The challenge of increasing employees' well‐being and performance: How human resource management practices and engaging leadership work together toward reaching this goal

"Bend so you don't break!" A longitudinal moderated mediation study on human resources management practices, humility, psychological well-being, and job performance

Introduction

This study aims to examine the mediating role of psychological well-being in the relationships between human resources management practices and job performance. Also, this study aims to assess the moderating role of humility on these relationships.

Methods

Multiple regression, mediation, and moderation analyses were conducted with MPlus software on a sample of 569 workers who filled out a questionnaire at both Time 1 and Time 2. Both data collections took place between April 20, 2022, and May 2, 2022, for Time 1, and between June 20, 2022, and July 3, 2022, for Time 2. Data were collected through the Leger Opinion (LEO) online panel, with respondents required to be workers.

Results

We found that psychological well-being at T1 did not play a mediating role between human resources management practices at T1 and job performance at T2. Also, humility did not moderate the relationships between human resources management practices at T1 and psychological well-being at T1 but did significantly moderate the longitudinal relationships between human resources management practices at T1 (i.e., dotation, formation, career management, autonomy, occupational health and safety, diversity management, indirect compensation, flexibility, performance management), and job performance at T2.

Discussion

For all significant interactions, the results indicated that when humility was high, the longitudinal effect of good human resources management practices led to high in-role job performance.

Inclusive leadership and employee workplace well-being: the role of vigor and supervisor developmental feedback

PURPOSE

Employees within organizations actively pursue and maintain their workplace well-being. Although there are current studies that have examined the linking inclusive leadership to employee workplace well-being, the underlying intrinsic link between the two remains unclear. On the basis of self-determination theory, this research examined the relationship between inclusive leadership, vigor, supervisor developmental feedback, and workplace well-being.

PATIENTS AND METHODS

Data were collected from 61 teams that totaled 342 full-time employees through a 3-stage questionnaire. Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling and Monte Carlo simulations were conducted on data for hypothesis testing.

RESULTS

Inclusive leadership positively correlated with employee workplace well-being. Employee vigor mediates the link between inclusive leadership and employee workplace well-being. Supervisor developmental feedback moderated the relationship between inclusive leadership and employee vigor.

CONCLUSIONS

Inclusive leadership can improve employees' workplace well-being by stimulating their vigor. Therefore, managers need to be able to effectively meet employees' basic needs to stimulate their vigor. Based on meeting employees' basic needs, managers can also provide targeted developmental feedback to meet employees' growth needs, which can more effectively promote employees' vigor and workplace well-being.

Exploring job satisfaction in fitness franchises: a study from a human talent perspective

This qualitative study investigates job satisfaction and its impact on the performance of human talent in fitness club franchises in Mexico, based on six semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted in October 2023. The research highlights that internal communication is the primary factor influencing job satisfaction, followed by interpersonal relationships and organisational climate. These findings imply that enhancing internal communication and fostering healthy interpersonal relationships can significantly improve employee well-being and job performance. The study aims to understand job satisfaction from the human talent perspective, focusing on the factors that affect their satisfaction and performance. The insights gained can inform strategies to improve work life quality and industry efficiency in Mexico, serving as a benchmark for future research and a strategic tool for human resource management in similar organisations.

Line manager training and organizational approaches to supporting well-being

BACKGROUND

Employee mental health and well-being (MH&WB) is critical to the productivity and success of organizations. Training line managers (LMs) in mental health plays an important role in protecting and enhancing employee well-being, but its relationship with other MH&WB practices is under-researched.

AIMS

To determine whether organizations offering LM training in mental health differ in the adoption of workplace- (i.e. primary/prevention-focused) and worker-directed (including both secondary/resiliency-focused and tertiary/remedial-focused) interventions to those organizations not offering LM training and to explore changes in the proportions of activities offered over time.

METHODS

Secondary analysis of enterprise data from computer-assisted telephone interview surveys. The analysis included data from organizations in England across 4 years (2020: n = 1900; 2021: n = 1551; 2022: n = 1904; 2023: n = 1902).

RESULTS

Offering LM training in mental health was associated with organizations' uptake of primary-, secondary-, and tertiary-level MH&WB activities across all 4 years. The proportion of organizations offering primary-, secondary- and tertiary-level interventions increased over time. On average, tertiary-level activities were most adopted (2020: 80%; 2021: 81%; 2022: 84%; 2023: 84%), followed by primary-level activities (2020: 66%; 2021: 72%; 2022: 72%; 2023: 73%) and secondary-level activities (2020: 62%; 2021: 60%; 2022: 61%; 2023: 67%).

