Journal of Vocational Behavior最新文献

The rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the world of work, leaving individuals wondering what AI means for the future of their career. The current research investigates the moderating role of future work self salience (FWSS) on the effect of interacting with AI on perceived control over one's future work self and proactive career behavior. In a first longitudinal experiment with full-time employees in the UK (N = 174), participants interacting with AI to solve a task (compared to a control group) experienced increased perceived control over their future work self when FWSS was high, in contrast to those with low FWSS. We replicated this pattern in a second longitudinal study with German business students (N = 208). Building on these findings, a third longitudinal experiment with German full-time employees (N = 155) extended the model by demonstrating a moderated mediation: for individuals with high FWSS, AI interaction increased perceived control over the future work self and thus promoted proactive career behavior. In contrast, perceived control and proactive career behavior decreased for those with low FWSS. This research demonstrates the potential impact of AI interactions on work-related outcomes, offering critical insights for both theory and practice.

Post-maternity leave reentry, the period when mothers return to work following a maternity leave, is a profound transition in a woman's life that often sets the foundation for her work and career progression. While scholars have looked at the intraindividual aspects of this transition, the experience of reentry extends beyond the returning mother. This transition occurs in a dynamic relational and organizational system that impacts a returning mother's adjustment to work. In this study, we bring relational dynamics to the forefront of this transition as we examine how and why returning mothers' work-based relationships shift during reentry and the implications this has for returning mothers' readjustment. Drawing on qualitative data from academic mothers' retrospective accounts of their reentry transitions, our findings reveal that returning mothers experience relational movement, defined as perceived shifts in one's relational experiences. Our findings provide evidence of how relational movement plays a role in facilitating returning mothers' well-being as they readjust to work. Our theorizing of how and why relational movement occurs during reentry transitions brings to focus the complex, changing nature of women's relationships with colleagues during this time, as well as implications for women's broader workplace and career experiences.

Even though person-job fit (PJ fit) is a crucial predictor of employees' overall engagement and performance in their jobs, few studies have identified the mechanisms that enhance PJ fit during the employment relationship. Further, the models that do predict how PJ fit evolves over time are predominantly based on the idea that fit improves through individual adjustment processes by workers. This paper provides a new lens on PJ fit that is based on strengths theory, proposing that strengths-based leaders play a critical role in enhancing both dimensions of PJ fit, i.e. needs-supplies (NS) and demands-abilities (DA) fit, by encouraging employees to use their unique strengths. Furthermore, based on theorizing on substitutes for leadership, proactive career management, and situational strength theory we test the idea that high levels of proactive personality and job autonomy may partly compensate for a lack of strengths-based leadership. We collected three waves of data with two-month time lags from a representative sample of 308 Dutch workers, resulting in 906 datapoints. Results of multi-level path modeling indicate that strengths-based leadership is indeed positively related to both DA fit and NS fit and mediated by strengths use at the within-person level. Further, our results indicate that the combination of high job autonomy and high proactive personality partly compensates for the absence of strengths-based leadership on the within-person level. We conclude that strengths-based leadership is particularly important to facilitate strengths use and PJ fit of employees who have a low propensity to be proactive and/or do not have a high degree of autonomy in their job. We discuss the implications of these findings for research and practice.

This study investigates the introduction of AI in the field of radiology through a multi-level analysis (individuals, organization, and profession). Drawing on in-depth interviews with 54 participants (radiologists, radiological technologists, managers, hospital directors, and engineers), we examined how radiologists perceive AI and respond through job crafting behaviors and identity work. The findings reveal three categories of job crafting: approach, avoidance, and an emerging category of identity crafting, in which actors develop strategies to redefine their identity after the introduction of AI. This study contributes to a better understanding of AI and its implications for individuals at work and, in particular, employees' use of proactive approaches to job design, along with how such approaches are shaped by organizations and professional bodies.

Drawing on the spillover-crossover model, we examine both the enriching and conflicting effects of interpersonal experiences at work on the family domain using experience sampling methodology with 567 daily observations from 70 couples. As a positive spillover-crossover process, we find that employees' help provision at work indirectly and positively influences couples' relationship satisfaction, employees' life satisfaction, and spouses' life satisfaction via support provision to the spouse at home. As a negative spillover-crossover process, employees' experiences of interpersonal conflict at work indirectly and negatively influence couples' relationship satisfaction and employees' life satisfaction via undermining behaviors toward the spouse at home. We further theorize and find that the negative spillover-crossover process is less pronounced when spouses are more responsive to employees' disclosures of negative work experiences. Overall, this study provides new insights regarding behavioral pathways underlying interpersonal models of the work-family interface, with important practical implications for working couples and the organizations employing them.

