Search results

Job burnout is a popular topic for researchers and a pressing issue for employees and employers. However, the most popular measure has become widely critiqued, and a new construct – the Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) – has been offered as a better way to assess burnout.

The study uses data from 1,022 employees across a wide range of occupations, sectors and industries. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and odds ratio calculations are explored.

The present psychometric properties of the BAT construct are supported. Overall, 11.1% of employees met the high burnt-out risk threshold. Determinants of burnt-out risk were explored, with significant findings from high perceptions of organizational support, large firm-size, young age and long work hours found. No gender differences. The odds ratio provides greater insights into the risks associated with factors, especially working 55+ hours/week, which resulted in 580% higher risk of burnt-out risk.

The findings highlight the danger of burnt-out risk and provide a useful benchmark for those exploring the burnt-out risk rate.

The BAT has not been tested in New Zealand across a sample of employees. Given the large size and breadth of employees, this provides useful generalizability to the BAT-NZ. The determinants tested here are all unique to the literature and provide new insights.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the study of work-life balance (WLB) by exploring the influence of WLB amongst older workers. Theoretically, this study suggests that the psychological benefits of age on relationships between WLB and well-being might be stronger for those “younger” older workers than those working toward or beyond retirement age. This study tests a moderated mediation model whereby the effects of WLB on anxiety and depression (through job stress) are moderated by age.

Survey data from 512 New Zealand employees in three older age cohorts (55–59 years, 60–64 and 65+ years).

This study finds that WLB reduces job stress and leads to lower anxiety and depression. Job stress positively influences anxiety and depression and partially mediates the influence of WLB. Significant interaction effects are found by age, with the lower age cohort (55–59 years) reporting the strongest benefits from WLB and this effect reduces as employees get older but remains significant.

Even when focusing on older workers, the findings show younger older workers elicit stronger benefits from WLB toward well-being, although all age groups find WLB beneficial.

This paper offers novel insights into the question of whether the importance of WLB for well-being differs among older workers.

High-performance work systems (HPWSs) are linked to performance, but few studies explore creativity behaviours (CBs). The present study includes job satisfaction as a mediator, and firm size and competitive rivalry as moderators to better understand the context.

Data were collected using a sample of 310 New Zealand managers. Data analysis was a moderated mediation analysis in structural equation modelling using Mplus.

The authors find HPWSs are directly related to CBs and job satisfaction, with job satisfaction fully mediating HPWS effects. Two-way moderation effects show managers in small firms report the highest CBs with high HPWSs, and a significant moderated mediation effect is found with firm size, showing a strong positive indirect effect from HPWS, which diminishes as firm size increases.

HPWSs hold the key to providing managers with opportunities for enhancing their CBs. Exploring the distinct bundles of HPWSs in the present study provides avenues for firms to understand and expand their influence on managers.

The findings of firm size as a boundary condition provides unique insights that aid our understanding of the effectiveness of HPWSs on CBs, and how small-sized New Zealand firms might extract better advantages from HPWSs. A major contribution is testing external firm factors (size and the business environment) to understand what roles they may play on managers’ creativity.

This study aims to identify the variables which influence user perceptions of cloud-based small business accounting software.

This study used the end-user computing satisfaction (EUCS) model developed by Doll and Torkzadeh. Responses to open-ended questions informed these findings.

The findings from this study suggest that user satisfaction and perceived effectiveness were more strongly influenced by content and accuracy than the variables format, ease of use and timeliness.

There were a small number of participants (122) from a single city in New Zealand evaluating a single software application.

Given the increased availability and range of accounting applications for small business, these findings help explain factors which might influence software selection decisions. This study also provides a platform for researchers to extend this research to other cloud-based accounting software applications in their academic research. These findings may also provide software developers with functionality suggestions to be included in future software development.

These findings identify the perceived importance of the factors used to evaluate cloud-base accounting software.

There has been very little research undertaken to identify factors which influence user perceptions of cloud-based accounting software using a structured EUCS framework.

The purpose of this paper is to explore impostor syndrome or impostor phenomenon (IP), which is defined as high-achieving individuals' failure to internalize accomplishments. Despite the wide study of IP, the role of the context beyond the individual is largely ignored, although recently, calls have been made for such scrutiny. In this study perceived organizational support (POS) is included as a contextual factor.

