Abstract: Illegitimate tasks represent a task-level stressor derived from role and justice theories within the framework of “Stress-as–Offense-to-Self” (SOS; Semmer, Jacobshagen, Meier, & Elfering, 2007). Tasks are illegitimate if they violate norms about what an employee can properly be expected to do, because they are perceived as unnecessary or unreasonable; they imply a threat to one's professional identity. We report three studies testing associations between illegitimate tasks and well-being/strain. In two cross-sectional studies, illegitimate tasks predicted low self-esteem, feelings of resentment towards one's organization and burnout, controlling for role conflict, distributive injustice and social stressors in Study 1, and for distributive and procedural/interactional justice in Study 2. In Study 3, illegitimate tasks predicted two strain variables (feelings of resentment towards one's organization and irritability) over a period of two months, controlling for initial values of strain. Results confirm the unique contribution of illegitimate tasks to well-being and strain, beyond the effects of other predictors. Moreover, Study 3 demonstrated that illegitimate tasks predicted strain, rather than being predicted by it. We therefore conclude that illegitimate tasks represent an aspect of job design that deserves more attention, both in research and in decisions about task assignments.

Abstract: This study aimed to deepen our understanding of the motivational mechanisms involved in the relationship between transformational leadership (TFL) and employee functioning. Drawing on the TFL literature, the job demands–resources model and self-determination theory, we propose an integrative model that relates TFL to employee psychological health (burnout and psychological distress), attitudes (occupational commitment and turnover intention) and performance (professional efficacy, self-reported individual and objective organizational performance) through two explanatory mechanisms: perceived job characteristics (job demands and resources) and employee motivation (autonomous and controlled). This research was conducted in two occupational settings (nurses and school principals), using a distinct variable operationalization for each. Results of both studies provide support for the hypothesized model, suggesting that TFL relates to optimal job functioning (psychological health, job attitudes and performance)...

Abstract: The aim of this study was to provide insight into the differential relationships between job characteristics (job demands and resources) and employee functioning by examining the psychological and motivational processes involved. Drawing on self-determination theory, we tested a model in which job demands are positively related to negative manifestations of employee functioning (psychological distress and psychosomatic complaints) through psychological need frustration and low-quality work motivation (controlled motivation), whereas job resources are positively related to positive manifestations of employee functioning (work engagement and job performance) through need satisfaction and high-quality work motivation (autonomous motivation). Data were collected from 699 Canadian nurses. Structural equation modelling (SEM) results support the proposed model: psychological needs and work motivation partially mediated the relationship between job characteristics and employee functioning. Specifically, j...

Abstract: Although prior studies have consistently shown that organizational identification can reduce employees' stress and burnout, little is known about the mediating processes that underlie this relationship Against this backdrop and building on recent theoretical work on the social identity model of stress, the present research tests a two-step mediation model for the organizational identification–burnout link Specifically, it is hypothesized that employees who strongly identify with their organization are particularly likely to receive social support from their colleagues This, in turn, should promote a sense of collective efficacy and, as a consequence, negatively relate to burnout Data from a study with 192 Italian high schoolteachers supported the hypotheses

Abstract: Causal agents for workers' compensation claims and physical injury have largely been identified as physical demands. We proposed an integrated theory of physical injury (i.e. musculoskeletal disorder symptoms [MSDs]) and workers' compensation claims, which combined psychosocial and physical mechanisms. A random, population-based sample of 1095 Australian workers completed a telephone interview on two occasions 12 months apart. As expected, the physical mechanism was confirmed; physical demands were related to MSDs, which in turn predicted workers' compensation claims. Further, a novel psychosocial mechanism was confirmed. Psychosocial safety climate (PSC; perceptions about the organisation's climate for psychological health) was a precursor to psychosocial risks (e.g. harassment, violence, bullying and work pressure). In turn, these psychosocial risks were related to emotional exhaustion, MSDs and then workers' compensation claims. Evidence was therefore provided for psychosocial-physical processes in exp...

