Journal of Vocational Behavior最新文献

Informal workplace learning (IWL) is the predominant form of vocational learning. In striving to foster IWL, the focus of previous research has been on work design: according to the active learning hypothesis, both job resources and job demands can lead to learning. Informal learning research has so far agreed with this assumption but has hardly investigated the direction of effects or explaining mechanisms. The alternative active shaper hypothesis suggests that engagement in learning leads to more job resources but can also create higher job demands. The underlying processes in both hypotheses may be related to proactive behavior such as job crafting. In this article we present the results of two longitudinal studies focusing on job control and workload. In study 1, we used a cross-lagged panel design with structural equation modeling to analyze two-wave data with a 1.5-year interval among 129 blue-collar workers. The results suggest that IWL leads to job control and workload; the reverse causal direction was not significant. Hence, study 1 provided support for the active shaper hypothesis. In study 2, we used three-wave data with a 4-week interval among 216 white-collar workers to examine potential mediating effects of job crafting in the relationship between IWL and work characteristics. The results supported the assumption that task crafting and relational crafting mediate between job control and IWL and vice versa, and that relational crafting mediates between IWL and job control. No mediating effects were found with respect to workload, and cognitive crafting did not function as a mediator either. In supplemental analyses, we found mostly evidence that informal learning and job crafting are distinct constructs. The findings partly contradict the predominant active learning hypothesis and have implications for workplace learning research and personnel development in organizations.

Although traditional research on human capital shows that it enhances employment success, its role in the job search process is unclear. To explain its weak effects in previous studies, this study draws on goal system theory to propose that human capital may act as a double-edged sword: On one hand it facilitates the ease of gaining employment, on the other hand it may compromise the frequency of job search behaviors. We conducted a bi-weekly repeated survey study on new labor market entrants and measured human capital using academic achievement scores. Results confirmed that human capital, though instrumental for proximal job search success, interferes with self-regulatory behaviors in job search. That is, human capital negatively predicted within-person job search intensity, and negatively moderated the within-person relationship between employment efficacy and job search intensity. On the positive side, human capital positively predicted within-person number of interview invitations. Overall, these results provide a more nuanced picture of the role of human capital in the job search process.

In adulthood, starting a new job is a major life event that, for many, accompanies significant changes to one's personal life (e.g., moving to a new location, setting up new childcare or eldercare arrangements, renegotiating schedules and nonwork responsibilities with a spouse or partner). Research shows that job candidates anticipate the degree of work-family support and conflict they might experience in a new role when deciding to accept or reject a job offer. Despite this, work examining associations between newcomer work-to-nonwork conflict (WNC), once arriving at a new job, and their adjustment to the new work role has lagged. To address this, the current study investigates the relationship between newcomers' work nonwork demands (i.e., WNC) and resources (having a family-supportive supervisor) during organizational entry, in relation to work withdrawal. Results from surveys administered to newcomers across three time points, indicate that newcomers' WNC was positively related to work withdrawal via reduced work-to-nonwork self-efficacy. Additionally, the indirect relationship between WNC and newcomer withdrawal was moderated by family-supportive supervisor behavior, indicating that managers can serve as resources with powerful potential to counteract the negative effects of conflict during this early stage. This study is among the first to explicitly link the work-nonwork and organizational socialization literatures. Our results suggest that organizations aiming to support and retain new workers may benefit from training supervisors to help newcomers manage WNC when starting a new job.

Despite workplace anxiety being a common experience of daily work life that is increasingly reliant on technology, we lack knowledge of technology-based job demands that prompt its occurrence. Drawing on theorization on workplace anxiety and integrating literature on information and communication technologies, we consider telepressure and normative response pressure as internal and external between-person sources of daily workplace anxiety. We further present a model of how employees adaptively (vs. maladaptively) respond to workplace anxiety on days they experience workplace anxiety, where anxiety prompts: (a) work e-mail activity, a self-regulatory behavior facilitating performance outcomes; and (b) non-work e-mail activity, a behavior that disengages employees from their work, debilitating performance outcomes. Utilizing a multilevel, time-lagged experience sampling field study across 10 workdays (Level 1 N = 809; Level 2 N = 96), we identify telepressure as a significant contributor of daily workplace anxiety. Further, we found support for an adaptive function of workplace anxiety. On days employees experienced workplace anxiety, their personal initiative and citizenship behaviors were enhanced through behavioral regulatory activity manifested in work e-mail activity. This indirect effect was strengthened for employees perceiving higher (vs. lower) work e-mail centrality. This research advances understanding of the adaptive function of workplace anxiety, such that employees are active drivers of their daily experiences of workplace anxiety.

