Employees can affect the sustainability of organizations, yet the different effects of employee organizational citizenship behavior motives on employee thriving at work, as elements of organization sustainability, are not clear. Based on self-determination theory and conservation of resource theory, this study examined whether organizational concern motives and impression management motives behind employees’ organizational citizenship behaviors are differently associated with their citizenship fatigue and their subsequent thriving at work, and whether task performance moderates these relationships. Results from a multi-wave and multisource study using a sample of 349 employees show that organizational concern motives had a positive indirect effect on thriving at work through reducing employees’ citizenship fatigue, while impression management motives will undermine thriving at work through inducing citizenship fatigue. This study further found that task performance strengthened the positive relationship between impression management motives and citizenship fatigue. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

We investigated the mediating role of perceived organizational support in the cross-level relationships between procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice climate and organizational citizenship behavior. Hospital staff in China (N = 468) participated in this study. Using hierarchical linear modeling, we found that procedural and interpersonal justice climate had a significantly positive effect on organizational citizenship behavior. Informational justice climate, however, did not have a significant effect on organizational citizenship behavior. In addition, perceived organizational support mediated the effect of procedural and interpersonal justice climate on organizational citizenship behavior. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed in relation to justice climate and organizational citizenship behavior.

Drawing on an overarching framework of transactional stress theory, in this article the authors develop and test a theoretical model specifying the affect-based relationships between job insecurity and employee creativity, as well as the buffering role of giving support and receiving support in the affective processes. Results from a sample of 569 employees showed that job insecurity had offsetting indirect links with employee creativity through attentiveness and irritation. Both giving support and receiving support reduce the negative effect of job insecurity on employee creativity because they both weaken the negative link between job insecurity and irritation. It was also found that receiving support enhanced the positive relationship between job insecurity and attentiveness. Implications of the results to theory and practice are discussed.

Difficult doctor‒patient relationships are a common reality in many health-care organizations. Its harmful impacts have been mainly discussed from the perspectives of patients. However, understanding of its negative effects on physicians is limited. Drawing on the job demands-resources model and the conservation of resources theory, we hypothesize that difficult relationships with patients negatively predict physicians’ work engagement, mediated by physicians’ personal resources (e.g. prosocial motivation and problem-solving pondering). A sample of 588 physicians from 24 Chinese hospitals completed questionnaires in a two-wave survey. Structural equation modeling and bootstrap estimation results provide support for the hypothesized relationships. Difficult doctor‒patient relationships have a direct and negative effect on physicians’ work engagement. Specifically, there is a sequence in which the difficult doctor‒patient relationship first impedes physicians’ prosocial motivation, leading to decreased problem-solving pondering, which subsequently impairs physicians’ work engagement. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

We investigated the impact of positive group affective tone on employee work engagement. Participants in the study were 74 research and development groups (324 employees and 74 group leaders) employed by high-technology companies in China. Hierarchical linear modeling results revealed a positive cross-level relationship between positive group affective tone and employee work engagement; this relationship was partially mediated by employee core self-evaluation. In addition, there was a positive relationship between leader psychological capital and positive group affective tone at the group level. We further found that leader psychological capital was a moderator between employee core self-evaluation and their work engagement, such that the positive association was stronger when leader psychological capital was high than when it was low. Implications for organizational and individual change are described, and recommendations for future research directions are discussed.