The present study examined the relationship between personality, general job performance, and sales performance. Five Factor Model (FFM) traits were used to predict performance in sales and advisory roles. The distribution of performance indicators was also investigated to further understand individual performance contributions. Two hundred eighty-eight participants completed an FFM-based personality measure. General job performance was evaluated based on managerial ratings, and sales performance criteria were measured by the number of sales completed through inbound and outbound sales channels. The results indicated low to medium correlations between personality and both performance domains. Support for conscientiousness and extraversion in predicting general job performance was found. Interestingly, extraversion showed a negative relationship with inbound sales, contradicting some earlier studies. Analyses of sales performance data indicated that a power-law distribution provided a better fit than a normal distribution. The findings have implications for organizations’ personnel selection practices.
This study examined associations among five concerns related to technological changes about the future of work, focusing on how these concerns interact with and reinforce organizational factors, namely, the work environment, conditions, and demands in the Norwegian context. An online survey was conducted among n = 441 Norwegian employees and analyzed using a novel statistical approach, the so-called psychological network analysis. Network communities of organizational work environment, conditions, and demands were created and labeled as organizational work factors, which we then associated with the network community of concerns related to technological changes through bridge connections. Our findings show that alienation mediates the link between solitary work and job insecurity, meaning isolated employees are more anxious about job security. Additionally, concerns about technology in work organization relate to the need for continuous learning and increased solitary tasks. In a combined model of work environment, conditions, and demands, concerns about technological changes influenced work demands and the work environment more strongly, indicating a robust association with perceptions of increased workload and a less favorable work climate. These results underscore the complex interplay between technological change concerns and organizational work factors. It is important to address these concerns related to technological changes to ensure a better, more innovative workplace in the future.
In the municipality context, the priorities and financial objectives established by boards of directors (‘boards’) may influence the quality of occupational health and safety (OHS) in organizations. Little is known about boards’ discussions of OHS, which is why we set out to investigate vice chairs’ and chairs’ perceptions of facilitating conditions for discussing OHS in municipal boardrooms. Thirty-four participants from 12 randomly selected municipalities were interviewed, and the data were analyzed using template thematic analysis. The results show that facilitating conditions for board OHS discussions can be linked to the individual, group, and organizational levels and that these interplay. The most prominent finding is the considerable influence that the (vice-)chairs have on whether and how OHS is discussed on the board, both in terms of influencing the psychological safety of its members and how OHS information is gathered. Furthermore, high levels of psychological safety among organizational representatives interacting with the board facilitate the acquisition of candid OHS information from the organization. With the high level of employee risk of long-term sickness absence in municipalities and the challenges of attracting employees, OHS could be considered a strategically important part of boards’ meeting agendas. Our findings suggest that OHS governance in municipality administrations and companies can be individual dependent and that the governance structure is inadequate for ensuring that OHS is discussed at the board level.
European policy agendas to extend working lives place growing expectations on employers to retain late-career employees. Situated in three private organizations within Norway’s regulated yet market-exposed private sector, this study examines how employees in the later stages of their careers perceive imbalances in their psychological contracts, considering both their past contributions and perceived opportunities for continued participation. Drawing on qualitative interviews and an abductive analysis, two analytical concepts are developed—Retrospective Exchange Logic (reciprocity interpreted through accumulated contributions and recognition) and Prospective Exchange Logic (reciprocity interpreted through perceived inclusion, future opportunities, and ongoing investment). Perceived imbalances were not primarily attributed to discrete breach events. Still, they were often described as emerging gradually from perceptions that long-term contributions were taken for granted and that opportunities for continued participation had become uncertain. The study advances psychological contract theory by introducing a temporally grounded framework for understanding reciprocity in later career stages. It shows how sustained participation is shaped by organizational actors and practices that acknowledge past investment while fostering credible opportunities for future contribution.
Early retirement due to work disability and health-related absences is a growing concern in most countries today. Using the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model as a theoretical point of departure, this article investigates how hybrid work impacts employees’ workability. Data comprises interviews with 59 hybrid workers from the Norlife Remote Work – Qualitative Study (NorRemo-QS), in five Norwegian organizations where working arrangements underwent significant changes during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings show that working from home can enhance employees’ work-life balance, well-being, motivation and job satisfaction by providing new resources. Hybrid work lowers the threshold to work despite health or life phase challenges. Simultaneously, the boundaries between health and illness are blurred; the flexibility in hybrid work has raised the ability but also the expectations of employees to be available for work – even when they are ill. The findings underscore the potential for hybrid work to enhance workability, while noting emerging challenges for policymakers, unions, employers, human resource management and future research.
