Appreciation at Work in the Swiss Armed Forces

Abstract

This study explores the impact of appreciation at work among military professionals. Based on the concept of “Stress-as-Offense-to-Self” ( Semmer, Jacobshagen, Meier, & Elfering, 2007 ), appreciation is a possible resource due to boosts to self-esteem. We measured appreciation at work with a scale differentiating several forms and sources of appreciation. Data were gathered by an online survey of 228 male career officers and career noncommissioned officers of the Swiss Armed Forces. Appreciation at work correlated positively with job satisfaction and negatively with feelings of resentment. Moreover, appreciation at work explained incremental variance over and above job control, social support, and interactional justice. These results underline its distinction from other resource variables. Legal employment conditions of the military professionals include working hours in accordance with ongoing requirements without upper limits established. Moderator analysis showed that appreciation buffered the effect of long working hours on job satisfaction. Furthermore, appreciation mediated the effect of illegitimate tasks on job satisfaction as well as on feelings of resentment. Overall, these findings imply that it is worth building an organisational culture based on appreciation at work. Implications for research and military training are discussed.

Exploring working conditions as determinants of job satisfaction: an empirical test among Catalonia service workers

“…Their effects on job satisfaction have also been seen to be significant in the structure model (Linz, 2003). Our findings support previous research regarding the relationship between esteem and satisfaction generalizing the results obtained in armed forces (Stocker, Jacobshagen, Semmer, & Annen, 2010) or sales forces (Srivastava & Rangarajan, 2008) in other industries. To sum up, hypothesis H.2, H.3, H.5, H.6, H.9, and H.10 were confirmed with our data.…”

“…This factor is defined as the recognition of a job well done. Van den Broeck et al (2008), Linz (2003), Stocker et al (2010) and Srivastava and Rangarajan (2008) obtained significant effects for this variable on job satisfaction.…”

Disentangling stability and change in job resources, job demands, and employee well-being — A three-wave study on the Job-Demands Resources model

“…These items were rated on a 7-point graphical scale using smileys. The scale was employed successfully in several Swiss studies (for example, Jacobshagen & Semmer, 2009;Stocker, Jacobshagen, Semmer, & Annen, 2010).…”

Illegitimate tasks associated with higher cortisol levels among male employees when subjective health is relatively low: an intra-individual analysis

“…Previous research (11,13) has investigated illegitimate tasks in a chronic sense, showing that participants with higher levels of illegitimate tasks report poorer subjective well-being (eg, lower job satisfaction; more feelings of resentment towards one's organization (13) as well as more counterproductive work behavior (11); thus, these studies investigated inter-individual differences. So far, however, no studies have investigated illegitimate tasks on an occasion-specific level, analyzing changes in well-being and health within individuals over time, thus complementing the existing inter-individual analyses with intra-individual analyses.…”

“…perception that a task does not conform to an employee's professional role, such as when experienced employees are asked to do a novice's work, or (ii) the perception that a task is unnecessary, such as having to document information that no one will ever use (11)(12)(13). Semmer et al (10) argue that illegitimate tasks do not respect the focal person's professional identity and therefore constitute an offense to the self.…”