Bridge employment is the labor force participation pattern increasingly observed in older workers between their career jobs and their complete labor force withdrawal. It serves as a transition process from career employment to full retirement. Typical bridge employment decisions include full retirement, career bridge employment, and bridge employment in a different field. In the current study, 3 dominant theories (i.e., role theory, continuity theory, and life course perspective) on retirement processes were reviewed. On the basis of these theories, the authors proposed 4 categories of antecedents (i.e., individual attributes, job-related psychological variables, family-related variables, and a retirement-planning-related variable) of different types of bridge employment decisions. The authors used longitudinal data of a large, nationally representative sample from the Health and Retirement Study (F. Juster & R. Suzman, 1995) to test the current hypotheses. These data were analyzed with multinomial logistic regression, and most of the hypotheses were supported by the results. The implications of this study are discussed at both theoretical and practical levels.

Drawing on cognitive rumination theories and conceptualizing customer service interaction as a goal attainment situation for service employees, the current study examined employee rumination about negative service encounters as an intermediate cognitive process that explains the within-person fluctuations in negative emotional reactions resulting from customer mistreatment. Multilevel analyses of 149 call-center employees' 1,189 daily surveys revealed that on days that a service employee received more (vs. less) customer mistreatment, he or she ruminated more (vs. less) at night about negative encounters with customers, which in turn led to higher (vs. lower) levels of negative mood experienced in the next morning. In addition, service rule commitment and perceived organizational support moderated the within-person effect of customer mistreatment on rumination, such that this effect was stronger among those who had higher (vs. lower) levels of service rule commitment but weaker among those who had higher (vs. lower) levels of perceived organizational support. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

SummaryThe current study examined the effect of employees' perceived overqualification on counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). Building on person-job fit theory and prior research on such organizational phenomena, we conceptualized overqualification as a type of poor person-job fit. Drawing on the dual-process model, we further suggested that in processing their person-job misfit, overqualified employees might cognitively appraise themselves as less worthy organizational members and experientially feel angry toward the employment situation. We also suggested that to the extent that overqualified people are sensitive to justice, they may react more or less strongly to being overqualified. We tested our predictions using time-lagged data from a sample of 224 workers and their supervisors employed in a large manufacturing company in China. Consistent with our theoretical framework, we found that organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) and anger toward employment situation mediated the positive relationships between perceived overqualification and both self-rated and supervisor-rated CWBs. In addition, justice sensitivity moderated the relationship between perceived overqualification and the mediators (i.e., OBSE and anger) and the indirect relationship between perceived overqualification and CWB. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings as well as future research directions are discussed.

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