Work engagement in organizations: a social network analysis of the domain

The mediating role of informal learning on work engagement: older workers in the US public sector

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating relationship between organizational culture, informal learning and work engagement of older workers in a public organizational setting. More specifically, this study aimed to investigate if informal learning is a pivotal component connecting an organizational-level factor (culture) to work engagement, which, in turn, directly influences business performance in the workplace.

Design/methodology/approach

After a careful review of the selected and relevant literature, four hypotheses were developed to test the structural relationships between the selected variables.

Findings

The data analysis indicated that informal learning mediated the relationship between organizational culture and work engagement for older employees working in a public organizational setting.

Practical implications

The findings from this study provide a solid justification for promoting informal learning in organizations to ensure knowledge transfer between younger and older generations while minimizing knowledge and financial loss for organizations.

Originality/value

In previous research, little emphasis has been placed on the impact of informal learning on work engagement. This study presents a valuable finding about the role of informal learning to facilitate work engagement for older workers.

Personality and job engagement among municipal workers in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa

Orientation: Although researchers have discovered many of the beneficial and positive consequences of job engagement, little is known about the multitude of antecedent factors that lead to employee engagement such as personality.Research purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between the big five personality traits and job engagement among municipal workers.Motivation for the study: The motivation of this study is to examine the relationship between personality and psychological conditions. It was premised on previous research that personality is associated with many employees’ behaviours.Research approach/design and method: The present study employed a quantitative, cross-sectional research design by using a questionnaire on a sample of 403 district municipal workers in the Eastern Cape province, South Africa.Main findings: The study findings show that openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion and agreeableness had a positive relationship with job engagement, whereas neuroticism has a negative relationship with job engagement. Municipalities and educational qualifications had an impact of job engagement.Practical/managerial implications: The study recommends managers to switch from an intervention-based focus to a selection-based focus as municipalities can maximise their resources by being able to better predict job success early in the selection process as opposed to trying to maximise the performance on a continual basis through interventions.Contribution/value-add: This study adds to an understanding of the influences of personality on work outcomes such as job engagement, giving areas for exploration in coaching or feedback interviews based on personality assessment.

Analysis of Social Networking Service Data for Smart Urban Planning

New technologies are changing the channels of communication between people, creating an interconnected society in which information flows. Social networks are a good example of the evolution of citizens’ communication habits. The user-generated data that these networks collect can be analyzed to generate new useful information for developing citizen-centered smart services and policy making. The aim of this paper is to investigate the possibilities offered by social networks in the field of sport to aid city management. As the novelty of this research, a systematic method is described to know the popular areas for sport and how the management of this knowledge enables the decision-making process of urban planning. Some case studies of useful actions to make inclusive cities for sport are described and the benefits of making sustainable cities are discussed.