Age and health jointly moderate the influence of flexible work arrangements on work engagement: Evidence from two empirical studies.

Abstract

Research and theory support the notion that flexible work arrangements (i.e., job resources in the form of formal policies that allow employees the latitude to manage when, where, and how they work) can have a positive influence on various outcomes that are valued both by organizations and their constituents. In the present study, we integrate propositions from various theoretical perspectives to investigate how flexible work arrangements influence work engagement. Then, in 2 studies we test this association and model the influence of different conceptualizations of health and age as joint moderators of this relationship. Study 1 focuses on functional health and chronological age in an age-diverse sample, whereas study 2 focuses on health symptom severity and subjective age in a sample of older workers. In both studies, we demonstrate that the influence of flexible work arrangements on work engagement is contingent upon age and health. (PsycINFO Database Record

Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis: A Conceptual and Empirical Critique

“…Across literatures, a great deal of effort has been invested to properly estimate the independent influence of age, period, and cohort (APC) effects (e.g., Baltes, 1968;Costanza & Finkelstein, 2015;Costanza, Darrow, Yost, & Severt, 2017;Hofer & Sliwinski, 2006;Koslowski, 1986;Schaie, 1986;Yang, 2008;Yang & Land, 2013). For example, research has looked at the effect of age as a marker of individual development in the work context (e.g., Rudolph & Baltes, 2016), of major historical events on various populations (e.g., Elder, 1974;Elder & Liker, 1982), and on differences among cohorts (e.g., Gerstorf, Ram, Hoppmann, Willis, & Schaie, 2011;Schaie, 2013). However, in most of these studies, age, period, and cohort are not independent of each other and, hence, separating out their relative effects is challenging, if not impossible.…”

The paradox of employee psychological well-being practices: an integrative literature review and new directions for research

“…There are elements in job design to build-in autonomy to enhance PWB (Park & Searcy, 2012), such as flexible working arrangements (FWA). FWA not only increases job autonomy, but it can also increases work life balance (WLB) (Rudolph & Baltes, 2017) and therefore PWB (Boreham et al, 2016). However, other research revealed that FWA could lead to insecurity (Lange, 2013), with some scholars identifying more nuanced relationship necessitating FWA/WLB practices that need to be coupled with effective team design in order to be effective (Liu & Wang, 2011).…”

“…(Karimi, Cheng, Bartram, Leggat, & Sarkeshik, 2015), while van Mierlo et al (2006 found that practices that stimulate learning mitigate the effects of work intensification. L&D practices that stimulate individuals through task design can reduce emotional exhaustion and thereby increase PWB (Rudolph & Baltes, 2017).…”

Relationship between Work-Family Conflict, Job Embeddedness, Workplace Flexibility, and Turnover Intentions

“…This paper extends existing literature by examining how a particular antecedent − work-family conflictinfluences the formation and evolution of employee job embeddedness and demonstrating how work-family conflict is an antecedent of aspects of employee job embeddedness. Third, despite the predictive powers of workplace flexibility, little is understood about its role as a moderator (Rudolph & Baltes, 2017). In this study, we examined whether workplace flexibility moderates the effect of work-family conflict on employee turnover intention.…”