Chronic high workloads heighten the need for recovery yet simultaneously undermine it. This ‘recovery paradox’ threatens long-term well-being. Proactive self-initiated crafting may buffer this paradox. Individuals differ in their crafting effort allocation across life domains (i.e., job and off-job crafting profiles), and the role of distinct crafting combinations across life domains for recovery is still unknown. In this study, we assessed the moderating role of such crafting profiles for the long-term workload-recovery association. We hypothesized that employees reporting higher crafting efforts in both life domains experience a more favorable association between workload and recovery experiences over a three-month period than employees reporting fewer crafting efforts. Latent profiles analysis (LPA) was applied to identify crafting profiles in a sample of N = 2,124 German-speaking employees. The long-term association between workload and recovery experiences was examined using two-wave full cross-lagged modeling. Further differences between the crafting profiles identified were investigated with multigroup and auxiliary analyses. We found three crafting profiles: Least Active, Average, and Active Crafters, for which crafting efforts increase in parallel in both life domains with overlapping variances for its facets. Our analyses showed a long-term association between workload and detachment, relaxation, and control for the full sample and for the Least Active Crafters only within the multigroup analyses. Additionally, the Least Active Crafters reported the poorest recovery experiences at Wave 2, suggesting them as the main target of crafting and/or recovery interventions to maintain their well-being. Further characteristics of this at-risk group should be examined in future research.
The purpose of the study was to synthesize the current knowledge about playfulness in the workplace. It explores antecedents, manifestations, and implications of playfulness across individual, team, and organizational levels, grounded in positive organizational scholarship (POS). A systematic literature review was conducted using three electronic databases, Web of Science, Scopus, and EBSCO, focusing on peer-reviewed articles published between 2014 and 2024. Following PRISMA guidelines, 35 articles were selected and evaluated. Narrative synthesis with thematic analysis was used. Findings show that playfulness in the workplace is a complex, evolving concept without a single definition. Three forms are identified: intrapersonal playfulness, in which employees include playful elements in their work tasks; interpersonal playfulness, which encourages collaboration and shared experiences; and organizational playfulness, which incorporates play into work processes. Empirical findings focus on the intrapersonal level through frameworks such as playful work design (PWD) and playfulness climate, influenced by personality traits and task-related factors, with implications ranging from flourishing to creativity, resilience, and well-being. Theoretical and review-based literature expands this to team and organizational levels, suggesting antecedents such as psychological safety and implications including collective tacit knowledge and organizational adaptability. Understanding the significance and multidimensionality of playfulness in the workplace offers a new perspective, positioning it as a key element within POS that supports both employee well-being and productivity. Results apply to companies willing to integrate playfulness into work environments.
Purpose: Currently, concerns about job loss have become a widespread stressor among European workers. Job insecurity can be a collective or shared stressor (i.e., job insecurity climate). However, little is known about how this collective stressor emerges and the factors that determine it. This study aimed to provide evidence concerning job insecurity as a collective stressor (i.e., job insecurity climate) and to examine its potential antecedents. Methods: Data were collected through questionnaires. The sample consisted of 1466 employees working in 141 organizations from two European countries (Spain and Austria). Results: The results showed a significant association between different organizational factors and job insecurity climate. These factors included organization type (public or private), the proportion of temporary workers in the organization, organizational resilience, communication, and rumors. Among these antecedents, rumors presented the strongest association with job insecurity climate. Additionally, private organizations with a higher percentage of temporary workers reported higher job insecurity climates, whereas resilient organizations with good communication had lower job insecurity climates. Conclusions: Most of the literature has focused on individual perceptions of job insecurity. Only a few studies have conceptualized job insecurity as an organizational phenomenon. In these studies, job insecurity is considered a contextual stressor, and its consequences are examined. The present study advances this research by examining potential antecedents of job insecurity climate.
With the transition to hybrid work arrangements, employees experience altered job characteristics that increase the relevance of proactively shaping their work environment. Yet, little is known about how employees’ perceptions of job characteristics are linked to their job crafting behaviours when working partially from home. To explore crafting behaviours targeting experienced job demands and job resources in this specific context, we conducted a qualitative study involving 22 semi-structured interviews with hybrid working employees from Germany. Our findings reveal that employees engage in role-based, resource-based, and time-spatial crafting efforts to optimise their hybrid working conditions. However, job crafting strategies vary depending on employees’ subjective evaluation of job-related demands and resources, which are shaped by individual differences in personal factors and boundary conditions. We identified several patterns of interrelationships between experienced job demands, job resources, and job crafting strategies. Overall, this study contributes to the literature by embedding job crafting research within hybrid work settings, highlighting the role of subjectivity in shaping both perceptions of job characteristics and job crafting behaviours from home.
