The mediating role of the work-family conflict in the relationship between technostress and psychological well-being in the COVID-19 pandemic context

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought dramatic changes both for work and employees’ personal and family life domains. In this context, this research investigates the mediating role of the work-family conflict in the relationship between technostress creators (techno-overload and techno-invasion) and psychological well-being. We conducted a survey of 217 employees and the results indicated that the work-family conflict fully mediated the relationship between techno-overload and psychological well-being, thus strongly affecting the psychological well-being of employees in the context of exposure to the stress generated by ICTs overload. Similar results were identified regarding the mediating role of work-family conflict in the relationship between techno-invasion and psychological well-being. The findings suggest the need to increase the coping capacity of employees with technostress and their psychological well-being by reducing the work-family conflict and technostress.

Employee Intrapreneurship Scale: adaptation and validation in the Romanian working population

The present article includes two studies that have tested the reliability and validity of the Romanian adaptation of the Employee Intrapreneurship Scale (EIS). Intrapreneurship is a relatively novel concept describing proactive behaviors through which employees contribute to the growth and development of organizations they are employed in. The factorial structure and gender invariance of the EIS have been tested in the first sample, including 307 employees with diverse occupational backgrounds. The factorial structure was cross-validated in a second sample, including 122 employees with a similar composition. The second study also established convergent validity of the scale through testing its’ associations to risk-taking, innovativeness, and proactive personality. Discriminant validity was tested using the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) procedure. The results have confirmed a factor structure whereby employee intrapreneurship is composed of two latent indicators: strategic renewal and corporate venturing. Reliability indices and factor loadings have shown a consistent and valid measure of intrapreneurship at the employee level. Furthermore, the concept showed significant positive associations to other constructs in the nomological network, and the AVE indicated satisfactory discriminant validity. Overall, these studies provide a psychometrically valid measure to be used in intrapreneurship research in Romanian organizations.

The Effectiveness of a Job Crafting, Strengths Use, and Deficit Correction Intervention on Employee Proactive Behaviors and Well-Being: A Randomized Controlled Trial

The present study evaluates the effectiveness of a mixed job crafting, strengths use, and deficit correction intervention on the proactive behaviors, work engagement, life satisfaction, and work-life balance of employees working in a home office setting. A two-armed (intervention vs. wait-list control group) randomized controlled trial with three measurement moments (pre-, post-intervention, and one-month follow-up) was designed to reach the study's goal. A sample of 80 participants part of a large multinational pharmaceutical company was randomly assigned to the intervention (n = 45) or wait-list control condition (n = 35). Mixed factorial analyses of variance showed that the combined job crafting, strengths use, and deficit correction intervention positively impacted life satisfaction (d = .47) and seeking challenging job demands (d = .44) in the short-term. There were no significant differences between the two groups regarding the other proactive behaviors, work engagement, or work-life balance. Moderator analyses revealed that autonomy and workload were moderators of the relationship between the intervention effectiveness and several outcomes (e.g., the intervention had a positive effect on the work-life balance of participants with low autonomy). Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Equity Sensitivity and Organizational Outcomes: Incremental Validity over Big Five Personality Traits

One individual difference that emerged over the years is equity sensitivity. It was posited that this construct may be a central factor in predicting work outcomes in reactions to inequity. However, its conceptual overlap with already established dimensions of personality has been insufficiently taken into consideration so far. The present study examines the incremental validity of equity sensitivity in predicting counterproductive work behaviors and perception of organizational justice over the Big Five personality traits. The study sample consisted of 223 Romanian working adults. Results showed that, although equity sensitivity had a significant relationship with counterproductive work behaviors after controlling for the Big five personality traits, its incremental validity was small, with little practical utility. Moreover, the incremental validity of equity sensitivity in predicting justice dimension above the Big-Five personality dimensions was not supported. Theoretical and practical implications of equity sensitivity for personnel selection are discussed.

Interventions Aimed at Enhancing Employee Well-being: Current State of Knowledge and Next Challenges

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The do’s and don’ts of supervisor behavior. Supervisor personality as predictor for subordinate’s job insecurity and citizenship behaviors

Supervisor behavior can be easily interpreted in a positive or negative key; therefore subordinates’ perceptions regarding their supervisor behavior can be biased by numerous personal variables. In the present study we collected data from 20 supervisors and 402 subordinates, and we investigated the relationships between these two perspectives. The supervisors completed two popular self-reported personality scales (i.e., a Big Five scale and a questionnaire that assessed psychopathic tendencies), while their subordinates responded to scales that assessed their level of job insecurity and their self-reported organizational citizenship behaviors. Our multilevel analyses indicated significant relationships between subordinates’ variables (i.e., job insecurity, organizational citizenship behaviors) and their managers’ agreeableness or their managers’ primary psychopathy. In addition, multilevel structural equation models confirmed that subordinates’ job insecurity partially mediated the relationship between supervisors’ primary psychopathy and subordinates’ citizenship behaviors. These findings confirmed the theoretical assumptions of the social learning theory, which anticipated the relationships between supervisors’ behaviors and employees’ behaviors.

Development of a New Personality-Oriented Work Analysis Questionnaire: First Steps Towards Validation

In this paper we detail the construction and validation process for a new personality-oriented work analysis instrument, in the form of a standardized questionnaire, based on extant research that shows that personality traits are good predictors of job performance. We present the process of item development, frame of reference training, rating scale creation, and the selection of subject matter experts. By administering the instrument to three distinct positions, the interrater reliability coefficients resulted between .80 and .94. We also investigated the instrument’s ability to discriminate between the same rated positions, and the results for this indicator were quite low. Conclusions provide some possible explanations for the lower resulted discriminability. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed as well as other future research for general improvement of data quality.

The Role of Work Alienation in the Relationship Between Perceived Organizational Injustice and Counterproductive Work Behaviors

Previous studies supported the relationship between perceived organizational injustice and counterproductive behaviors at work, and in the current research the emphasis is on the explanatory mechanism of alienation. This study aims to investigate whether work alienation could be a potential mediator in the relationship between the two constructs. In an attempt to research an explanatory mechanism that is less addressed in the literature, a non-experimental cross-sectional study was conducted, based on a sample of 145 participants from different industries. The statistical analysis’ results indicated that perceived organizational injustice is a significant predictor of counterproductive behavior. Furthermore, workplace alienation has completely mediated the relationship between perceived organizational injustice and employees’ counterproductive behaviors. These findings reiterate the role and importance of employees' perceptions of organizational justice in the emergence and possible reduction of counterproductive behaviors that are detrimental to both the organization and individuals. The data obtained also supported a possible explanatory mechanism of their relationship.

Significant career change to software development. A life-course perspective

T The present study, based on qualitative data, investigates the significant career change through the life-course lens. Biographical interviews were conducted with people who changed their profession and the findings were characteristically reflective and subjective, foregrounding the participants’ interpretations of their layers of reality. Different type of resources: individual (Agency), community (Networking), and society (Labour market) were taken into account and the endeavour enabled to capture the triggers involved in career change process. The distinction between voluntary and involuntary career change decision helps to understand the reasons for which the change is chosen. There are major differences between those who leave involuntary their desired profession and those who discover that they have a calling for the software development. Moreover, the results advocate for the importance of early vocational counselling. On the other hand, evidence of discrimination encountered by new programmers could be addressed by HR departments in the IT organizations