CONCLUSIONS

Offering LM training in mental health is associated with the adoption of other MH&WB practices by organizations. Suggesting that organizations that are committed to the mental health agenda are more likely to take a holistic approach (including both worker and workplace strategies) to promoting workforce mental health, rather than providing LM training in isolation.

Self-Leadership, Performance, and Life-Satisfaction: The Mediation Role of Flow at Work in a Three-Wave Study

Based on the self-determination model of flow and the Job Demands-Resources theory, the present study aims to analyze whether flow at work mediates the relation between self-leadership and job performance, and the relation between self-leadership and life satisfaction over time. The design of the study is longitudinal and is conducted in three waves. Data were analyzed using structural equation models on an initial sample of 316 employees. The results supported the proposed model. We identified an association between self-leadership at T1 and flow at T2 and between flow at T2 and performance and life satisfaction at T3. The results also indicated that flow at work fully mediates the relationships between self-leadership, job performance, and life satisfaction over time (T1 to T2 to T3). Overall, the present research emphasizes the importance of promoting general well-being in the workplace and guides how organizations can effectively implement interventions to support employees in achieving optimal performance and life satisfaction.

Measuring trust in healthcare with instruments developed in different disciplines - A scoping review

BACKGROUND

Trust is a key character at organizational level. Understanding the level of trust with timely relevant instrument is a significant process to capture the level of trust beyond organizational changes in healthcare.

OBJECTIVES

To gather, assess, and synthesize the items of instruments evaluating trust in healthcare organizations.

DESIGN

Scoping review methodology.

METHODS

The literature search with deductive-inductive content analysis. The data were charted from articles that involved the use of trust instruments in healthcare organizations.

DATA SOURCES

Search from eight databases was updated in January 2024 and included peer-reviewed articles published between 2010 and 2023.

RESULTS

A total of 13 instruments were found measuring trust in the organization, trust in the leader, and trust among peers in healthcare. The items of instruments about trust in the organization included strategic and operational cultures. The trust in the leader consisted of competence, consistency, openness, appreciative acceptance, and loyalty and risk, while instruments about trust among peers included dimensions of moral partnership, common interest, and competent peers.

CONCLUSIONS

Comprehensively measuring trust in the leader, trust in the organization, and trust among peers is significant due to the multifaceted dimension of trust. Measuring trust offers a possibility to recognize the working relationships and cultures in healthcare organizations.

Countering technostress in virtual work environments: The role of work-based learning and digital leadership in enhancing employee well-being

Virtual work has been highlighted as an important business trend nowadays. Technostress caused by information and communication technology threatens employee well-being in a virtual context. We integrate insights from the Job Demands-Resources theory to explore the impact of technostress on employee well-being and examine work-based learning and digital leadership capability as buffers of this negative impact via the attenuating effect of work exhaustion. We collected multi-wave survey data from 300 virtual employees to test the theoretical model. Results revealed a significant negative impact of technostress on employee well-being. However, work-based learning and digital leadership capability buffered employees' well-being from this negative effect by reducing their work exhaustion. Our findings extend our understanding of work design and shed light on how to cope with virtual work demands.

Influence of transformational leadership on innovative work behavior and task performance of individuals: The mediating role of knowledge sharing

This research tries to investigate the dynamic link between higher education institution (HEIs) transformational leaders (TFL) and follower's outcome innovative work behavior (IWB) and Task Performance) through Knowledge sharing (KNS) in Pakistan. Using quantitative design an adopted construct was used to obtain response from HEIs leaders and employees behavior. The obtained information was analyzed through structural equation modeling (SEM) technique via Smart PLS. Results depict that direct link between University Transformational leadership and employees Innovative work behavior as well as Task Performance. The results further postulate that KNS mediate the relationship between Transformational leadership and employees TSP in the context of HEIs. Surprisingly, KNS could not evident to become a mediating variable to strengthen the relationship between transformational Leadership and employees IWB in the HEIs sector of Pakistan. In addition to enhancing the theoretical comprehension of higher education leadership, the outcomes of this article provide that promoting knowledge sharing culture is valuable asset for both existing and future HEIs leaders in order to promote the culture of innovation and creativity. Although recent studies investigate the role of KNS as a mediator, however the current study use KNS as contemporaneous intervening variable for IWB and Task Performance for the first time. The study also confirms theoretical underpinning of social exchange mechanism in strengthening the relationship between leader member's continuum.

