Search

Despite the importance of a thriving workforce in sustaining organizational success, prior research pays little attention to how individualized human resource (HR) practices can help individual employees to thrive at work. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of conservation of resources theory, we investigate whether, how, and when development idiosyncratic deals (i‐deals) can contribute to individual thriving. We contend that possessing development i‐deals will motivate individuals to engage in approach job crafting, which in turn promotes their experience of thriving at work. We further contend that high‐quality leader–member exchange will enhance the function of development i‐deals in triggering approach job crafting and subsequent thriving experiences. Results from a two‐wave survey involving 278 managers in a pharmaceutical firm in China and a three‐wave survey among 178 managers working in various organizations in the UK support our hypotheses. Our findings provide new insights for practitioners seeking to design customized HR practices to support a thriving workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thriving at work is a positive psychological state that captures employees' joint experience of learning and vitality. Building on the socially embedded model of thriving , we first propose the positive relationship between leader‐member exchange (LMX) and retail employees' thriving at work. We then explore store spatial crowding as a contextual constraint on this relationship. To better reveal this contextual impact, we further contend that team negative affective tone mediates the cross‐level moderating effect of store spatial crowding on the LMX–thriving linkage. Using two‐wave survey data collected from retail employees and their store managers across 89 stores of a grocery retail chain, we found empirical evidence on our multilevel‐mediated moderation model. This study highlights the importance of considering wider contextual features as boundary conditions to thriving. Our results suggest theoretical modifications to the existing thriving model and offer implications on the practical interventions that retailing organizations can take to develop a thriving workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-selling is one of the most important sales strategies retail organizations adopted to drive business revenue and increase customer lifetime value. While considerable efforts have been devoted to developing data-based cross-selling models, little is known about how and when store managers can drive frontline service employees (FSEs) to cross-sell. Drawing on work meaningfulness literature, we propose that a high-quality resource exchange relationship with the store manager (i.e., leader–member exchange, LMX) endows FSEs' work with meaningfulness of serving others, which in turn promotes their engagement in cross-selling. We further contend that when store managers possess high person-organization fit, the impact of their LMX relationships on FSEs' work meaningfulness of serving others and subsequent cross-selling would be stronger. A three-wave survey data from 166 FSEs and their store managers in a retail chain in China (i.e., Study 1) and an experiment among 120 U.S.-based working employees (i.e., Study 2) support our predictions. The present research offers important theoretical and practical implications for retailing management area. Graphical Abstract [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research aims to investigate whether or not leaders, one of the main recipients of employee voice, develop good relationships with those who speak up. Drawing on resource theory and social exchange theory, we contend that constructive voice provides both information and affect resources to the leader, which in turn promote a resource‐based exchange relationship with the leader (i.e., leader–member exchange; LMX). We further propose that leaders with an originality cognitive style are more likely to capture the resource value of constructive voice, while leaders who closely follow rules might not view constructive voice in a positive way, thus affecting their LMX relationships with the focal employee. Through a two‐wave field survey among 199 leader–follower dyads (Study 1) and a vignette‐based experiment among 221 leaders (Study 2), we found that leaders, especially leaders who advocated high originality, developed high‐quality LMX relationships with those who engaged in constructive voice due to their perceptions of affect but not information resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the growing research interest in work–family enrichment, this study explores how negative workplace phenomenon affects store managers' experience of work‐to‐family enrichment. Using two‐wave survey data collected from 156 retail store managers who had frequent interactions with customers, we found that customer misbehavior had a negative effect on their work‐to‐family enrichment through work meaningfulness. Furthermore, store managers' organizational affective commitment acted as an effective buffer on such negative relationship. Our findings thus fill in one missing piece in the current work–family enrichment literature and carry important implications for organizations to help retail store managers attain work meaningfulness and enrich their family life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how and when leaders foster employee work meaningfulness is theoretically and practically important. Drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of servant leadership and person-environment fit, we propose that perceiving their leaders as servant leaders who put followers first would help employees fit into their job (i.e., person-job fit) and subsequently promote their work meaningfulness. Moreover, we argue that working under servant leaders who are perceived to possess high rather than low prototypicality would make employees more likely find congruence with their jobs and experience more work meaningfulness as a result. A