Modern careers are enacted in turbulent and stressful environments and workers face increasing uncertainty in navigating their careers. Therefore, it is essential to support workers in coping with stress by enhancing their resilience. We propose that strengths-based leaders help their workers to find their own unique pathway to developing resilience by building upon their pre-existing strengths. In turn, we propose that resilience allows workers to transform the support and opportunities provided by their strengths-based leader into the active state of work engagement. We conducted a two-wave time-lagged survey among a representative sample of 1,095 Dutch employees. Results of our structural equation modelling indicated that T1 strengths-based leadership was positively related to T2 employee work engagement and that T2 employee resilience mediated the relationship between strengths-based leadership (T1) and employee work engagement (T2). We conclude that strengths-based leadership might be a tool to develop a resilient and engaged workforce and make suggestions for developing strengths-based leadership.

Integrating the literature on talent management and teams, and drawing upon the signaling theory as the overarching framework, we investigated the moderated indirect effects of talent inducements on employee creativity via employee work engagement in teams. Empirical data from matched leader-members indicated that team talent inducement was positively related to member work engagement, which was then positively associated with team and member creativity. In addition, individual learning and performance-approach goal orientation positively moderated this indirect relationship, whereas individual performance-avoidance goal orientation negatively moderated this indirect relationship. Together, these results illuminate a cross-level influence process of team talent inducements on creativity and individual goal orientations as boundary conditions.

Work engagement is a scientifically consolidated variable, due to its fundamental role in business practice. To increase work engagement in companies, it is necessary to know which variables are antecedents and how they relate to each other. These variables include job autonomy, job crafting, and psychological capital. This research evaluates the relationships between job autonomy, job crafting, psychological capital, and work engagement. Specifically, based on the job demands and resources model and the conservation of resources theory, the study examines these relationships in a sample of 483 employees, through a serial mediation model. The results show that job crafting, and psychological capital mediates the relationship between job autonomy and work engagement. These results have practical implications for interventions to promote employee work engagement.

The uncertainty and insecurity generated by COVID-19 has greatly reshaped work styles, bringing employees more strain and less engagement and subsequently making human resource management (HRM) more challenging. There has been a growing interest in employee work engagement in the field of HRM. This study utilized positive psychology and the job demands-resources model to explore the mediating mechanism between high-performance work systems (HPWS) and employee work engagement. Based on survey data from 71 senior HR managers and 288 employees of 71 China's manufacturing state-owned enterprises, multilevel structural equation modeling shows that HPWS is positively related to work engagement. Employee-perceived internal marketability fully mediates the relationship between HPWS and work engagement. The key result of this paper is that employee-perceived internal marketability is seen as a core personal psychological resource that can be developed through HPWS to benefit both employers and employees.

Drawing on social exchange theory, our study aims to examine how age-inclusive human resource (HR) practices affect work engagement by shaping the age-diversity climate and perceived organizational support (POS). We hypothesize that diversity beliefs play a moderating role in the relationship between age-inclusive HR practices and POS. Our analysis of a sample of 983 employees from 48 organizations in China highlights the direct impact of age-inclusive HR practices on work engagement. Moreover, age-diversity climate and POS mediate the association between age-inclusive HR practices and work engagement. We further demonstrate that diversity beliefs play a moderating role in the association between age-inclusive HR practices and POS. Our findings not only contribute to the literature but also provide practical implications for managing an aging workforce.

Research has acknowledged the value of bootleg innovation behavior (BIB) to organizational innovation. Unfortunately, we know little about the factors that lead to the emergence of this behavior, how and when it occurs. Integrating self-concordance theory and sense-making perspective, we build a moderated mediation model positioning work engagement as a mediator of the organizational identification's effects on BIB, and willingness to take risks as a moderator of such effects. The results based on data analysis of 237 employees from different organizations in China show that organizational identification is positively related to BIB and work engagement partially mediates this link. Moreover, willingness to take risks not only moderates the work engagement–BIB association but also moderates the mediating effect of work engagement between organizational identification and BIB. Notably, at the lowest level of willingness to take risks, the influence of organizational identification on BIB via work engagement is insignificant.