How and When Inclusive Human Resource Management Promotes Employee Well-Being: The Roles of Ambidextrous Fit and Affective Leadership

Researchers and practitioners have largely recognized the importance of human resource management in addressing the growing trend of workforce diversity to improve employee well-being. However, empirical research on inclusive human resource management (IHRM) remains scarce. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory and the person-environment fit framework, the current study constructs a moderated dual-mediation model to explore how IHRM influences employee well-being through ambidextrous fit (i.e., supplementary fit and complementary fit) and further examine the moderating role of affective leadership. Using three-wave data from 382 employees through the questionnaire survey, the empirical findings indicate that IHRM positively affects employee well-being and that this linkage is mediated by supplementary fit and complementary fit. In addition, we find that affective leadership strengthens the positive influences of IHRM on employee well-being, supplementary fit, and complementary fit as well as the indirect effect of IHRM on employee well-being through ambidextrous fit. We discuss some theoretical and practical implications of our findings and provide research directions.

Leading well and staying psychologically healthy: the role of resources and constraints for managers in the healthcare sector

PURPOSE

Maintaining a healthy and productive workforce is a challenge for most organizations. This is even truer for health organization, facing staff shortages and work overload. The aim of this study is to identify the resources and constraints that influence managers' mental health and better understand how they are affected by them.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

A qualitative approach was chosen to document the resources, the constraints as well as their consequences on managers in their day-to-day realities. The sample included executive-, intermediate- and first-level managers from a Canadian healthcare facility. A total of 62 semi-structured interviews were conducted. The coding process was based on the IGLOO model of Nielsen et al. (2018) to which an employee-related level was added (IGELOO).

FINDINGS

Results highlight the importance of considering both resources as well as constraints in examining managers' mental health. Overarching context, organizational constraints and the management of difficult employees played important roles in the stress experienced by managers.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The results offer a better understanding of the importance of intervening at different levels to promote better organizational health. Results also highlight the importance of setting up organizational resources and act on the various constraints to reduce them. Different individual strategies used by managers to deal with the various constraints and maintain their mental health also emerge from those results.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

In addition to addressing the reality of healthcare managers, this study supplements a theoretical model and suggests avenues for interventions promoting more sustainable organizational health.

Organizational culture and leadership behaviors: is manager's psychological health the missing piece?

Background

In a context where organizations struggle to attract and retain highly qualified workers, organizations need to prioritize the psychological health of employees as a retention factor. To do so, they need to provide a healthy work environment. As an integral part of the employee experience, managers are an important factor in employee retention. In past studies, researchers have focused on the importance of leadership in boosting employees' health without, however, considering factors encouraging such behavior in managers. Recently, some scholars have become interested in managers' health as a resource allowing them to adopt good leadership behavior. Indeed, these studies reveal interesting links between managers' emotional state and their behavior as leaders. Other studies, underscore the importance of considering the organizational context to better understand managers' psychological health that may influence their leadership behaviors. This study proposes to examine the complex process by which organizational culture influences managers' psychological health, which acts as a resource favoring the adoption of good leadership behaviors that are known to be constructive and have positive effects on employee.

Methods

Path analyses with the CALIS procedure SAS software, version 9.4 were conducted on a sample of 522 managers in three healthcare facilities in the province of Quebec, Canada.

Results

The results revealed that group culture is associated with the two indicators of managers' psychological health at work. The results also demonstrated that managers' psychological distress at work is positively related to transactional and laissez-faire leadership styles whereas psychological well-being at work is positively related to transformational and transactional leadership. Concerning indirect associations, there is a significant and positive indirect association between group culture and transformational leadership and there is also a significant and negative association between group culture and laissez-faire leadership. Finally, there is also an indirect association between hierarchical culture and transactional leadership.

Conclusion

Our study provides a more in-depth understanding of the relationship between organizational culture and leadership styles. More specifically, our findings highlight the benefits of implementing a group organizational culture to enhance psychological well-being, reduce psychological distress symptoms and promote good leadership behaviors.

Does meaningful work mediate the relationship between empowering leadership and mental health? Evidence from Malaysian SME employees

Introduction

In Malaysia, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) account for more than half of all employment and 98.7% of all businesses. There is little research on empowering behaviors in SMEs, despite leadership empowerment being often practiced. Therefore, the study aims to investigate how empowering leadership affects employees' mental health. The study also reveals meaningful work's role in mediating the relationship between empowering leadership and employees' mental health.

