This study among 54 Dutch teachers tested a model of weekly work engagement. On the basis of theories about the motivational potential of job resources, we predicted that teachers' weekly job resources are positively related to their week-levels of work engagement, and that week-level work engagement is predictive of week-level performance. In addition, we hypothesized that momentary work engagement has a positive, lagged effect on next week's job resources. Teachers were asked to fill in a weekly questionnaire every Friday during 5 consecutive weeks. Results of multi-level analyses largely confirmed our hypotheses, by showing that week-levels of autonomy, exchange with the supervisor, and opportunities for development (but not social support) were positively related to weekly engagement, which, in turn, was positively related to weekly job performance. Moreover, momentary work engagement was positively related to job resources in the subsequent week. These findings show how intra-individual variability in employees' experiences at work can explain weekly job performance.
In the context of the changing workforce, this study introduced two perspectives on HRM and distinguished universalistic developmental HRM from contingent accommodative HRM. We predicted two separate pathways for the effects on two employee outcomes: work engagement and affective commitment. We expected that developmental HRM would universally relate to employee outcomes by rebalancing the psychological contract between the employee and organization into a less transactional to a more relational contract. We also predicted that accommodative HRM would relate to outcomes only when fulfilling specific needs of employees, associated with their selecting, optimizing, and compensating strategies. Results of a multilevel study among 1058 employees in 17 healthcare units fully supported our expectations regarding the role of the psychological contract. Additionally, we found support for the expected roles of selection and compensation, but not for optimization strategy. This study contributes to the literature by demonstrating that HRM relates to employee outcomes through multiple pathways, which can be either universal or contingent.
The present study investigates what role I-deals (i.e. the idiosyncratic deals made between employees and their organization) play in the motivation of employees to continue working after retirement. We hypothesized two types of I-deals (i.e. development and flexibility I-deals) to be positively related to motivation to continue working. More specifically, we drew from continuity and personality theory to argue that the motivation to continue working is enhanced by I-deals, because they fulfil people's needs for personalized work arrangements. Moreover, drawing from activity and disengagement theory it was hypothesized that two types of unit climate (i.e. accommodative and development climates) would moderate these relationships. Specifically, it was predicted that I-deals would be positively related to motivation to continue working under conditions of low accommodative or high development climate. Results of a multi-level study among 1083 employees in 24 units largely supported the above expectations; flexibility I-deals related positively to motivation to continue working, and unit climate moderated the relation between development I-deals and motivation to continue working
The current study investigated whether fiction experiences change empathy of the reader. Based on transportation theory, it was predicted that when people read fiction, and they are emotionally transported into the story, they become more empathic. Two experiments showed that empathy was influenced over a period of one week for people who read a fictional story, but only when they were emotionally transported into the story. No transportation led to lower empathy in both studies, while study 1 showed that high transportation led to higher empathy among fiction readers. These effects were not found for people in the control condition where people read non-fiction. The study showed that fiction influences empathy of the reader, but only under the condition of low or high emotional transportation into the story.
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