Drawing on the perspective of the Psychology of Working Theory, this study adopted a latent change score model to examine how changes in work volition and decent work during the COVID-19 pandemic related to post-pandemic work values. We conducted a three-wave longitudinal study with 276 Chinese working adults over nearly three years. We found that higher levels of and increases in work volition positively related to increases in decent work during the pandemic. Increases in decent work also negatively related to the work value of pay and positively related to the work value of relationships. Finally, higher levels of decent work during the early stages of the pandemic were positively related to three post-pandemic work values: autonomy, relationships, and altruism. Overall, we demonstrated that the Psychology of Working Theory explains work values, contributing to a deeper understanding of how work values were influenced by the work experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Advances in digitalization have led employers to increasingly adopt electronic performance monitoring technologies that allow supervisors to observe, analyze and evaluate not only employees' work activities, but also their cognitive and behavioral data. This has significant implications for employees' perceptions of privacy, and, in turn, for their basic needs, intrinsic motivation, and turnover intentions. However, the extent of perceiving privacy invasion may also depend on the relationship with those individuals for whom information is shared. This relationship should play a pivotal role in defining and negotiating boundaries and establishing comfort levels in information sharing. Building on communication privacy management theory and self-determination theory, we examined in three studies (two experiments and one field study) how the relationship with the supervisor (LMX) shapes the associations between (a) supervisor's use of EPM, its perceived invasiveness, and privacy invasion (Study 1, 2, 3), and (b) privacy invasion and needs, intrinsic motivation, and turnover intentions (Study 3). Specifically, we theorized that a high LMX that builds on trust should mitigate privacy invasion from invasive electronic performance monitoring. In addition, we hypothesized that high LMX can help employees cope with privacy invasion and consequently reduce need thwarting, decreased intrinsic motivation, and turnover intention. While we found some support for the role of LMX in the emergence of privacy invasion from invasive EPM, our data did not reveal that a high LMX reduces need thwarting and related outcomes due to perceived privacy invasion. This research provides timely insights with a multimethod approach into if and how the social context shapes unintended consequences from using electronic monitoring.

Family caregivers, who are managing the demands of work while simultaneously giving care to an adult family member, are a growing segment of the workforce. The current paper explores the struggle and joys of family caregiving employees, who manage work demands while simultaneously caring for an adult family member. We developed and tested a theoretical model of 311 family caregivers in the U.S. workforce that considered the simultaneous demands (burdens) and resources (gains) paths using the theoretical framework of the work-home resources model (ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012). Further, we consider the role that these play as the family domain spilled over into the work domain and had both behavioral and affective outcomes. We found that family caregiving operated on simultaneous separate paths, confirming the bittersweet nature of the phenomenon. Through a demands path we found caregiving burdens contributed to experiences of family-work conflict and required greater work concessions (job and career) while also reducing job satisfaction. At the same time, through a resources path we found caregiving gains contributed to experiences of family-work enrichment and contributed to satisfaction (job and life) but did not reduce the need for work concessions. As such, considering caregiving burdens and gains simultaneously helps us to understand that, although caregiving results in more work concessions, it also improves employees' overall satisfaction.

The conceptualization of work and careers has evolved with technological advancements. From the steam engine to the internet, and now to digital technologies like AI and robotics, each era has redefined employment. These innovations offer safer, more meaningful work and broaden access. However, they also bring challenges such as the need for new skills and constant adaptation. This special issue includes nine papers exploring themes like lifelong learning, access to work, human agency, and ethical dimensions. The research highlights the need for continuous skill development, equitable access, and informed policy-making to harness the benefits of technology while mitigating its risks.

College students increasingly use digital information resources to help them make academic and career decisions, but the effects of digital information tools on students' career exploration outcomes are not well understood. We investigate the impact of an online tool that shows the full sequence of course enrollments and the first career destination of recent graduates with matched interests. We conducted a randomized controlled experiment with 234 undergraduate students at a U.S. university to examine the tool's impact on students' career exploration outcomes, specifically their self-efficacy in academic planning for career exploration and behavioral intentions for career exploration. We did not find clear evidence that the tool increased students' self-efficacy and behavioral intentions. However, our exploratory analysis shows that the tool benefited students who were at a later stage in their career decision-making process. We also found that students' awareness of official information sources from archival student records and awareness of holistic information that combines academic and career decisions are important predictors of self-efficacy and behavioral intentions. This study presents a nuanced view of the potential of digital tools to enhance career exploration outcomes through information support. It has important implications for institutional administrators to integrate existing digital resources with traditional career services, creating a more comprehensive support system for students.