Using a large and representative sample (n = 1,042) of New Zealand employees, the study seeks to investigate IP using the standard Clance IP scale test, and the frequency of IP is calculated. Next, it assesses the links between IP and mental health, specifically job anxiety and job depression, are explored. POS is included as a moderator.

Overall, the study finds solid evidence of the psychometric properties of the scale, with the following frequencies across categories: few IP issues (14.0%), moderate IP issues (37.3%), frequent IP issues (39.7%) and intense IP issues (8.9%). Regression analysis shows that IP is positively related to job anxiety and job depression. The interactions between POS and IP support the hypothesized buffering effect. Additional tests suggest that IP is a widespread workplace phenomenon irrespective of individual or organization demographics.

The findings of this study highlight the common nature of IP in the workplace and its role in mental health. However, POS clearly can play a key role in its management in the workplace.

The IP literature has a limited focus on workplaces, and mental health, including POS as a moderator, and provides additional value.

Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa/New Zealand and have a history of experiencing discrimination, which occurs similarly for Pacific peoples. While both ethnic groups have lower pay and higher unemployment issues, their workplace experiences around perceived discrimination are seldom explored. Consequently, this study tests the influence of perceived discrimination on work outcomes (job satisfaction and work engagement) and well-being outcomes (job stress, job anxiety and job depression). Further, potential buffering effects of perceived organizational support (POS) and gender are conducted to test the symbolic interaction perspective (gender differences towards the potential buffering effects of POS).

The study uses data from Māori employees (n = 437) and Pacific employees (n = 148) for a total sample of 585 employees across a wide range of occupations and industries. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the data was used, and two-way and three-way moderations were conducted.

Overall, perceived discrimination was detrimentally related to all outcomes. Further, significant three-way interactions were found towards all well-being outcomes. This supported the symbolic interaction perspective, whereby high POS buffered perceived discrimination best for females, but low POS was key for males.

This research is important because the authors provide much-needed empirical evidence around ethnic discrimination in Aotearoa/New Zealand workplaces and extend the outcomes explored in the discrimination literature. Implications for organizations include establishing the rate of discrimination and developing human resource management (HRM) practices to address this.

Beyond the unique findings towards Māori and Pacific employees, the strong support for the symbolic interaction perspective provides useful insights into understanding that support benefits differ by gender.

Using the conservation of resource theory, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the potentially positive influence of job stress on creativity through the resource caravan approach. The influence of job stress directly and as a moderator of psychological capital (PsyCap) is explored. Finally, the influence of stress on creativity is investigated as a boundary condition that impacts on the PsyCap-creativity relationship via job satisfaction.

Relationships were tested on two samples: (1) an international employee cohort (n = 269) and (2) a New Zealand employee sample (n = 475) and similar effects were found in both studies.

PsyCap was found to influence job satisfaction and creativity, with job satisfaction partially mediating this direct effect. Job stress has a positive moderation effect with PsyCap toward creativity, supporting Conservation of Resources theory, which suggests that high PsyCap individuals would have the psychological resources to leverage stress beneficially, making their behaviors more creative. Significant moderated mediation effects indicate complex indirect effects with PsyCap on creativity (via job satisfaction) increasing as job stress gets higher.

This study calls for researchers' attention toward potentially positive influences of stress when considered in combination with high psychological resources. Practical implications focus manager's and leader's attention toward the enhancement of employees' psychological resources for its stress and creativity related benefits.

The findings provide new theoretical support for understanding how stress can positively influence creativity. The use of two samples improves confidence in these findings.

The study maps workplace stakeholders’ perceptions of living wage (LW) impacts in New Zealand. Empirical findings inform an inaugural model of LW impacts and contingent factors at individual, organisation, sector/industry and national levels.

Data from a national employee survey, semi-structured interviews with business sector representatives, and staff in two LW organisation cases were subjected to thematic content analysis.

Informants emphasised anticipated LW impacts amid complex workplace and regulatory dynamics. Employers/managers stressed its cost effects. However, employees, human resource (HR) advocates and other LW proponents highlighted employee “investment” impacts that improve worker productivity and societal circumstances.

This study highlights the need for further context-sensitive LW analysis. An initial model of LW impacts provides a framework for comparative and longitudinal work in other national contexts.