The literature on the job demands–resources (JD-R) theory has flourished for the past decade due to the theory's simplicity and its applications in many areas of work life. However, the literature is lacking on how leaders can utilize this theory to manage employees, especially in the Asian leadership context. Using the JD-R theory, the current study investigated each aspect of paternalistic leadership (i.e., benevolent leadership, authoritarian leadership and moral leadership) and its influence on employees' job resources (i.e., work meaningfulness and influence at work), job demands (i.e., emotional and cognitive demands), work engagement, burnout and the processes involved. Four hundred and thirty-one (431) full-time working employees (mean age: 31.58; female: 57.8%) from various organizations in Malaysia participated in the study. Using structural equation modelling, the study's results showed that the benevolent aspect of paternalistic leadership was related to higher work engagement and lower burnout through work meaningfulness (but not through influence at work). In contrast, the authoritarian aspect of paternalistic leadership was related to higher burnout through emotional demands (but not through cognitive demands), while the moral leadership aspect had no significant relationship to employees' job demands or job resources, with a mediation process not found in either relationship. Overall, the study revealed three contrasting mechanisms for each aspect of paternalistic leadership and suggested how paternalistic leadership may be practised in Asian countries.

Responding to the call for more research on cognitive crafting, this study focuses on employees' reframing of their job characteristics to assign higher importance to job resources and downplay the relevance of costly job demands. Furthermore, it examines how these proactive cognitive strategies are embedded in an overall job crafting process, including both cognitive and behavioral aspects, and linked with work engagement. Preliminary results (n = 247) support the conceptualization of cognitive crafting encompassing approach and avoidance aspects targeting resources and demands, respectively. Moreover, three-wave data (n = 84) show that employees' cognitive efforts to highlight the centrality of job resources influence work engagement over time. Importantly, proactively organizing work leads to higher work engagement by prompting cognitive reframing of the relevance of job resources as central to one's work. Differently, cognitive efforts to downplay the relevance of hindering job demands are unrelated to following proactive behaviors and work engagement.

Drawing on the job demands-resources model and conservation of resources theory, this study investigates how and when the high-performance work systems (HPWS) influence proactive workforce. Using the data obtained from 204 supervisor-employee dyads in China, we developed and tested a moderated mediation model in which leader-member exchange (LMX) moderates the positive relationship between HPWS and proactive behavior via work engagement. Our results demonstrated that the association between HPWS and proactivity was fully mediated by work engagement. We also found that the indirect effect of HPWS on proactivity was significantly weaker among employees with high-quality LMX. Theoretical and practical implications, as well as directions for future research, are then discussed.

Drawing on conservation of resources and signaling theories, this research aims to develop a cross-level serial mediation model of branch-level predictors of frontline employees' service performance. Specifically, we examined whether the service-oriented human resource practices bundle (SO-HRP bundle) affects frontline employees' service performance via person–environment fit (P–E fit) and work engagement. Based on a sample of 327 employees and their supervisors across 70 branches of two service corporations in Taiwan, it was found, first, that the SO-HRP bundle and work engagement have a significant positive relationship; second, that person–organization fit and person–job fit was each positively linked with work engagement; and finally, that the SO-HRP bundle sequentially formed a positive link with frontline employee service performance through P–E fit and work engagement. The findings shine new light on the cross-level serial mediation processes whereby employee service performance is enhanced owing to the SO-HRP bundle.

Do perceptions of work conditions prompt employees to adopt entrepreneurial behaviors? Does well-being play a role in this relationship? This paper proposes an integrated model of the associations between perceptions of work conditions (job resources and job demands) and the dimensions of entrepreneurial behaviors (innovative behavior, proactive behavior, and risk-taking behavior). Following the job demands-resources model, we also explore whether employees' well-being (work engagement and emotional exhaustion) mediates the association between work conditions and employees' behavior. Survey data of 257 R&D employees from the chemical sector in Spain were analyzed. The research concludes that different work conditions correlate with the dimensions of entrepreneurial behavior of employees (EBE) in different ways. Job demands are associated with innovative work behavior. Feelings of engagement are related to the dimensions of EBE and play a mediating role between job resources and EBE. Moreover, feelings of exhaustion and risk-taking behavior are connected.