Methods

A stratified random sample approach was used to collect data from 516 employees of Malaysian SMEs. The data was analyzed, and the hypothesis was tested using structural equation modeling (AMOS 21.0) with bootstrap confidence intervals computed to evaluate the mediating effect.

Results

The results demonstrate that empowering leadership significantly improves employees' mental health. Furthermore, the association between empowering leadership and mental health is partially mediated by meaningful work.

Discussion

This study contributes to the present empowering leadership-meaningful work-mental health model for SME employees, which reduces stress and anxiety at the workplace and positively impacts psychological empowerment and their capacity to control their overall emotions in instances of success.

Influence mechanism and impacting boundary of workplace isolation on the employee's negative behaviors

Introduction

Based on social identity theory, by introducing organizational identification as mediating variable and identification orientation as moderating variable, this paper studies the influence mechanism and impacting boundary of workplace isolation on employee fatigue and turnover intention.

Methods

Based on logic relationship, seven basic hypotheses are put forward to construct the theoretical model of the problem. Based on the 300 effective questionnaires being obtained from employees in Mainland China, the empirical investigation adopts the three-phase lag time design. By regression analysis and bootstrap test.

Results

(1) Workplace isolation has a significant positive effect on employee's work fatigue; (2) Workplace isolation has a significant positive effect on employee's turnover intention; (3) Organizational identification plays a partial mediating role between workplace isolation and work fatigue; (4) Organizational identification plays a partial mediating role between workplace isolation and employee's turnover intention; (5) Employee identification orientation negatively moderates the relationship between workplace isolation and organizational identification, that is to say, the higher the degree of identification orientation, the more inhibited the negative impact of workplace isolation on organizational identification; (6) Employee identification orientation has a negative moderating effect, namely, compared with the low degree of employee identification orientation, the higher the employee identification orientation, the positive effect of workplace isolation on work fatigue and turnover intention through organizational identification become weaker.

Discussion

Understanding these influencing mechanisms will have a great influence on guiding managers to mitigate the negative effects of “workplace isolation” in practice and improve the work efficiency of employees.

How line-manager leadership styles and employee-perceived HRM practices contribute to employee performance: a configurational perspective

Purpose

This paper aims to carry out a study on the combined effects of leadership styles and human resource management (HRM) practices on employee performance. Based on configurational theory, this study integrates task-oriented leadership, relations-oriented leadership, change-oriented leadership and human resource hygiene practices (HRHPs) and human resource motivation practices (HRMPs) to detect distinct configurations of leadership styles and HRM practices that may lead to high and not-high employee performance.

Design/methodology/approach

Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was adopted to identify the configurations of conditions associated with the outcome, with data obtained from 108 employees and 32 line-managers in China through structured interview and questionnaire survey.

Findings

The results show that there are five sufficient configurations for the presence of high employee performance and three for performance's absence. Relation-oriented leadership, HRMPs and enterprise property are more important conditions to employee performance than others. Furthermore, no single condition constitutes a necessary condition for causing the high or not-high employee performance.

Originality/value

Compared to previous studies that mainly focused on linear relationships, this study applies the fsQCA method to explore how matching different leadership styles and HRM practices could bring about high and not-high employee performance, which provides evidence for the three propositions of “multiple conjunctural causation,” “equifinality” and “asymmetry.”

Robotic life of casino employees: exploring well-being dimensions in the gambling industry in Malaysia

Purpose

Employee well-being in a casino work environment is crucial for the quality of work-life and employees' performance. This study examines the dimensions of well-being at a casino in Malaysia to gain deeper insights into employee challenges and motivational factors to arrive at practical mitigation efforts.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopted a qualitative approach involving 14 semi-structured interviews with casino employees in Malaysia. Interviews lasted 30 min to 2 h at a time when Covid-19 was raging in 2021. Responses were analysed via a data-driven approach and coded using NVivo software to delineate the contents into analytical categories of well-being dimensions.

Findings

The findings suggest that employees at the casino face challenges in achieving work-life balance. Employee's well-being suffers from insufficient break time, irregular working hours affecting family time, managing customer temper tantrums and lack of emotional support systems and remunerations altered by the pandemic. Women employees were particularly vulnerable.

Research limitations/implications

The findings suggest a need to create better working conditions and address well-being with counselling support for stress management, a balanced approach by employers to the “customer is always right” mantra, creating promising career pathways and supervisors to have better oversight of workaholics. The research focused only on one casino and there was limited access to management departments for an organizational perspective.

