Examining the Roles of Work Autonomous and Controlled Motivations on Satisfaction and Anxiety as a Function of Role Ambiguity

A Multilevel Person-Centered Perspective on the Role of Job Demands and Resources for Employees' Job Engagement and Burnout Profiles

The present study examined the configurations, or profiles, taken by distinct global and specific facets of job engagement and burnout (by relying on a bifactor operationalization of these constructs) among a nationally representative sample of Canadian Defence employees (n = 13,088; nested within 65 work units). The present study also adopted a multilevel perspective to investigate the role of job demands (work overload and role ambiguity), as well as individual (psychological empowerment), workgroup (interpersonal justice), supervisor (transformational leadership), and organizational (organizational support) resources in the prediction of profile membership. Latent profile analyses revealed five profiles of employees: Burned-Out/Disengaged (7.13%), Burned-Out/Involved (12.13%), Engaged (18.14%), Engaged/Exhausted (15.50%), and Normative (47.10%). The highest turnover intentions were observed in the Burned-Out/Disengaged profile, and the lowest in the Engaged profile. Employees' perceptions of job demands and resources were also associated with profile membership across both levels, although the effects of psychological empowerment were more pronounced than the effects of job demands and resources related to the workgroup, supervisor, and organization. Individual-level effects were also more pronounced than effects occurring at the work unit level, where shared perceptions of work overload and organizational support proved to be the key shared drivers of profile membership.

Supervisor expectations regarding work-related messages: their differential effects among remote and on-site workers

Purpose

Research suggests that supervisor expectations regarding the need to respond quickly to work-related messages (SE) tend to be positively related to employees' levels of emotional exhaustion. In the present research paper, the authors examine the indirect – through emotional exhaustion – effects of these expectations on employees' levels of family satisfaction, life satisfaction and sleep quality. They also explore whether and how these associations differ between employees working on-site (n = 158) or remotely (n = 284).

Design/methodology/approach

A total of 442 employees completed an online survey that covered measures on SE, emotional exhaustion, family and life satisfaction and sleep quality.

Findings

As hypothesized, the results of the study revealed that the indirect effects of SE on family satisfaction, life satisfaction and sleep quality were significantly mediated by emotional exhaustion. Finally, the relations between SE and the mediator (emotional exhaustion) were stronger among employees working on-site than among employees working remotely.

Practical implications

SE prevention could be encouraged to decrease employees' emotional exhaustion, in turn increasing their sleep quality, family satisfaction and life satisfaction.

Originality/value

These results revealed that working remotely helped buffer the undesirable effects of SE on emotional exhaustion.

A Cross-Cultural Investigation of Basic Psychological Need Satisfaction at Work in an Indigenous and Non-Indigenous Australian Sample Across Occupation Types

Self-determination theory (SDT) posits universality without cross-cultural uniformity of the three basic psychological needs (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) which have been associated with desirable job outcomes. Yet these promising directions in theory and research have not been extended to Indigenous samples and different occupational types. This is unfortunate as Indigenous peoples globally remain the most disadvantaged on all socio-economic indicators, including employment. This study adopted a strengths-based approach to investigating associations between SDT’s need satisfaction and job outcomes in Australian Indigenous and non-Indigenous professionals and non-professionals. Participants included 1,146 Indigenous (48.8%) and non-Indigenous Australians (39.1% men), aged 18 to 81 years ( Mage = 43.54). Structural equation modeling (SEM) revealed that autonomy and competence need satisfaction were associated with multiple positive work outcomes and less job ambiguity, whereas satisfaction of the need for relatedness was associated with increased job satisfaction and greater resilience in the workplace. Moderation by Indigenous status and occupation type revealed few differences in the direction and strength of the associations between need satisfaction and job outcomes. However, non-professionals reported significantly lower satisfaction of all three needs, and Indigenous participants reported significantly lower levels of autonomy need satisfaction. As need satisfaction was shown to be equally beneficial for all workers regardless of culture or occupation type, these findings highlight the need for employers to invest more in cultivating the need satisfaction of their Indigenous and non-professional staff. Overall, the results extend upon previous research by demonstrating that SDT is generalizable to an Australian Indigenous population and that workplace need satisfaction is important for Indigenous and non-professional employee outcomes.

Can configurations of motivation and extraversion attenuate job demands-job burnout bond?

Purpose

Recent research highlights the necessity to critically examine the factors that can reduce the relationship between job stressors, such as job demand and burnout, to create healthier workplaces. This study aims to explore how five types of motivations (extrinsic motivation-social, extrinsic motivation- material, introjected, identified and intrinsic motivation), in combination with extraversion trait influence the impact of job demands on job burnout.

