the â average employeeâ is problematic, what is holding us back from examining atypical employee groups and how the concepts often studied in WOP research are based upon and valuable for the â other than averageâ employee. We will organize the workshop in a world café format, where participants will reflect on each of the three questions below, while switching from table to table.status: accepte

The impact of perceived and actual PO fit on employees’ work-related attitudes and behaviors

The fit between employees and their organization (person-organization fit, i.e., PO fit) tends to have a significant influence on a variety of important work-related attitudes and behaviors, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intention, and performance (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005; Verquer, Beehr, & Wagner, 2003). Yet, previous studies provided mixed results regarding the consequences of PO fit. This is probably due to differences in the operationalization and measurement of PO fit. One the one hand, perceived or subjective PO fit indicates employees’ perceptions of fit between their own values and those of the organization. It is measured directly by asking employees to estimate the perceived PO fit. On the other hand, actual or objective PO fit is measured indirectly by calculating the difference between the values of the employees and those of their organization. In line with previous studies, the present study examined the influence of PO fit on different work attitudes and behavior, however, special attention was additionally given to the differential role of perceived and actual PO fit. Important meta-analyses in the field showed that although both methods of measurement indicate a beneficial effect, perceived fit is generally more strongly related to outcomes than actual fit (Kristof-Brown et al, 2005; Verquer et al, 2003). In a first set of hypotheses we predicted that perceived as well as actual PO fit are positively related to job satisfaction, task performance, and work effort, and negatively related to turnover intentions. In a second set of hypotheses we predicted that perceived PO fit better predicts work outcomes than actual PO fit.status: publishe

Individual differences in the relationship between satisfaction with job rewards and job satisfaction

Although previous research often showed a positive relationship between pay satisfaction and job satisfaction, we dispute the universality of this finding. Cluster-wise regression analyses on three samples consistently show that two types of individuals can be distinguished, each with a different job reward-job satisfaction relationship. For the first person type, job satisfaction relates to financial and psychological reward satisfaction, whereas for the second person type job satisfaction relates to psychological reward satisfaction only. In addition, between-person type differences were found for the work value financial security but not for recognition, which suggests that differences in work values may lie at the basis of between-person differences in the rewards-satisfaction relationship. Moreover, person types 1 and 2 differ in turnover intention and affective organizational commitment, which implies that differences in the rewards-satisfaction relationship relate to important organizational outcomes as well. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed

Getting the Work-Nonwork Interface You Are Looking for: The Relevance of Work-Nonwork Boundary Management Fit

Recently, work-family scholars have empirically demonstrated the importance of congruence between employees' boundary management preferences and boundary management supplies provided by the work environment in relation to employee attitudes and behavior. However, a theoretically grounded construct that captures this congruence is lacking. The present study addresses this gap by developing the construct and measure of work-nonwork boundary management fit, based on the needs-supplies fit framework. We cross-validate the scale in three independent samples (n = 188, diverse group of employees, n = 75, employees from one hospital, and n = 81, employees from one car company) and in a fourth sample (n = 458, working parents), we demonstrated the importance of work-nonwork boundary management fit for employee well-being (i.e., stress and work-life conflict). In particular, we confirmed its unique role in predicting employee well-being, above and beyond workload and work interrupting nonwork behaviors. Hence, we argue for considering work-nonwork boundary management fit when studying how work-family policies and organizational culture affect employees in the workplace.status: publishe

Validation of an instrument to measure perceived boundary management fit

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