Originality/value

This study adds to the body of knowledge on employee well-being in the context of a casino. It suggests hospitality and tourism organizations review their human resource practices that would ease the stresses at the workplace and create support systems to promote employee well-being. Crucially, in a pandemic crisis, well-being dimensions must be accommodating and integrative to employee sentiments, sensitivity and self-actualization.

Job security among healthcare workers in Guangdong, China

Objective

The objective of this study was to explore the sense of job security and its influencing factors among healthcare workers in Guangdong, China.

Methods

This cross-sectional study used stratified random sampling to enroll healthcare workers employed by hospitals across Guangdong province between September 2020 and October 2020.

Results

A total of 4,173 questionnaires were distributed, and 4,076 were returned for an effective recovery rate of 97.68%. The overall score for the sense of security was 64.85 ± 20.09, and the item means score was 2.95 ± 0.91. Multiple-linear regression analysis showed that work experience (years), education level, job position, specialty unit, employment type, marital status, job satisfaction, WPV frequency, daily sleep duration, weekly overtime hours, average monthly earnings (RMB), hospital level, and region were significantly associated with senses of poor security among healthcare workers (all P < 0.05).

Conclusions

Hospital workers in Guangdong reported relatively low levels of job security. Levels of job security were significantly associated with multiple factors which could be addressed by hospital practices to improve the sense of job security among healthcare workers.

The influence of differential leadership and proactive personality on employee in-role performance: An integrated model

Purpose

Differential leadership does not necessarily bring only negative effects, as it may also become an incentive management strategy. This study explores whether outsiders can actively become insiders through proactive personality traits, or whether they can actively approach resource controllers to remove obstacles at work and enhance their performance in a Chinese cultural setting.

Methodology

A stratified random sampling method was used. The sample objects were medical staff from hospitals in the six urban districts of Beijing. In 2021, a total of 900 online questionnaires were distributed. 524 valid questionnaires were recovered.

Main findings

The results show that differential leadership, defined as favoritism towards insiders and prejudice against outsiders, can cause changes in employees' sense of organizational justice and in-role performance. Meanwhile, by introducing 'proactive personality' as an independent variable that also acts as a moderator, our study confirms that, under differential leadership, employees with a proactive personality can actively improve situational barriers and have better work performance.

Implications/applications

Our research offers managers the following advice: First, it is better to look not only at relationships, but also to understand an employee's personality characteristics, whether it has a superficial or deep role at work, in order to reduce the turnover rate and to raise productivity. Second, it is important to teach employees to serve customers with a sincere appreciation of their point of view, rather than focusing on presenting an outward appearance of friendliness.

Novelty/originality

This paper contributes to the theory of proactive personality, emotional labor, and differential leadership. Contrary to previous studies, our research has used 'proactive personality' as both a distractor and a predictor at the same time. Also, insiders favored by leaders are not found to perform better at work.

The effect of health gate sterilizer use on work motivation during post-COVID-19 pandemic: an analysis of educational staff

This study investigates the use of a health gate sterilizer on its impact on the work motivation of education personnel during the post-COVID-19 pandemic. The research method used is an experiment with a pre-test/post-test group design. This research was carried out for 8 weeks on 120 education staff at an educational institution. Education personnel was chosen because of their importance to the education sector in Indonesia after the COVID-19 pandemic was very disrupted. The treatment given is the use of a health gate sterilizer for educational staff to feel safe and comfortable so that they are expected to be motivated in their work. The results showed that there was a significant and positive effect of the use of a health gate sterilizer on the work motivation of educational staff in educational institutions. From this research, it can be concluded that the use of a health gate sterilizer must continue to be used in order to have a positive impact on motivating one’s work because it does provide a sense of security and comfort from the COVID- 19 virus.

COVID-19 outbreak: How do human resource management practices affect employee well-being?

The study examines the effect of human resource practices (HRPs), including ability, motivation, and opportunity practices, on employee well-being (EWB) in the Malaysian environment during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research surveyed 154 service sector employees at Klang Valley, Malaysia. The data were analysed using structural equation modelling. Based on the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) theory, the results indicate that motivation and opportunity practices have a significant positive effect on EWB, whereas ability enhancing practices have an insignificant effect. Human resource policies and practices must foster a conducive yet contented work environment, and leaders must provide opportunities and motivation for employees to participate actively in the workplace. By doing so, the organisation’s value of human resources can be significantly increased, and the organisation’s goals can be achieved while employees’ overall well-being is enhanced, resulting in a win-win situation. This study uncovers the important roles of AMO practices that can effectively increase EWB.

