Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationships between theoretically grounded telework factors and various individual and organizational outcomes of telework (overall satisfaction with telework, perceived advantages of telework, career opportunities and self-reported productivity).
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a literature review, ten telework factors that may affect individual and organizational telework outcomes were identified and empirically tested using the survey data of 128 teleworkers exercising different telework intensity and representing various sectors of the economy.
Findings
The bundle of theoretically selected variables explained a significant part of the variance of telework outcomes. Reduced communication with co-workers, supervisor’s trust and support, suitability of the working place at home were found to be the most important telework factors impacting different telework outcomes. Higher self-reported productivity was related to reduced time in communicating with co-workers, a suitable working place at home and the possibility to take care of family members when teleworking.
Practical implications
This study provides insights about the management of telework in organizations by highlighting the factors that promote the satisfaction, productivity and perceived career opportunities of teleworkers.
Originality/value
This paper challenges the results of previous research on the factors related with telework and its outcomes. Based on the job demands-resources theory, the authors identified the factors that serve as resources in generating positive telework outcomes, and the factors increasing job demands and reducing satisfaction with telework.
PurposeThe association of calling with burnout is not well understood. This study investigates how calling influences burnout and what the roles of social worth and career stage are in this relation. Drawing from the Conservation of Resources Theory, we expect that calling may be negatively associated with burnout through increased social worth and that career stage moderates these relationships.Design/methodology/approachBased on a sample of 566 healthcare professionals, we conducted regression analyses with bootstrapping procedures to test the proposed hypotheses.FindingsThe findings show that social worth mediates the negative relation between calling and burnout. Additionally, the positive relation between calling and social worth was more pronounced for late-career employees; yet, the negative relation between social worth and burnout was stronger for early-career employees.Practical implicationsThe findings suggest that searching and pursuing a professional calling is beneficial for individuals. Additionally, social worth is crucial in this relation and could be used to actively prevent burnout.Originality/valueThe study advances our understanding of the consequences of calling for employees by explaining the underlying mechanism between calling and burnout and its importance at different career stages.
Workforces are aging rapidly and older workers are typically assumed to take more sickness absence. However, the relationship between age and sickness absence is not well understood, as research has yielded mixed findings and has neglected broader societal factors that cascade to shape the age-sickness absence relationship. To advance the literature, we adopted a resource-based perspective and investigated the relationship between employee age and sickness absence as mediated by two countervailing mechanisms: physical health issues and work engagement. We also highlighted two country-level boundary conditions (health expenditure per capita and labor force participation rate) for these mechanisms. We tested our hypotheses with two archival datasets. In Study 1, using a sample of 28,553 employees from 35 European countries, we tested a multilevel model and found that age was positively related to the number of physical health issues, which in turn was positively associated with sickness absence. Country-level health expenditure per capita was found to mitigate this relationship. We also found that age was positively related to work engagement, which was negatively related to sickness absence, and country-level labor force participation rate strengthened this relationship. In Study 2, using a multi-wave dataset (N = 304) from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) in the United States, we found further
Although aging is often associated with higher vulnerability for illness, research has reported mixed results regarding the relationship between workers’ age and sickness absence. Drawing on social exchange theory, we propose that perceived fairness may attenuate the positive association between employee age and sickness absence. We tested our hypotheses by matching employee survey data with organizational archival data on sickness absence from a public sector organization in Lithuania (n = 458). Our findings showed that perceived fairness buffered the negative effect of age on sickness absence, which provides important implications.
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