Employee development can take a variety of forms including “developmental interactions” such as coaching, mentoring, apprenticeship, and action learning. The broad literature on approaches to development lacks agreement on what these constructs represent. Rather than impose new construct definitions on the field, the current research addressed the need for construct clarification using existing descriptions of common developmental interactions to create a snapshot of the developmental interaction literature. A qualitative, literature-based approach developed a nomological network of 13 common developmental interaction constructs. A total of 227 construct descriptions were extracted from 182 sources. These were systematically analyzed for the characteristics that help explain construct meanings. A model (i.e., nomological network) was developed to summarize the current understanding of developmental interaction constructs. Analysis of this model provides better understanding of the current state of the literature, identifies gaps in the literature, and informs and directs future research on developmental interaction constructs.

Presenteeism describes the situation when employees are at work but, because of illness, injury, or other conditions, they are not functioning at peak levels (Hemp, 2004;Zengerle, 2004). Thus, the term presenteeism combines the ideas of the "present" employee and "absenteeism" where the employee is present on the job but somewhat absent in mind or behavior. The New York Times Magazine has hailed presenteeism as one of the top discoveries of (Zengerle, 2004, a sentiment fostered to some degree by the surge of research on the prevalence and business-related costs of employees who are present at work when suffering from medical conditions or illnesses (Hemp, 2004). What results from illness-related presenteeism, experts argue, is lower productivity on the job (for example, lower quantity of output, working more slowly,

This exploratory study examined how the relationships and meshed boundaries among work, home and leisure life realms are enacted in human behavior. Specifically, it assessed the types of leisure-and home-oriented activities that people engage in at work and examined why such personal activities are performed during the workday. Semi-structured interviews with individuals from a variety of occupations provided qualitative data that were coded to identify the types of personal activities that take place on company time (e.g. personal phone calls, e-mails to friends, office betting pools) and the underlying factors behind engaging in personal business on the job (i.e. the balance between work and personal life realms, the various rationale or meanings people construct to rationalize this behavior, and the meaning or importance that people place upon home, work, and leisure). These findings have implications for (i) future researchers by increasing understanding of the behavioral manifestations of the overlap between work and personal life realms, and (ii) organizations by helping them understand this important, but often ignored, aspect of employee behavior.

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore rationalizations individuals provide for engaging in personal activities on company time.Design/methodology/approachData were collected from 121 survey respondents working in a variety of organizations and backgrounds. Respondents provided information on the number of times they engage in various personal activities while at work, the amount of time engaged in these activities, and their rationalizations for performing personal activities during work hours.FindingsResults suggest that employees spend nearly five hours in a typical workweek engaged in personal activities. More than 90 per cent of this time is spent using the internet, email, phone, or conversing with co‐workers. Employees use a variety of rationalizations for such behavior, but only two rationalizations (i.e. boredom and convenience) were statistically reliable predictors of the extent to which they engaged in personal activities on company time.Practical implicationsThe current research finds that boredom and convenience are related to the extent that employees engage in personal activities on company time. Improvements in the work environment to reduce boredom might show a marked decrease in these behaviors, thereby mitigating the need for organizations to develop formal policies against these behaviors.Originality/valueThis is only the second quantitative study to examine the amount of time individuals spend engaged in specific personal activities on the job. It is the first quantitative exploration of the rationalizations employees use to justify these behaviors.