Managers are installed by the organization’s stakeholders and shareholders to increase the organization’s value; at the same time, they depend on their subordinates’ acceptance to fulfill this leadership role. If the interest of the organization collides with the interest of their team, some managers act in the interest of their followers accepting potential disadvantages for their organizations and/or external stakeholders. In two experimental studies comprised mainly of German (N = 111) and US (N = 323) managers, we examined combined effects of authentic leadership, organizational identification, and self-perceived team prototypicality on managerial integrity operationalized as expressing work-related concerns to prevent organizations from harm (i.e., managerial voice). Our results show direct effects of authentic leadership and organizational identification on voice behavior across both studies. Furthermore, organizational identification increased voice for managers’ low in authentic leadership pointing at a compensation effect. Finally, leader team prototypicality decreased the effect of identification on voice for managers high in authentic leadership but increased voice for managers low in authentic leadership, but only if these managers identified with their organization. In sum, our findings complement prior research that focused mainly on safety and instrumentality concerns by emphasizing the relevance of self-related antecedents of managerial voice.

Research has shown that psychological detachment from work during nonwork time is an important recovery experience and is crucial for employee well-being. Integrating research on job-stress recovery with research on leadership and employee mental health and well-being, this study examines how a leader’s psychological detachment from work during nonwork time directly relates to subordinate psychological detachment from work and indirectly to employee exhaustion and need for recovery. Based on self-report data from 137 employees and their supervisors, this study revealed that leader psychological detachment was related to subordinate psychological detachment and that leader psychological detachment was indirectly related to low subordinate exhaustion and low subordinate need for recovery, also when controlling for negative affectivity and leader-member-exchange. Overall, this study demonstrates that leaders might have an impact on subordinate strain symptoms not only via leadership behavior at work but also via detachment processes during leisure time. These findings suggest that employee recovery processes might not only be regarded as an individual phenomenon, but could be seen as embedded in the larger organizational context.

In this article, three important issues in organizational multilevel research are discussed and clarified, namely: (a) The interpretation of “cross-level direct effects” in theoretical and research multilevel models, (b) the specification of the emergence processes involved in higher-level constructs, and (c) the sample size recommendations for using multilevel statistical methods. By doing so, this article hopes to contribute to the improvement of organizational multilevel research.

The aim of the paper is to discuss the role of the line manager in implementing to plan, implement and evaluate successful organizational interventions using our experiences from the ARK-program. Earlier literature has shown that line managers have a major influence on an intervention’s outcomes (Nielsen, 2017; Saksvik, Nytrø, Dahl-Jørgensen, & Mikkelsen, 2002), however, there is a lack of knowledge about the managements’ role throughout the entire intervention process and how line managers are influenced by the context at different levels. We therefore discuss the line managers’ role within the five phase cycle of an organizational intervention, including preparation, screening, action planning, implementation and evaluation. We also introduce a more in-depth understanding of the context by using of the IGLO-model (Individual, Group, Leadership and Organizational level). Based on our knowledge and experience from the ARK-program we make some recommendations for (a) what the line managers need throughout the five phases in order to contribute to a successful intervention, and (b) on what the line manager has to provide in order to develop and implement a successful intervention process.

Our study explores the validity of a game-based assessment method assessing candidates’ soft skills. Using self-reported measures of performance, (job performance, Organizational Citizenship Behaviors (OCBs), and Great Point Average (GPA), we examined the criterion-related and incremental validity of a game-based assessment, above and beyond the effect of cognitive ability and personality. Our findings indicate that a game-based assessment measuring soft skills (adaptability, flexibility, resilience and decision making) can predict self-reported job and academic performance. Moreover, a game-based assessment can predict academic performance above and beyond personality and cognitive ability tests. The effectiveness of gamification in personnel selection is discussed along with research and practical implications introducing recruiters and HR professionals to an innovative selection technique.

This study among 80 dual-earner couples examines the ripple effects of emotional labour – on a daily basis. Specifically, we propose that employees who engage in surface acting at work drain their energetic resources, and undermine their own relationship satisfaction. Drawing upon conservation of resources (COR) theory, we predicted that work-related exhaustion would mediate the relationship between surface acting at work and at home. In addition, we hypothesized that employees’ emotional energy in the evening would mediate the relationship between surface acting at home and (actor and partner) satisfaction with the relationship. Participants filled in a survey and a diary booklet during five consecutive working days (N = 80 couples, N = 160 participants x 5 days, N = 800 occasions). The hypotheses were tested with multilevel analyses, using the actor–partner interdependence model. Results showed that daily work-related exhaustion partially mediated the relationship between daily surface acting at work and at home. As hypothesized, daily surface acting at home influenced own and partner’s daily relationship satisfaction through reduced daily emotional energy. These findings offer support for COR theory, and have important implications for organizations that encourage emotion regulation.

The present study examines an important contemporary stressor: Job insecurity, both in terms of losing one’s job as such (i.e. quantitative job insecurity) and losing one’s valued job aspects (i.e., qualitative job insecurity). Moreover, we study whether humor assists in offsetting the negative associations of these types of job insecurity with employee well-being. Specifically, by drawing up the conservation of resources theory, self-enhancing and affiliative humor are framed as personal resources buffering the detrimental relationship of both types of job insecurity with burnout (i.e., exhaustion and cynicism) and work engagement (i.e., vigor and dedication) in a large heterogeneous sample of Belgian employees (N = 3,254). Results evidenced the detrimental main effects of quantitative and qualitative job insecurity as well as the beneficial relations of self-enhancing and affilitative humor on burnout and work engagement. In addition, the buffering role of affiliative humor was supported in the relationships of both quantitative and qualitative job insecurity with burnout. Self-enhancing humor only interacted with qualitative job insecurity in the prediction of exhaustion. The discussion centers around the importance of personal resources attenuating the negative associations of quantitative and quantitative job insecurity, and highlights the different roles of humor for employees’ work-related well-being.