Workplace events and employee creativity: A multistudy field investigation

"Something we must be proud of": An interview and document study of team improvisation in the Dutch convalescent plasma project group

Background and Aims

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the importance of organizational resilience, the ability to effectively respond to a disruptive event before, during, and after it occurs. Team improvisation is an important component of organizational resilience as it describes characteristics of team skills and contextual qualities to create order from chaos. In Spring 2020, the Dutch national blood bank, began the convalescent plasma project (CCP). We aimed to study which elements of team improvisation in the CCP group were found and how lessons learned can contribute towards a non-crisis situation for blood establishments.

Methods

Using Vera and Crossan's framework of improvisation, semi-structured interviews with eight members of the CCP group were conducted. This was simultaneous to performing a document analysis of 21 Intranet posts and seven internal reports. MAXDA 2020 was used to conduct deductive and inductive thematic analyses.

Results

The CCP group showed strong characteristics of expertise and memory, teamwork quality, experimental culture, and real-time information and communication that enabled them to improvise in all aspects of the donation process. Improvisation examples included comprehensive communication methods to identify and obtain new donors, asking additional intake questions and collecting additional aliquots to store while waiting for an internal antibody test to be developed, and regulatory respondents allowing a flexible change control procedure to meet the pace of the crisis. Training was evident to a lesser degree.

Conclusion

While improvisation impacted set routines and procedures, the safety and quality of the product were not affected. Regarding organizational resilience, our results showed that the CCP group "coped" well using elements of team improvisation. Blood establishments may consider introducing improvisational training and innovation teams throughout the organization for future preparedness and improving organizational resilience.

Living the employer brand during a crisis? A qualitative study on internal employer branding in times of the COVID-19 pandemic

Employer branding has emerged as a strategic imperative in the quest for talent. However, existing research has predominantly explored stable periods, overlooking the possible transformative impact of crises and the crucial role that HR managers play in crafting internal employer branding strategies. As such, this research addresses this by scrutinizing internal employer branding during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conducting in-depth interviews with 37 Belgian HR managers, we delve into the perceived challenges and opportunities that the COVID-19 crisis presented with respect to internal employer branding and its touchpoints-internal communication and leadership. A subsequent member and employee check with six HR managers and six employees validated our findings. The results unveiled organizations' heightened concern for employer branding during crises, emphasizing the strategic reflection invested. Remarkably, despite facing organizational/operational constraints/risks imposed by the crisis, the attention and efforts remain steadfastly centered on the experienced internal employer brand in crisis situations. Additionally, a contextual analysis suggests that various employer brand types face similar challenges in crises, however, the employer brand serves as a defining factor that shapes how an organization responds to both external uncertainties and internal dynamics brought about by the crisis. This study contributes to a nuanced understanding of internal employer branding dynamics during crises, shedding light on the strategic considerations of HR managers.

Increasing nurses' occupational well-being: the role of career shocks, job crafting and supervisor autonomy support

BACKGROUND

This study aims to explore the influence of career shocks on nurses' occupational well-being through job crafting and the moderating role of supervisor autonomy support.

METHOD

The present study used a cross-sectional design. And the study included 714 frontline nurses in China, and we used structural equation modelling (SEM) to test our hypotheses.

RESULTS

Job crafting mediated both the relationship between positive career shocks and occupational well-being and the relationship between negative career shocks and occupational well-being. Supervisor autonomy support moderated the indirect relationships.

CONCLUSIONS

Positive and negative career shocks could increase and impair nurses' occupational well-being through job crafting, respectively. We contribute to helping nurses make sense of career shocks and preparing for career shocks, and hospital administrators and nurses' direct supervisors can help nurse better cope with career shocks in attending job crafting activities and providing more autonomy supports.

The Double-Edged Sword Effect of Illegitimate Tasks on Employee Creativity: Positive and Negative Coping Perspectives

Purpose

The purpose of our study is to explore how employees respond to illegitimate tasks and the impact it will have on employee creativity, as well as to explore the important boundary conditions for weakening the negative impact of illegitimate tasks and enhancing its positive impact.

Methods

We collected 271 pairs of employee-supervisor valid matching data through three rounds of surveys, and conducted statistical analysis and hypothesis testing using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS 24.0 statistical analysis tools.

