Are Hopeful Employees More Creative? An Empirical Study

Are Your Employees Hopeful at Work? The Influence of Female Leadership, Gender Diversity and Inclusion Climate on Japanese Employees’ Hope

There are two well-known truths about Japan: one is that Japan is one of the most advanced economies, which takes pride in its highly advanced technology, social infrastructure and system; the other is that Japan ranks lowest at women’s social participation among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries. Even though the Japanese government has initiated programs to promote female participation and advancement in society, these initiatives have not yet borne remarkable fruit. This study intends to address this issue by investigating the effectiveness of female leadership in Japan, specifically its effect on organizations’ gender diversity and inclusion (D&I) climate and employees’ task-related positive attitudes. Synthesizing social information processing theory and social identity theory, the study examines 306 Japanese employees working with their female supervisors in medium- and large-sized manufacturing companies. The findings show that female ambidextrous leadership contributes to shape and strengthen a gender D&I climate and ultimately enhances employees’ hope on their work. In addition, the positive effect of a gender D&I climate on employees’ hope is the same for all employees regardless of gender. The findings clarify the role of female leadership and the underlying psychological mechanism through which female leadership influences employees’ positive work attitudes. This first empirical study in Japan contributes to the research on female leadership and D&I management.

The Role of Psychological Capital and Work Engagement in Enhancing Construction Workers' Safety Behavior

Objectives

Construction is one of the unsafe industrial sectors, causing a considerable amount of harm to its workforce and organizations globally. Only a handful of research evidence has been found evaluating individuals' cognitive and engagement-related constructs to improve occupational safety. Psychological Capital (PsyCap) can have a promising impact on construction workers' psychological health, possibly leading to positive performance. Limited studies have tested PsyCap and work engagement regarding safety specifically in the context of the construction industry, with non-harmonious findings.

Methods

The proposed framework was assessed through the structural equation modeling (SEM) technique along with bootstrapping for mediation analysis. Responses were collected from different states of Malaysia from 345 construction workers. PsyCap dimensions (hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism) were measured in connection with safety compliance and safety participation, with the mediating role of work engagement.

Results

According to findings, hope, optimism, and work engagement have a positive and significant impact on safety compliance. Also, hope, self-efficacy, resilience, optimism, and work engagement have a positive and significant impact on safety participation. Further, self-efficacy and optimism both have a positive impact on work engagement.

Conclusions

PsyCap can be a possible predictor for work engagement, which may enhance safety-related behavior. PsyCap should be treated as a multidimensional instrument to enhance occupational safety. In-depth deliberation is needed by the organization while applying PsyCap to enhance employees' work engagement as well as safety behavior. Practical interventions based on interactive training are proposed to enhance construction industry safety. Other industries can also adapt suitable dimension(s) of PsyCap to safety behavior improvements.

The Welleye: A Conceptual Framework for Understanding and Promoting Wellbeing

We present the Welleye – a novel and conceptually clear framework that shows how attention links the objective circumstances of people’s lives and selves to how they spend their time and feel day to day. While existing wellbeing frameworks in policy contain many of the factors included in the Welleye, they all lack attention as the “lens” that determines the impact of these factors on how people feel. Policymakers and organizations can use the Welleye to better understand how people are faring and design and evaluate interventions aimed at making people better off.

Enhancing innovative work behaviour in higher institutions of learning: the role of hope

Purpose

Despite the current dynamism in the education sector that was manifested in new approaches to work that require innovative workforce, little empirical studies have been conducted on how to influence innovativeness in higher education institutions. Moreover, though studies have established a link between hope and innovative work behaviour, no study has established how hope and its two components of agency and pathways influence innovative work behaviour. The purpose of this study is to establish the influence of hope and its two components of agency and pathways on innovative work behaviour.

Design/methodology/approach

A quantitative cross-sectional research design was adopted in this study. The study employed hierarchical regression to test the hypothesised relationship between hope and its components of agency and pathways on innovative work behaviour using a sample drawn from public universities in Uganda in the two categories of academic and administrative staff.

Findings

The findings reveal that pathways and agency influence innovative work behaviour. The Findings also revealed that hope significantly influences innovative work behaviour over and above its individual components of agency and pathways.