In this paper, we evaluate the factorial validity of the Spanish short version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES–9) and assess its predictive validity with respect to self-assessed work performance. A total of 229 employees from educational institutions in Ecuador participated. Using a model comparison analysis, the unidimensional model exhibited an excellent goodness of fit, χ2 = 26.176 (24), p = .344; CFI =1.000; TLI = 1.000; RMSEA = .020; SRMR = .034; it was not improved by more complex models, Three-factor model: χ2 = 22.148 (21), p = .391; CFI =1.000; TLI = 1.000; RMSEA = .016; SRMR = .033. Two-factor model: χ2 = 26.080 (23), p = .297; CFI = 1.000; TLI = 1.000; RMSEA = .025; SRMR = .034). Therefore, it is justified as a unidimensional instrument of work engagement. However, upon analyzing the correlation patterns of the overall score and the work engagement dimensions in relation to the task performance, contextual performance, and counterproductive behaviors, we conclude that, while the unidimensional model exhibits a good fit, the three-factor theoretical approach is substantively superior in that it maintains differential predictive validity for each theoretical dimension.

While research suggests that work centrality has a positive effect on work engagement and a negative influence on family satisfaction, these relations may differ as a function of one's work setting (onsite vs. remote working). In the present study, we examined the direct and indirect – through work-family conflict (WFC), family-work conflict (FWC), work-family enrichment (WFE), and family-work enrichment (FWE) – effects of work centrality on work engagement and family satisfaction. We also examined whether these effects of work centrality on work engagement and family satisfaction differed between onsite and remote employees. We used a cross-sectional survey design to test our hypotheses among a total of 432 employees, including 152 always working onsite and 280 working remotely. As expected, our results revealed that work centrality was positively related to work engagement and negatively to family satisfaction. Moreover, the indirect effects (IE) of work centrality on work engagement were significantly mediated by WFE, whereas the IE of work centrality on family satisfaction were significantly mediated by FWC, WFE, and FWE. Finally, the relations between work centrality and the outcomes (work engagement and family satisfaction) were stronger among onsite employees than among remote employees. These results revealed that remote working may act as a double-edged sword by buffering the negative effects of work centrality on family satisfaction but also limiting the positive effects of work centrality on work engagement. Organizations and managers should thus consider addressing employees' work centrality and work type in their efforts to promote employees' professional and personal well-being.

This study examines how employee perceptions of the availability and the (in)effectiveness of human resource (HR) practices in schools relate to employee performance via work engagement. Incorporating the views of 208 Dutch primary and secondary education teachers, this study's findings show that both the availability and effectiveness of HR practices are positively associated with teacher work engagement and in turn job performance. However, when employees perceive the available HR practices as effective, this has a stronger effect on teacher work engagement compared to when they only perceive the HR practices as available. Moreover, results show that HR practices that are mentioned as available, but considered ineffective, are negatively related to employee engagement and job performance. Finally, our results provide initial evidence for potential differential effects of ability-, motivation- and opportunity-enhancing HR bundles on work engagement and job performance, depending on whether the availability, ineffectiveness or effectiveness of HR practices is studied.

Increasing numbers of people are working part-time (PT) hours, sometimes involuntarily (IPT). Australia has the fourth highest percentage of PT employees among Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development countries (26%). This study examines relationships between work design factors and workplace inclusion for PT employees and identifies how perceived inclusion and work engagement of PT and IPT employees compares with full-time (FT) employees. Data were collected using an online questionnaire distributed to employees in Australia. A part-time work design model was developed and tested across two independent samples using partial least squares. Results suggest that PT and IPT employees feel less included in the workplace compared to FT employees. PT employees also perceive their roles to be less task interdependent. A key finding was that PT employees' perceived inclusion was related to proactive behaviors, autonomy, and job crafting, in addition to hours worked. Implications for the management of PT employees are discussed.