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This thesis focused on two different types of heavy work investment: workaholism and work engagement. Its principal aim was to explore why workaholic and engaged employees work hard. The motivational origins were addressed from three different perspectives: (1) a trait-based perspective, based on Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory and Regulatory Focus Theory, (2) a developmental perspective, drawing on Attachment Theory, and (3) a situational-based perspective, using Self-Determination Theory. Its second aim was to examine how workaholism and work engagement relate to four possible outcomes: burnout, turnover intention, job satisfaction, and performance. This thesis extends our knowledge on workaholism and work engagement in several respects. First, it lifts a corner of the veil on the origins of workaholism and work engagement. Workaholism was related to BIS-activation and work engagement was related to BAS-activation, suggesting that workaholism and work engagement may have biological origins. Furthermore, workaholism was primarily associated with having a prevention focus and insecure attachment, whereas work engagement was primarily associated with having a promotion focus and secure attachment. Therefore, both types of heavy work investment may be rooted in childhood and early socialization too. In addition, there were indications that a dynamic relation between the different types of motivation, as described in Self-Determination Theory, and the two types of heavy work investment exists, suggesting that the social (work) environment may play a role in the development of workaholism and work engagement as well. Second, this thesis supports the idea that workaholism is a “bad” type of heavy work investment and work engagement is a “good” type of heavy work investment. Workaholism was associated with a high burnout level, an intention to quit one's job, job dissatisfaction, and poor performance, whereas work engagement was associated with a low burnout level, no intention to quit one's job, job satisfaction, and good performance. With these findings the present thesis also reduces the lack of clarity that exists regarding workaholic employees’ performance. Third, the present thesis revealed the existence of a group of employees who are simultaneously workaholic and work engaged, called engaged workaholics. This means that, in fact, three different types of hard working employees can be distinguished: workaholic employees, engaged employees, and engaged workaholics. Since workaholic employees and engaged employees work equally hard and engaged workaholics work even harder, measuring workaholism exclusively in terms of number of working hours seems to be inappropriate and may lead to confusing research findings. Fourth, this thesis showed that workaholism and work engagement have motivational potential. Workaholism seems to predispose employees to engage into self-protective behavior, whereas work engagement seems to predispose employees to pursue self-concordant goals. Hence, workaholism and work engagement seem to be complex phenomena. In conclusion, the present thesis demonstrated that two types of heavy work investment can be distinguished, a “bad” (workaholism) and a “good” (work engagement) one, each with a unique motivational make-up and pattern of outcomes. With these findings, the present thesis contributed to the unraveling of the dark and bright sides of heavy work investment.

Background Organizations change rapidly nowadays. However, little is known about successful ways in which employees can adapt to the new situation that arises throughout organizational change. The present dissertation addressed job crafting as a proactive employee strategy in order to deal with and adapt to changes implemented by organizations. The conceptualization of job crafting that was employed included the following behaviors: seeking job resources (e.g., facilitating factors such as support or advice from colleagues and supervisors), seeking job challenges (e.g., more responsibilities, new challenging tasks) or reducing job demands (e.g., hindering factors at work such as workload or emotional demands). Findings Via five empirical studies this research explored the antecedents and the consequences of job crafting behaviors for employees within organizations undergoing some type of change. Employees crafted their job when their work environment provided a reason to do that (i.e., environmental antecedents), when they were motivated to do that (i.e., individual antecedents) and when their work environment did not fit with their motivational orientation (i.e., interaction between the environment and the individual as antecedent). Regulatory focus theory was used to conceptualize the individual and the organizational motivational orientation. Findings revealed that job crafting behaviors (i.e., seeking resources and seeking challenges) in general help employees to stay motivated, healthy and to perform on their tasks adequately during organizational change. Reducing demands behaviors proved to be less helpful strategies and they were linked to future employee feelings of exhaustion. Conclusion In conclusion, employees are not simply passive recipients of organizational change initiatives but they shape the conditions that help them deal with organizational change. Future research should be conducted in such settings so that organizational change is captured in a more controlled fashion. Job crafting is recommended as an additional employee strategy for future research exploring employee adaptation to organizational change. Via coaching, training or individual development plans, managers could encourage and facilitate those job crafting behaviors that have the potential to benefit employees

