We tested a predictive model based on self-determination theory (SDT) to demonstrate how job design choices contribute to subjective career success. Data collected at Time 1 demonstrated that the job characteristics of autonomy support and competence support had direct and interactive effects on employees' need satisfaction. Need satisfaction at Time 1 mediated the relationship between autonomy support and self-determined work motivation at Time 2. Work motivation, in turn, mediated the relationships between need fulfillment and career attitudes that characterize subjective career success. These findings are theoretically important because they demonstrate that SDT can bridge job design theory and career theory, pointing to new ways that job and career experiences are interrelated. From a practical standpoint, the results are valuable because they show that job enrichment efforts guided by SDT have important implications for promoting career success perceptions and vocational retention among experienced workers.
Work-based musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are prevalent among health-care workers, particularly the nursing staff. The authors focused on the perceived social support exchange imbalance or the combination of higher perceived obligation to provide support to and lower perceived available support from the coworkers and examined the association between support exchange imbalance and nurses’ MSDs via anger. Using a sample of 410 nurses from 29 units across two hospitals, the authors found that when individual nurses reported higher support exchange imbalance, they experienced more anger, which in turn was associated with more severe MSD symptoms in low back and upper limbs. The association between support exchange imbalance and anger was exacerbated when nurses perceived that a similar level of support was available within their unit.
With an increasing overlap between the work and non‐work domain, more research is needed to understand the factors that relate to how individuals manage their boundaries across multiple roles (i.e., work roles, family roles). Using a sample of 498 individuals, we explored the relationships between personality, O*NET job characteristic variables, and boundary management styles. Results revealed that job responsibility and work structure related to cross‐role interruptions and work identity centrality. Further, conscientiousness was related to greater perceptions of boundary control, family identity centrality, and fewer interruptions of work, while neuroticism was related to fewer interruptions of non‐work. Finally, the present findings replicated four of six defined boundary management styles put forth in prior research. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.
Practitioner points
Individuals may differ in how they enact boundaries between work and non‐work as related to their individual personality.
The job in which one works may relate to the manner in which boundaries between work and non‐work are managed.
Organizational efforts to help employees with boundary management may be improved if job context and employee individual differences are noted and accommodated.
Leader support is critical for organizational change, yet prior research has examined support as a static construct. Drawing on social learning and change momentum theories, we hypothesized that increases in perceptions of leadership support across the first 2 years of a change effort is related to employee perceptions of positive change at Time 2 and personal commitment to change and organizational citizenship behaviors at Time 3. To test this model, we collected data in 2012, 2013, and 2015 at a state wildlife agency undergoing a large-scale change effort. Across Time 1 and Time 2, perceptions of leader support of the change increased, and this shift was related to perceptions of positive internal and external changes. Changes in perceptions of leader support also indirectly predicted personal commitment to change and organizational citizenship behaviors, mediated by perceptions of positive internal and external changes. Findings substantiate the importance of continual leadership support.
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