The interactive effects of dual-earner couples’ job insecurity: Linking conservation of resources theory with crossover research

The present study examines job insecurity in the context of dual-earner couples. Linking conservation of resources theory (e.g., Hobfoll, 1989, Am. Psychol., 44, 513) with crossover research (e.g., Westman, 2001, Hum. Relat., 54, 717), we proposed that a partner's job insecurity constitutes an additional resource threat. Thus, the partner's job insecurity would exacerbate a person's negative reaction to his or her own job insecurity in terms of attitudinal (i.e., work engagement) and both health- and withdrawal-related outcomes (i.e., psychological health and turnover intention). Using a time-lagged design and multisource data from 171 mixed-gender dual-earner couples, multilevel path analysis applying the Actor-Partner-Interdependence Model revealed interesting gender differences. The negative relationship between the husband's job insecurity and his work engagement was stronger, the higher his wife's job insecurity was. The data further showed a moderated mediation, such that the husband's job insecurity was negatively and indirectly related to both psychological health and turnover intention (via reduced work engagement) if his wife experienced a medium or high level of job insecurity. Our study demonstrates the interactive effects of stressors in dual-earner couples, and highlights the importance of overcoming an overly individualistic perspective when studying job insecurity in particular and stressors more generally

Job Insecurity and Performance over Time: The Critical Role of Job Insecurity Duration

Purpose: Research on the relationship between job insecurity and job performance has thus far yielded inconclusive results. The purpose of this paper is to offer a more dynamic perspective on the effects of job insecurity on job performance. Design/methodology/approach: Drawing from cognitive appraisal theory, research on critical life events, and stress reactions as well as more general theorizing around the role of time, this paper proposes that individuals’ job performance reactions to job insecurity will be dynamic over time. Findings: Adopting a person-centered perspective, this paper suggests that there are seven subpopulations that differ in their intra-individual job performance change patterns over time. Research limitations/implications: This paper presents potential predictors of subpopulation membership and presents an agenda for future research. Originality/value: We contribute to the literature by introducing a dynamic perspective to the study of job performance in the context of job insecurity. Delineating a set of open questions that follow from the presented theoretical arguments, the authors also hope to stimulate future research in the context of job insecurity and job performance

Reacting to Perceived Overqualification: Uniting Strain-Based and Self-Regulatory Adjustment Reactions and the Moderating Role of Formal Work Arrangements

Thus far, research on perceived overqualification has focused on either maladaptive, strain-based versus more adaptive, self-regulatory reactions in isolation. Following person-environment fit theory, we seek to advance this one-sided focus by uniting both types of adjustment reactions and to consider their implications for perceived person-job fit, and performance and wellbeing outcomes. In line with theory, we also examine contextual boundary conditions in the form of indicators of formal work arrangements (i.e., permanent vs. temporary employment contract and job tenure). Utilizing three-wave data from 453 employees, we found that perceived overqualification indirectly and sequentially related to decreases in task performance, organizational citizenship behavior and job satisfaction via anger toward employment situation and lower levels of perceived person-job fit-thus reflecting the strain-based pathway. For the self-regulatory pathway, findings did not align with our initial proposition that the positive relationship between perceived overqualification and work organization (a form of structural job crafting whereby employees improve their work processes) would be weaker among temporary employees and those with longer tenure. Instead, having a temporary employment contract or having longer job tenure resulted in a negative relationship between perceived overqualification and work organization, which further contributed to a decrease in performance and satisfaction via lower levels of perceived person-job fit. Our study highlights the demotivating role of a temporary employment contract and long job tenure for overqualified employees to reorganize their work. In discussing our findings, we point to the importance of job stage and develop recommendations for managing overqualified employees

Dirty work on the COVID-19 frontlines: Exacerbating the situation of marginalized groups in marginalized professions

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Rudolph et al. (2020) argue that frontline healthcare workers are facing very high levels of job stressors and strains, which may develop into detrimental long-term outcomes. In addition, they point to the heavy burden of jobs in “businesses that continue to provide service to the public” (p. 8). While we agree with these points, we believe that the full costs borne by those working on the COVID-19 frontlines have been understated, as well as the reasons why. In this commentary, we argue that the burden from the global pandemic falls heavily on often marginalized groups working in so-called “dirty jobs” (i.e., "occupations that are likely to be perceived as disgusting or degrading", Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999, p. 413) who already face serious preexisting health and socioeconomic disparities. The pandemic has merely exacerbated such pre-existing workplace inequalities. To protect these vulnerable workers, we pose potential interventions at the national, community, and organizational levels. We conclude our commentary with thoughts on how we can find a silver lining in the COVID-19 pandemic

Handling Missing Data For Sleep Monitoring Systems

Sensor-based sleep monitoring systems can be used to track sleep behavior on a daily basis and provide feedback to their users to promote health and well-being. Such systems can provide data visualizations to enable self-reflection on sleep habits or a sleep coaching service to improve sleep quality. To provide useful feedback, sleep monitoring systems must be able to recognize whether an individual is sleeping or awake. Existing approaches to infer sleep-wake phases, however, typically assume continuous streams of data to be available at inference time. In real-world settings, though, data streams or data samples may be missing, causing severe performance degradation of models trained on complete data streams. In this paper, we investigate the impact of missing data to recognize sleep and wake, and use regression-and interpolation-based imputation strategies to mitigate the errors that might be caused by incomplete data. To evaluate our approach, we use a data set that includes physiological traces-collected using wristbands-, behavioral data-gathered using smartphones-and self-reports from 16 participants over 30 days. Our results show that the presence of missing sensor data degrades the balanced accuracy of the classifier on average by 10-35 percentage points for detecting sleep and wake depending on the missing data rate. The impu-tation strategies explored in this work increase the performance of the classifier by 4-30 percentage points. These results open up new opportunities to improve the robustness of sleep monitoring systems against missing data

