Formalization and employee thriving at work: a moderated mediation model including work engagement and centralization

PurposeUntil recently, scholars have begun to examine the contextual antecedents of employees thriving at work. A recent study has shown that one aspect of organizational structure/context (i.e. formalization) can be an important antecedent of employee thriving at work. However, scholars have urged doing research examining how different aspects of organizational structure can combinedly influence employee work outcomes such as thriving at work. Given that, the present paper proposes a theoretical model to unravel the mechanisms of how two aspects of organizational structure (i.e. formalization and centralization) may operate as the antecedents of employees thriving at work. In particular, the author draws on the Conservation of Resources Theory (COR) to hypothesize that employees' work engagement mediates the relationship between their perception of formalization and thriving at work. The author further hypothesizes that the indirect relationship between formalization and employee thriving at work is moderated by employees' perception of centralization, such that the relationship is stronger in the presence of a lower level of centralization than higher.Design/methodology/approach The author gathered data by employing a time-lagged survey design involving 136 full-time employees from different organizations.FindingsResults show that employee work engagement mediates the relationship between formalization and employee thriving at work. Further, the indirect relationship between formalization and employee thriving at work is stronger when the level of centralization is relatively low.Research limitations/implicationsFormalization is able to enact employees' thriving at work, particularly when organization implements relatively less centralized structure.Originality/valueThis study first introduces work engagement as a mediator in the formalization–employee thriving at work relationship and centralization as a moderator along this mediating process.

Courage and equality – Women doctors’ thriving at work

Orientation: The article explores doctors’ thriving in the profession of medicine in order to heed the call to explore thriving in various work contexts. This study does so from the viewpoint of women medical doctors.Research purpose: To present the theoretical development and empirically expanded framework for women doctors’ thriving at work.Motivation for the study: Although women doctors remain underrepresented, there are signs of the feminisation of medicine. Women’s ability to thrive at work may be detrimentally affected by their societal expectations that are distinct from those of men. Frameworks about thriving at work do not currently distinguish between women and men.Research method: Development of a gender-specific framework from the literature followed by qualitative data collection with two semi-structured appreciative inquiry focus groups to confirm and expand on the framework. The nominal group technique employed to encourage open sharing. Participants were seven women and six men from various medical and surgical speciality fields. Collaborative analysis of data by participants using thematic analysis.Main findings: Gender quality and non-discrimination, support, non-traditional gender roles, career trajectories and self-empowerment were factors that women attributed to their thriving at workManagerial/practical implications: Managers can improve the structuring and planning of women doctor’s work conditions and improve on gender-specific management practices towards a thriving community of medical doctors.Contribution: A framework of women doctors’ thriving at work was empirically confirmed and includes gender-specific elements to facilitate women doctors’ thriving in healthcare.

When Work Conflicts With Personal Projects: The Association of Work-Life Conflict With Worker Wellbeing and the Mediating Role of Mindfulness

The negative emotional and health effects of work-life conflict (WLC) have been demonstrated in numerous studies regarding organizational psychology and occupational health. However, little is known about WLC’s relationship with positive wellbeing outcomes, including emotional, psychological, and social aspects of workers’ thriving. Furthermore, the mediating processes underlying the effects of WLC remain mostly unknown. The current study investigated the associations of perceived time- and strain-based WLC with positive mental health and thriving at work, as well as the mediating role of mindfulness in these associations. It is argued that WLC causes reduced mindfulness capacities among workers, which is in turn associated with lower positive wellbeing given the importance of mindfulness in emotion regulation. A sample of 330 workers based in Québec, Canada, completed an online survey including a measure of strain- and time-based interference with personal projects (i.e., the goals and activities that define the daily life of an individual) and validated scales of wellbeing outcomes and mindfulness. Results of structural equation modeling revealed negative associations between time- and strain-based WLC with positive mental health and thriving at work. Work-life conflict was related to lower mindfulness, which played a mediating role in the associations between time-based WLC with positive mental health and thriving at work, as well as strain-based WLC with positive mental health. The mediation was complete for the time-based WLC and positive mental health association, but partial for the other mediated pathways, highlighting the need for more research to identify additional mediators. These results highlight that beyond resulting in negative emotional/health outcomes often studied in previous research, WLC may be associated with workers’ reduced potential to live a fulfilling life, in general and in the workplace. Recommendations (e.g., mindfulness intervention to promote emotional regulation, personal project intervention) for workplace policymakers and practitioners are identified.