The proposed model categorises perceived LW effects and can inform policy development. Findings also stress a need for cross-agency initiatives to address LW concerns, including a key role for HR.

The findings highlight perceptions of a LW impacting within and beyond the workplace. Whilst higher-quality management is seen to encourage better-informed decisions about “going living wage”, a LW's positive socio-economic impacts require multi-lateral initiatives, suggesting that those initiatives are is part of wider obligations for policy makers to encourage decent living standards.

This study provides a much-needed and inaugural focus on the intertwined workplace and wider impacts of a LW, extending extant econometric analyses. The paper also synthesizes different data sources to develop an inaugural, context-sensitive model of perceived LW effects.

Organizational climates reflect employee perceptions of the way organizational culture is actualized and most studies explore one or two climates only. The present study uses a positive organizational behavior approach and conservation of resources theory to explore a global positive climate (GPC) encompassing five climates: perceive organizational support, psychosocial safety climate, organizational mindfulness, worthy work and inclusion climate. The GPC is used to predict employee engagement and job satisfaction, with psychological capital as a mediator. Beyond this, high performance work systems (HPWS) are included as a moderator of GPC to test the potential way HR practices might interact with positive climates to achieve superior outcomes.

A large sample (n = 1,007) of New Zealand workers across a wide range of occupations and industries. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the data was used and moderated mediation tests were conducted.

GPC is significantly related to psychological capital, employee engagement and job satisfaction, and while psychological capital also predicts the outcomes, and has some mediation effects on GPC influence, GPC remains significant. HPWS is significantly related to psychological capital only and interacts with GPC leading to the highest psychological capital and employee engagement. Significant moderated mediation effects are found, with the indirect effect of GPC increasing as HPWS increase.

This research is important because it provides empirical evidence around a GPC and shows how organizations and HRM managers can enhance key employee attitudes through building a strong climate and providing important HR practices.

Beyond unique effects from GPC, the findings provide useful theoretical insights toward conservation of resources theory.

Increasingly, leaders are faced with complex, difficult and demanding situations that challenge their very sense of self, including their workplace wellbeing. It has been suggested that this challenge can be mitigated for leaders by pursuing goals and activities that reflect their beliefs, interests and values. As such, leaders whose motivations reflect intrinsic and self-congruent beliefs and values are likely to experience beneficial wellbeing, yet, reviewing this from a self-determination theory (SDT) lens, the authors find this assertion remains to be fully tested. Concurrently, the work–family enrichment (WFE) literature highlights that potential positive synergies exist between work and home. The authors further argue that this synergy may also provide greater insight and understanding into the quality of leaders’ motivation and wellbeing, and as such also requires attention. As such, the purpose of this paper is to examine the path to wellbeing for leaders and includes leaders’ “whole lives” (including enrichment) and not just their work lives (motivations).

Quantitative research including two studies of 386 junior/senior leaders and 205 CEOs, investigated the role of motivation as defined by SDT and WFE towards leaders’ job satisfaction. Hypotheses were tested using SEM in AMOS to assess the direct and meditational effects of the study variables.

A partial mediation model was found to best fit the data for both studies. In study 1, the effects of self-determined motivation dimensions on job satisfaction were fully mediated by WFE and family–work enrichment (FWE). However, the non-self-determined dimensions of SDT motivations were directly and negatively related to job satisfaction and enrichment. In study 2, self-determined forms of motivation were positively related to WFE and FWE and job satisfaction, while only WFE was positively related to job satisfaction. The non-self-determined dimensions of SDT motivations were directly and negatively related to WFE and job satisfaction.

Overall, both studies show that the influence of motivations on job satisfaction of leaders is better understood through enrichment. As such organisations are encouraged to enhance both leader’s motivations, and enrichment, in order to facilitate a path to job satisfaction.

This paper is the first to test over two studies and levels of leadership, motivation and enrichment for leaders. As such this paper provides a novel “path” to wellbeing that includes aspects of the leaders’ motivation, as well as the importance of leaders’ enrichment and home domain. Overall the authors suggest that leaders’ “whole” lives play a role in their job satisfaction, and this is important to understand as the authors try to resource leaders, who work in an increasingly demanding workplace environment.