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Based on the Conservation of Resources Theory, this longitudinal study analyzes the contribution of organizational affective commitment during the preparation phase of a peacekeeping mission (T1) to explain the well-being of soldiers during that mission (T2). A sample of 409 Brazilian army participants in the MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) was used in two waves – preparation of the troops in Brazil, and their deployment in Haitian territory. The data analysis was performed using structural equation modeling. The results supported organizational affective commitment during the preparation phase (T1) positively predicting the general well-being (perception of health and general satisfaction with life) of these soldiers during the deployment phase (T2). The workplace well-being (i.e. work engagement) of these peacekeepers was also found to mediate this relationship. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, and limitations and suggestions for future research are presented.

The success of current and future military operations not only depends significantly on the explicit, technical, and tactical knowledge of the military personnel who execute them but also on their attitudes and behavior, such as courage, commitment, and high levels of readiness. Thus, using a sample of 336 military personnel exclusively from the operational component of the Portuguese Navy (PON) force system, the first aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between the perception of HPWS and the three dimensions of organizational commitment (OC), i.e., affective (AC), normative (NC) and continuance commitment (CC). The second aim was to analyze the mediating role of the three dimensions of commitment in the relationship between HPWS and performance, i.e., task performance (TP), contextual performance (CP), and counterproductive performance (CPP). The results obtained through the analysis of structural equation models made it possible to support a positive and significant relationship between the HPWS and each of the dimensions of commitment. The results also indicated that the AC has a mediating effect on the relationship between HPWS and performance, fully in the case of CP and partially in TP. In CPP, we observed that there is an indirect effect of HPWS and this dimension of performance. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed.

This study evaluates the relationship between the high-performance work system (HPWS) as perceived by the Portuguese Navy military and their affective (AC), normative (NC), and continuance commitme...

Purpose: Different research papers into various occupational groups demonstrate the importance of engagement for the wellbeing of both employees and organizational results. However, the study of this phenomenon and that of other positive factors in professional staff caring for persons with intellectual disabilities is scarce. For this reason, the objective of this work was to test a theoretical model concerning the relationship between engagement, a positive factor, and self-efficacy in carers of persons with an intellectual disability, using emotional intelligence as a mediating variable.Materials and methods: Three hundred and eleven carers participated in the study. Self-report measures with adequate psychometric properties were provided to evaluate engagement, self-efficacy, and emotional intelligence.Results and conclusions: The structural equation models (SEM) showed a significant relation between self-efficacy and engagement. In addition, one of the dimensions of emotional intelligence, namely the use of emotions (UOE), was a full mediator in this relationship. The other dimensions showed no relation to engagement. Thus, the UOE was a fundamental factor for self-efficacy to imply engagement. For this reason, intervention programs in wellbeing and health in the workplace should include specific training in this skill among their objectives.Implications for rehabilitationCarers are very important persons in the lives of individuals with intellectual disabilities.There was a significant relationship between self-efficacy and engagement and use of emotions was a full mediator in this relationship.The intervention programs should include training the emotional intelligence among their objectives in order to optimize engagement.

The current study developed and tested a mediation model that accounts for the procedural justice in the relationship between the perception of job insecurity and affect. We used a sample of 681 wo...

University workers have been marginalized in efforts to establish well-being at work and well-being outside the workplace. To date, no studies analyzing well-being have distinguished between teaching and research academic staff (TRAS) from the service and administrative staff (SAS). The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the promotion of the well-being of university workers. Data were collected from a representative sample of workers (N = 565) at the University of Extremadura (Spain) and were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling and multi-group analyses. The results show that well-being at work is distinct for the TRAS and the SAS in terms of engagement, professional efficacy, and cynicism. The results also indicate that well-being at work has effects on well-being outside the workplace and that these effects vary according to the professional activity of university staff. This paper discusses these differences as well as their practical implications and makes suggestions for future ...

This study tested the relation between perceived social impact, social worth, and work engagement in the military, and mediating effects of prosocial motivation. We tested hypotheses using structur...

Using self-determination theory ( Deci & Ryan, 2008) as the theoretical framework, we tested a model for this study that considers soldiers’ perceptions of organizational support and leader–member ...

This study is based on the psychological contract theoretical model. It provides an empirical test of the antecedents and consequences of psychological contract violation (PCV) that was caused by the wage reduction of Portuguese civil servants. Data were collected from a sample of 212 employees who worked in public organizations across different sectors. These positions entailed different functions and were subject to different levels of wage reduction. A Structural Equation Model was used to analyze the data. The results show that employees' attributions of this psychological contract breach are related to their perception of PCV. Furthermore, our findings also suggest that civil servants have two distinct psychological contracts and that the PCV of the employing organization also depends on the PCV of the public institution. Moreover, the PCV of the public institution was found to be the mechanism that explains the relationship between the meaning attached to wage reduction and the PCV of the employing ...

Versão pós-print., The aim of this study was to analyse whether the social exchange between temporary agency workers (TAWs) and the client organization is associated with a perception of training. In this study, we developed and tested a moderated mediation model that accounts for TAWs’ exhaustion and desire to obtain a direct contract with the client company in the relationship between the perception of training and affective commitment. Our hypotheses were tested on a sample of 425 blue-collar workers from four Portuguese companies with temporary agency work contracts. Our findings support a conditional indirect relationship between the perception of TAWs that the training provided by the client company facilitates their internal employability and their commitment towards this company via exhaustion for those TAWs who have a low desire to have a direct contract with this company. In addition, our findings show that TAWs do not reciprocally respond to the training that promotes external employability, as this factor is not associated with the affective commitment of these individuals, although exhaustion is associated with this perception. Moreover, we discuss the implications of these findings for the human resource management of TAWs.

This study reports an intervention programme to promote job resources (social support) to increase firefighters' psychological well-being (burnout and engagement), using the Job Demand-Resource Model as the theoretical model. Participants were firefighters from an elite Portuguese organization. The intervention consisted of a leadership stress management workshop for middle supervisors that lasted 21 hours spread over 3 days. The intervention group (n = 67) were subordinates whose immediate supervisors participated in the workshop, and the control group (n = 37) were subordinates whose supervisors did not. All participants filled out questionnaires before the workshop and 4 months after. The repeated measures ANOVA revealed as expected that Time x Intervention interaction increased colleagues' social support, and marginally also increased firefighters' vigor. However, contrary to expected the intervention also increased chronic demands. Discussion focuses on the importance of understanding the pro...

This study analyses the expansion of the Job Demands–Resources (JD-R) model with the introduction of proactive coping, in both health impairment and motivational processes. 1487 rescue mission firefighters from the 18 districts of Portugal participated in the study. Through structural equation modelling the results revealed that proactive coping partially mediated the relationship between job demands and burnout, as well as the relationship between job resources and engagement. The results suggest that this personal resource also has an effect on the promotion of positive occupational well-being indicators, in addition to the mitigation of negative well-being indicators. Practical implications for the field of occupational health psychology are also discussed.

We assumed that a breach in psychological contract had an effect on soldiers' well-being and not only promoted their burnout levels but decreased their levels of engagement. In a longitudinal study...