Every coin has two sides: the case of thriving at work

Drawing upon the thriving at work and agism literature, we added unexplored thriving antecedents (i.e., negative age-based metastereotypes and associated reactions) to the thriving nomological network. Additionally, we investigated the thriving-turnover intentions link throughout the lifespan. Parallel multiple mediator models were used to analyze the role played by threat and challenge in the relationship between negative age-based metastereotypes and overall thriving. Survey results (n = 326 employees) showed that threat and challenge mediated this relationship, yet differential relationships between antecedents and thriving appeared when analyzing thriving dimensions (i.e., learning and vitality) separately. Relatedly, turnover intentions were negatively predicted by overall thriving, but learning and vitality effects on turnover intentions were distinct across age groups. Findings recommend a clearer distinction between thriving dimensions role in the thriving experience throughout the lifespan. Overall, this study contends that the combination of thriving and agism literature contributes to further understand employee growth.

Job demands and resources and their relationship with satisfaction and thriving at work in a sample of Chinese doctors: a cross-sectional study

ObjectivesThe current study aimed to evaluate the status quo of perceived job demands and resources respectively among Chinese doctors, to examine the mediating role of work–family conflicts in the relationship between perceived job demands and various indicators of well-being, and to test the mediating role of psychological attachment in the relationship between perceived job resources and thriving at work among Chinese doctors.DesignA cross-sectional online survey study.SettingOnline questionnaires were administered across 30 provinces.ParticipantsA total of 2617 doctors provided sufficiently complete responses to be used in the study.ResultsPerceived job demands (M=3.843, SD=0.791) of participants were positively associated with work–family conflicts (B=0.454, p<0.001) and negatively associated with job satisfaction (B=−0.065, p<0.001) and life satisfaction (B=−0.261, p<0.001). Work–family conflicts partially mediated the relationship between job demands and life satisfaction and fully mediated the relationship between job demands and job satisfaction. Perceived job resources (M=2.474, SD=0.740) among Chinese doctors were positively associated with psychological attachment (B=0.988, p<0.001) and thriving at work (B=0.582, p<0.001). Furthermore, psychological attachment partially mediated the relationship between perceived job resources and thriving at work.ConclusionDoctors in China with high-level job demands tended to exhibit increased work–family conflicts, which in turn threatened their job and life satisfaction. On the contrary, doctors with greater job resources were more likely to thrive at work by increasing their degree of psychological attachment. The current study suggested that Chinese health policymakers and hospital administrators should provide a work environment with a dynamic equilibrium between doctors’ job demands and resources.

Measuring organizational climate via psychological networks analysis

PurposeThis study investigates organizational climate under the thriving at work perspective using a network approach. The authors demonstrate how organizational climate functions as a complex system and what relationships between variables from different dimensions are the most important to characterize the construct.Design/methodology/approachBy surveying 119,266 workers from 284 companies based in Brazil, the authors estimated a Gaussian graphical model with LASSO regularization for the complete dataset and for two subsets of cases randomly drawn from the whole dataset. The walktrap algorithm was applied for community detection, and a strong model for measurement invariance was fit to test whether the organizational climate is perceived similarly across groups.FindingsResults show that the networks estimated for both groups are quite consistent, with similar number of communities and items detected. The same pattern was found for the expected influence of each item. Measurement invariance was confirmed, showing that organizational climate is perceived similarly in both groups. The most important community detected and whose items have higher levels of centrality was organizational commitment, followed by a community centered around macro-organizational aspects covering cultural integrity, organizational agility and responsible leadership.Research limitations/implicationsStudies in the field have attested to the possibility of investigating the phenomenon from four (Campbell et al., 1970) to over 80 dimensions (Koys and DeCottis, 1991). As a result, since several dimensions have been produced to investigate organizational climate, there is no consensus on the quality and number of dimensions that should be considered to measure such a vast and multifaceted construct. Built on thriving at work perspective, eight dimensions were devised to cover a wide range of characteristics that distinguish organizational climate, including those related to Industry 4.0 (Coetzee, 2019). However, one may argue that a few dimensions, namely social responsibility, diversity and inclusion, or even more items describing work-life balance could expand the depth and breadth of the instrument and potentially trigger new associations that might eventually impose a new logic to the comprehension of climate as a system. Future studies combining the dimensions investigated in this study with other dimensions are therefore highly recommended for an even more comprehensive investigation.Practical implicationsThe results of this investigation show how to apply psychological networks to gain insights into different variables and dimensions of organizational climate. These findings can be used for the development of organizational policies focused on the most relevant aspects of organizational climate. This information would allow organizations to go beyond simply describing the individual frequencies for each item and could even be used to create a weighted scoring model that could prioritize variables with higher levels of centrality.Originality/valueTo the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates organizational climate using psychological networks; it provides a better understanding of the relationships established between items from different dimensions as opposed to the common cause framework whose focus is on the investigation of dimensions separately.