Results

The results show that both job crafting and work withdrawal play a mediating role between illegitimate tasks and employee creativity, and the negative mediating role of work withdrawal is stronger than the positive mediating role of job crafting; supervisor developmental feedback not only positively moderates the relationship between illegitimate tasks and job crafting but also enhances the positive mediating role of job crafting; supervisor developmental feedback not only negatively moderates the link between illegitimate tasks and work withdrawal but also weakens the negative mediating role of work withdrawal.

Conclusion

Drawing on Conservation of Resources theory and Stress-as-Offense-to-Self theory, we reveal that employees will adopt job crafting and work withdrawal in response to illegitimate tasks from positive and negative coping perspectives and how it will positively and negatively affect employee creativity, respectively. Meanwhile, we find that supervisor developmental feedback is a boundary condition for reducing the negative impact of illegitimate tasks and promoting their positive impact. In addition, we provide implications for organizations to weigh the pros and cons of illegitimate tasks and improve employee creativity.

When abusive supervision affects creative idea sharing: Understanding the role of employee cheating and organizational justice

Getting employees to share their creative ideas has long been recognized as a vital source of organizational effectiveness. This research uses the conservation of resources theory to investigate how employee's creative idea sharing is affected by abusive supervision. Data for this research was collected from 209 employees and their immediate supervisors of generic nurses and medical dispensers of Southern Punjab public sector hospitals working under the Ministry of national health services regulation and Coordination. Data were then analyzed with the AMOS software package for simple regression and moderated mediation. This study found that with the increase in abusive supervision, employees develop cheating behavior, diminishing probability of sharing their creative ideas with coworkers. Along these lines, organizational justice moderates this relationship and attenuates the negative indirect effect of abusive supervision on creative idea sharing. The researchers recommended that organizations should develop training programs or coaching sessions for leaders to make them equip with essential interpersonal skills that can eradicate abusive supervision. Research implications, limitations, and future research directions are also discussed.

Front-line employees' perceived COVID-19 event strength and emotional labor in the service industry: A moderated mediation model

COVID-19 pandemic has brought enormous challenges to employees worldwide, and thus, it is important to understand whether, how, and when perceived COVID-19 event strength can influence employees' work-related outcomes. Drawing on event system theory and affective events theory, this study examined the effect of perceived COVID-19 event strength on front-line service employees' emotional labor, namely, surface acting and deep acting, through the mediating role of anxiety. In addition, it explored job insecurity as a moderator in the relationship between perceived COVID-19 event strength and anxiety. This study analyzed two-wave data (N = 191) collected from front-line employees in the service industry and found that anxiety mediated the relationship between perceived COVID-19 event strength and surface acting but not deep acting, and that job insecurity moderated the relationship between perceived COVID-19 event strength and anxiety and the indirect effect of perceived COVID-19 event strength on surface acting but not on deep acting via anxiety. Implications and directions for future research are also discussed.

Enhancing Employee Job Satisfaction Responding to COVID-19: The Role of Organizational Adaptive Practices and Psychological Resilience

Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically affected all aspects of people's lives and work, negatively impacting personal well-being and job satisfaction. Based on the conservation of resources theory, this study examines the relationship of organizational adaptive practices (OAP) responding to COVID-19 and psychological resilience (PR) with employee job satisfaction (JS) while incorporating the mediating role of emotional exhaustion (EE).

Methods

We surveyed 340 employees from China through an online questionnaire, which was used under convenience sampling and finally recovered a valid sample size of 314. We used SPSS and AMOS to analyze the correlation and hypothesis testing of the collected data through structural equation modelling (SEM) and bootstrapping.

Results

Both OAP and PR facilitate JS and inhibit employee EE. EE negatively predicted employee JS. EE mediated both the relationship between OAP and subordinate JS and the relationship between PR and subordinate JS.

Conclusion

The study provides a new perspective on increasing JS during the COVID-19 pandemic, thereby expanding the scope of the antecedents of employee JS in crisis situations. It also reveals the mediating role of EE and deepens the research on the mechanism by which OAP and PR affect individuals, providing practical guidance for organizations to improve employee satisfaction in sudden public crisis situations.