Abstract: This study investigated work–family conflict (WFC) and enrichment (WFE) in relation to job exhaustion and turnover intentions among long-term temporary (n = 384) and permanent (n = 430) workers. We used three-wave data collected among Finnish university employees in 3 consecutive years. The participants were either permanently or temporarily employed for the whole 3-year period. The results showed that permanent employees reported both higher WFC and WFE during the follow-ups than temporary employees. Temporary workers reported higher job exhaustion and turnover intentions compared to permanent workers. Job contract functioned as a moderator: high WFC showed a prospective effect on increased turnover intentions in permanent employees. In contrast, temporary employees benefited more from high WFE, which showed a prospective effect on reduced job exhaustion in temporary employees. The results suggest that measures taken to improve work–family balance could have different implications for long-term temporary...

Abstract: Based on previous empirical findings, “challenge stressors” (Cavanaugh, Boswell, Roehling, & Bouderau, 2000; Lepine, Podsakoff, & Lepine, 2005), such as the amount and scope of responsibility, can be loosely considered as “good stressors” that are consistently and positively related to job satisfaction and performance. We introduce the role of appraisal to further examine how challenge stressors are connected to performance. Structural equation modelling analyses using an applied sample of 284 employee–supervisor dyads showed that affective commitment to the organization mediated the relationship between both opportunity and threat appraisal and performance (in-role and extra-role). The mediating role of increased psychosomatic distress was supported only for the relationship between threat appraisal and in-role performance. The findings indicate the importance of taking into account the actual appraisal of “challenge stressors”, as it carries implications for performance, and reveals the key role...

Abstract: The results of two cross-sectional studies (N = 220 and N = 258) indicate that employees' work-related mastery-approach goals (i.e. the striving to improve one's performance at work) were positively associated with work engagement. Further, this relationship is explained by high levels of instrumental support. In contrast, employees' work-related mastery-avoidance goals (i.e. the striving to avoid performing worse than one aspires to) are positive predictors of job detachment and fatigue. The relationships between mastery-avoidance goals and these detrimental work outcomes are explained by low levels of perceived emotional support. Altogether, these results suggest that workers with mastery-approach goals tend to invest in their social work environment by establishing instrumental exchange relationships. Such relationships are considered functional for task performance and explain the positive relationship with work engagement. Employees who hold mastery-avoidance goals, on the other hand, tend to withdra...

Abstract: The opportunity to use one's skills at work is an important prerequisite for employee well-being. Drawing on self-determination and person-environment fit theory, this diary study aims to add to our understanding of this important phenomenon in two ways. Firstly, we examine the associations of within-subject daily variations in skill utilization with well-being. Secondly, we model work value orientation as a between-subject factor that moderates this within-subject relationship. Specifically, we advocate that daily skill utilization is more beneficial (in terms of more daily work engagement and less daily emotional exhaustion) for employees holding predominantly intrinsic (i.e. self-development, community contribution) as opposed to extrinsic (i.e. financial success, status) values. Results of multilevel modelling using diary data from 99 service workers over five working days, supported the assumption that daily skill utilization was positively related to daily work engagement, particularly among...

Abstract: With reference to conservation of resources theory, the authors explored the role of proactive coping in relation to both positive and negative aspects of employee well-being (happiness and depression) when confronted with job insecurity. The authors investigated if coping efficiency improves when employees are highly committed to work, that is, when they have a high level of work involvement. Results of tests with samples of 162 Austrian and 444 Taiwanese employees revealed that, overall, proactive coping was positively related to employee well-being if the perception of job insecurity was low. However, in the case of high job insecurity, the beneficial effect of proactive coping was present only among employees with high work involvement. The interaction was significant for feelings of depression in the Austrian sample and for feelings of happiness in the Taiwanese sample. The findings suggest that if a person experiences job insecurity, the efficiency of proactive coping might depend on the per...

Abstract: Occupational accidents and injuries continue to be a critical concern for nurses, given the hazardous healthcare environment. This study advances the research on workplace safety by studying the process variables (i.e. job-related negative affect (JRNA) and job satisfaction) in explaining the relationship between safety climate and various safety criteria in nurses. Based on survey data from 326 nurses, our findings suggest that psychological safety climate is negatively related to JRNA, turnover intentions, safety workarounds, and workplace hazards. In addition, structural equation modelling indicated general support for a model in which psychological safety climate influences employee strain through job attitudes, including JRNA and job satisfaction. More specifically, job attitudes were found to mediate the relationship between psychological safety climate and turnover intentions, experience of hazards, and injuries. Safety workarounds did not significantly relate to injuries. The present study...

