Psychological need fulfillment as a mediator of the relationship between transformational leadership and positive job attitudes

Basic Psychological Needs in the Work Context: A Systematic Literature Review of Diary Studies

According to the self-determination theory, individuals' basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness should be satisfied for optimal psychological growth. The satisfaction of these needs seems to vary due to changes in a person's social context, and the outcomes of the satisfaction of these needs also vary along with the needs. Despite several studies investigating daily and weekly variations in need satisfaction and its correlates, no systematic investigation exists. This study aimed to conduct a narrative synthesis of existing quantitative diary studies of basic psychological needs in the work context. We specifically aimed to evaluate if psychological need satisfaction varies daily and weekly and judge whether they vary more daily or weekly. Additionally, we also aimed to review the literature regarding the relations between daily or weekly variations in need satisfaction and its assumed antecedents and outcomes. We included peer-reviewed articles in English that measured work-related basic psychological needs using a quantitative diary study design. Database searching (Web of Science, ScienceDirect, EBSCOhost, and Scopus) led to the extraction of 2 251 records by February 2020. Duplicates were removed, the remaining records were screened (n = 820), and 30 articles were assessed using eligibility criteria. Two authors individually conducted the screening and eligibility processes to manage selection bias. In total, 21 articles were included in the final review. The review indicated that basic psychological need satisfaction showed considerable within-person variation and was more dynamic daily (compared to weekly). Job demands, job resources, organisational resources, and individual characteristics appeared to associate with these variations. The organisational context seemed to matter the most for need satisfaction. Variations in need satisfaction were also related to employee well-being, performance, and motivation. Despite the small number of published studies (particularly for weekly studies), our results indicate that researchers should pay attention to within-person variations in need satisfaction. Measuring daily need satisfaction could be prioritised. Different antecedents and outcomes seem to be associated with different needs. Thus, when needs are viewed as distinct constructs instead of unidimensional ones, one can derive greater insights. The study is funded by the National Research Foundation.

Transformational leadership, career adaptability, job embeddedness and perceived career success: a serial mediation model

Purpose

Based on career construction theory and job embeddedness theory, the aim of the present study is to give insights into the interplay between transformational leadership and perceived career success by examining the indirect effects through serial mediation of career adaptability and job embeddedness, respectively.

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative approach was used for this study. Data were gathered from 469 nurses working in government hospitals in Saudi Arabia. Hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling.

Findings

The results show that transformational leaders enhance perceived career success. Moreover, the relationship between transformational leadership and perceived career success is serially mediated by career adaptability and job embeddedness.

Originality/value

The role of leadership in promoting employee's perceived career success has been seldom studied in the literature. This is the first study of its kind to examine the effect of transformational leadership on nurses' perceived career success along with the mediating roles of career adaptability and job embeddedness.

Job Demands-Resources theory and self-regulation: new explanations and remedies for job burnout

Background: High job demands and low job resources may cause job strain and eventually result in burnout. However, previous research has generally ignored the roles of time and self-regulation. Objectives: This theoretical article synthesizes the literature to propose a multilevel model that delineates how acute job strain translates into enduring and severe job burnout. Methods: We integrate self-regulation perspectives in job demands-resources (JD-R) theory to propose that short-term job strain and eventually enduring burnout is the result of consistently high job demands and low job resources - combined with failed self-regulation. Results: The model shows that when employees are confronted with increased job strain, they are more likely to use maladaptive self-regulation strategies, such as coping inflexibility and self-undermining. In addition, when job strain increases, employees are less likely to use adaptive self-regulation strategies, such as job stress recovery and job crafting. It follows that when the job becomes more stressful, stable resources become more important. Organizational resources such as human resource practices and healthy leadership may help employees to regulate their short-term fatigue and avoid enduring burnout. Furthermore, key personal resources like emotional intelligence and proactive personality may help employees to recognize and regulate their fatigue in an effective way. Conclusion: The proposed model of burnout expands JD-R theory and offers important practical implications for the prevention and reduction of burnout.

Psychological identification with job: a leadership-OCB mediator

Purpose

This study aims to examine influence of transformational and transactional leadership styles on employees’ organisational citizenship behaviours (OCBs), as well as the mediating role of job involvement in the Ghanaian hospitality industry.

Design/methodology/approach

Data were gathered from 258 employees in some selected hotels and restaurants in the Greater Accra Region of Ghana through a survey and analysed using covariance-based structural equation modelling.

Findings

The results indicated that both leadership styles influenced employees’ OCBs positively. Furthermore, job involvement positively influenced OCB and mediated between transformational leadership and OCB but not between transactional leadership and employees’ OCBs.

Practical implications

The study reaffirms the importance of employees’ OCBs and recommends that hotels and restaurants must encourage their supervisors to exhibit more transformational leadership behaviours (motivational, inspirational and visionary behaviours), as well as a combination of transformational and transactional leadership behaviours which can influence their employees to go beyond formal requirements, and get more involved in their jobs to the benefit of the organisations.

Originality/value

This study reveals the extent to which internal motivations of employees, specifically their job involvement, causes their extra-role behaviours and influences the leaders–OCB relationships from a developing country perspective.

Resilience as a Mediator Between Workplace Humour and Well-being at Work: An Enquiry on the Healthcare Professionals

Humour is considered as a crucial job resource for healthcare professionals. It has been further credited for several positive outcomes such as resilience and well-being. This study investigated: (a) the mediating role of resilience between adaptive humours styles (self-enhancing and affiliative) and well-being at work and (b) the moderating role of self-esteem in the indirect relationship between the adaptive humour styles and well-being at work via resilience. The study was conducted on a sample of 354 healthcare professionals. The findings of the study indicate a significant association between the adaptive humour styles and well-being at work with resilience as a mediator. Furthermore, self-esteem was found to significantly moderate the indirect relationship between self-enhancing humour and well-being at work via resilience.

A pilot study examining if satisfaction of basic needs can ameliorate negative effects of shift work

The objective of the present study was to investigate if satisfaction of the basic needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness is related to shift work tolerance, specifically physical and mental fatigue, insomnia, and digestive troubles in a sample of shift workers. This is a cross-sectional pilot questionnaire study, including 252 shift workers employed in a municipality in Norway. Autonomy was negatively related to physical fatigue and digestive troubles, while competence was negatively related to mental fatigue. Relatedness showed significant correlations with insomnia and mental fatigue, but did not reach significance in the regression model controlling for the two other basic needs as well as work scheduling, night work exposure, and sleep medication. Sleep medication was significant in the final regression model for insomnia, but unrelated to fatigue and digestive troubles. The demographic variables, work hours per week, work schedule, and night work exposure were unrelated to all four measures of shift work tolerance. Autonomy and competence may be more important for fatigue and digestive troubles among shift workers than work arrangement variables, night work exposure, and sleep medication use.