Suchergebnisse

Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between authentic leadership and team climate across 22 months. More specifically, three alternative causation models (normal, reversed, reciprocal) were tested.


Design/methodology/approach
– The longitudinal study was conducted among 265 Finnish municipal employees (87.5 per cent women, mean age 48.4 years). The participants completed a questionnaire three times: at baseline (T1), about 14 months after baseline (T2) and about eight months after the second questionnaire (T3).


Findings
– The cross-lagged analyses based on structural equation modelling lent support to the reversed causation model more than the normal causation and reciprocal models. More specifically, team climate at T2 predicted authentic leadership across eight months at T3. Thus the study suggests that positive team climate (i.e. vision, participation safety, task orientation, and support for innovation) may foster authentic leadership in the long term and not vice versa.


Practical/implications
– The findings suggest that − besides improving team climate and authentic leadership themselves – team climate should be improved in order to enable authentic leadership to develop and flourish. It is important to emphasize that in forming the team climate employees are active agents and not passive targets.


Originality/value
– The study is among the first to test different causal models regarding authentic leadership and team climate. From the theoretical viewpoint, the findings suggest that follower-centric theories of leadership merit greater attention in the future.

PurposeIntensified job demands (IJDs; work intensification, intensified job- and career-related planning and decision-making demands, and intensified learning demands) illustrate the intensification of working life. This study examined relationships between IJDs and work engagement.Design/methodology/approachNine diverse samples (n = 7,786) were analyzed separately via regression analysis by estimating linear and curvilinear relationships between IJDs and engagement.FindingsThe results showed that certain subdimensions of IJDs, i.e. intensified learning demands, related positively to engagement across several subsamples. Moreover, learning demands showed a curvilinear relationship with engagement in several subsamples; engagement was highest in a moderate level of learning demands whereas low and high levels of learning demands were associated with lower engagement. We also found that other subdimensions of IJDs did not show consistent positive relationships with engagement, and some of them were negatively associated with engagement.Research limitations/implicationsCross-sectional design.Practical implicationsOrganizations should consider what would be the optimal level of learning demands as excessive learning demands can be detrimental to employees' engagement.Originality/valueThis is a first study focusing on different manifestations of the intensification of working life, operationalized via IJDs, and their curvilinear relationships with engagement by applying a multi-sample design.

Abstract. This study investigates family background (child-centered parenting, parental socioeconomic status), school success in adolescence, and career orientation (education, stability of career line) in adulthood as antecedents of adult sense of coherence (SOC; Antonovsky, 1987a ), which has been posited to be a disposition crucial to understanding individual differences in successful coping with stress. Participants (104 men and 98 women) were drawn from the ongoing Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS), which was started when the participants were 8- or 9-year-old children (in 1968). Data gathered at ages 14, 27, 36, and 42 were used in this study. The results of structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that child-centered parenting in adolescence and a stable career line in adulthood were directly associated with a high SOC at age 42. In addition, child-centered parenting, high parental socioeconomic status, and school success at age 14 were indirectly associated with adult SOC via education and stability of career line. The SEM multigroup comparison showed that the obtained associations were similar for men and women.

Abstract. In the present study we analyzed the conceptual relationship of sense of coherence (SOC) to the five-factor model of personality (FFM; i.e., Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness). Participants (109 men, 114 women) were drawn from the ongoing Jyväskylä Longitudinal Study of Personality and Social Development (JYLS); which was started when the participants were 8 or 9-years old (in 1968): Data gathered at age 42 were used in this study. SOC was measured by the 13-item Orientation to Life Questionnaire ( Antonovsky, 1987 ) and FFM personality traits with the NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI; Costa & McCrae, 1989 ). The results obtained from structural equation modeling (SEM) indicated that a high SOC was strongly associated with Neuroticism (-.85). In addition, SOC showed modest positive associations with Extraversion, Openness, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness. On the basis of the present results, it seems reasonable to assume that SOC and reversed Neuroticism (i.e., emotional stability) are closely related constructs at the conceptual, theoretical, and empirical levels.