Young workers are faced with many unique challenges when they start their professional careers, and especially young workers with lower levels of education may need support in managing their work and career as their work is becoming ever more complex and they have been struck hardest by the recent worldwide economic crisis. To gain a better understanding of the work and career of young employees with lower levels of education, we investigated in which ways job characteristics are relevant for determining the wellbeing, health, and performance of these young employees, and we examined potential differences between educational groups. Next, we investigated which career competencies may be relevant for these young workers. Integrating the first two goals, we also investigated whether career competencies may be a relevant concept in stimulating wellbeing of young employees. Finally, we developed and empirically tested a career development intervention which aimed to stimulate career development and wellbeing of young employees. First, we found that autonomy, social support, and opportunities for development are relevant job resources, whereas work pressure, emotional workload, and physical workload are relevant job demands for young employees with lower levels of education. However, we found that task variation may actually be a stressor, whereas mental demands may be a resource for these young workers. Second, we found that young workers with lower educational levels experienced less favorable working conditions than their higher educated counterparts. We also found signs of a gain cycle involving dedication and performance, and a loss cycle with regard to emotional exhaustion and performance. We concluded that young employees with lower educational levels are relatively resistant to job demands and health impairment processes, and may especially need job resources to foster their wellbeing via motivational processes during the early years of their careers. A third result of this thesis was a theoretical framework of career competencies for young workers with lower educational levels. We found that career competencies can be divided into three dimensions: reflective, communicative, and behavioral career competencies. We distinguished six career competencies: reflection on motivation, reflection on qualities, networking, self-profiling, work exploration, and career control. We subsequently developed the Career Competencies Questionnaire (CCQ) and provided preliminary support for its validity and reliability. Fourth, we found that career competencies seem to work in a similar way as personal resources, which indicates that these competencies are not only related to career development, but also to employee wellbeing. Specifically, career competencies and job resources seem to have a mutually reinforcing effect, which can subsequently increase work engagement of young employees. Finally, we developed and empirically tested the CareerSKILLS intervention, and demonstrated its short-term effectiveness. Participants of the intervention showed increased mastery of career competencies, higher levels of self-efficacy , resilience against setbacks, and perceived employability, and increased work engagement, as opposed to a control group. These findings further emphasize that motivational processes are especially relevant for young workers with lower educational levels, and that career competencies are a relevant concept for increasing their career development ánd their wellbeing at work.

The pace of organizational change has increased and multiple change-initiatives tend to overlap, therefore, organizations are in need of resourceful, adaptable employees who can handle change on an ongoing basis. This thesis uses a micro-level resource-perspective to broaden our understanding of employee adjustment to change. We found evidence for the positive influence of psychological resources on adjustment outcomes. The main resources examined are: meaning-making, self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem, as well as co-worker support, the quality of the leader-follower relationship (LMX) and change information. Results contribute to the literature on (predictors of) successful adjustment to change by introducing the notion of meaning-making, which pertains to the ability to integrate challenging or ambiguous situations into a framework of personal meaning using value-based reflection. Meaning-making functions as a personal resource during change and it predicts adaptation outcomes. Also, self-efficacy and organization-based self-esteem were shown to predict change adaptation; i.e. supervisor-rated adaptive performance and adaptive behavior respectively. Job resources that were found to have a positive influence on adaptation were co-worker support, LMX and change information. Besides direct positive effects, we found several indirect effects. Resources triggered motivational outcomes (work engagement / affective commitment) and positive change attitudes, which in turn positively related to adaptive performance. Apparently, the motivational process of resources leading to work engagement, translates into adaptation to change. Meaning-making stimulated the use of ‘natural reward strategies’, which help employees to craft their work environment. This, in turn, was positively related to work engagement. Job resources were shown to be reciprocally related to personal resources over time. For example, LMX predicted and was predicted by organization-based self-esteem and meaning-making. Over time, change information was shown to indirectly predict adaptive behavior via employee meaning-making. This means that change information before the implementation of change helps employees to ‘translate’ the change into something meaningful for them. Taken together, these findings expand existing knowledge on the relationship between work engagement and various behavioral outcomes. Also, this thesis contributes by examining antecedents of adaptive performance in terms of observed behavior. Implementing change and managing employee adaptation to change will always be a challenging, dynamic process, in which different perspectives at different levels need to be taken into account. In this thesis we have made an attempt to contribute to knowledge on individual-level factors, since micro-level adaptation will ultimately help to facilitate successful macro-level change implementation. Job resources, personal resources, attitudes, and strategies of employees, i.e. those who implement change, should be actively managed to foster happy and healthy employees in successful organizations. The interrelationships of personal resources and job resources may hold the key to further understanding successful change implementation. Particularly, the importance of employees’ ability to make meaning using reflection during transitions, was shown to be an important factor that helps employees to self-regulate their motivation, adapt their behavior and stay engaged and committed during change. Going forward, we aim to further translate our findings into effective interventions that help employees and organizations to thrive during challenging times

