“Called” To Speak Out: Employee Career Calling and Voice Behavior

This study is the first one to explore the relation between career calling and employee voice and two potential mediators of this relationship, felt responsibility for constructive change and employee optimism about the future. Surveys from 406 employees of a law enforcement agency in the Midwest U.S. were analyzed using logistic regression and bootstrapping method with Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to examine support for the hypotheses’ main and mediating effects. A behavioral measure was used to capture employees’ promotive voice behavior. Results indicated that individuals with stronger career calling were more likely to engage in promotive voice, after controlling for personality, perceptions toward work, and organizational tenure. In addition, career calling was positively associated with both felt responsibility and employee optimism. Finally, felt responsibility for constructive change fully mediated the relationship between career calling and promotive voice. The implications of these findings for researchers and practitioners are discussed.

Do workers accumulate resources during continuous employment and lose them during unemployment, and what does that mean for their subjective well-being?

Drawing on cumulative advantage/disadvantage and conservation of resources theories, I investigated changes in economic, social, and personal resources and in subjective well-being (SWB) of workers as they stayed continuously employed or continuously unemployed. I considered age, gender, and SES as potential amplifiers of inequality in resources and SWB. Using 28 yearly waves from the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP 1985–2012), I conducted multilevel analysis with observations nested within participants. A longer duration of continuous employment predicted slightly higher economic resources and thereby slightly higher SWB over time. A longer organizational tenure had mixed effects on resources and predicted slight reductions in SWB via lower mastery. A longer duration of continuous unemployment predicted marked reductions mainly in economic but also in social resources, which led to modest SWB decreases. Younger workers, women, and workers with higher SES benefited from longer continuous employment and organizational tenure more. At the between-person level, some evidence for self-selection of less resourceful individuals into long-term or repeated unemployment emerged. The highly regulated German labor market and social security system may both dampen the rewards of a strong labor force attachment and buffer against the losses of long-term unemployment.

Work Tenure and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors; A Study in Ghanaian Technical Universities

This study investigates linear and non-linear associations among work tenure, organizational tenure, and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), and between leader–member exchange (LMX) and OCBs. A deductive approach was employed to collect data from academics. Using a convenience sample of 364 lecturers from six technical universities in Ghana, stepwise OLS regression analysis suggests that LMX correlates positively with OCBs. The relationship between work tenure and OCB was positive, with longer-tenured employees engaging in more OCBs. The effect of organizational tenure was, however, non-significant. Findings from this study have both theoretical and practical implications. Theoretically, this study adds to the literature on OCBs and LMX, and further enhances the understanding of how tenure in an organization can foster employee productivity. Practicaly, human resource practitioners and managers of higher education institutions can benefit from the findings of this study due to the implicit effects of both work and organizational tenure on workers’ attitudes, behaviors, and performance. This is a novel and pioneering study in an understudied context that examines work tenure, organizational tenure, LMX, and OCB in six public technical universities.

Pattern Mining on How Organizational Tenure Affects the Psychological Capital of Employees Within the Hospitality and Tourism Industry

Psychological capital (PsyCap) is a measure of the positive capabilities of an individual which consists of four components: hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism. In this study, the pattern of the effect of organizational tenure on the PsyCap of employees in the hospitality and tourism industry was mined. The PsyCap and length of service data of a sample of 329 employees working in some organizations related to hospitality and tourism were collected. The odds ratio was deployed to measure the pattern and strength of association and the findings showed that employees who stay longer years in an organization are 3.6 times more likely to exhibit high PsyCap than those who stay shorter periods. With the positive pattern of this association, it implies that indiscriminate retrenchment of long-serving employees should be avoided to preserve PsyCap within the industry.

