Correlates of work-alienation and positive job attitudes in high- and low-status workers

Shedding Light on the Adverse Spillover Effects of Work-Family Conflict on Unethical Sales Behaviors at Work: A Daily Diary Study

Despite the antecedents of unethical sales behavior (USB) have been well studied, these literatures primarily focus on the work domain and neglect the spillover effects of the home domain. Drawing on ego depletion theory as an overarching theoretical framework, this research investigates why and how salespersons' work-family conflict (WFC) at home triggers next day's USB at work. This study used daily diary data collected from 99 salespeople in two weeks to test the proposed hypotheses. The multilevel path analysis indicates that evening's WFC positively affects next afternoon's USB via increased next morning's ego depletion (ED). Furthermore, service climate was found to moderate this indirect relationship, such that the indirect relationship becomes weaker under high service climate. To the best of my knowledge, this study is one of the first to reveal that salespersons' daily WFC may serve as a role conflict event and lead to next day's USB at work, which provides a fine-grained understanding of spillover effects of daily WFC through a daily diary study.

The effect of work area on work alienation among China's grassroots judicial administrators

Work alienation refers to mental self-separation from work, and it is an integral reflection of workers and their work. Few studies have explored the association between work area and work alienation among grassroots judicial administrators. A stratified sampling method was used to collect data from 288 grassroots judicial administrators in Guangzhou to measure the overall status quo and work alienation in this group. This study found that the current grassroots judicial administrative team has a reasonable structure, high professional quality, and rich grassroots work experience, but a high level of work intensity (Mean = .667) and a lack of autonomy (Mean = .757) are prominent. Work area (unstandardized regression coefficient, B = .917) is significantly related to work alienation when controlling for sociodemographic and work characteristic variables: the closer the work area is to the city centre areas, the higher the level of work alienation. In addition, education level also has a significant effect on work alienation: the lower the individual education level is, the stronger the work alienation. The discussion focuses on the knowledge needs in grassroots judicial administrative work and the importance of the external working environment, and further research implications are proposed.

Predictors and Consequences of Work Alienation in Times of Crisis: Evidence from Two Longitudinal Studies During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The present research investigates whether employees felt more alienated from their work during the COVID-19 pandemic than before it, and examines the causes and consequences of this increase in work alienation. To do so, two longitudinal studies using data collected before (T1; October 2019 [Study 1] and November 2019 [Study 2]) and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (T2; May 2020 [Studies 1 and 2]) were conducted (i.e., repeated measures). Data of both studies were analyzed using unobserved effects panel data models. Results of Study 1 (N = 197) indicated that employees reported higher levels of work alienation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Going one step further, results of Study 2 (N = 295) showed that this higher feeling of work alienation may be explained by an increase in professional isolation and a decrease in meaningfulness of work induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. Results also demonstrated that this increase in work alienation negatively affected employees' job satisfaction, affective commitment, and turnover intentions. Findings are discussed and practical implications for managers are identified.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12144-022-03372-9.

The influence of remote work communication satisfaction and CSR association on employee alienation and job satisfaction: a moderated-mediation study

Purpose

Scholars and practitioners have raised concerns that mandatory remote work can lead to feelings of isolation and alienation in employees. Therefore, this study aims to investigate this issue by examining the impact of work communication satisfaction in remote environments on employee alienation and job satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach

Sensemaking and social information processing (SIP) theory are used for formulating the hypotheses. To test the hypotheses, primary data were collected from 418 employees working in various Indian organizations and analyzed using AMOS and Hayes' PROCESS macro for SPSS.

Findings

The findings reveal that work communication satisfaction is negatively associated with alienation and positively associated with job satisfaction. Alienation mediated the relationship between work communication satisfaction and job satisfaction. Additionally, employees belonging to organizations with stronger CSR associations reported feeling less alienated than employees of organizations with weaker CSR associations.

Practical implications

Organizations can improve work communication satisfaction by devising remote communication plans that clarify employee expectations regarding the frequency, purpose and channel of communication. Additionally, organizations should communicate their CSR efforts to employees, particularly during times of crisis, as this can help improve employee impressions of the organization.

Originality/value

The study extends the work on alienation by approaching it from the perspective of sensemaking. The research demonstrates how work and non-work-related social information cues (work communication and CSR associations) can influence employee attitudes through their sensemaking. The context of the study adds to its uniqueness.

