Entrepreneurial leadership and employee innovative behavior in the software development firms: do employees' epistemic curiosity and creative process engagement matter?

PurposeBuilding on self-determination theory, this study empirically examined the influence of entrepreneurial leadership (EL) style on employee innovative behavior (EIB) in the context of software development firms located in the twin cities of Pakistan (Rawalpindi and Islamabad).Design/methodology/approachFor the present study, an employee survey (online questionnaire) was used for data collection. The data were collected through an adopted questionnaire by using emails and messaging applications. Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyze data collected from 245 respondents.FindingsThe findings of this study delineate that entrepreneurial leadership positively and significantly influences employee innovative behavior. Moreover, the relationship between entrepreneurial leadership and employee innovative behavior was partially mediated by employee epistemic curiosity (EC) and creative process engagement (CPE). The sequential mediation by the employee epistemic curiosity and creative process engagement between the link of entrepreneurial leadership and employee innovative behavior was also confirmed.Practical implicationsIn innovation-intensive organizations like software development firms, entrepreneurial leadership style can foster employee innovative behavior that is critical for organizational innovation success. This study provides information to the strategic leaders on how leadership behaviors can drive employee innovative behavior, particularly in the context of software development companies.Originality/valueThis study is an attempt to extend the scarce literature on the mechanisms through which leadership styles impact employee innovative behavior. Specifically, the mediating roles of employee epistemic curiosity and creative process engagement have been explored through a self-determination perspective.

Good soldier syndrome. Do organizational cynicism and work alienation matter?

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to examine the impact of organizational cynicism (OCyn) on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among bank employees with a focus on the role of work alienation (WA) as a potential mediator.Design/methodology/approachUsing standardized questionnaire, data were collected from 381 employees working in the banking sector of Punjab, a northern state of India. Statistical techniques such as hierarchical multiple regression and confirmatory factor analysis along with PROCESS macro were used for data analysis.FindingsResults reveal that OCyn has a significant negative effect on OCB. Further, WA is found to be significantly partially mediating the relationship between the aforementioned constructs.Research limitations/implicationsThis study pertains to a single sector i.e., banking sector restricting the generalizability to other industrial and vocational settings. Further, it may be difficult to draw any causal inferences as the research design adopted for this study is cross-sectional in nature.Practical implicationsIn order to promote OCBs among bank employees, the formation of negative workplace attitudes such as OCyn and WA needs to be regulated. This can be achieved through improving communications network, encouraging participative decision-making activities, conducting psychological counseling and stress management training sessions.Originality/valueThis study is one of the scarce empirical research works that have substantiated the direct impact along with the indirect impact of OCyn (through work alienation) on OCB among bank employees.

Burnt to a crisp? Understanding drivers of burnout amongst New Zealand workers

PurposeJob burnout is a popular topic for researchers and a pressing issue for employees and employers. However, the most popular measure has become widely critiqued, and a new construct – the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) – has been offered as a better way to assess burnout.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses data from 1,022 employees across a wide range of occupations, sectors and industries. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and odds ratio calculations are explored.FindingsThe present psychometric properties of the BAT construct are supported. Overall, 11.1% of employees met the high burnt-out risk threshold. Determinants of burnt-out risk were explored, with significant findings from high perceptions of organizational support, large firm-size, young age and long work hours found. No gender differences. The odds ratio provides greater insights into the risks associated with factors, especially working 55+ hours/week, which resulted in 580% higher risk of burnt-out risk.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings highlight the danger of burnt-out risk and provide a useful benchmark for those exploring the burnt-out risk rate.Originality/valueThe BAT has not been tested in New Zealand across a sample of employees. Given the large size and breadth of employees, this provides useful generalizability to the BAT-NZ. The determinants tested here are all unique to the literature and provide new insights.