Adapting careers to the COVID crisis: The impact of the pandemic on employees' career orientations

This paper draws on event system theory and the literatures on career orientations and career shocks to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employees' career orientations. Factor analyses in three samples allow us to group seven career orientations into two dimensions: needs-based career orientations (those related to security, lifestyle, and health) and talent- and value-based career orientations (related to job content). We use a three-wave survey of Chinese employees to examine how these two broad orientations evolved in two time windows-one representing high, the other low event strength. We find that the two types of career orientations evolved in different ways during the pandemic: employees' needs-based career orientations were more salient during the COVID crisis than their talent- and value-based career orientations, and the salience of needs-based career orientations did not decrease as event strength abated. Employees' personal exposure to the crisis was positively related to the salience of their needs-based career orientations, but not to the salience of talent- and value-based career orientations. We also show that the salience of needs-based career orientations differed across employee groups: it was weaker among more experienced and successful employees (those higher in the managerial hierarchy and with steeper past pay increases).

Entrepreneurial passion and organizational innovation: The moderating effects of events and the competence to exploit events

How do events, especially rare external events such as financial crises, wars, natural disasters, and the COVID-19 pandemic, affect the efficacy of entrepreneurial passion to drive organizational innovation? This study investigates the moderating role of events and entrepreneurs’ competence to exploit the events (opportunity competence) in the relationship between entrepreneurial passion and organizational innovation. Drawing insights from event system theory, we identified two critical event characteristics (i.e., event novelty and event criticality). Integrating the affect infusion model and the self-verification process in the identity literature, we argue that the two event characteristics and opportunity competence are crucial for entrepreneurs to exploit the benefits of entrepreneurial passion in promoting organizational innovation. After analyzing a survey sample of 435 entrepreneurs in Qinhuai Silicon Alley in China and an online survey of 202 entrepreneurs worldwide, we found that entrepreneurial passion exerts a stronger effect on organizational innovation when events are more novel and more critical to entrepreneurs, and when entrepreneurs have greater opportunity competence. We discuss these findings’ theoretical and practical implications later in this paper.

How does workplace event criticality spur employees' proactivity? The roles of work engagement and mindfulness

This paper aims to generate insights about whether, how, and when workplace event criticality spurs employee proactivity. We conducted multilevel analyses with a three-wave time-lagged survey of 179 employees and their 55 direct leaders in China to test our proposed model. The findings indicate that workplace event criticality is conducive to stimulating proactive work behavior through improving employee engagement. Further, employee mindfulness amplifies the positive relationship between workplace event criticality and work engagement. Despite the increasingly unavoidable influence of events in the workplace on employee proactivity, empirical research around the relationship and its underlying mechanism has been rather sparse. Our event-oriented research advances this knowledge by unpacking the salient motivating role of workplace events' criticality in employee work engagement and proactivity. It also increases our understanding by illustrating that employee mindfulness will amplify and intensify the motivational potential of workplace event criticality for work engagement.

Does authoritarianism necessarily stifle creativity? The role of discipline-focused authoritarian leadership

A burgeoning body of research has shown that authoritarian leadership (AL) embodies the characteristics of "light" and "dark," meaning that it does not always have a negative impact on employees' creative activities. However, studies explaining this potential positive effect are insufficient. To extend the AL and creativity literature, we draw on self-determination theory and event system theory, and elicit discipline-focused AL and appointment event criticality to examine whether, when, and how authoritarian leaders affect employee creativity positively. With time-lagged data collected from 435 employees and their direct leaders in China, we found that discipline-focused AL has an indirect positive effect on employee creativity through creative self-efficacy. Additionally, appointment event criticality strengthens the positive relationship between discipline-focused AL and creative self-efficiency, and the indirect impact of discipline-focused AL on employee creativity through creative self-efficiency. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Conflict side of creativity: Role of supervisory support and team affective tone in facilitating creative idea validation

Purpose

We seek to understand whether relationship conflicts of co-workers affect the validation of creative ideas or not. Furthermore, what boundary conditions may help prevent potential drawbacks of relationship conflicts with co-workers to validate their creative ideas?

