The effect of isolation on job crafting in telecommuting

The aims of this study was to identify what behavior of employees in order to overcome the isolation in the environment in which telecommuting was implemented. Specifically, this study was the networking behavior will appear as a positive coping method for the employees to overcome the isolation, and the mediating process that it will have a positive effect on job crafting through these behaviors is examined. Also want to identify the moderating effect according of affective commitment in this influence series of processes. For this purpose, an online survey was conducted on employees who are currently telecommuting from domestic companies and a total of 313 data were analyzed. The results of this study are as follows. First, professional isolation had a positive related on task networking behavior and social isolation had a positive related on friendship networking behavior. Second, the relationship between networking behavior and job crafting had all positively related. Third, the mediating effect of networking behavior was significant in the relationship between isolation and job crafting. Fourth, the moderating effect of affective commitment was significant only in the relationship between social isolation and friendship networking behavior. Fifth, the moderated mediating effect of affective commitment was significant only in the indirect effect of friendship networking behavior. Based on these findings, we expect to help to understand the emotions and behaviors of employees that may appear at the beginning of introduction of telecommuting in depth.

The Effect of Emotional and Cultural Intelligences on Networks’ Behaviors in International SMEs: Evidence from Portugal

The major purpose of this research was to study the predictive value of the top managers’ psychological characteristics regarding their networking behavior. In the international business management context of small- and medium-sized enterprises, we took the top managers’ cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence as determinant capabilities to perform better in their external networking. The sample was composed of 307 Portuguese SMEs’ international decision-makers, specifically founders, owners, chief executive officers (CEOs), managers of international activities, international market managers, or commercial managers. The data was collected from 2–30 April 2019 through online surveys directed to the Portuguese decision-makers that were directly responsible for the firms’ international activities. As a data collection instrument, the surveys were pretested and sent by e-mail. The average age of the participants was approximately 50 years old for males and 45 years old for females. We used self-reported measures to assess the different constructs and the hierarchical regression analysis to test our hypotheses. The results showed that cultural intelligence and emotional intelligence were significant drivers of decision-makers’ external networking behavior. A new factor structure concerning external networking behavior was retained. The major results exhibited the predictive value of some cultural and emotional intelligence dimensions over the new retained external networking behavior factors. Therefore, in the international business management context, the capability to adapt to new cultural contexts, as well as the capability to reason about emotions, improved the international decision-makers’ external networking behavior.