Illegitimate tasks and occupational outcomes: the impact of vertical collectivism

PurposeThis study aims to understand essential work and occupational consequences of employees’ illegitimate task (ILT) experiences (unreasonable and unnecessary task demands) under the influence of vertical collectivist (VC) values.Design/methodology/approachData were collected via a survey from 503 teachers in the Turkish public education sector. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.FindingsFindings of this study reveal that unnecessary tasks decrease employees’ professional identification and perceived occupational prestige, whereas unreasonable tasks weaken their workplace well-being. Results also show that employees with higher VC orientation feel these adverse effects to a lesser extent.Research limitations/implicationsThis study demonstrates that individual-level cultural values play a significant role in understanding task-related dynamics and consequences at the workplace. It brings new theoretical insights to job design and work stress literature regarding what similar factors can mitigate task pressures on employees.Practical implicationsA key practical insight from the findings is that human resources management experts should create a positive task environment where ILT demands are not welcome by analyzing jobs and skill requirements in detail, communicating task decisions regularly with employees and providing them with the necessary work support.Social implicationsUnderstanding the impact of ILT can greatly help to assess the quality of the education system and the value of teaching occupation in society.Originality/valueILT have been mainly discussed without considering the effect of different cultural orientations. This is the first study empirically showing the diverse effects of two ILT dimensions on essential occupational outcomes in connection to individual-level cultural influences.

Informal learning as mediating mechanism for the relationship between learning climate and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)

PurposeThe goal of this study was to examine the mediating mechanism of informal learning between dimensions of learning climate and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). In addition, the study also aimed to investigate the learning climate, in the dimensions of learning facilitation, learning appreciation and error avoidance as antecedents of informal learning.Design/methodology/approachThe data were gathered from sports items manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Sialkot, Pakistan. Sialkot is home to manufacturing businesses that export their products worldwide. Survey data of 318 middle managers collected at 2 different times were used for testing the research model using structural equation modeling (SEM).FindingsThe results demonstrate that facilitation and appreciation learning climate have a positive relationship with informal learning and error-avoidance has a negative relationship with informal learning. The analysis also revealed that informal learning mediated the linkage between learning climate dimensions and OCB. Moreover, informal learning is significantly related to OCB.Practical implicationsHR practitioners and organizational leaders of SMEs can use, encourage and promote informal learning to improve the skills and knowledge of employees at low cost. For instance, management should strategically implement informal learning at the workplace by providing a supportive learning climate.Originality/valuePrevious studies have overlooked the impact of informal learning on OCB and its mediating effect. The present study addresses this gap by examining the mediating mechanism of informal learning between learning climate and OCB.

The way you make me abuse: impression management matters

PurposeDrawing on the perspectives of emotional labor, self-concept and impression management, this study presents two major findings: (1) employees' excessive reliance on impression management can bother supervisors, and (2) the effectiveness of impression management depends on how the management affects targets' attribution of characteristics to actors.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a cross-sectional design and a sample of 259 employees to investigate the antecedents of abusive supervision and, in this regard, the potential mediating effects of impression management. Through Mplus analysis, the authors specifically show that deep acting and surface acting affect impression management and that impression management activates abusive supervision.FindingsEmotional labor is critical in triggering abusive supervision through impression management. The study specifically shows that impression management mediates two types of relationships: (1) the relationship between deep acting and abusive supervision, and (2) the relationship between surface acting and abusive supervision. The findings contribute to the abusive supervision literature by clarifying how impression management functions.Originality/valueThis study, by addressing how emotional labor is a potential antecedent of abusive supervision, reveals that impression management can be a mixed blessing, insofar as emotional labor can contribute to abusive supervision.

Off-the-job embeddedness moderates work intensity on employee stress

PurposeWork intensity causes employee stress. This paper demonstrates that off-the-job embeddedness (OffJE), a potential source of social support resources, buffers the negative effect of work intensity on employee stress.Design/methodology/approachGuided by conservation of resources (COR) and job embeddedness theory (JET), this paper reports on the moderated regression analysis of the survey responses of 385 adult employees from a variety of industries in Queensland, Australia, using a student-recruited sampling strategy.FindingsHigher levels of work intensity were found to be associated with higher levels of employee stress. However, this effect was weaker for employees who had higher OffJE. In this sample, work intensity has no relationship with stress for employees who report OffJE beyond the 70th percentile.Originality/valueThis paper demonstrates the positive role of outside workplace relationships embodied in OffJE on workplace employee experience, justifies employer work-life balance initiatives and community involvement, demonstrates the potential positive return for employer involvement in helping employees manage the experience of work intensity and contributes to the social support, COR and job embeddedness literature studies.