When Are Organizations Sustainable? Well-Being and Discomfort in Working Contexts: Old and New Form of Malaise

The proposal for this Special Issue is related to a question that is increasingly present and debated by both researchers and practitioners [...]

The impact of engaging leadership on employee engagement and team effectiveness: A longitudinal, multi-level study on the mediating role of personal- and team resources

Most research on the effect of leadership behavior on employees' well-being and organizational outcomes is based on leadership frameworks that are not rooted in sound psychological theories of motivation and are limited to either an individual or organizational levels of analysis. The current paper investigates whether individual and team resources explain the impact of engaging leadership on work engagement and team effectiveness, respectively. Data were collected at two time points on N = 1,048 employees nested within 90 work teams. The Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling results revealed that personal resources (i.e., optimism, resiliency, self-efficacy, and flexibility) partially mediated the impact of T1 individual perceptions of engaging leadership on T2 work engagement. Furthermore, joint perceptions of engaging leadership among team members at T1 resulted in greater team effectiveness at T2. This association was fully mediated by team resources (i.e., performance feedback, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making). Moreover, team resources had a significant cross-level effect on individual levels of engagement. In practical terms, training and supporting leaders who inspire, strengthen, and connect their subordinates could significantly improve employees' motivation and involvement and enable teams to pursue their common goals successfully.

Construction of Digital Management Model of Personnel Archives Information Based on the Concept of Industry 4.0

In order to improve the effect of personnel archives information management under the background of Industry 4.0, this paper conducts in-depth research on retrieval technology. Aiming at the shortcomings and deficiencies of the existing sorting methods, this paper introduces the basic principle of information retrieval, the retrieval process, and retrieval model and proposes a relevance ranking algorithm based on the user vector calculation method and the record vector calculation method. The algorithm solves the query structure sorting problem of information retrieval, optimizes the retrieval process, and improves the efficiency of information acquisition. Under the guidance of the concept of Industry 4.0, this paper constructs the digital management model of personnel archives information. The experimental results show that the digital management model of personnel archives proposed in this paper has certain effects.

The Impact of Developmental HR Practices on Career Self-Management and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model

Purpose

Drawing on the social exchange and signal theory, this study aims to investigate the impact of developmental HR practices on employees’ career self-management and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) through the mediating role of direct supervisor’s transformational leadership and the moderating role of perceived organizational support.

Methods

Data were congregated from 571 employees belonging to a diverse range of organizations in southwest China. Statistical procedures, such as hierarchical regression and bootstrapping analysis based on Hayes’ PROCESS on SPSS 23, were conducted to test the hypotheses. For model fitness, we used AMOS V 22.

Results

A positive effect of developmental HR practices on employees’ career self-management and OCB was found, which was partially mediated by direct supervisor’s transformational leadership. Moreover, perceived organizational support is anticipated to moderate the indirect relationship among developmental HR practices, career self-management and OCB through supervisor’s transformational leadership.

Discussion

This study finds that employees’ perceived organizational support should be given more attention by organizations, especially in the context of transformational direct supervisors implementing developmental HR practices. Meanwhile, this study extends the utility of the concept of developmental HR practices to the leadership and career management literature.

Changes and Challenges in Human Resources Management: An Analysis of Human Resources Roles in a Bank Context (after COVID-19)

Background: In the coming years, HR in the banking industry will need to play a leading role to develop human capital management, based on people care, evaluation, development, and training. To properly face this change in one of the biggest Italian banks we wanted to contribute to understanding the actual HR areas of change and examine how HR roles are dealing with “being on the frontline” of an unparalleled organisational evolution. Methods: Six focus-group sessions with up to 10 participants per session. Results: The crucial issue that emerged is a profound rupture and crisis that showed the (already existing) fragilities of the HR role interpretation: develop a new synergic relationship with the top management; define a stronger and wider organisational mandate; establish structured moments of discussion between professionals. Conclusion: HR roles in the banking context, especially after the pandemic, entail a high emotional burden related to role assumption. Specifically, our research highlighted the need to discuss the evolution of the HR role with top management, the need for synergies and a definition of the organisational mandate that allows wider participation in terms of decision-making and planning, and finally the need for supervision of HR roles.

