The current study investigated whether fiction experiences change empathy of the reader. Based on transportation theory, it was predicted that when people read fiction, and they are emotionally ...transported into the story, they become more empathic. Two experiments showed that empathy was influenced over a period of one week for people who read a fictional story, but only when they were emotionally transported into the story. No transportation led to lower empathy in both studies, while study 1 showed that high transportation led to higher empathy among fiction readers. These effects were not found for people in the control condition where people read non-fiction. The study showed that fiction influences empathy of the reader, but only under the condition of low or high emotional transportation into the story.
This study among 54 Dutch teachers tested a model of weekly work engagement. On the basis of theories about the motivational potential of job resources, we predicted that teachers' weekly job ...resources are positively related to their week‐levels of work engagement, and that week‐level work engagement is predictive of week‐level performance. In addition, we hypothesized that momentary work engagement has a positive, lagged effect on next week's job resources. Teachers were asked to fill in a weekly questionnaire every Friday during 5 consecutive weeks. Results of multi‐level analyses largely confirmed our hypotheses, by showing that week‐levels of autonomy, exchange with the supervisor, and opportunities for development (but not social support) were positively related to weekly engagement, which, in turn, was positively related to weekly job performance. Moreover, momentary work engagement was positively related to job resources in the subsequent week. These findings show how intra‐individual variability in employees' experiences at work can explain weekly job performance.
This paper explores the role of neoliberal ideology in workplace practices and in work and organizational psychology (WOP) research. It analyses how neoliberal ideology manifests in these two domains ...by using a prominent framework from the field of political theory to understand ideology through three different logics: political, social and fantasmatic logics. We explore the main neoliberal assumptions underlying existing practices in the workplace as well as in WOP research, how individuals are gripped by such practices, and how the status quo is maintained. The paper analyses how individuals in the contemporary workplace are henceforth influenced by neoliberalism, and how this is reflected in the practices and dominant paradigms within WOP. In particular, we focus on three ways neoliberalism affects workplaces and individual experiences of the workplace: through instrumentality, individualism and competition. The paper finishes with practical recommendations for researchers and practitioners alike on how to devote more attention to the, often implicit, role of neoliberal ideology in their work and research. The discussion elaborates on how alternative paradigms in the workplace can be developed which address the downsides of neoliberalism.
This study investigated the effects of flexibility human resource management (HRM) on employee outcomes over time, as well as the role of age in these relations. Based on work adjustment theory and ...AMO theory, it was predicted that availability and use of flexibility HRM would be positively related to employee engagement, as well as higher job performance. Moreover, we postulated different hypotheses regarding the role of employee age. While generation theory predicts that younger generations would react more strongly to flexibility HRM in relation to engagement, selection, optimization, and compensation theory of ageing predicts that older workers respond more strongly in relation to job performance. A longitudinal study among US employees and a study among employees in 11 countries across the world showed that engagement mediated the relationships between availability of flexibility HRM and job performance. Moreover, we found partial support for the moderating role of age in the relations of flexibility HRM with the outcomes: Flexibility HRM was important for younger workers to enhance engagement, while for older workers, it enhanced their job performance. The study shows that the effectiveness of flexibility HRM depends upon employee age and the type of outcome involved, and consequently, theory on flexibility at work should take the age of employees into account.
Practitioner points
Flexibility HRM can be used by organizations to enhance younger workers’ engagement, while it can be used for older workers to enhance their job performance.
It is important for organizations to not only offer flexibility to their employees, but also to make sure that employees take advantage of these HR practices.
Flexibility HRM is important across the world, because it enables people across the world to balance demands from work as well as from private life.
The present study investigates what role I‐deals (i.e. the idiosyncratic deals made between employees and their organization) play in the motivation of employees to continue working after retirement. ...We hypothesized two types of I‐deals (i.e. development and flexibility I‐deals) to be positively related to motivation to continue working. More specifically, we drew from continuity and personality theory to argue that the motivation to continue working is enhanced by I‐deals, because they fulfil people's needs for personalized work arrangements. Moreover, drawing from activity and disengagement theory it was hypothesized that two types of unit climate (i.e. accommodative and development climates) would moderate these relationships. Specifically, it was predicted that I‐deals would be positively related to motivation to continue working under conditions of low accommodative or high development climate. Results of a multi‐level study among 1083 employees in 24 units largely supported the above expectations; flexibility I‐deals related positively to motivation to continue working, and unit climate moderated the relation between development I‐deals and motivation to continue working.