With organizations increasingly requiring employees to proactively manage their job and career, researchers have examined various proactive behaviors, such as feedback-seeking behavior and personal initiative. However, few studies have explored the relationships and dynamics among these behaviors. Based on sensemaking theory, this paper argues that employees' feedback-seeking behavior is positively associated with their performance through two stages: meaningfulness and personal initiative. Our hypotheses were tested and supported using two samples: 196 supervisor-subordinate dyads from one large organization in China (Study 1) and panel data of 207 full-time employees from the UK (Study 2). Our findings highlight the importance of recognizing the distinctiveness of different forms of proactive behavior and the synergistic way they contribute to performance. We also demonstrate that employees can seek feedback and construct meaningful work experiences in an agentic manner, which contributes to the literature on career crafting and career self-management.

One tool that has long been advocated to promote economic development and reduce poverty in developing countries such as Ghana is entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship, however, is a process that goes through several phases. One of the first hurdles for aspiring entrepreneurs to cross is to come up with a viable new venture idea. Drawing on the social cognitive theory of self-regulation, we hypothesize that the two dimensions of dispositional grit (consistency of interest and perseverance of effort) may enhance aspiring entrepreneurs' new venture ideation via entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Furthermore, the indirect effects of consistency of interest and perseverance of effort on venture ideation via entrepreneurial self-efficacy are proposed to be stronger when entrepreneur identity aspiration is high. Based on a sample of 265 (Study 1) and 338 (Study 2) aspiring entrepreneurs in Ghana, we found consistent and strong support for our hypothesized model. Theoretical and practical implications of our findings are discussed.

Career expectations of women and men have been documented extensively in both the career and the work-family literature, albeit very often focusing on women. This paper proposes to complement the existing work by shifting attention to men. Based on a French national survey and using multiple linear regression models with moderations, we examine the differential of career success expectations (CSE) — as measured by the perceived chances of promotion or wage increase — between men and women who face work-family conflict and use flexible work arrangements (teleworking and part-time work). We show that work-family conflict has a stronger negative influence on men's CSE than on women's, teleworking has a stronger positive influence on women's CSE than on men's, and part-time work has the same negative influence on both men's and women's CSE. This allows us to discuss the impact of the ideal worker norm on career success expectations and to show that a deviation from this norm has different effects on men's and women's career success expectations.

Building career decision self-efficacy (CDSE) and engaging in career exploratory behavior (CEB) have been identified as key adaptive career behaviors that promote successful career choice and development among adolescents and young adults. Using the RI-CLPM and a five-wave dataset gathered from first-year exploratory college students (N = 833), this study examined temporal predominance between CDSE and CEB and their effects in mediating the relations of personality traits to career decidedness. At the within-person level, the bidirectional model revealed a reciprocal relation from T2 CDSE to T5 CEB for the entire sample. A similar temporal pattern also emerged for European American students and female students, whereas the baseline model was retained for male students and students of color. At the between-person level, random intercepts of CDSE and CEB were found to mediate the relations of T1 extraversion and emotional stability to T5 career decidedness for the entire sample. While the mediating effect of CDSE was significant and tended to be larger than that of CEB across racial/ethnic and gender subgroupings, mediational pathways of personality traits → CEB → career decidedness varied by race/ethnicity. This study provides evidence for theory-based hypotheses regarding how CDSE and CEB relate to each other temporally within the student and how the two variables channel the effects of personality traits on career decidedness between students. It also offers practical implications for including CDSE and CEB in career interventions designed to facilitate career development of exploratory students of different racial/ethnic and gender backgrounds during their initial transition to college.

Boredom at work is perceived to result from lacking job stressors as opposed to exhaustion that is a response to excessive job stressors. Employee boredom and exhaustion have thus been considered as antithetical states, and yet they are found to be positively related. It is therefore unclear how boredom and exhaustion manifest among workers. We build on research literature on boredom and challenge - hindrance stressor framework to argue that some employees may be both bored and exhausted depending on distinct job stressors. We employed latent profile analysis and Latent Transition Analysis across two studies to uncover these employee groups and examine if their experiences change over time. In Study 1, we used data from 301 employees to identify four profiles that we labelled “neither bored nor exhausted”, “somewhat bored, somewhat exhausted”, “exhausted and somewhat bored” and “bored and exhausted”. In Study 2, where we used data from 2452 employees at two measurement points across 18 months, we replicated three of the four profiles. Challenge stressors were associated with exhaustion dominant profiles whereas hindrance stressors predicted membership in profiles characterized by both boredom and exhaustion. Profile membership was highly stable over the measurement period. Increases in challenge and hindrance stressors over the measurement period increased the likelihood of transitioning across profiles. This study extends literature on employee well-being by suggesting that boredom and exhaustion can occur in tandem. Further, we show that challenge and hindrance stressors can deteriorate well-being in different ways.