Design/methodology/approach

This study adopted a set-theoretic approach named fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to analyze the data collected from 84 employees working in an research and development department of a public organization.

Findings

Findings revealed two distinct configurations. First, the absence of intrinsic and identified motivations lead to job burnout if extraverted participants suffer from high job demands. Second, non-extraverted participants reported high job burnout in the presence of high job demands, although all five types of motivations drove them.

Practical implications

This study suggests managers need to consider personalized preventive actions, depending on the level of extraversion trait when they try to motivate their employees who are dealing with high levels of job demands.

Originality/value

The emerging trend in social science suggests adopting linearity assumptions to study social phenomena is inconsistent with the reality of human behavior. Thus, this study used fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to examine the complex interplay among all five types of motivations, extraversion trait, job demands, which contribute to burnout.

Work Autonomous and Controlled Motivation on Chinese Employees' Work Performance and Innovative Work Behaviour: The Moderating Role of Financial Stress

This study applied self-determination theory (SDT) to investigate the relationships between work motivation and work behaviour of Chinese employees and the moderating role of financial stress. Data were obtained from 245 employees of five organisations in China using a convenience sampling technique. The results indicated that autonomous motivation positively predicted work performance and innovative work behaviour, while controlled motivation had a positive effect only on work performance of employees. In addition, financial stress moderated the relationships between autonomous motivation and work performance and innovative work behaviour of employees. Specifically, the beneficial effect of autonomous motivation on work performance and innovative work behaviour disappeared when financial stress was high. The findings of the present study supported cultural similarities in the positive role of autonomous motivation and showed cultural differences in the role of controlled motivation. The implications of this study are also discussed.

How achievement motive enactment shapes daily flow experience and work engagement: The interplay of personality systems

In the present study, we examined how different forms of achievement motive interact to predict daily flow experience and work engagement. In particular, we conducted two diary studies to examine the main and interaction effects of motive enactment via extension memory (a macrosystem that enables holistic and experience-based information processing) and via the object recognition system (an alert-oriented macrosystem). In study 1, in line with personality systems interaction (PSI) theory, we found that motive enactment via extension memory fosters both day-specific flow and work engagement, whereas the conjunction of both forms of motive enactment has beneficial effects on flow and work engagement (two-way interaction). In study 2, we found that role clarity moderates the interaction of the two forms of enactment, indicating that the two-way interaction occurs when role clarity is low. Our results imply that the interplay of different dispositional forms of achievement motive enactment shapes how employees experience flow and engagement.

Career Mentoring and Job Content Plateaus: The Roles of Perceived Organizational Support and Emotional Exhaustion

The study aims to shed light on whether mentoring may help protégés decrease their perception of job content plateaus. Based on the conservation of resources theory, career mentoring could be an effective resource in decreasing job content plateaus and alleviating the resulting emotional exhaustion. The study also proposes that perceived organizational support (POS) can be an organizational resource for protégés, strengthening the effects of career mentoring in addressing the problem of job content plateaus and ensuing emotional exhaustion (via job content plateaus). Two-wave data were collected from a sample of 353 protégés in Germany. Results showed that career mentoring was negatively related to emotional exhaustion through job content plateaus. Moreover, high POS strengthened the effects of career mentoring, directly in dealing with the issue of job content plateaus and indirectly for emotional exhaustion. Important theoretical and practical implications for mentoring and career plateau research are discussed.

Teachers' Personal and Collective Work-Identity Predicts Exhaustion and Work Motivation: Mediating Roles of Psychological Job Demands and Resources

The aim of this study was to investigate the mediating roles of teachers' psychological job demands and resources regarding personal and collective work-identity, respectively, and exhaustion and self-determined work motivation, respectively. A total of 2,905 members of a Swedish teacher's trade union received an online questionnaire by e-mail; 768 individuals answered the questionnaire and so participated in this study. The data were obtained by self-reported measures (e.g., emotional and cognitive components of work-identity, psychological job demands and resources, exhaustion and work motivation) and analyzed by mediation regression analyses. The results showed that teachers' psychological job demands (prosocial extra-role performance) mediated relationships between cognitive personal work-identity and emotional collective work-identity, respectively, and exhaustion. Teachers' psychological job resources (educational inspiration) mediated relationships between emotional personal work-identity and cognitive collective work-identity, respectively, and self-determined work motivation. Thus, teachers might be disadvantaged by stronger personal work-related thinking and collective work-related feeling when related to exhaustion, to some extent accounted for by psychological job demands, and they might find advantage in stronger personal work-related feeling and collective work-related thinking when related to work motivation, to some extent accounted for by psychological job resources.