Work plays an important role in people's lives. An average person spends more time to work than to other activities. However, some individuals work significantly harder than others. This could be because they have high financial needs, want to get a job promotion, or just love their job. A different reason for some employees to work hard is that they feel a strong inner drive. This type of work motivation – called workaholism- seems to be associated with low levels of recovery and high levels of burnout. These negative consequences for employer and employee highlight the need for understanding and preventing workaholism. Nevertheless, little is known about the psychological mechanism that underlies workaholism and therefore how to counteract it. It is likely that cognitive factors play an important role in the development and maintenance of workaholism. Furthermore, emotions may also fuel compulsive hard work. Therefore, in the current dissertation, we use the Mood as Input hypothesis, which is a framework that integrates both cognitive and affective components, for explaining workaholism. The aim of the dissertation is to examine the role of emotions and cognitions in workaholism using different types of survey methods. Altogether, five chapters of the dissertation describe the results of these studies. In the second-last chapter, we give an overview of the state of the art of workaholism interventions. In the same chapter, we present the protocol of an online training program, which is based on our study results and designed to reduce compulsive work behavior based on the principles of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.

Organizations are struggling to survive, so they are dependent on the productiveness and well-being of their employees. Nowadays, work engagement – the focal construct of this thesis – is one of the most established well-being constructs within organizational psychology. Work engagement is defined as a positive work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption. More insight into individual antecedents of work engagement and ways to enhance engagement by means of individual-level interventions is badly needed. Though, based on Broaden-and-Build theory, we do have quite some empirical knowledge on how individual antecedents such as positive emotions and personal resources relate to general well-being. In this thesis, we embrace this knowledge in order to develop theory on an individual perspective on engagement. The studies of this thesis confirmed that positive emotions and personal resources (i.e., hope, optimism, and self-efficacy) either directly or indirectly relate to work and study engagement over time. Next to these empirical notions, this thesis also had the objective to design and evaluate individual interventions to enhance engagement. We hypothesized that the variance in engagement that we could influence by means of self-initiated individual interventions was about forty per cent. In the current thesis, we tested three types of individual interventions, i.e., behavioral (i.e., acts of kindness), cognitive (i.e., thoughts of gratitude), and motivational (i.e., goal setting), to promote engagement. These types of interventions have already been investigated with regard to their effects on happiness, and we modified them for use in an academic and work-related context. We found that stimulating thoughts of gratitude resulted in higher levels of positive emotions among university students. Performing acts of kindness showed stronger effects because this also had a positive effect on study engagement. These results indicate that in an academic context, positive behavioral interventions (i.e., acts of kindness) work better and/or faster than cognitive interventions (i.e., thoughts of gratitude) in enhancing engagement. In addition, we tested the effects of an online intervention containing behavioral, cognitive, and motivational activities among employees. The intervention had a significant positive effect on positive emotions and self-efficacy. For work engagement, however, we only found a significant positive effect for those who scored low on baseline work engagement. This finding underlines that the positive activities that were initiated by the online intervention were more beneficial for those who were expected to gain from it the most. All in all, the individual perspective on the prediction and enhancement of engagement that was adopted in this thesis seems promising. Moreover, it is in line with the current trend of empowerment which holds every individual responsible for his or her own growth and (mental) health. Nevertheless, organizations (including universities) carry great responsibility for the well-being of their employees (and students) in creating a positive organizational climate. This context is, in our opinion, the prerequisite to enable individual employees to build towards higher levels of engagement.

