Nico W. Van Yperen

Proactive behavior has emerged as a key component in contemporary views of individual work performance. Hence, a central question in the literature is how to enhance employees' proactive behavior. We investigated whether the more that employees experience a sense of vitality (i.e., energizing positive affect), the more likely they are to show proactive behavior at work, and whether this applies only to employees with a low personal fear of invalidity [(PFI) i.e., the inclination to be apprehensive about the risks/negative consequences of making errors]. Experimental (N = 354) and cross-sectional field (N = 85) studies provided consistent evidence for a positive relation between employees' sense of vitality at work and their self-rated proactivity. The predicted moderation effect was observed only for manager-rated proactivity. We conclude that feeling energized in the workplace is not necessarily associated with observable proactive behavior. It is only when employees experiencing a sense of vitality at work are not prone to fearing the risks/negative consequences of making errors that they are more likely to show observable proactive behavior in an organization.

An important theoretical debate in the literature on psychological needs concerns the potential moderating role of indi-viduals' need strength in the effects of basic psychological need satisfaction. The present study adds to the relatively small literature with inconsistent findings by examining whether the relations between work-related basic psychological need satisfaction (autonomy, competence, and relatedness) and organizational citizenship behavior (i.e., constructive voluntary job performance) are enhanced when employees' work-specific explicit need strength increases. Survey data from two samples of employees in the United States (N = 353; M Age = 38.13) and in the Netherlands (N = 298; M Age = 44.57) consistently showed that across the need domains, need satisfaction was positively associated with organizational citizenship behavior through work engagement. However, we only found minor evidence for a moderating role of need strength. These findings largely endorse core self-determination theory assertions, as they underscore the relevance of employees' psychological need satisfaction rather than fit between high psychological need satisfaction and high need strength in the workplace.

Blended working, a term we recently introduced, combines on-site and off-site working, enabled by the utilization of information and communications technologies (ICTs) that provides workers with almost constant access to job-relevant information and coworkers. In this commentary, we respond to three articles on blended work that appeared in the October 2016 issue of Work, Aging and Retirement. We agree that both characteristics of the worker and characteristics of the organization determine the effectiveness of blended working to the employability of older workers, retirement timing, and bridge employment. We conclude that blended work practices may suit any worker at any career stage and at the final stages of workers' career in particular.

This study on psychological momentum (PM) in sports provides the first experimental test of an intercon-nection between short-term PM (during a match) and long-term PM (across a series of matches). Twenty-two competitive athletes were striving to win a prize during a rowing-ergometer tournament, consisting of manipulated races. As hypothesized, athletes who had developed long-term positive PM after two successful races were less sensitive to a negative momentum scenario in the third race, compared with athletes who had developed long-term negative PM after two unsuccessful races. More specifically, the exerted efforts, perceptions of momentum, and self-efficacy were higher for participants who had developed long-term positive PM, and their perceptions of momentum and self-efficacy decreased less rapidly. These results illustrate a typical complex dynamical systems property, namely interconnected time scales, and provide deeper insights into the dynamical nature of PM.

It has been proposed that emotional competencies are subject to age-related increases and, thus, represent strengths of older workers. However, this assumption is based on limited evidence for positive age differences in one particular emotional competency, namely emotion regulation. Age-related differences in two other key emotional competen-cies, emotion perception and emotion understanding, have been largely ignored. The present review systematically examines the extant literature on the associations between age and the competencies to perceive, understand, and regulate emotions. For each competency, we further distinguish whether it concerns own emotions or those of others. We identified 195 studies that met our inclusion criteria. Overall, we found moderate support for the proposed age-related advantage in emotional competencies. Regarding the working lifespan, findings suggest that older workers generally function equally well as, or slightly better than young workers on most emotional competencies (i.e., perceiving, understanding and regulating own emotions, and understanding others' emotions). For perceiving oth-ers' emotions, there was robust evidence of lower performance beyond age 65, yet deficits did not show consistently for middle-aged adults (i.e., most older workers). For regulating others' emotions, evidence was too limited to draw conclusions. We discuss implications of age differences in emotional competencies for work processes and outcomes and outline future research directions. Emotional competencies refer to individual differences in knowledge , skills, and abilities to effectively deal with own and others' emotions (Brasseur, Gregoire, Bourdu, & Mikolajczak, 2013; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2008).