Effects of motivation and workload on firefighters' perceived health, stress, and performance

This study investigated the effects of autonomous and controlled motivations, and workload on perceived stress, health, and performance. Workload was also considered as a moderator of the effects of autonomous motivation on perceived health and performance and of controlled motivation on perceived stress. We conducted an empirical study using a sample of 654 firefighters. Consistent with our predictions, results showed positive effects of autonomous motivation and negative effects of workload and controlled motivation on perceived health and performance. They also revealed positive effects of controlled motivation and workload and negative effects of autonomous motivation on perceived stress. Moreover, workload moderated the relations between autonomous motivation and perceived health and performance, so that the positive relations between autonomous motivation and perceived health and performance were lower when workload was high. Finally, workload moderated the relation between controlled motivation and perceived stress so that the positive relation between controlled motivation and perceived stress was stronger when workload was high. Theoretical contributions and perspectives, as well as implications for practice, are discussed.

Testing Competing Hypotheses on the Interplay of Importance and Support of the Basic Psychological Needs at Work and Personality Development with Response Surface Analysis

Even though environmental contexts have been associated with personality development, little attention has been paid to individuals’ psychological perceptions thereof. Basic psychological needs theory assesses environments based on their levels of autonomy, competence, and relatedness support. In order to better understand the factors that drive personality development we related the support of basic psychological needs (BPN) and the individual importance ascribed to BPN support to Big Five personality development 1.5 years later. We focused on the context of the first job in a longitudinal study of young Germans (NT1 = 1,886; MageT1 = 18.41). Based on theory and previous research we derived multiple hypotheses and tested them simultaneously against each other with an information theoretic approach including response surface analyses. Results differed across the Big Five: Controlling for personality at T1, people who ascribed greater importance to BPN support, had higher perceptions of BPN support, and who had an incongruence between the two at T1 were higher in emotional stability and extraversion at T2. The pattern was more complex for openness, whereas individuals ascribing more importance to BPN support at T1 were more agreeable and conscientious at T2. Findings are discussed for theory and future research of personality development.

A Person-Centered Representation of Basic Need Satisfaction Balance at Work

Abstract. This study examines how a global overarching need satisfaction construct, together with three specific dimensions (autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs satisfaction) combine within different profiles of workers among two independent samples ( n = 1,419 and n = 677). In addition, this research investigates the role of job demands and resources in the prediction of profile membership, and documents the relation between these profiles and maladaptive outcomes (anxiety and physical fatigue). The results revealed four distinct profiles. Job resources (e.g., participation, organizational support, and work scheduling autonomy) predicted an increased likelihood of membership in the normative profile in both samples. The globally dissatisfied yet moderately autonomous profile was also associated with the highest anxiety levels relative to all other profiles.

Motivation and Justice at Work: The Role of Emotion and Cognition Components of Personal and Collective Work Identity

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of personal and collective work identity (including emotion and cognition components), in predicting work motivation (operationalized as work self-determined motivation) and organizational justice (operationalized as organizational pay justice). Digitized questionnaires were distributed by e-mail to 2905 members, teachers, of a Swedish trade union. A total of 768 individuals answered the questionnaire and by that participated in this study. Personal- compared to collective work identity was shown to positively associate with self-determined motivation accounted for by the emotion component of personal work identity. Collective compared to personal work identity was reported to positively associate with organizational pay justice accounted for by the cognition component of collective work identity. All this suggests that both work-related motivation and organizational justice might be, to some extent, accounted for by the psychological mechanisms of work identity and that, as predicted, different types of work identity, play different significant roles in predicting motivation and justice at work. More precisely, the emotion component of work identity was more pronounced in personal work-bonding relationships, and the cognitive component, of work identity in contrast, was more pronounced in collective work-bonding relationships.

Self-regulation in entrepreneurs

Psychological processes (e.g., cognition, motivation, emotions) have emerged as key to understanding entrepreneurial actions and success. Currently, we do not know enough about specific entrepreneurial psychological processes and particularly lack knowledge about their cumulative or interactive effects. Self-regulation offers some promise in understanding these issues. However, self-regulation in entrepreneurship has not been fully explored, which limits our understanding. We address this by introducing an integrated model of episodic self-regulation (the A-CEM-A model) to map the reciprocal regulatory effects of action, cognition, emotion, and motivation in entrepreneurship research and isolate a series of propositions stemming from the model. We further explore the resource implications of the A-CEM-A model for entrepreneurs managing several self-regulatory processes simultaneously. The A-CEM-A model offers a novel and unique insight into entrepreneurial action and psychological processes, and presents a roadmap for future researchers interested in adopting an episodic process perspective in entrepreneurship research.