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed model was tested by using multisource data collected across two points in time from final year nursing students and medical dispensers of five nursing colleges of south-Punjab, Pakistan. The model was analyzed with Mplus for random coefficient models for direct effects, mediated moderation, and UCINET for central tendency of creative idea validation.

Findings

It was found that relationship conflicts with co-workers were negatively related to their validation of creative ideas. However, supervisory support and team affective tone independently attenuate the negative effects of relationship conflicts with co-workers and the validation of creative ideas. Positive affective tone emerged as a positive predictor of creative idea validation. Additionally, positive affective tone as affected by supervisory support attenuated the negative relationship between relationship conflicts with co-workers and their validation of creative ideas. Finally, the relationship between relationship conflicts with co-workers and their validation of creative ideas is more positive when both supervisory support and positive affective tone are high, however, low otherwise.

Practical implications

This study will help policymakers understand what might be hindering the transfer of creative ideas to influential others (Leaders, Managers, etc.) and what they need to do to enhance the creative pool of their organizations. Although developing an environment that fosters creativity is important for the organizations, developing strategies to manage relationship conflicts related to supervisory support and positive affective tone will help transfer creative ideas to higher offices even when there are dysfunctional conflicts.

Originality/value

This research shifts the conventional focus of understanding creativity from the generating side by explaining challenges that creative individuals face in promoting creative ideas with more criticism and offense by coworkers than support. Also, the interplay between the relationship conflicts with co-workers and team affective tone affected by supervisory support for validation of creative ideas enhanced our understanding of the boundary conditions of relationship conflict and creative idea validation.

The Impact of Empowering Leadership on Employee Improvisation: Roles of Challenge-Hindrance Stress and Psychological Availability

Purpose

The purpose of this research is to explore the effect of empowering leadership on employee improvisation, including the mediating roles of challenge stress and hindrance stress as well as the moderating role of psychological availability.

Methods

Four proposed hypotheses were tested using hierarchical regression analysis and the bootstrapping method by reference to two waves of data collected in 2021 from 248 employees working for organizations located in southern China.

Results

The results showed that empowering leadership had a positive effect on employee improvisation, which was mediated by challenge stress and hindrance stress. That is, empowering leadership promoted challenge stress and decreased hindrance stress, thereby stimulating employee improvisation. Furthermore, psychological availability strengthened the positive effect of challenge stress on employee improvisation and weakened the negative effect of hindrance stress on employee improvisation. Psychological availability also moderated the indirect relationships among empowering leadership, challenge/hindrance stress and employee improvisation.

Conclusion

In theoretical terms, this study identifies a new antecedent of employee improvisation: empowering leadership. This study also advances knowledge concerning the mechanism by which empowering leadership exerts its influence by drawing on cognitive transactional theory. Moreover, this study’s exploration of the moderating role of psychological availability enriches the literature concerning the boundary conditions of the challenge-hindrance stress model. In practical terms, this study provides useful insights that can help organizations activate employee improvisation and manage employees’ work pressure.

How and when perceived COVID-19 crisis strength impacts individuals' life satisfaction and sleep quality: A moderated mediation model

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of deaths, seriously hampering people's lives and their productivity. Drawing on social information processing theory, this research developed a moderated mediation model to investigate the influence of perceived COVID-19 crisis strength on individuals' well-being. The results from a sample of 441 suggest that individuals' perceived COVID-19 crisis strength indirectly affects their life satisfaction and sleep quality via their perceived risk of being infected. Moreover, both individuals' trust in local government and mindfulness trait can buffer the positive effect of perceived COVID-19 crisis strength on their perceived risk of being infected. At the same time, they also buffer the indirect impact of individuals' perceived COVID-19 crisis strength on life satisfaction and sleep quality through perceived risk of being infected. This research provides several practical implications for governments and individuals to mitigate the negative influences of the COVID-19 pandemic and help individuals boost life satisfaction and sleep quality.

