Academic literature on the topic 'Discretionary workplace behavior'

PurposeThis paper aims to examine the role of two mediating variables in the relationship between spiritual leadership with organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). The two mediating variables used in the study were organization-based self-esteem (OBSE) and workplace spirituality as followers’ intrinsic motivation and self-concept factors. Furthermore, the research also examined the role of perceived organizational support as moderating variable on the relationship between spiritual leadership and workplace spirituality.Design/methodology/approachA survey was conducted using questionnaires via a face-to-face method. The five-point Likert scale was used to assess the variables and to measure the items. The tool of analysis used was partial least square. The sample consisted of 234 respondents encompassing teachers and educational staffs of an Islamic based education institution in Indonesia.FindingsThe results supported five out of the eight proposed hypotheses. It was apparent that there was a partial mediating role of the OBSE as followers’ motivational concept on the relationship between spiritual leadership and organization citizenship behavior.Research limitations/implicationsThe dearth of literature on the adoption of spiritual leadership in Islamic schools makes the depth of discussion on the study framework somewhat limited.Practical implicationsThe insight provided by this study into understanding and link between spiritual leadership and OCB among Muslim education practitioners. While a large body of leadership research has adopted a variation of leadership theories, the results shifted the focus of attention to the adoption of spiritual leadership as an essential determinant of discretionary behavior in a religious-based institution.Social implicationsIslamic schools are in dire need of teachers with discretionary behavior. Spiritual leadership proved to have a significant relationship with organizational based self-esteem and OCB. It promotes the intrinsic well-being of the follower by creating a vision where people can achieve their higher purposes of life and contributing to society by performing services to others, and by giving people a feeling of being appreciated.Originality/valueThe study extends scholarly understanding on the role of spiritual leadership, which is a relatively new and growing area of interest for academics and practitioners, in shaping teachers and academic staffs’ OCBs regarding both theory and practice.

Prior research provides various views on subordinates' workplace deviated behavior as retaliation against supervisory abuse, the effect of abusive supervision (AS) on subordinates as a group and their interpersonal relations gets poor attention. Grounded on the social exchange theory, the present study presents a model where a group of subordinates exhibits seemingly opposite discretionary behaviors in integration to combat supervisory abuse. In particular, this study posits that subordinates who experience abuse from the same supervisor form a group. This group bond provides them with enough power to involve in deviant behavior against their supervisor and supervisor's favored coworkers. Multiple source data were collected, and linear hierarchal regression in addition to process macro methodology was used for data analysis. Findings support the mediation hypotheses partially.

Constructs from a conceptual model of the volunteer process were applied to discretionary helping in the workplace (Organizational Citizenship Behavior or OCB). A total of 193 employees at 4 private companies completed anonymous surveys measuring amount of OCB, motives for engaging in citizenship behavior, and the extent to which those motives were fulfilled by the behavior. Also assessed was the degree to which respondents developed an organizational citizen role identity. Amount of OCB and the strength of a citizen identity correlated with two motives for helping, concern for coworkers and concern for the organization, as well as with the fulfillment of those motives. Impression management motives were related to citizenship behaviors directed toward coworkers but not to citizenship activities targeting the organization per se. Impression management goals also were unrelated to formation of a citizen role identity. The findings suggest that similar dispositional factors are involved in sustaining volunteerism and OCB.

Purpose There is strong and growing evidence of the importance of leadership and management factors influence on employee engagement and discretionary effort. However, the problem is that there has been limited recent effort to review where research gaps exit and provide a direction to guide future research. The purpose of this paper is to provide an integrated perspective on the influence of leadership and management factors on employee engagement and discretionary effort. Design/methodology/approach The review of the literature includes empirical research and case studies related to employee engagement and discretionary effort from various databases such as Business Premier, Cambridge University Press, JSTOR, Springer, Emerald, Wiley, ProQuest and ISI Web of Science. Supporting material was also accessed from reference books regarding similar concepts and theories. Findings The review provides a current view of the key topics, identifies three key research gaps, suggests a refined, up-to-date definition of both employee engagement and discretionary effort, and proposes a conceptual framework to inform future research. In doing so, it offers new directions for progressing studies on these critical workplace practices and behaviours particularly the inclusion of national culture as a moderating variable when investigating or implementing employee engagement and discretionary effort strategies. Research limitations/implications Findings are based on existing literature and require empirical testing. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed. Originality/value Undertaking a review of the literature is an important part of any research and this review aims to organise, describe and appraise the current literature with a view to gaining a critical perspective for the benefit of researchers.