Leader negative mood and employee-instigated incivility: the role of mood contagion

PurposeGiven the harmful effects of workplace incivility and the calls for revealing the antecedents of instigated incivility, this study examines how employee-instigated incivility unfolds as a result of negative mood contagion from leaders to employees.Design/methodology/approachDrawing upon affective events theory, the authors hypothesized that leader negative mood is contagious and has an indirect relationship with employee-instigated incivility through employee negative mood. For hypothesis testing, data were collected from 243 leader-employee dyads and tested using bootstrapped mediation analysis.FindingsAs hypothesized, leader negative mood was associated with employee-instigated incivility indirectly through employee negative mood. This finding supports that negative mood of the leader is contagious and might unintendedly trigger employee-instigated incivility toward other at work.Research limitations/implicationsGiven the cross-sectional design of this study, causal inferences could not be drawn. The direction of relationships between the variables is based on the theoretical assumptions, rather than a test of the causal ordering of the variables.Originality/valueThis study advances the limited literature on the antecedents of employee-instigated incivility by demonstrating the impact of negative mood experienced by leaders on uncivil behaviors of employees.

Do millennials differ in conflict manifestation? Differences within the cohort

PurposeThe present study aims to examine the moderation of the employee's age on the manifestation of “experience of hurt” to “commitment to future conflict” among the three intra-cohort segments of millennials. The study also examines the mediation of “perception of duplicitous organization” between hurt and “commitment to future conflict.”Design/methodology/approachCross-sectional data was collected using survey method and analyzed by structural equation modelling on SPSS AMOS 25 software.FindingsThe results are based on single-source cross-sectional data. The result indicates that “perception of duplicitous organization” is positively impacted by the experience of hurt at the workplace. It also acts as a mediator between hurt and “commitment to future conflict”. There is significant moderation of age for all the relationships in the model. For instance, age moderates both the paths of hurt resulting in “perception of duplicitous organization” and aggressiveness, where the group of young employees have significantly higher path coefficients.Practical implicationsThe managers need to be more considerate and interact frequently with the younger employees as they are more prone to develop aggression and are impressionable to form a “perception of duplicitous organization” after an experience of hurt. The manager needs to establish a high-quality relationship and a positive image of the organization with subordinates to prevent the manifestation of hurt to a “commitment to future conflict”.Originality/valueTo the best of the knowledge of the authors, this study is the first of its kind to study the moderation of age within the larger cohort of millennials.

Work stressors and job outcomes: an empirical investigation of frontline service employees in the Indian hospitality industry

PurposeThe study aims to investigate the relationship between work stressors (abusive supervision and dysfunctional customer behaviour) and several job outcomes such as service sabotage, job satisfaction and intention to quit among frontline employees in the Indian hospitality industry. It also explores the mediating role of emotional exhaustion explaining the indirect effect between the work stressors and the job outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThis is a multi-wave (data collected at two time points) cross-sectional survey study. In order to test the study hypotheses, the study draws responses from frontline employees working in several hotels and restaurants in India. The final sample of 274 was analysed using SmartPLS and Statistical Product and Service Solutions (SPSS).FindingsResults report that both the work stressors were significantly related to the job outcomes in the direction suggested in the literature. Also, the indirect effect between the work stressors and the job outcomes via emotional exhaustion were found to be significant.Originality/valueThe present study makes two unique contributions to the extant literature; first, it conceptualizes and empirically tests the pernicious impact of multiple work stressors like abusive supervisor and dysfunctional customer behaviour on the job outcomes of frontline hospitality industry employees. Second, it is the only study to investigate the relationship between the two work stressors and service sabotage in the Indian hospitality industry.