The current study sought to explain a largely overlooked theme in psychological contract literature, that is, how individual factors are related to formation of psychological contract. It ...investigated the relationship between work centrality, psychological contracts, and job attitudes. It was expected that people with higher work centrality would be less likely to have a transactional contract and more likely to have a relational contract. Furthermore, it was expected that psychological contract mediates the relations between work centrality and job attitudes. Finally, we expected age to moderate the relations between work centrality and the psychological contract, with stronger relations for older workers than for younger workers. Based on life span psychology, it was argued that work centrality becomes an important factor for older workers in deciding whether or not to invest in the relationship with the organization. The study was conducted among 465 employees in a Dutch health care organization. Structural equation models supported the mediating effect of psychological contract types in the relations between work centrality and three job attitudes (work engagement, job satisfaction, and turnover intention). Moreover, it was found that the relations between work centrality and psychological contract were indeed stronger for older workers than for younger workers.
As flexibility has become a sine qua non of the contemporary workplace, we performed a critical review of its different uses and understandings in business and management research. Analyzing the ...literature on workplace flexibility in the period 1970–2018, using a four‐part conceptual framework, and on the basis of subsequent content analysis of 262 most relevant publications, we identify two axes of tension embedding scholarly work on flexibility: the flexibility of vs. flexibility for organizations and employees, and a favorability‐criticality tension. We further explain how internal divisions are attributable to three different paradigms of flexibility (two of which dominate), resulting from divergent sets of assumptions regarding: its target, rationale, approach to it, as well as methodologies involved in studying it. We propose a research agenda indicating the ways in which paradigmatic underpinnings of flexibility research may be further clarified and divisions between the paradigms made sense of.
The number of workers with a chronic disease is steadily growing in industrialized countries. To cope with and to give meaning to their illness, patients construct illness narratives, which are ...widely shared across patient societies, personal networks and the media. This study investigates the influence of these shared illness narratives on patient's working lives, by examining the impact of reading a positive work story versus negative work story on patients' sustainable employability. We expected that this relationship would be mediated by positive emotions and the extent to which the story enhanced awareness of desires future selves, and moderated by identification with story character. An online field experiment with 166 people with Inflammatory Bowel Disease in The Netherlands showed that while reading a positive story of a patient with the same condition significantly increased positive emotions, these emotions did not influence sustainable employability. However, reading a positive story was related to higher sustainable employability when patients became more aware of their desired possible future work selves. Finally, identification with the story character moderated the impact of story type on sustainable employability. This study showed that personal engagement with a positive work story of a fellow patient is related to higher sustainable employability. Findings can be helpful for health professionals to empower employees with a chronic disease.
In the context of the changing workforce, this study introduced two perspectives on HRM and distinguished universalistic developmental HRM from contingent accommodative HRM. We predicted two separate ...pathways for the effects on two employee outcomes: work engagement and affective commitment. We expected that developmental HRM would universally relate to employee outcomes by rebalancing the psychological contract between the employee and organization into a less transactional to a more relational contract. We also predicted that accommodative HRM would relate to outcomes only when fulfilling specific needs of employees, associated with their selecting, optimizing, and compensating strategies. Results of a multilevel study among 1058 employees in 17 healthcare units fully supported our expectations regarding the role of the psychological contract. Additionally, we found support for the expected roles of selection and compensation, but not for optimization strategy. This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that HRM relates to employee outcomes through multiple pathways, which can be either universal or contingent.
This paper introduces a socio-economic perspective on the relationships of idiosyncratic deals (i.e. i-deals) with motivation to continue working beyond retirement. On the basis of work adjustment ...theory, we expected that i-deals enable employees to engage in innovative behavior and professional development, through which they experience more work engagement, subsequently facilitating higher motivation to continue working. Moreover, on the basis of signaling theory, we introduced two socio-economic factors to explain when i-deals are most effective in the context of the current study among teachers: municipal child population growth and municipal unemployment. A study among 1,210 teachers in the Netherlands was conducted to test the mediation and moderation model. Results show positive indirect relationships of growth i-deals with motivation to continue working through innovative work behavior, professional development and work engagement, while indirect relationships were negative for accommodative i-deals. Moreover, child population growth boosted the relationships of i-deals, while unemployment accentuated the effects of professional development. The study contributes to the literature by showing the importance of socio-economic factors in explaining the relationships of i-deals and individualized HRM.
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