COVID-19 pandemic disruptions to working lives: A multilevel examination of impacts across career stages

Since early 2020 the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted societies worldwide. As we moved from expecting the closure of society to be a short-term one to experiencing it as a longer-term phenomenon, we lacked understanding about how the pandemic has affected the working lives and wellbeing of employees in different life and career stages. Drawing from lifespan development approaches and Job Demands-Resources (JD-R), we considered the effect this profound disruption had on stress, burnout, and job satisfaction across career stages over time. We took a multi-level approach to the analysis of three waves of data. Disruptions were a predictor of stress and negatively affected disengagement and job satisfaction over time. We found differences in the ways in which people in different career stages reacted to these disruptions and adjusted over time. Job autonomy positively influenced wellbeing over time, however POS contributed to growth in burnout disengagement and exhaustion and lower job satisfaction over time. We discuss the implications of our findings for workplaces managing in the aftermath of external shocks going forward.

When timing is key: How autocratic and democratic leadership relate to follower trust in emergency contexts

In emergency contexts, leaders’ ability to develop others’ trust in them is critical to leadership effectiveness. By integrating functional leadership and team process theories, we argue that democratic and autocratic leadership can create trust in the leader depending on the performance phase of the action team. We further argue that action and transition phases produce different task demands for leadership behavior to enhance trust in the leader, and different leader characteristics (i.e., leader benevolence and leader ability) mediate these effects. The results of a scenario experiment (N = 125) and field survey (N = 165) among firefighters revealed that autocratic rather than democratic leadership elevates trust in the leader during the action phase by increasing leader ability. In contrast, democratic rather than autocratic leadership enhances trust in the leader during the transition phase by elevating leader benevolence. These findings highlight the importance of leader characteristics in emergencies, demonstrating the value of mixing autocratic and democratic leadership behaviors across different team performance phases to build trust in the leader.

How does COVID-19 pandemic strength influence work fatigue? The mediating role of occupational calling

Drawing on event system theory, this study explored the mechanism by which COVID-19 pandemic strength (including criticality, disruption, and novelty) influences work fatigue through the mediating role of occupational calling. A two-wave field study was conducted with 857 Chinese police officers using COVID-19 pandemic strength, occupational calling, and work fatigue questionnaires. The results showed that COVID-19 pandemic criticality had a positive effect on work fatigue and occupational calling, and that occupational calling mediated the direct link between COVID-19 pandemic criticality and work fatigue. Additionally, the first and second stages of the mediating effect were jointly moderated by COVID-19 pandemic disruption and novelty. When COVID-19 pandemic disruption and novelty were high, the positive relationship between COVID-19 pandemic criticality and occupational calling, and the mediating role of occupational calling, were stronger. The negative relationship between occupational calling and work fatigue was strengthened when COVID-19 pandemic disruption was high and novelty was low.

Eminence of Leader Humility for Follower Creativity During COVID-19: The Role of Self-Efficacy and Proactive Personality

The purpose of this study is to understand how leader humility effectively stimulates follower creativity in the workplace during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) scenario. Relying on social cognitive and social information processing theories, this study investigates how leader humility cultivates follower self-efficacy and follower creativity. Furthermore, it explores an intervening mechanism of follower self-efficacy and examines a moderating role of leader proactive personality. The hypothesized model is empirically tested by collecting the data from 405 employees and 87 managers working in the banking sector of Pakistan. The results indicate that leader humility is positively related to follower self-efficacy and follower creativity, which improve the organization’s innovation climate and an environment for social sustainability. Follower self-efficacy is also significantly related to follower creativity. The mediation analysis shows that follower self-efficacy mediates the relationship between leader humility and follower creativity. Additionally, leader proactive personality moderates the relation between follower self-efficacy and follower creativity. This study highlights the importance of leader humility for creativity and extends the literature by explaining the role of self-efficacy. Furthermore, the findings may assist the policymakers in how a humble leader heightens employee creativity and social sustainability in COVID-19.