How Are Leadership, Virtues, HRM Practices, and Citizenship Related in Organizations? Testing of Mediation Models in the Light of Positive Organizational Studies

Studies show that Human Resource Management (HRM) practices, the role of leadership, organizational citizenship behavior, and organizational virtues influence the greater involvement of professionals at work and, consequently, the organizational performance. However, there is a lack of investigations encompassing these four variables in the same research model. Thus, the main objective of this study was to identify the relationship between leadership, organizational virtues, HRM practices, and organizational citizenship behaviors in a sample of employees of Brazilian companies. A printed questionnaire was administered to a valid sample of 659 subjects, who participated voluntarily, from public and private organizations in a Brazilian State. A total of seven hypotheses were tested using confirmatory factor analysis to assess the fit of the measurement models of the four studied variables, in addition to path analysis, using structural equation modeling to specify and estimate the mediation models. All hypotheses were confirmed, attesting to the positive predictive associations between the variables. We also confirm the partial mediation of HRM practices in the relationship between leadership and citizenship and the total mediation in the relationship between virtues and citizenship. This research advances the efforts to test more complex and unexplored structural models in which HRM practices are mediating variables, fulfilling a gap in the literature, as well as providing investigations of antecedents and consequents of the variables adopted in the research. As practical implications, the findings constitute a diagnosis for managers to understand how these relationships happen, supporting decision-making towards an increasingly effective, strategic, and humanized HRM.

Performance, job crafting and work context: practical implications from a multilevel perspective

Purpose

Effort by managers and academics have been applied to understand elements that improving organizational performance and results. This study aims to analyze the relationship among job performance, job crafting, work complexity and learning support. The authors conducted a cross-sectional survey in a study with a regression hierarchical (i.e. multilevel) design.

Design/methodology/approach

Sample included 530 respondents of both sexes with ages ranging from 17 to 68 (M = 33.9; SD = 9.75). Participants were employees from 53 public and private organizations located in the Southeast of Brazil. They answered the scales: General Self-Assessment Scale of Job Performance, Job Crafting Behaviors, Learning Support and Subjective Task Complexity.

Findings

The results indicated that variance in job performance due to the differences among the organizations and learning support can explain 22% of variance at this level. Job crafting explained 22% of the job performance variance at level 1 (worker). It is concluded that the development of actions concerning job crafting and the relationship with the work context predict performance at work. Thus, the authors highlight the importance of maintaining individual-focused management practices, meaning that focusing on workers development promotes good results at the organization.

Originality/value

Results revealed practical implications through individual performance considered in a multilevel perspective both in Levels 1 and 2, which is not the most common for this variable. They could be especially important in scenarios that will demand adaptability and work modification, as the actual ones were observed in the contemporary world of work.

Engaging Leadership: How to Promote Work Engagement?

This paper introduces the notion of engaging leadership and reviews the empirical work done so far. Engaging leadership is defined as leadership behavior that facilitates, strengthens, connects and inspires employees in order to increase their work engagement. It can be measured with a reliable and valid self-report scale. As predicted by Self-Determination Theory, on which the concept of engaging leadership is based, basic need satisfaction mediates the relationship between engaging leadership and work engagement. This is true both for individual employees as well as the team level. In addition, job characteristics (job demands and job resources) seem to play a similar mediating role, just as personal resources. Furthermore, research shows that engaging leadership has a beneficial effect on individual and team performance which illustrates its relevance for organizations. Future research should focus, amongst others, on the opposite of engaging leadership (i.e., disengaging leadership) and interventions to foster engaging leadership. Moreover, alternative affective, cognitive and behavioral pathways should be explored that might play a role in addition to the motivational (through need fulfillment) and material (through job characteristics) pathways that have been investigated so far.

Virtuous Organizational Practices: A New Construct and a New Inventory

Research on the identification of organizational practices that promote individual and organizational performance is now very extensive. However, several studies have revealed the dark side of these practices on employees' psychological health. Consequently, researchers have called on the scientific community to focus on the well-being of workers and to identify the organizational practices that promote it. Thus, the aim of the present research was to fill this gap by introducing a new conceptualization of organizational practices supporting the psychological health of employees and proposing a new improved measure to assess them. Drawing on the American Psychological Association's model of Psychologically healthy workplace, we first conceptualized the innovative multidimensional construct of virtuous organizational practices. We then conducted four studies (N = 1,407) to develop and validate the Virtuous Organizational Practices inventory. Results of exploratory statistical analyses provide strong evidence of the second-order factor structure of the inventory in different French samples and of the convergent, predictive and incremental validity of this tool. Implications for researchers, organizations and practitioners and avenues for future research are discussed.