Research limitations/implications

The study was cross-sectional in nature and the findings may not portray a true picture of the relationship between the study variables over time as behaviour is ever changing. Further studies could carry out a longitudinal study to establish the effect established in this study at different time intervals. The results provide a more complex understanding of how hope and its two components of agency and pathways enhance innovative work behaviour.

Practical implications

The findings of the study provide insightful direction to managers in public universities in Uganda to consider different avenues of increasing employee hope so as to enhance innovative work behaviour. This can be done through targeted interventions like involving employees in goal setting and setting alternative means to achieve goals.

Originality/value

The value of this study is both empirical and theoretical. Empirically, this study is the first to establish the influence of hope and its two components of agency and pathways on innovative work behaviour in Uganda’s university setting. Theoretically, the study extends veracity of the conservation of resources theory (COR) by clarifying those employees who possess the psychological characteristics of hope exhibit innovative work behaviour. The study also extends on the theory of hope by revealing that agency and pathways influence innovative work behaviour.

PENGARUH NILAI KERJA TERHADAP TINGKAH LAKU KERJA INOVATIF DAN KESEJAHTERAAN PSIKOLOGI: MODAL PSIKOLOGI SEBAGAI PENGANTARA (The Influence of Work Values on Innovative Work Behaviour and Psychological Well-Being: The Psychological Capital as a Mediator)

Tujuan makalah ini adalah untuk menguji pengaruh nilai kerja ke atas tingkah laku kerja inovatif dan kesejahteraan psikologi pekerja. Kajian ini juga menguji peranan modal psikologi sebagai pengantara dalam perhubungan ini. Data kajian (n=227) dikumpulkan daripada pegawai pengurusan dalam sektor awam di Putrajaya, Malaysia. Analisis Pengesahan Faktor (Confirmatory Factor Analysis, CFA) digunakan untuk menguji kesahan konvergen model pengukuran konstruk. Analisis pemodelan persamaan struktur digunakan untuk menganggarkan kesepadanan model hipotesis dengan data kajian. Keputusan kajian menunjukkan nilai kerja mempengaruhi kedua-dua modal psikologi dan kesejahteraan psikologi secara langsung. Hasil kajian juga menunjukkan nilai kerja mempengaruhi tingkah laku kerja inovatif secara tidak langsung melalui modal psikologi sebagai pengantara. Dapatan kajian ini menyarankan dengan memupuk dan memperbaiki nilai kerja dapat memberi kesan yang positif terhadap modal psikologi pekerja dan seterusnya dapat meningkatkan tingkah laku kerja inovatif dan kesejahteraan psikologi di tempat kerja. Abstract The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of work values on innovative work behaviours and employees’ psychological well-being. This study also examines the mediating role of psychological capital in the relationships. Data were collected (n=227) from the management officers of the public sector in Putrajaya, Malaysia. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was conducted to examine the convergent validity of the construct measures. The structural equation modeling was used to estimate the fit of the hypothesised model to the data. The findings reveal that work values influenced directly both the psychological capital and psychological well-being. The findings also show that work values ​​indirectly influence the innovative work behaviours through the psychological capital as mediator. The study suggests that nurturing and improving work values will have positive impacts on employees’ psychological capitals thus will enhance innovative work behaviours and psychological well-being in the workplace. Keywords: Work values, psychological capital, innovative work behaviour, psychological well-being, Malaysia.

Authentic Leadership and Creativity: Moderated Meditation Model of Resilience and Hope in the Health Sector

Authentic leaders are recognized as self-aware individuals who act according to their values and beliefs in the organization. Most of the studies have acknowledged the positive impact of authentic leaders on followers. However, the characteristics of an authentic leader, such as making decisions according to his/her own belief system, might negatively affect the followers. The current study aims to investigate the relationship of authenthic leadership/leaders (AL) and creativity through the mediating role of resilience. In this study, data were collected from 172 nurses working at public hospitals using a three-wave, time-lagged study design. The findings show that authentic leadership significantly predicts hope among employees. A hopeful individual positively reflects creativity in the workplace and also mediates the relationship between authentic leadership and creativity at workplace. These results report that authentic leadership impacts hope in a positive manner; thereby, increasing the level of creativity of nurses at the workplace. The study also highlights that if a resilient nurse is supervised by an authentic leader, it decreases hope and eventually creativity at work. The paper elaborates theoretical and practical implications for the health care sector along with limitations and direction for future research.