Psychological Contracts and Employee Innovative Behaviours: A Moderated Mediation Effect Model

According to Bakker and Demerouti’s work demand resource theory, abundant work resources can stimulate an individual’s initiative to the maximum extent and finally achieve ideal work results. However, few scholars have discussed if psychological states could affect work resources. We believe that relationship embeddedness is an important work resource in the context of Chinese human relationship culture. A low degree of embeddedness among employees would affect employees’ recognition of their organizations and reduce their motivation for voluntary innovative behaviours. This study was to provide empirical evidence on the relationship between psychological contracts and employee innovative behaviours as well as the mediating role and moderating role of relational embeddedness and organizational tenure. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Primary data were collected by a structured questionnaire targeting the employees in China. To test the hypotheses, data collected from 402 enterprise employees were used for a regression analysis in AMOS (version 22). We found that there is a significant positive correlation between psychological contract and employee innovation behaviour, while embedding strength and embedding quality mediated the influence of psychological contracts on employee innovative behaviours. Organizational tenure moderated the strength of the relationship between psychological contracts and employee innovative behaviours via embedding strength and embedding quality.

Effects of Proactive Behavior on Within-Day Changes in Occupational Well-Being: The Role of Organizational Tenure and Emotion Regulation Skills

Only recently has research started to examine relationships between proactive behavior and employee well-being. Investigating these relationships is important for understanding the effects of proactivity at work, and whether proactivity leads to an increase or a decrease in well-being. In this study, we investigated day-level effects of proactive behavior on four indicators of occupational well-being (i.e., activated positive and negative affect, emotional work engagement and fatigue). Moreover, based on theorizing on “wise proactivity,” we examined organizational tenure and emotion regulation as moderators of these effects. In total, N = 71 employees participated in a daily diary study with two measurements per day for ten consecutive working days. Results revealed that emotion regulation interacted with daily proactive behavior to predict daily emotional work fatigue, such that the effect of proactive behavior on emotional work fatigue was only positive for employees with low (vs. high) emotion regulation. Supplementary analyses examining reverse effects of occupational well-being on proactive behavior showed that organizational tenure interacted with daily activated positive and negative affect in predicting proactive behavior. For employees with lower (vs. higher) organizational tenure only, both activated positive and negative affect were negatively associated with proactive behavior. Overall, our findings contribute to the growing body of research on proactive behavior and well-being by demonstrating reciprocal and conditional day-level relationships among these variables.

Effects of Proactive Behavior on Within-Day Changes in Occupational Well-Being: the Role of Organizational Tenure and Emotion Regulation Skills

Research has recently started to examine relationships between proactive behavior and employee well-being. Investigating these relationships is important to understand the effects of proactive behavior at work, and whether proactive behavior leads to an increase or a decrease in well-being. In this daily-diary study, we investigated effects of proactive behavior on within-day changes in four indicators of occupational well-being (i.e., activated positive and negative affect, emotional work engagement and fatigue). Moreover, based on the meta-concept of wise proactivity, which suggests that proactive behavior may lead to either favorable or unfavorable consequences depending on certain boundary conditions, we examined organizational tenure and emotion regulation skills as moderators of these effects. In total, N = 71 employees participated in a daily-diary study with two measurements per day for ten consecutive working days. Results showed that emotion regulation skills interacted with proactive behavior to predict within-day changes in emotional work fatigue, such that the effect of proactive behavior on emotional work fatigue was only positive for employees with low (vs. high) emotion regulation skills. Supplementary analyses examining reverse effects of occupational well-being on proactive behavior showed that organizational tenure interacted with activated positive and negative affect in predicting within-day changes in proactive behavior. For employees with lower (vs. higher) organizational tenure, both activated positive and negative affect were negatively associated with proactive behavior. Overall, our findings contribute to the growing body of research on proactive behavior and well-being by demonstrating reciprocal and conditional day-level relationships among these variables.

Matching middle and top managers: Do gender and tenure similarities between middle and top managers affect organizational performance?

This paper studies whether demographic similarities between middle and top managers with different tasks (strategy formation and strategy implementation) impacts organizational performance. By drawing on relational demography theory, we investigate the effect of similarity in gender, organizational tenure, and in both these demographics on the overall costs of Dutch municipalities. The main findings of this paper show that the similarity effects are interrelated: when middle and top managers diverge on only one demographic, performance is increased. Also, when leaders are similar on both demographics, performance is impaired. We conclude by discussing the implications for the literature on middle management, relational demography, and strategy formation and implementation.