Purpose – Despite their growing popularity among organisations, satisfaction with activity-based work (ABW) environments is found to be below expectations. Research also suggests that workers typically do not switch frequently, or not at all, between different activity settings. Hence, the purpose of this study is to answer two main questions: Is switching behaviour related to satisfaction with ABW environments? Which factors may explain switching behaviour? Design/methodology/approach – Questionnaire data provided by users of ABW environments (n 3,189) were used to carry out ANOVA and logistic regression analyses. Findings – Satisfaction ratings of the 4 per cent of the respondents who switched several times a day appeared to be significantly above average. Switching frequency was found to be positively related to heterogeneity of the activity profile, share of communication work and external mobility. Practical implications – Our findings suggest that satisfaction with ABW environments might be enhanced by stimulating workers to switch more frequently. However, as strong objections against switching were observed and switching frequently does not seem to be compatible with all work patterns, this will presumably not work for everyone. Many workers are likely to be more satisfied if provided with an assigned (multifunctional) workstation. Originality/value – In a large representative sample, clear evidence was found for relationships between behavioural aspects and appreciation of ABW environments that had not been studied previously.

Over the past two decades, the selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) model has been applied in the work context to investigate antecedents and outcomes of employees' use of action regulation strategies. We systematically review, meta-analyze, and critically discuss the literature on SOC strategy use at work and outline directions for future research and practice. The systematic review illustrates the breadth of constructs that have been studied in relation to SOC strategy use, and that SOC strategy use can mediate and moderate relationships of person and contextual antecedents with work outcomes. Results of the meta-analysis show that SOC strategy use is positively related to age (r c = .04), job autonomy (r c = .17), self-reported job performance (r c = .23), non-self-reported job performance (r c = .21), job satisfaction (r c = .25), and job engagement (r c = .38), whereas SOC strategy use is not significantly related to job tenure, job demands, and job strain. Overall, our findings underline the importance of the SOC model for the work context, and they also suggest that its measurement and reporting standards need to be improved to become a reliable guide for future research and organizational practice.

Work overload or work pressure may undermine workers' intrinsic motivation. In the present research, we tested the conditions under which this may (not) occur, including the perceived opportunity to blend on-site and off-site working through the effective use of computers and modern information and communication technology. Our sample consisted of 657 workers (51% female) representing a variety of industries. As hypothesized, it is not high job demands per se, but high demands in combination with a high need for autonomy and a lack of perceived opportunities for blended working that undermines intrinsic work motivation. When workers high in need for autonomy perceived opportunities for blended working, their intrinsic work motivation was not negatively affected by increasing job demands. This main finding suggests that, particularly for workers high in need for autonomy, the perceived opportunity for blended working is an effective, contemporary resource to cope with the increasing job demands typically observed in today's workplace. Theoretically, these findings contribute to the refinement and extension of influential demands-resource models and Person-Job Fit theory. Practically, our findings may show managers how to effectively keep workers intrinsically motivated and productive in their jobs when job demands are high.

The purpose of this research was to examine the joint impact of leader achievement goals and hierarchical position of the voicer of creative ideas (subordinate vs. superior) on the extent to which leaders (intent to) integrate these voiced creative ideas with their own ideas (integrative idea management). In a scenario-based survey (study 1; N = 189), in which we measured participants' achievement goals, we found that the relationship between leaders' performance goals and their intention to integrate voiced creative ideas is contingent on the hierarchical position of the idea voicer. Similarly, in an experimental study (study 2; N = 94), in which we experimentally induced achievement goals, we found that leaders display lower integrative intentions when ideas are voiced by a subordinate rather than a superior, but this was only true for leaders pursuing performance goals. Furthermore, the results of an additional, exploratory analysis suggest that the hierarchical position of the voicer of creative ideas had an indirect effect on integrative behavior through integrative intentions for performance goal leaders and no effect for mastery goal leaders. Together, these findings advance our understanding of how middle management leaders are influenced by their own achievement goals when managing the creative ideas voiced by subordinates and superiors.

The purpose of the present paper is to discuss an important component of workers’ willingness to perform at their jobs, that is, their achievement motivation. More specifically, we will discuss the conceptualization of the four achievement goals from the 2 × 2 achievement goal framework and present original data on the prevalence of workers’ dominant achievement goals (assessed with a forced-choice round robin measure) and the achievement goal profiles (assessed with goal strength ratings) associated with these dominant goals. In addition, the links between achievement goals (personally adopted and assigned) and job performance will be reviewed, as well as the links to other work outcomes, including interpersonal behavior and cheating. Finally, practical implications as well as the relation between the achievement goal framework and regulatory mode theory will be discussed.