How organizational tenure affects innovative behavior?

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper was to examine the relationship between organizational tenure and employee innovative behavior and the influence of culture difference and status-related moderators (i.e. status hierarchy and status stability) on the linkage.

Design/methodology/approach

– By using a meta-analysis method that included 76 empirical studies, this study examines the relationship of organizational tenure and innovative behavior. In this study, 79 samples (N = 21659) derived from 76 empirical studies that met the inclusion criteria in the meta-analysis.

Findings

– The results show that organizational tenure has a weak positive effect on employee innovative behavior (r = 0.04), and status hierarchy, position tenure, culture difference and measurement ways influence the relationship between the two. In addition, a three-way interaction among status hierarchy, position tenure and organizational tenure is found to jointly affect innovative behavior; specifically, for those who are low in status hierarchy and short in position tenure, their organizational tenures are positively related to innovative behavior, but for those with a longer position tenure in organizations, their organizational tenure may relate to innovative behavior negatively, whatever their status hierarchies are (high or low). This study is helpful in providing theoretical foundation and practical skills to such issues regarding how to trigger innovative behavior efficiently at different career stages.

Research limitations/implications

– Limitations include tenure range of participants and no longitudinal samples in our studies. Future research should examine more contextual factors which influenced the relationship between organizational tenure and innovative behavior.

Practical implications

– The results of this study show that long organizational tenure is not negatively related to innovative behaviors. For managers, do not ignore the contribution of long-tenured employees to innovation. Through promotion or job rotation to increase employees’ job satisfaction and innovative willing.

Originality/value

– To authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to examine status attribute class variables in the relationship between organizational tenure on innovative behavior. The study is helpful in providing theoretical foundation and practical skills to such issues regarding how to trigger innovative behavior at different career stages correctly.

Employee suggestion scheme sustainability excellence model and linking organizational learning

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to propose a sustainability assessment model and to discuss the implications for organizational learning. Paper presents a sustainability excellence model comprising of three stages and discuss the good practices for sustaining the employee suggestion scheme.

Design/methodology/approach

– The assessment framework was developed drawing on a thorough review of the literature and data collected and analyzed using various statistical tools. The developed assessment framework was validated through a case of an organization based in the United Arab Emirates. Semi-structured interviews were used to elicit relevant information during the case study.

Findings

– An assessment framework comprising five major factors for sustainability of suggestion scheme of has been presented. The five factors include: leadership and work environment, system capability, system effectiveness, organizational encouragement and system barriers. Sustainability of a suggestion system can be understood as a three-stage model comprising the initial stage, the developmental stage and the advanced stage. The key practices associated for each of these stages are discussed in detail.

Practical implications

– The framework has taken into consideration the critical success factors and critical success factors emerged from the literature review conducted for this study. Therefore, the framework could be further refined by conducting more case studies and can propose maturity levels.

Originality/value

– The paper has developed a framework that can be used to assess the sustainability of the suggestion scheme in an organization. This model has been applied to assess the individual schemes and draw upon potential change strategies.

The determinants for sustainability of an employee suggestion system

Purpose

– Although the corporations widely use the suggestion schemes to elicit the creative ideas of their employee, sustaining a suggestion scheme is still a challenge. Employee suggestion schemes have been studied from many perspectives to illustrate its objectives, nature, content, process, significance and the benefits. Arguments have also been made with respect to the success and failures of the suggestion schemes. The purpose of this paper is to explore the factors to assess the sustainability of a suggestion system.

Design/methodology/approach

– This paper thus explores the critical success factors of suggestion scheme through a literature review and filters the critical determinants for sustainability of suggestion using factor analysis. The data collection was done using a survey technique.

Findings

– The results identity the five major factors as determinants to sustainability of a suggestion system as reported in the paper.

Originality/value

– This paper has made an attempt to explore the determinants to assess the sustainability of a suggestion system and has contributed toward the new knowledge in terms of sustainability of a suggestion system.