Abstract: In interactions with clients or patients, human service workers are at risk of experiencing discrepancies between felt and organizationally mandated emotions (i.e. emotion-rule dissonance). Given the documented detrimental effects of such discrepancies on employee strain, the present study investigated whether job complexity mitigates the relation between emotion-rule dissonance and employee burnout using data from a two-wave panel study of eldercare workers (N = 583, 16-month time lag). Structural equation modelling revealed that emotion-rule dissonance at Time 1 preceded emotional exhaustion and depersonalization at Time 2. Beyond that, employees whose work offered job complexity were found to suffer less from emotional exhaustion and depersonalization when encountering discrepancies between felt and stipulated emotions compared to employees who conducted noncomplex work. Thus, designing complex tasks appears to be a crucial starting point for alleviating employee burnout in jobs that provoke emotion-rule dissonance.

Abstract: In this study, we investigated job stressor ratings through Lazarus' transactional stress theory and the usefulness of supervisor ratings as an alternative to employee self-reports. Based on the finding that negative affectivity (NA) causes incumbents to over-report job stressors, we hypothesized that supervisors may also be affected by their NA when appraising an incumbent's job stressors. Building upon the literatures on judgement processes and social-cognitive information processing, we further hypothesized that stressor observability is an important boundary condition. Specifically, we hypothesized that the impact of NA on both self- and supervisor-reported job stressors should increase as stressor observability decreases. Moreover, we hypothesized that incumbent and supervisor ratings would converge less as stressor observability decreases. Data from 260 incumbent-supervisor dyads showed that stressor observability reduced the impact of supervisor NA on supervisor ratings (but not the impact ...

Abstract: This review study clarifies the relationships between job characteristics and work–family conflict (WFC) by differentiating among three facets of job characteristics: latent, perceived, and enacted. To date, research linking job characteristics to WFC has not distinguished the facets of job demands and job resources in this way. Such distinctions are important as a means of understanding the affective, behavioural, and cognitive processes involved in determining how and when job characteristics relate to WFC. Our review of 115 studies showed that perceived job characteristics have been most commonly explored in relation to WFC, whereas latent and enacted job characteristics have been hardly examined. While these findings may not be surprising, our contribution lies in reviewing the literature through the lens of these categories. Based on the findings, and through highlighting examples in the extant literature, we argue that understanding job characteristics in terms of both how they are perceived...

Abstract: Work organisation has well-established associations with health. This study compares the associations of Pressure, Disorganisation and Regulatory Failure (PDR) and effort–reward imbalance (ERI) with health and well-being among older workers. Participants were 714 Australian workers aged 45–65 (56.3% female), with a mean age of 54.6 years (SD = 5.0) and a mean of 34.7 working hours per week (SD = 13.9). Hierarchical regression analyses tested the strengths of the associations of both ERI and PDR with work–life conflict and mental health. Independent variables were entered in blocks: demographic characteristics (age and gender), working hours and then ERI or PDR (measured using the four subscales: financial pressure, reward pressure, disorganisation and regulatory failure). Compared to ERI, the PDR subscales collectively accounted for slightly less variance in work–life conflict and slightly more variance in mental health. The PDR subscales also accounted for extra variance in both dependent variables when ...

Abstract: Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) theory suggests that the quality of the leader–employee relationship is linked to employee psychological health. Leaders who reside at different hierarchical levels have unique roles and spheres of influence and potentially affect employees' work experiences in different ways. Nevertheless, research on the impact of leadership on employee psychological health has largely viewed leaders as a homogeneous group. Expanding on LMX theory, we argue that (1) LMX sourced at the levels of the line manager (LM) and senior management (SM) team will be differentially linked to employee psychological health (assessed as worn-out) and that (2) these relationships will be mediated by perceived work characteristics (reward and recognition, workload management, quality of relationships with colleagues and physical environment). Structural equation modelling on data from 337 manual workers partially supported the hypotheses. Perceptions of the physical environment mediated the relationship between LMX at the LM level and employee psychological health, whereas perceptions of workload management mediated the relationship between LMX at the SM level and psychological health. These findings corroborate arguments that leaders are not a uniform group and as such the effects of LMX on employees will depend on leadership hierarchy. Implications for expanding leadership theory are discussed.

