With limited studies on antecedents and consequences of work engagement with special reference to NGOs, two novel antecedents of work engagement, namely workload (job demand) and proactive personality (job resource) are introduced in the study. By drawing on the revised JD-R model, the study empirically examines the indirect effects of job demands, job resources, personal resources, and ideological resources on organizational outcomes, i.e. intention to quit and organizational citizenship behaviour through work engagement in NGOs. The data collected from paid employees of registered NGOs operating in India were analysed using structural equation modelling. The study reveals that workload does not decrease employees' work engagement in NGOs. Whereas employment insecurity was negatively associated with work engagement. Besides, transformational leadership, intrinsic rewards, community service self-efficacy, proactive personality, and public service motivation played a vital role in fostering work engagement in NGOs. Furthermore, work engagement was negatively associated with the intention to quit and positively associated with organizational citizenship behaviour.

This study examines the psychometric properties of a new self-report instrument to measure organisational connectedness (The Four-Dimensional Connectedness Scale; 4DCS) in two volunteer samples: state emergency service volunteers and volunteer ambulance workers. Confirmatory factor analyses in both studies supported the proposed four-factor structure of the 4DCS (other workers, recipients, task and values). In addition, confirmatory factor analyses showed that connectedness, commitment and engagement were separate constructs—a three-factor model with a Connectedness factor, a Commitment factor and an Engagement factor fitted best to the data. Moreover, hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that connectedness and engagement each shared unique variance with job satisfaction and intention to continue. The results confirm the factorial, discriminant and predictive validity of connectedness relative to engagement and commitment. It is concluded that the 4DCS has acceptable psychometric properties and that the instrument can be used to study volunteer wellbeing.

There is a paucity of research on volunteers compared with paid workers. The aim of this study is to examine the mediating roles of work engagement and connectedness simultaneously in the motivational pathway of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model. Survey data were collected from 471 volunteer participants and analysed using structural equation modelling methods. Contrary to expectation, the findings did not show that engagement mediates the relationship between job resources and volunteer satisfaction (1), between job resources and determination to continue (2), and between job resources and health (3). The findings, did however, show that connectedness mediates the relationship between job resources and volunteer satisfaction (4), between job resources and determination to continue (5), and between job resources and health (6). These findings add support to the motivational pathway of the JD-R theory to understand volunteer wellbeing and retention in health care organizations, but suggest that the theory may be expanded to include connectedness as a mediator.

The literature on the health-promoting effects of community work has primarily dealt with the population in retirement age, yet the vast majority of volunteers are people still in the workforce. The aim of this study is to observe the relationship between volunteering and health within the context of working life, considering paid work conditions and motives to volunteer as moderating variables. We conducted an online survey with a sample of Swiss workers employed in different industries. Results show that volunteers with self-determined motives (but not with controlled motives) report lower levels of stress and burnout than non-volunteers. Moreover, volunteers in general (regardless of the quality of motivation) report higher levels of work engagement and well-being. Analyses further reveal an interaction effect for burnout and stress, where the difference between self-determined volunteers and non-volunteers becomes larger with unfavorable working conditions at their paid job, hinting at potential compensatory effects. Implications for future research and the voluntary sector are discussed.

It has been assumed that third-sector organizations attract ideologically oriented employees. Therefore, employees consider their work as more meaningful. However, employees’ ideological orientation has not been taken into account in previous studies on work engagement. With this in mind, the present study sets out to apply an extended job demand-resources (JD-R) model in a survey conducted with Finnish third-sector employees (N = 1,412). The results showed that third-sector employees report higher work engagement than employees generally in the work engagement studies. In addition to job demands and resources, work engagement is associated with public service motivation and value congruence. Thus, public service motivation theory offers more insight into third-sector employees’ work engagement than the conventionally used JD-R model.

With limited studies on the relative effectiveness of different leadership styles in NPOs, the purpose of this paper is to propose a model in which work engagement mediates the effects of transformational leadership and transactional leadership simultaneously on affective commitment and organizational citizenship behavior among NPOs employees. Furthermore, the paper aims to investigate whether transformational leadership better explains work engagement and the aforesaid outcomes than transactional leadership. Relying on large scale data collected from employees working in two types of NPOs categories (human service organizations and charities) in the north of Italy, structural equation modeling was utilized to verify the aforesaid linkages. Among others, the indirect effect of transformational leadership on affective commitment and organizational citizenship behavior, through work engagement, was stronger than the indirect effect of transactional leadership. Implications, limitations, and future research are provided.

Turnover intention constitutes a challenge for organizations. Meaningful work and employee engagement can reduce turnover intention, but their relationship is complex. This study aims to understand how meaningful work, work and organizational engagement, and turnover intention interact with each other. Using a structural equation model with data from 562 employees, meaningful work was examined as the independent variable, turnover intention as the dependent variable, and work and organizational engagement as serial mediators. Results show that work engagement partially mediates the relationship between meaningful work and organizational engagement, and organizational engagement partially mediates the link between work engagement and turnover intention. Additionally, a serial mediation effect of work and organizational engagement on the relationship between meaningful work and turnover intention was confirmed. Therefore, we encourage organizations to provide meaningfulness to their employees’ jobs and engage them within their job and organization not only to promote retention, but also to develop an engaged, healthy and sustainable workforce that supports both organizational sustainability and general societal well-being.

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.