Employee well-being is important for individual employees and for the organizations they work for. However, current difficult economic times cause employees to experience unfavorable conditions (e.g., uncertainty, unfair outcomes and low cohesive groups) and this thesis attempts to provide organizations with insight into how to manage employee well-being in these turbulent times. This thesis establishes that treatment fairness, consisting of procedural fairness (e.g., consistency, transparent decision-making and processes) and interactional fairness (e.g., respectful and honest treatment by superiors) and group norms such as group cohesiveness (informal networks) and absence tolerance (attitudes towards illegitimate reasons for absence) are related to employee well-being (absenteeism, health complaints, workaholism, turnover intention, and work engagement). In addition, specific conditions appear to influence how both treatment fairness and group norms are related to employee well-being. For instance, with regard to treatment fairness, this research indicates that, when employees experience personal uncertainty, this increases employees’ focus on whether or not they are being treated in a fair manner. Moreover, in a highly evaluative context where individuals strongly feel personally responsible for their unfavorable outcomes (internal attribution), the relationship between organizational fairness and employee well-being appears to be further impacted. That is, in such conditions, compared to low procedural fairness, high procedural fairness counter-intuitively is more negatively related to employee well-being. With regard to group norms, low cohesive groups appear to interact with the absence tolerance views of group members to ultimately influence (voluntary) absence rates. Results indicate that in low cohesive groups, high absence tolerance was related to the highest rates of absenteeism, whereas low absence tolerance was related to the lowest levels of absence.

The main purpose of this thesis is to better understand the mixed findings about consequences of ethnic diversity in organizations on various work-outcomes. This thesis starts with an overview of theory and research on ethnic diversity in the workplace in Chapter 2. Thereafter, ethnic diversity is empirically studied from three different perspectives. From an acculturation perspective, findings in Chapter 3 indicate that non-western immigrant workers are most healthy at work when they are able to combine adaptation towards the Dutch culture with maintaining their own ethnic culture (integration orientation). Conversely, Dutch majority workers generally expect non-western immigrant workers to fully adapt to the Dutch culture, without maintaining aspects of their ethnic culture (assimilation orientation). Chapter 4 shows that differences in such acculturation orientations between the two groups relates to problematic interethnic relations in multicultural workplaces. Furthermore, from a social psychological perspective, results in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 show that ethnic diversity in teams relates somewhat negatively to various interpersonal relations. A partial explanation for this is that team members identify less with teams that are ethnically more diverse. Vice versa, team members experience better interpersonal relations when they are able to combine their ethnic identity with their team identity (upholding a called dual identity). Finally, from a contextual perspective, results in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 show that team members experience a better quality of intergroup relations in their team when there is a favorable intercultural climate. A partial explanation for this is that it creates an atmosphere where team members are able to uphold a dual identity. Chapter 7 examines various diversity beliefs in ethnically diverse teams. Here, findings demonstrate that ethnic diversity in teams leads to the most benefits in terms of creativity and performance when employee believe in the value of ethnic diversity, and use cultural differences in their team for cross-cultural learning (integration and learning perspective). Finally, theoretical implications and suggestions for future research, as well as practical implications of the findings are discussed in Chapter 8.