Understanding Chinese Consumers' Livestreaming Impulsive Buying: An Stimulus-Organism-Response Perspective and the Mediating Role of Emotions and Zhong Yong Tendency

We built a livestreaming impulsive buying model based on stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory, and we explored the impact of atmospheric cues (ACELS) and sales promotion (SPELS) on impulsive buying (IBI) based on emotions (EOC) and Zhong Yong tendency (ZYT) of online consumers. Combined with holistic orientation, perspective integration, and harmony maintenance, ZYT is a cognitive process involving individual events. We gathered 478 samples using a questionnaire to test the proposed research model. The empirical findings show that as the stimuli in the livestreaming environment, ACELS and SPELS during livestreaming greatly boost EOC while significantly constraining consumers' ZYT. Among online consumers, positive EOC promotes IBI, whereas ZYT dampens it. In addition, EOC and ZYT mediate the relationship between stimulus factors and response factors in parallel, resulting in four model mediation paths. By incorporating the SOR model, this study provides theoretical underpinnings for the role of cognitive processing in impulsive purchases, as well as useful guidance for e-commerce platforms and streamers to effectively understand Chinese consumers' purchase behavior, which benefits the development of effective promotion strategies and the creation of powerful marketing tools.

Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Consumers' Impulse Buying: The Moderating Role of Moderate Thinking

Based on event systems theory, this study examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on consumers' impulse buying, as well as the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions from the perspective of individual consumers. Results of three experiments (N = 437) show that, first, the COVID-19 pandemic enhanced consumers' impulse buying behavior. Second, two key elements, loss of control and anxiety, mediated the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and impulse buying; and third, moderate thinking (also known as Zhong-Yong thinking) moderated the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and impulse buying. The findings indicate that in consumers with low moderate thinking, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a stronger effect on impulse buying and has mediated more between the loss of control and anxiety. Conversely, in consumers with high moderate thinking, COVID-19 has had a weaker effect on impulse buying and has mediated less between loss of control and anxiety. This study extends the application of event systems theory and enriches the literature on how the COVID-19 pandemic affects consumer behavior. Furthermore, it provides strategic recommendations for government and consumer responses to COVID-19 pandemic shocks.

Temporal Leadership and Bootlegging Behavior of Employees: The Mediating Effect of Self-Efficacy

As an important source of innovation, bootlegging is widespread in organizations. However, a lack of understanding exists in its antecedents. Based on the social cognition theory, this study aims to explore when and how temporal leadership (TL) leads to bootlegging behaviors (BOs) of employees, with self-efficacy (SE) as a mediator and perceived team efficacy (TE) as a moderator. We conducted a two-stage questionnaire survey and collected data from 231 employees from four companies located in Wuhan, P.R. China. SPSS and Mplus are used for testing our model, and the results are shown as following: TL positively affects the BO of employees. Besides, SE plays a mediating role in the relationship between TL and bootlegging, and perceived TE has a moderating effect between TL and SE. Also, perceived TE moderated the indirect effect of TL on bootlegging via SE. This study identifies the internal mechanism between time management and bootlegging, which provides an instructive view for further study on organizational innovation management. Theoretical contrition and practical implication have been discussed in this study.

The role of career shocks in contemporary career development: key challenges and ways forward

Purpose

This article aims to introduce the special issue entitled “the role of career shocks in contemporary career development,” synthesize key contributions and formulate a future research agenda.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors provide an introduction of the current state-of-the-art in career shocks research, offer an overview of the key lessons learned from the special issue and present several important avenues for future research.

Findings

The authors discuss how the special issue articles contribute to a better understanding of career shocks' role in contemporary career development, focusing on (1) conceptual clarity of the notion of career shocks, (2) career outcomes of career shocks, (3) mechanisms that can explain the impact of career shocks and (4) interdisciplinary connectivity.

Originality/value

This article offers a synthesis of the critical contributions made within this special issue, thereby formulating key ways to bring the field of career shocks research forward. It also provides new avenues for research.

A dynamic process of different helping behavior: from the extended self-theory perspective

Purpose

Drawing on the extended self-theory, this study explores the dynamic process through which reactive helping could influence proactive helping through self-investment and investigate the moderating role of task difficulty in affecting this process.

Design/methodology/approach

This study, with a sample of 582 diary surveys from 66 employees, used experience sampling techniques to analyze the proposed hypotheses.

Findings

The results revealed that self-investment could mediate the positive relationship between reactive helping and proactive helping. Additionally, task difficulty acts as an essential role in facilitating the process raised by reactive helping. Further examination revealed that the moderated mediation effect in this model was also significant.

Practical implications

Managers should encourage help-seeking and positive responses to requests, especially in groups with difficult tasks, which could build helpers’ extended self at work and increase their proactive helping behaviors at the following episode.