full-time working sample from China evidenced our hypotheses. Our findings provide important contributions to extant work psychology literature and carry vital practical implications for organizations to develop employee work meaningfulness. Entender cómo y cuándo los líderes potencian el sentido del trabajo en los empleados tiene importancia teórica y práctica. Partiendo de las bases teóricas del liderazgo de servicio y del ajuste persona-organización, proponemos que el hecho de percibir a sus líderes como líderes de servicio que ponen por delante a sus subordinados podría ayudar al ajuste de estos al puesto de trabajo (i.e., ajuste persona-puesto) y en consecuencia potenciar el sentido de su trabajo. Además, creemos que trabajar con líderes serviciales a los que se considera prototípicos hará más probable que los empleados hallen congruencia en su puesto y den en consecuencia más sentido al trabajo. Nuestra hipótesis fue probada con una muestra de trabajadores chinos a tiempo completo. Los resultados son una buena aportación a la literatura psicológica actual y conllevan implicaciones prácticas importantes para que las empresas fomenten el sentido del trabajo en los empleados. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding how leaders can promote proactive employees' prosocial motivation and encourage them to contribute to the organization in the form of taking charge is theoretically and practically important. By integrating trait activation theory and proactive motivation model, we propose servant leadership as a crucial work context enhancing proactive employees' prosocial motivation, which in turn prompts their engagement in taking charge. Three-wave data collected from retail employees and their store managers in Hong Kong, China supported our hypotheses. We find that prosocial motivation is a key mediating mechanism underlying the positive relationship between proactive personality and taking charge. The presence of servant leadership makes this indirect effect stronger. This research enriches extant taking charge and proactivity literature. It also brings important implications for organizations to capitalize on proactive employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building on work–home resources model, we develop a conceptual model examining job crafting as the mediator between perceived customer participation and service employees' work‐to‐family enrichment, and organization‐based self‐esteem (OBSE) as the moderator on this indirect relationship. Using two‐wave survey data collected from hotel service employees, we found that customer participation can enrich employees' family role through increased cognitive and relational job crafting. In addition, employees' OBSE accentuates the positive linkage between customer participation and employees' relational crafting, and subsequently their work‐to‐family enrichment. This study makes important contributions to extant literature on work‐to‐family enrichment and job crafting as well. It also carries important implications for organizations to support employees' proactive participation in job crafting and enrich employees' family life. Practitioner points: Organizations should well manage customer participation in order to enhance service employees' job crafting.Managers should be aware of how different types of job crafting can enrich their employees' family domain.To cultivate effective work‐to‐family enrichment, organizations should develop employees' self‐worth and sense of competence within the organization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employee silence is a costly but omnipresent phenomenon in modern organisations. In this study, we focus on two forms of silence: defensive silence based on fear and acquiescent silence based on resignation. Given the power imbalance in supervisor–subordinate relationships, we hypothesise that abusive supervision is an antecedent of subordinates' defensive silence and that a subordinate's power distance orientation affects acquiescent silence. We investigate the interaction effects of abusive supervision and power distance orientation on these two types of silence. Perceived organisational politics may also aggravate such interactive effects. Based on data collected from 159 junior employees in China in two periods, we find that abusive supervision is associated with employee defensive silence and moderates high‐power‐distance employees' tendency to engage in acquiescent silence. When perceiving high politics in the organisation, high‐power‐distance employees are more sensitive to abusive supervision and engage in more defensive silence. A highly political organisational context also accentuates abusive supervision's moderating effect on the relation between employees' power distance orientation and acquiescent silence. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications for the silence literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employees’ positive word of mouth (WOM) about hotel brands has a profound impact on customer choice and hotel effectiveness. On the basis of social identity theory and social information processing theory, we posit a moderated mediation model wherein hotel supervisors’ organizational identification (OI) increases their subordinates’ engagement in positive WOM behavior by enhancing subordinates’ OI. This relationship is moderated by supervisors’ upward-exchange relationships with their bosses (i.e., leader–leader exchange). Data from a two-wave survey conducted in a hotel in China indicate that employees working under supervisors with high levels of OI better identify with the hotel and engage in more positive WOM behavior. This is particularly the case when supervisors engage in high-quality leader–leader exchange and are well connected with their bosses. The article concludes with theoretical and practical implications highlighting the importance of cultivating employees’ organizational identification and positive WOM behavior in the hospitality sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]