Abstract: The main aims of this two-wave prospective study were to (1) present different theoretical mechanisms for relationships between bullying and personality characteristics, (2) determine forward and reverse long-term associations between victimization from bullying and personality traits included in the five-factor model and (3) establish whether these personality traits contribute to the variance in bullying, beyond work environment factors in the form of role conflict and role ambiguity. The prospective sample comprised 3066 Norwegian employees. The time lag between the two measurement points was two years. Neuroticism significantly predicted subsequent bullying in analyses of direct associations between personality traits and victimization. When adjusting for role conflict and role ambiguity, conscientiousness emerged as the only significant predictor of later victimization from bullying. In tests of reverse associations, victimization from bullying at baseline was significantly related to agreeableness, ...

Abstract: This study investigated factors that influence the relationship between experiencing customer incivility and the psychological well-being of employees in the service industry (N = 215). Using the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, we identified and tested three factors that may buffer employees from the negative effects of customer incivility: finding meaning in work, perspective taking, and transformational leadership of supervisors. Transformational leadership was found to moderate the relationship between customer incivility and employee well-being. Meaning and perspective taking did not moderate the relationship between customer incivility and employee well-being, but did have a positive association with employee well-being. These findings contribute to the literature on customer incivility and suggest that organization-based resources that influence both primary and secondary appraisal, such as transformational leadership, are useful in buffering the harmful employee outcomes related to cu...

Abstract: The temporal direction of the relationships between violence prevention climate and both physical violence and verbal abuse was investigated in a longitudinal study of newly graduated registered nurses. A sample of 126 nurses, recruited into the study while students, completed similar surveys at approximately 6 and 12 months after graduation that assessed violence prevention climate, physical violence, verbal abuse exposure, and strains of anger, anxiety, depression, and physical symptoms. Results showed that high values of Time 1 climate were associated with less likelihood of violence and abuse at Time 2 when prior exposure to violence and abuse was controlled. Furthermore, repeated measures multivariate analyses of variance (MANOVA) results suggested that being exposed to violence or abuse did not affect perceptions of climate. Both climate and violence exposure were correlated with some strains both cross-sectionally and longitudinally, but repeated measures MANOVAs failed to find evidence tha...

Abstract: This study examines the processes underlying the association between job insecurity and emotional exhaustion, proposing that lack of reciprocity in the organizational exchange relationship is a main theoretical explanation for this association. Specifically, based on the social exchange perspective, we compared and tested two distinct mediating mechanisms: psychological contract breach and distributive injustice. These two indicators of lack of reciprocity constitute the explanatory process through which job insecurity relates to emotional exhaustion, the primary component of burnout. Data analyses from a sample of 322 blue-collar workers in Italy confirmed the mediational hypotheses. A contrast test revealed that distributive injustice was the indicator with more explanatory strength. The results contribute to research on the theoretical explanations of the adverse consequences of job insecurity, considering the nature and antecedents of psychological distress from an organizational exchange pers...

Abstract: Safety research is understandably dominated by studies examining the impact of organizational safety climate. Yet, other climates (e.g. service climate; productivity climate) that may also influence safety-related outcomes are rarely concurrently studied. Consequently, questions regarding how different organizational climates simultaneously affect employee safety attitudes and behaviours largely remain unanswered. Multilevel data collected from public transit employees indicated that safety–production conflict (SPC) was negatively related to accident-reporting attitudes and behavioural safety compliance. As expected, among employees in workgroups exhibiting a positive safety climate, the negative effect of SPC on behavioural safety compliance was attenuated. Moreover, a positive customer service climate reduced the negative effects of SPC on reporting attitudes; on the other hand, this relationship was exacerbated among workgroups with a high-productivity climate (i.e. those emphasizing on-time performanc...