Predictors of work alienation: differences between hierarchical levels

Purpose

The current study is aimed at analyzing whether and how organizational constraints (i.e. lack of autonomy) and individual characteristics (i.e. psychological capital) are related to work alienation in subordinates and supervisors, and whether the often hypothesized relationship between autonomy and work alienation is moderated in a three-way interaction (autonomy × psychological capital × hierarchical level). The hypotheses are developed by drawing on the tenets of the job demands-resources model.

Design/methodology/approach

The study is based on two-wave survey data from 294 Dutch employees (subordinates and supervisors).

Findings

The paper finds that autonomy is more negatively related to work alienation for subordinates with low psychological capital than for subordinates with high psychological capital. Autonomy is negatively related to work alienation for leaders, independent of their level of psychological capital.

Originality/value

Antecedents of work alienation have received substantial attention from researchers. The authors aim to better understand these antecedents by highlighting differences between supervisors and subordinates.

Psychometric properties of the Italian version of the sense of community responsibility scale

The central aim of the present research was to examine the psychometric properties of adapted versions of the sense of community (SOC) responsibility scale in three Italian samples. We examined the psychometric properties of three modified versions of the sense of community responsibility (SOC-R) scale. Consistent with the original scale, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses demonstrated that the scale was unidimensional and exhibited excellent internal consistency. In addition, factor analyses revealed that SOC responsibility and SOC are two separate, albeit related, constructs. The results also provided evidence of the discriminant validity of SOC and SOC-R on key outcomes. Taken together, these results provide support for the Community Experience Model, which posits that community experiences are a function of resource and responsibility components, as well as for the adaptable nature of the SOC-R scale to the Italian context.

Exploring the Association Between Work-Family Conflict and Job Involvement

Past research among U.S. correctional staff has found that work-family conflict has negative outcomes such as decreasing job satisfaction, decreasing organizational commitment, and increasing job stress. Little empirical research has addressed the association of the specific types of work-family conflict with job involvement. The present study contributes to the literature by separately analyzing the relationship of the four specific major types of work-family conflict (time-based conflict, strain-based conflict, behavior-based conflict, and family-on-work conflict) with job involvement among surveyed staff at two Chinese prisons. Job involvement varied by the type of work-family conflict. Specifically, time-based conflict and strain-based conflict had nonsignificant association with job involvement, but behavior-based and family-based conflicts had significant negative associations.

Jeopardies of Aversive Leadership: A Conservation of Resources Theory Approach

The research on the dark side of leadership is still in its infancy. We have contributed to this line of research by proposing that work alienation acts as an underlying mechanism through which aversive leadership results in reduced job performance. We further propose that psychological capital (PsyCap) acts as an important personal resource that reduces the negative effects of aversive leadership in the form of work alienation. The proposed model gets its support from the conversation of resources theory given by Hobfoll (1989) which suggests that stressful situation like an aversive leadership results in the loss of employee resources as a result of that he/she indulges in work alienation and shows poor job performance to retain back the lost resources. People with better personal resources in the form of PsyCap are better able to cope-up with the aversive leader behavior and make them able to avoid work alienation. It is a time-lagged study. The data for the current study was collected from 321 employees working in the service sector organizations, particularly universities, banks and telecom organizations, through personally administered questionnaires. The results supported the mediation and moderation hypothesis. Limitations and future research along with theoretical and practical implications are given at the end.

#Trending topics in careers: a review and future research agenda

Purpose

Virtually all contemporary scientific papers studying careers emphasize its changing nature. Indeed, careers have been changing during recent decades, for example becoming more complex and unpredictable. Furthermore, hallmarks of the new career – such as individual agency – are clearly increasing in importance in today’s labor market. This led the authors to ask the question of whether these changes are actually visible in the topics that career scholars research. In other words, the purpose of this paper is to discover the trending topics in careers.

Design/methodology/approach

To achieve this goal, the authors analyzed all published papers from four core career journals (i.e. Career Development International, Career Development Quarterly, Journal of Career Assessment, and Journal of Career Development) between 2012 and 2016. Using a five-step procedure involving three researchers, the authors formulated the 16 most trending topics.

Findings

Some traditional career topics are still quite popular today (e.g. career success as the #1 trending topic), whereas other topics have emerged during recent years (e.g. employability as the #3 trending topic). In addition, some topics that are closely related to career research – such as unemployment and job search – surprisingly turned out not to be a trending topic.

Originality/value

In reviewing all published papers in CDI, CDQ, JCA, and JCD between 2012 and 2016, the authors provide a unique overview of currently trending topics, and the authors compare this to the overall discourse on careers. In addition, the authors formulate key questions for future research.