Gig work has been increasing in past years and is usually portrayed as a precarious and vulnerable non-standard employment form characterized by high insecurity. To better understand insecurity experiences of gig workers, we explore whether and how insecurity perceptions in relation to gig, financial, career and business domains are combined in distinct insecurity profiles. To characterize found profiles, potential antecedents (demographics, gig work motives, gig employment characteristics and labor market factors) to insecurity perceptions are studied. This study focuses on employed gig workers in Sweden, who work client-based and find their own assignments, but also have an umbrella company as their legal employer. Based on 227 employed gig workers, four distinct insecurity profiles were identified. The ‘predictable secure’ (40%), the ‘career secure’ (20%), the ‘client and career insecure’ (24%) and the ‘highly insecure’ (17%). Results indicate that not all gig workers experience insecurity or work in a precarious employment form. Instead, at least for some, gig work can provide employment that is perceived as intrinsically motivating. Others needed gig work for their income and were using gig work not solely as sideline activity. Results also reveal that several aspects of job insecurity are important to consider when differentiating the heterogenous group of gig workers. This study concludes that policies may be needed for vulnerable groups to identify solutions that reduce insecurity in client-based work. Preferably, this can be done in dialogue between employers, unions, gig workers and their clients.
Previous research has established negative effects of specific economic stressors, such as job insecurity or financial stress, on well-being and behavior. This study aimed to explore patterns of subjective and objective, employment-related and income-related economic stressors. We also investigate how these patterns relate to mental well-being, and training participation as an important resource development activity. To account for environmental constraints as contextual influences, we tested the prevalence of a given pattern at the country level as a moderator. Applying latent class analysis to two cross-sectional samples (N1 = 34,410, N2 = 60,410) from the European Working Conditions Survey, we identified three distinct classes in both samples: 1) low economic stressors (low scores on all indicators), 2) high economic stressors (high scores on all indicators), and 3) subjective stressors dominant (low scores on objective, but high scores on subjective indicators). The low economic stressors class reported the best mental well-being and highest training participation compared to the other two classes. Workers in the subjective stressors dominant class reported comparable mental well-being to those with high economic stressors. Contrary to our expectations, there was weak evidence that belonging to the high economic stressors class was less strongly associated with mental well-being in countries where this class was more prevalent. The study underlines the importance of considering the whole range, as well as heterogenous patterns of economic stressors, and answers calls for more research on contextual effects, for a nuanced understanding of the relations between economic stressors, well-being and behavior.
Employee surveys are a cost-effective way to assess work-related stress, but their generic formulation often allows for broad interpretation. Research from personality assessment suggests that contextualizing survey items may enhance reliability and validity by narrowing this interpretive scope, especially when items are fully adapted to fit a specific context (“complete contextualization”). This study investigates whether these benefits also apply to assessing work characteristics, using a sample of 323 German medical assistants. Items from the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire were tailored to the medical practice context with expert input. Participants completed both generic and contextualized versions of the items in a counterbalanced order, with psychological strain as the criterion. The results showed some positive effects, as the contextualized versions partly explained more criterion variance. However, contextualization did not enhance reliability or participants’ reactions and led to longer items. Overall, complete contextualization may improve work characteristics assessments; however, further research is needed to evaluate its broader application.
This study investigated how contextual circumstances, managers’ mental models, and intervention design and implementation facilitated or hindered the development of leadership performance during leadership training. Managers (n = 59) in local government municipalities participated in managerial behaviour training over a period of three months. Leadership performance was assessed by subordinates of these managers before (n = 406) and after (n = 377) the training period. The participating managers reported on contextual circumstances and their mental models before the training started. Data on implementation was collected from the participating managers and the trainers at the end of each of the six training sessions. Transfer of leadership training was facilitated by managers’ support from their superior management and managerial colleagues and hindered by taxing job demands in terms of role stressors. The participating managers’ readiness for change improved the transfer of the training. Participants’ and trainers’ assessments of intervention activities showed that the training worked very well throughout; that is, the average ratings of the intervention activities were very high. Thus, there was no opportunity to detect any impact on the transfer of specific intervention activities. This study shows the importance of managers’ working conditions in providing managers with good opportunities to develop as leaders.
Recovery from work stress has been the subject of increasing research in recent years, as it is fundamental to well-being and health. However, research into recovery in the context of regular work has been the primary focus (Sonnentag et al. 2017). Based on Conservation of Resources Theory (Hobfoll 2002), the aim of this systematic review is to analyse the effects of unconventional work situations, namely telework and non-standard working schedules, on recovery. The search was conducted in the digital databases Scopus and Web of Science using various combinations of search terms to select any published article that included the variables of recovery, non-standard working schedules and teleworking, resulting in a total of 25 studies included in the present study. Findings suggest that neither telework nor non-standard working schedules inherently impair recovery. Rather, recovery disruptions appear to stem from the heightened job characteristics of these work arrangements, such as unpredictability, extended availability, and excessive job demands. These factors threaten resources, contribute to their depletion, and hinder replenishment, aligning with the core principles of COR theory. Notably, one exception is midweek breaks, which may facilitate recovery. These findings underscore the importance of understanding how specific work-related stressors, rather than work arrangements per se, influence employees’ ability to recover effectively.