Originality/value

As verifying the dynamic trajectory of reactive helping, this study enriches our understanding of whether and how helping behaviors are likely to grow over time. Besides, it complements current pieces of literature by exploring the potential positive implication of reactive helping with a helper-centric perspective.

How Does Dualistic Passion Fuel Academic Thriving? A Joint Moderated-Mediating Model

Based on the dualistic model of passion, this study developed a joint moderated–mediating model to investigate the mechanism of dualistic passion on academic thriving. We surveyed 960 Chinese university students with a questionnaire. The results showed that harmonious and obsessive passion positively predicted academic thriving, with the effect of harmonious passion being stronger. Academic personal best goal mediated these relationships. Moreover, threat stress appraisal and academic workload jointly moderated the direct effects of harmonious passion on academic personal best goal and obsessive passion on academic personal best goal, and the first stage of the mediating effects of academic personal best goal between harmonious passion and academic thriving as well as obsessive passion and academic thriving. Specifically, for low–threat stress appraisal and academic workload, the direct effect of harmonious passion on academic personal best goal and the mediating effect of academic personal best goal were stronger. Meanwhile, for high–threat stress appraisal and academic workload, the same applied for obsessive passion. These findings provide important implications for educational practice by highlighting an underlying mechanism of how and when dualistic passion, particularly for obsessive passion, can initiate and maintain academic thriving.

The Curvilinear Relationship Between Career Calling and Work Fatigue: A Moderated Mediating Model

Drawing on the job demands-resources (JD-R) model and event system theory (EST), this study constructed a moderated mediating model to investigate the direct effect of career calling on work fatigue, the mediating effect of role overload, and the moderating effect of COVID-19 event disruption in the above relationships. We administered an online questionnaire to 488 Chinese police officers who participated in frontline work to prevent and control the COVID-19 pandemic. The results showed a U-shaped curvilinear relationship of career calling with physical fatigue, mental fatigue, emotional fatigue, and role overload. Moreover, role overload partially mediated these curvilinear relationships. In addition, COVID-19 event disruption positively moderated the direct curvilinear effect of career calling on role overload, physical fatigue, and emotional fatigue, as well as the first stage of the mediating effect in the relationship between career calling and physical, mental, and emotional fatigue through role overload. Furthermore, the direct U-shaped curvilinear effects and the indirect effects were more significant when COVID-19 event disruption was high.

Measuring career shocks: A study of scale development and validation in the Chinese context

The emergence of self-career management has pushed individuals to manage their careers proactively and evade unexpected events. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a career shocks scale for use in Chinese organizations. In doing so, we developed a comprehensive scale of career shocks to cover a significant gray area of career management and enhance a deeper understanding of the emergence of career shocks among Chinese employees. Using the mixed-method approach, we recruited multiple samples to validate the item structure and assess construct validity and internal consistency of the career shocks scale. The findings of a confirmatory factor analysis suggested two dimensions of career shocks (positive and negative), having nine items. Moreover, a strong inter-item structure indicated that this research measure would be valuable for future research endeavors in the domain of career management.

The Covid-19 crisis as a career shock: Implications for careers and vocational behavior

The covid-19 pandemic is a career shock for many people across the globe. In this article, we reflect on how insights from the literature on career shocks can help us understand the career consequences of the pandemic and offer suggestions for future research in this area. In particular, we offer three “key lessons”. The first lesson is that the implications of Covid-19 reflect the dynamic interplay between individual and contextual factors. Here, we argue that although the pandemic was difficult to predict and control, research shows that certain psychological resources – such as career competencies and resilience – could make this career shock more manageable. The second lesson is that the pandemic may have differential implications over time, as suggested by research that has shown the consequences of career shocks to differ between short-term vs. long-term time horizons, and across life- and career stages. The third lesson is that, even though the pandemic is clearly a negatively valenced shock for most people, further into the future it may allow for more positive outcomes. This lesson builds on research showing how negative career shocks have long-term positive consequences for some people. We hope that these insights will inspire both scholars and practitioners to study and understand the work and career implications of Covid-19 as a career shock, as well as to support people in dealing with its consequences.