This study investigates the effects of job insecurity on four organizationally important outcomes: in-role behaviour, organizational citizenship behaviour, turnover intention, and absenteeism. A model is tested in which job insecurity is simultaneously a hindrance and a challenge stressor. In particular, job insecurity is proposed to have a predominantly harmful effect on performance, turnover intention, and absenteeism, and it is argued that these effects are mediated by (reduced) work attitudes. In addition, job insecurity is also assumed to affect these behaviours in the opposite way (i.e. a suppressor effect) because job insecurity might motivate employees to make themselves more valuable to the organization by working harder and being less absent. The model is tested with a sample of 136 German non-managerial employees. Data from supervisors (i.e. in-role behaviour and organizational citizenship behaviour), the company's personnel files (i.e. absenteeism), and self-reports (i.e. job insecurity, work attitudes, turnover intention, in-role behaviour, and organizational citizenship behaviour) were used. Structural equation modelling showed that a model that included both negative and positive effects fitted the data best. The negative effect was stronger than the positive effect. The results show that the effects of job insecurity are more complex than previously assumed. In addition, the results also extend previous research into hindrance and challenge stressors because they show that stressors should not be categorized as either hindrance or challenge. Instead, it might be more appropriate to conceptualize hindrance and challenge as two dimensions. A Model for … 2 AbstractThis study investigates the effects of job insecurity on four organizationally

The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) is a popular measure of psychological distress. Despite its widespread use, an ongoing controversy pertains to its internal structure. Although the GHQ-12 was originally constructed to capture a unitary construct, empirical studies identified different factor structures. Therefore, this study examined the dimensionality of the GHQ-12 in two independent meta-analyses. The first meta-analysis used summary data published in 38 primary studies (total N = 76,473). Meta-analytic exploratory factor analyses identified two factors formed by negatively and positively worded items. The second meta-analysis included individual responses of 410,640 participants from 84 independent samples. Meta-analytic confirmatory factor analyses corroborated the two-dimensional structure of the GHQ-12. However, bifactor modelling showed that most of the variance was explained by a general factor. Therefore, subscale scores reflected rather limited unique variance. Overall, the two meta-analyses demonstrated that the GHQ-12 is essentially unidimensional. It is not recommended to use and interpret subscale scores because they primarily reflect general mental health rather than distinct constructs.

Cultures differ with respect to parenting strategies already during infancy. Distal parenting, i.e., face-to-face context and object stimulation, is prevalent in urban educated middle-class families of Western cultures; proximal parenting, i.e., body contact and body stimulation, is prevalent in rural, low-educated farmer families. Parents from urban educated families in cultures with a more interdependent history use both strategies. Besides these cultural preferences, little is known about the relations between these styles as well as the behavioural systems constituting them. In this study therefore, the relations between the styles and the constituting behaviours were analysed in samples that differ with respect to their preferences of distal and proximal parenting. The hypothesized differences between the samples and the negative relationship between distal and proximal parenting, as well as between the respective behavioural systems can clearly be demonstrated. Furthermore, the impact of the sociodemographic variables with respect to the parenting strategies can be shown. Results were discussed as supporting two alternative parenting strategies that serve different socialization goals.

Zusammenfassung. Gegenstand ist die Konstruktion und Validierung eines deutschsprachigen Fragebogens zur Erfassung des Konstrukts Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB). OCB bezeichnet nach Organ (1988) Verhalten, das zur Produktivität einer Organisation beiträgt, dessen Ausführung aber, da formal nicht vorgeschrieben, im Ermessen der Mitarbeiter liegt. Ein in Anlehnung an amerikanische Erhebungsinstrumente entwickelter Fragebogen bestätigt eine Differenzierung in die OCB-Subskalen Hilfsbereitschaft, Gewissenhaftigkeit, Unkompliziertheit und Eigeninitiative. Lediglich für die Skala Rücksichtnahme findet sich keine empirische Evidenz. Im Sinne der diskriminanten Validität lassen sich die vier OCB-Faktoren empirisch von dem geforderten Arbeitsverhalten abgrenzen. Erste Anhaltspunkte zur Konstruktvalidität ergeben sich aus der Bestätigung von Zusammenhängen mit soziodemographischen Variablen sowie positiven Korrelationen mit der Arbeitszufriedenheit und dem affektiven Commitment in einer unabhängigen Studie.

Two new methods for the meta-analysis of factor loadings are introduced and evaluated by Monte Carlo simulations. The direct method pools each factor loading individually, whereas the indirect method synthesizes correlation matrices reproduced from factor loadings. The results of the two simulations demonstrated that the accuracy of meta-analytical derived factor loadings is primarily affected by characteristics of the pooled factor structures (e.g., model error, communality) and to a lesser degree by the sample size of the primary studies and the number of included samples. The choice of the meta-analytical method had a minor impact. In general, the indirect method produced somewhat less biased estimates, particularly for small-sample studies. Thus, the indirect method presents a viable alternative for the meta-analysis of factor structures that could also address moderator hypotheses. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.