Despite extensive research on organisational justice, it remains unknown how organisational justice aspects interrelate and co-occur in individuals. Using a person-centred approach, and latent profile analysis specifically, we examine profiles of procedural, distributive (as measured by effort-reward imbalance), interpersonal, informational, and overall justice. Profiles are validated with covariates as well as work and health outcomes cross-sectionally and prospectively over time. Data from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health (SLOSH) from 2018 (n = 9,756) and 2020 (n = 7,542) were used. Based on data from 2018, we found four different profiles: an ‘Average justice’ profile, a ‘High justice’ profile, a ‘Low justice’ profile and a ‘Low process-focused justice’ profile. The ‘Low justice’ profile, especially, was comprised of a high proportion of women, lower educated, public-sector employees and shift workers. The ‘Low justice’ profile showed high levels of intentions to leave, suboptimal general health and low job satisfaction in 2018 and 2020. Results highlight the importance of organisational justice to maintain a healthy and motivated workforce and indicate that low levels of procedural justice might partly be mitigated by high levels of interactional justice. The study responds to the appeal by justice researchers to consider the experiential nature of justice perceptions and underscores the merit of moving beyond variable-oriented methods.
The present study analyzed whether career adaptability is negatively related to exhaustion. Based on the conservation of resources theory, we argue that career insecurity is a connecting variable in the link between career adaptability and exhaustion. We tested our assumptions using latent structural equation modeling across three measurement points (time-lagged design, 2-year time span altogether) with data from 885 young researchers (doctoral students and post-docs) in Germany working in different disciplines. The results showed that career adaptability (T1) was negatively related to career insecurity (T2), which subsequently was positively associated with exhaustion (T3). Moreover, exhaustion (T3) was indirectly affected by career adaptability (T1) via career insecurity (T2). We discuss these results against the background of the conservation of resources and career construction theory and its implications for future career and stress research and practice.
We reviewed the past 40 years of job insecurity research, focusing on research designs and measurement practices in the field. Our review included 1000 papers published between 1984 and late 2023: we found that job insecurity research is overwhelmingly quantitative in nature (mirroring more significant trends in organisational psychology) and seemed to be moving towards an increased use of longitudinal designs. We also reviewed most job insecurity scales: we found that evidence supporting the continued use of a significant proportion of scales is lacking, as only a few scales underwent analyses beyond simple factorial analytical models. We conclude by making several recommendations to strengthen the credibility of job insecurity research and outlining several remaining methodological issues that should be investigated in the future. These include (i) aligning the conceptualisation of job insecurity and the chosen design (e.g., cross-sectional vs cross-lagged vs longitudinal); (ii) using well-validated scales for which there is substantial evidence of their validity and psychometric properties instead of ad hoc scales; (iii) the opportunity of measuring job insecurity using single-item scales; (iv) measuring uncertainty and lack of certainty, as well as its implications for score interpretation; (v) the need for more qualitative and mixed-method designs; and (vi) the dangers of administering scales that require higher reading levels to workers that do not have a high reading ability.
While the maladaptive relationship between the threat of job loss and exhaustion is well established, little attention has been devoted to the cognitive and affective processes during non-work time that may occur in employees and may explain this relationship. Our study sought to open this black box and to fill its contents with knowledge from the fields of recovery research and perseverative thinking. We used three-wave data from a sample of 160 German employees with a 4-week interval between data assessments to examine the pathway from job insecurity to exhaustion. Potential mediators included lack of psychological detachment, affective rumination, and problem-solving pondering as facets of work-related rumination. Structural equation modeling, controlling for baseline levels of exhaustion at T1 as well as mediators at T1, provided evidence for a mediating role of affective rumination at T2 in the relationship between job insecurity at T1 and exhaustion at T3, suggesting that employees who perceive a higher threat of job loss ruminate after work, and ultimately show more exhaustion. The finding that this mechanism was observed while controlling for role ambiguity, workload, and unfinished tasks, underscores the relevance of job insecurity as a stressor. In contrast, neither detachment nor problem-solving pondering mediated the relationship between job insecurity and exhaustion, but did show relationships with the other assessed stressors. We discuss affective reactions to job insecurity as an important mechanism in explaining employees’ impaired well-being.