Being an ethical leader during the apocalypse: Lessons from the walking dead to face the COVID-19 crisis

This article draws on Gareth Morgan's theory of organizational metaphors. Using imaginization, this research examines practices of ethical leadership during a crisis, using The Walking Dead television series as a reference. The Walking Dead offers an artistic representation of different leadership styles, with business organizations likened to groups of survivors. Its post-apocalyptic setting offers something of an analogy to the COVID-19 crisis. Each firm's struggle for survival in the face of external threats is paralleled with each community's struggle to protect members' lives, preserve resources, and pursue development. The practices of the leaders in the program are compared to those of the leaders of firms such as P&G, Boeing, GM, Renault-Nissan, IBM, BP, GE, Berkshire Hathaway, Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft, Ali Baba, Netflix, Airbnb, Uber, and SpaceX. This paper illustrates why ethical leadership goes far beyond charisma and competencies to involve deep motivations and sincere emotions and why it is accessible to everyone through a process of learning and transformation. The study shows the need to adapt leadership style to context. Good leaders know when to step back, meditate, and be lucid. They balance consultation and initiative. They do not fear other leaders and mentor new ones.

Leading the Challenge: Leader Support Modifies the Effect of Role Ambiguity on Engagement and Extra-Role Behaviors in Public Employees

The assumption of new challenges and services to provide, and the evolution of new technologies in public administration, give employees an important perception of ambiguity when carrying out their work. Role ambiguity has been conceptualized as one of the main impeding demands at work with negative consequences. The objective of the present study is to analyze the moderating effect of the support by the department head in the negative influence of the role ambiguity on the engagement and the extra-role performance behaviors of the employees. The hypothesis is proposed that the support of the department head will mean the transformation of role ambiguity into a challenging job demand with positive results. A total of 315 public employees with administrative staff have participated in this study. Results confirmed that the support of the leader moderates the effects of role ambiguity. The inclusion of this variable as a moderator transforms the influence of role ambiguity on the employees' engagement into a positive one and reduces their negative effect on extra-role performance behaviors. These results reinforce the role of leader support as a protective element against job demands in public administrations. Theoretical and practical implications and future lines of research are discussed at the end of the work.

Pending Issues on Professionals’ Well-Being: The Living and Working Together in Organization Perspective

Evolving research has increasingly recognized the crucial role of workers’ well-being in contributing to organizational effectiveness and survival, also studying the different factors that can influence it. This paper explores how the construct of living and working together in organizations (LWTO) can face two current organizational challenges in terms of well-being: 1. keeping a balance between performance and organizational quality of life; 2. managing the relationship with others’ differences. Thus, LTWO is understood as the possibility (or absence) of a good exchange between workers (identity and otherness), related to a clear and shared work purpose within a specific organizational culture of difference that allows diversity of expression through generative conflict. We tested our model using the exploratory structural equation modeling methodology with EQS-6.3. Our results show how well-being is in fact influenced by LWTO and highlights in particular the central role played by work purpose.

Health-Promoting Leadership: Concept, Measurement, and Research Framework

Employee health is not only positively related to the employee well-being and family happiness, but also impacts organizations, and society as a whole. We searched the health-promoting leadership literature in the following databases: Web of Science, ProQuest, EBSCO, and a Chinese local database. Based on this research, we clarify the concept of health-promoting leadership, propose a definition of health-promoting leadership, and examine measurement scales for this type of leadership. We also suggest a research framework for health-promoting leadership, demonstrating its potential outcomes at both the individual level (e.g., health, well-being, job attitudes) and the organizational level (e.g., health management culture and practices); the mechanisms for its development based on conservation of resources theory, the job demands–resources model, social learning theory, and social exchange theory; and antecedents (e.g., health values, health awareness, organizational health culture, organizational health climate, and organizational health promotion behavior control). Finally, we identify six potential research areas: Research level, performance, the impacts of health-promoting leaders on themselves, moderators, research methods, and intervention effects on health-promoting leadership.

Shattered but smiling: Human resource management and the wellbeing of hotel employees during COVID-19

The purpose of this paper is to explore the human resource management (HRM) practices adopted by hotels during COVID-19 and to examine the impact of COVID-19 on the wellbeing of hotel employees using qualitative thematic analysis. This study presents HRM practices that organizations can use to effectively manage employees in uncertain times. There is compelling evidence that employee-centered HRM practices strongly impact employee wellbeing. This paper integrates the insights from an HRM framework for wellbeing using a job demands-resources model. The paper identifies themes that confirm and extend existing theories and models of wellbeing. The findings are important for policy makers by offering guidance for managing people effectively during tough times.