This paper contains an examination of the fundamental assumption underlying the use of accessibility indicators: that an individual's travel behavior is related to his or her location vis-à-vis the distribution of potential activity sites. First, the conceptual and measurement issues surrounding accessibility and its relationship to travel are reviewed; then, an access measure for individuals is formulated. Using data from the Uppsala (Sweden) Household Travel Survey and controlling for sex, automobile availability, and employment status, the authors explore the relationship between both home- and work-based accessibility and five aspects of an individual's travel: mode use, trip frequencies and travel distances for discretionary purposes, trip complexity, travel in conjunction with the journey to work, and size of the activity space. From the results it can be seen that although all of these travel characteristics are related to accessibility to some degree, the travel–accessibility relationship is not as strong as deductive formulations have implied. High accessibility levels are associated with higher proportions of travel by nonmotorized means, lower levels of automobile use, reduced travel distances for certain discretionary trip purposes, and smaller individual activity spaces. Furthermore, the density of activity sites around the workplace affects the distances travelled by employed people for discretionary purposes. Overall, accessibility level has a greater impact on mode use and travel distance than it does on discretionary trip frequency. This result was unexpected in light of the strong trip frequency–accessibility relationship posited frequently in the literature.

Empathic leaders often create high-quality relationships with their subordinates, and these relationships are suggested to increase several beneficial outcomes for employees and organizations alike. Yet leader–member exchange (LMX) theory suggests that leaders do not have such high-quality relationships with each of their subordinates, leading to varying levels of LMX differentiation. We examine how leaders’ empathic concern, a trait-based assessment of leader empathy, may incite additional discretionary efforts in the form of assisting coworkers with interpersonal facilitation and taking on additional tasks with job dedication. However, we suggest that when these empathic leaders are constrained, it reduces their ability to form high-quality relationships with all of their subordinates, resulting in high LMX differentiation. This LMX differentiation is expected to influence empathic leaders’ ability to motivate their followers to engage in altruistic behaviors. In a field study of workplace groups, we find that leader empathic concern positively affects interpersonal facilitation and job dedication only when LMX differentiation is low, providing support for our contention that the effects of empathic leadership may be situationally constrained. Findings and future directions are discussed.

Purpose – This study, inspired by the theory of the separate spheres, considers the social circumstances of employee benefits, examining the needs of fathers in dual-earner families to cope with work and family responsibilities. The purpose of this paper is to explore how high-tech managers view the work-family interface of R & D engineers and analyzes the typical package of discretionary, non-financial, work-family employee benefits. Design/methodology/approach – Relying on the phenomenological approach, in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 22 private-sector managers disclosed their shared perception and experience, revealing the informal level at which underlying social principles becomes business strategy, often intuitively. Findings – Values of gender are assimilated into the informal environment and reflected in the selection of benefits which have been effective in attracting labor in demand. Recently these values have been challenged by new ideas of more involved fatherhood, and these are inadequately addressed by the package of benefits. Research limitations/implications – Larger samples from various socio-cultural settings are needed. Practical implications – Managers are advised not to be blinded by the financial worth of discretionary employee benefits and consider how these meet the actual, as opposed to stereotypical, needs of employees and their family members. Observing social dynamics and considering non-financial consequences of employee benefits are essential for business-society continuity. Also, organizations of relatively low-social diversity should not alienate themselves from their multicultural environment. Social implications – The study unveils the reciprocity between organizations and people. Traditional fatherhood is being contested and negotiated at the work-family interface, as embedded to ongoing changes in the social meaning of gender. That employee benefits help to maintain the masculinity of high-tech, reflects also on gender segregation in the workplace. Originality/value – The study illustrates how businesses apply social values and describes how such values are processed and reinstated in society as employee benefits.

The relationship between personality and helping behaviors in three different contexts was examined in a field study. In a sample of 178 employees from three professional organizations, measures of the Big Five Personality factors were found to be related to discretionary helping behaviors performed in the context of one's home, workplace and the larger society. Collectively, the five personality factors accounted for 7% of the variance in Household Activities and Chores, 26% of the variance in Organizational Citizenship Behaviors and 10% of the variance in Volun-teerism. Implications of these relations are discussed.