Überqualifizierung im Kontext organisationaler Karrieren

Overqualification occurs when a person has a surplus of knowledge, experience, and qualifications relative to the job he or she holds. Approximately 15 to 20% of employees in industrialized countries are overqualified. Thus, overqualification has become an integral part of organizational reality. The present paper deals with overqualification in the context of career development. We first summarize attitudinal, well-being, and behavioral outcomes of overqualification. Afterwards, we will provide an overview of the relationships between overqualification and career-related outcomes. Based on the partly contrary findings, we develop a conceptual model. In particular, we postulate that overqualified individuals’ proactive behavior might be a signal for organizational decision makers, which in turn triggers career-enhancing changes and developments. Finally, we discuss practical implications of the empirical findings and the proposed model

Too much self‐promotion! How self‐promotion climate relates to employees' supervisor‐focused self‐promotion effectiveness and their work group's performance

Self-promotion has largely been researched from an individual perspective. It is thus unclear if this behavior is functional or dysfunctional within a broader social context. The present study offers a contribution in this regard by examining self-promotion within work groups. In particular, we hypothesized that work group self-promotion climate—referring to the shared perception of the occurrence of self-promotion in the work group—moderates the relationships between individuals' supervisor-focused self-promotion and supervisor ratings of both job performance and promotability. More precisely, we expected these relationships to be positive only when self-promotion climate is low. With respect to the entire work group, we further hypothesized that self-promotion climate negatively relates to supervisor-rated work group performance via impaired work group cohesion. We tested these propositions with data from 195 work groups. Multivariate path analysis provided support for our hypothesized model. Taken together, our findings illustrate the important role of self-promotion as a climate construct. In particular, self-promotion climate helps us better understand the role of self-promotion for individuals and work groups

A story of gains and losses: intra-individual shifts in job characteristics and well-being when transitioning to a managerial role

Building on conservation of resources theory, we examined the duality inherent in one of the most significant work-related transitions an employee may go through: becoming a manager. Specifically, we explored intra-individual resource gains (i.e., increases in participation in decision-making) and resource losses (i.e., increases in time pressure) and their associations with intra-individual shifts in well-being (i.e., job satisfaction, exhaustion, and work-to-family conflict) when employees transitioned to a managerial position. In addition, we examined whether new managers’ perceived ability to detach from work during nonwork time moderated these processes. Multilevel analyses among 2052 individuals demonstrated that individuals experienced both a resource gain and a loss when they became managers. As expected, there was an indirect effect of the transition to a managerial position to an increase in job satisfaction via an increase in participation in decision-making. Additionally, there were indirect effects of the transition to a managerial position to an increase in both exhaustion and work-to-family conflict via an increase in time pressure. In line with the hypotheses, we found that new managers who perceived that they were able to detach well experienced a weaker increase in exhaustion and work-to-family conflict (as transmitted via an increase in time pressure). Contrary to the hypothesis, perceived ability to detach reduced the increase in job satisfaction (as transmitted via an increase in participation in decision-making). Our findings shed light on the intra-individual processes that occur when employees become managers, indicating that this transition can be a “double-edged sword.

Who will go the extra mile? Selecting organizational citizens with a personality-based structured job interview

Employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) are important drivers of organizational effectiveness. Yet, there exist no established tools for selecting employees with a propensity to engage in OCB. Given that personality traits describe typical behavioral tendencies and are established OCB predictors, we propose that personality assessment is a useful approach for selecting employees who are likely to exhibit OCB. To test this proposition, we developed a structured job interview measuring the Big Five traits and then compared this interview to a personality self-report measure to determine which method of personality assessment works best for selecting organizational citizens. Employees (N = 223) from various occupations participated in the structured job interview and completed the personality self-report in a simulated selection setting. We then obtained supervisor ratings of employees’ OCB. Results supported the assumption that structured job interviews can be specifically designed to assess the Big Five personality traits and, most importantly, to predict OCB. Interview ratings of specific personality traits differentially predicted different types of OCB (i.e., OCB-compliance, OCB-helping, and OCB-initiative) and explained incremental variance in OCB over and above personality self-reports and verbal cognitive ability. Taken together, these findings expand our knowledge about dispositional predictors of OCBs, personality assessment in selection, and the design of job interviews

A Story of Gains and Losses: Intra-individual Shifts in Job Characteristics and Well-being when Transitioning to a Managerial Role

Building on conservation of resources theory, we examined the duality inherent in one of the most significant work-related transitions an employee may go through: becoming a manager. Specifically, we explored intra-individual resource gains (i.e., increases in participation in decision-making) and resource losses (i.e., increases in time pressure) and their associations with intra-individual shifts in well-being (i.e., job satisfaction, exhaustion, and work-to-family conflict) when employees transitioned to a managerial position. In addition, we examined whether new managers’ perceived ability to detach from work during nonwork time moderated these processes. Multilevel analyses among 2052 individuals demonstrated that individuals experienced both a resource gain and a loss when they became managers. As expected, there was an indirect effect of the transition to a managerial position to an increase in job satisfaction via an increase in participation in decision-making. Additionally, there were indirect effects of the transition to a managerial position to an increase in both exhaustion and work-to-family conflict via an increase in time pressure. In line with the hypotheses, we found that new managers who perceived that they were able to detach well experienced a weaker increase in exhaustion and work-to-family conflict (as transmitted via an increase in time pressure). Contrary to the hypothesis, perceived ability to detach reduced the increase in job satisfaction (as transmitted via an increase in participation in decision-making). Our findings shed light on the intra-individual processes that occur when employees become managers, indicating that this transition can be a “double-edged sword.