Gedrag & Organisatie - Volume 25, Issue 4, 2012

The motivation and performance of workaholic, engaged and burned-out workers

Based on Deci and Ryan’s Self-Determination Theory, the present study investigated the work motivation of workaholic, work engaged, and burned-out employees. Furthermore, it investigated how these employees perform. Data were collected among employees of a Dutch bank (N = 680). Using Structural Equation Modeling, the present study showed that workaholism is primarily associated with introjected motivational regulation, work engagement is primarily associated with intrinsic regulation, and burnout is primarily associated with amotivation. Furthermore, a positive relation was observed between work engagement and extra-role performance and a negative relation between burnout and in-role performance. The present study provides insight into the motivational regulation of workaholic, work engaged, and burned-out employees, suggests that work engagement and burn-out are related to job performance, underlines the usefulness of the Self-Determination Theory for the field of Work and Organizational Psychology, and offers practical suggestions for reducing workaholism and burnout and promoting work engagement.

The importance of psychological contract unreplicability

The need for organizations to know how to differentiate from other organizations with respect to attracting and retaining (talented) employees is becoming increasingly important. In this study we investigate the importance of perceived psychological contract unreplicability for employee’s attitudes and behavior and the way organizations can differentiate by their Talent Management practices, i-deals and implementation of The New Way of Working. Psychological contract unreplicability concerns the extent to which employees perceive they cannot get the same or better conditions somewhere else. The outcomes of the quantitative analysis of 681 respondents within six large organizations, gathered in 2010, show the importance of actively paying attention to the concept of psychological contract unreplicability. The results show that psychological contract unreplicability significantly relates to a higher level of affective commitment and a lower level of turnover intention. Furthermore, a higher amount of Talent Management practices and an extensive implementation of the New Way of Working significantly relate to a higher experienced level of psychological contract unreplicability. By testing mediation models with either the New Way of Working or Talent Management practices as independent variables and affective commitment or turnover intention as a dependent variable, the results show (partial) mediation through psychological contract unreplicability.

Bullying at work: The relation with physical health complaints and the influence of social support

This survey among Belgian employees (N = 497) investigated, starting from the Michigan Stress Model, the relationships among the amount of and satisfaction with social support, being bullied in the workplace, and physical health complaints. Hierarchical regression analyses confirmed that both person-related and work-related bullying influenced perceived health of victimized employees negatively. There was some evidence for a moderation effect of satisfaction with social support: victims of work-related bullying, who experienced a lack of social support from colleagues, reported more health problems. In addition, it was found that satisfaction with received social support from supervisors affected the relationship between being bullied and health complaints indirectly (i.e., mediation). No effects were found for the amount of received support. These results emphasize the need for future studies investigating the influence of satisfaction with received social support on victimized employees.

Vitality Management: You do not need to be ill, to get better! Enhancing the sustainable employment of workers can be realized by increasing their vitality, workability and employability

The working population is ageing in the Netherlands. To overcome the negative effects of an aging labour force, there is a need to adapt Strategic Human Resource Management in organizations by including Vitality Management. In this shortened version of my inaugural lecture I discuss from the viewpoint of a Work and Organizational Psychologist the content of Vitality Management. Vitality is in my view an aspect of sustainable employment, next to work ability and employability. Moreover in this contribution attention will be paid to the importance of vitality and sustainable employment and what causes, according to the research literature, vitality and sustainable employment. I will end this contribution by discussing how vitality and sustainable employment can be enhanced. For the latter it is important to focus not only on older workers, but on all workers from young to old.

The psychometric qualities of measurement instruments in diary studies: an illustration on the basis of the work engagement scale

Despite the emerging popularity of diary studies, until now little attention has been paid to the psychometric properties of measures used in diary studies. When the time frame of questionnaires in diary studies is adapted, it is important to examine whether the factor structure remains the same. The aim of this article is to introduce a method to examine the factor structure of daily variables. This method will be illustrated by performing a multilevel confirmative factor analysis on the questionnaire used to measure daily work engagement. The results showed that daily work engagement can be measured by adapting the time frame of the questionnaire to measure enduring work engagement, although it is eligible to replace one of the nine items.