We sought to better understand the relationship between overtime and mental fatigue by taking into account work motivation and the quality of overtime work and studying theoretically derived subgroups. We conducted a survey-study among a representative sample of the Dutch full-time workforce (n = 1807). The prevalence of overtime work and the associations between overtime and job demands, job variety, decision latitude, fatigue, and work motivation was studied through descriptive statistics. We used MANCOVA (covariates: age, gender, salary level) to compare six overtime-fatigue subgroups with respect to work motivation and job characteristics. A total of 67% of the respondents worked overtime (mean, 3.5 hours). Overtime workers appeared to be nonfatigued, motivated workers with favorable work characteristics. MANCOVA revealed no significant overtime-fatigue interaction. Moderate overtime is common among Dutch workers, who seem to be happy workers with attractive jobs rather than fat...

In two randomized experiments, one conducted
online (n = 174) and one in the classroom (n = 267), we
tested the effects of two types of self-regulated learning
(SRL) strategies on students’ intentions to put effort into
professional development activities: strength-based SRL
strategies (i.e., identifying perceived relative strengths and,
subsequently, selecting professional development activities
to further improve those strengths) versus deficit-based
SRL strategies (i.e., identifying perceived relative short-
comings and, subsequently, selecting professional develop-
ment activities to improve those shortcomings). Across
both studies, analysis of variance revealed that, relative to
students who used deficit-based SRL strategies, students
who used strength-based SRL strategies were higher in
perceived competence, intrinsic motivation, and effort in-
tentions. Moreover, the results of multi-mediator analysis
and structural equation modeling supported the hypothesis
that the effect of strength-based versus deficit-based SRL
strategies on students’ effort intentions was sequentially
mediated by perceived competence and intrinsic motiva-
tion. Implications for the application of self-regulated
learning strategies in the context of professional self-de-
velopment are discussed.

Given the widespread use and well-known consequences of achievement goals in different competence-relevant situations, it is important to gain a thorough understanding of how these differences in goal pursuit are formed. Using different analytic approaches, we show that birth order lies at the heart of people’s goal preferences as we consistently found that firstborns have developed a preference for mastery goals (which are based on self-referenced standards of competence), whereas secondborns have developed a preference for performance goals (which are based on other-referenced standards of competence). These findings may help explain why people differently define, experience, and respond to competence-relevant situations, including the workplace, the classroom, and the ball field.► We examine the influence of birth order on achievement goal pursuit. ► Birth order effects are tested both across and within families. ► Firstborns are more mastery oriented compared to secondborns. ► Secondborns are more performance oriented compared to firstborns.

The purpose of this study was to demonstrate that the positive link between task interest and performance attainment can be negatively affected by the pur-suit of difficult performance-approach goals. This was tested in a sample of 60 undergraduate students at a Dutch university. In ...

During the past three decades, the achievement goal approach to achievement motivation has emerged as an influential area of research, and is dedicated to understanding the reasons behind the individual's drive to achieve competence and performance. However, the current literature on achievement goals is segmented rather than integrated. That is, citations across the three major and distinct achievement domains (work, education, and sports) are more the exception than the rule and similarities and differences between findings for the different achievement domains have yet to be tested. The purpose of the present study was to examine the relationships between self-reported achievement goals and nonself-report performance through meta-analysis, and the moderating potential of achievement domain. Identifying achievement domain as moderator improves our understanding to which contexts we can (not) generalize conclusions to, it helps to understand seemingly inconsistent findings, and...

The purpose of this research was to meta-analyze studies which experimentally induced an achieve- ment goal state to examine its causal effect on the individual’s performance at the task at hand, and to investigate the moderator effects of feedback anticipation and time pressure. The data set comprised 19 papers, 79 individual effect sizes, and 3,482 participants. Performance measures rep- resented task performance across a variety of tasks. The findings indicate that relative to avoidance goals (either performance-avoidance goals or mastery-avoidance goals), approach goals (either mas- tery-approach goals or performance-approach goals) enhance task performance. Furthermore, relative to performance-approach goals, mastery-approach goals lead to better performance, particularly when individuals do not anticipate feedback and when there is no time pressure. Implications and future directions for research are discussed.

We identified leaders’ achievement goals and composition of creative input as important factors that can clarify when and why leaders are receptive to, and supportive of, subordinates’ creative input. As hypothesized, in two experimental studies, we found that relative to mastery goal leaders, performance goal leaders were less receptive to subordinates’ voiced creative input. In Study 1, we further showed that image threat appraisal and learning opportunity appraisal mediated this effect. In Study 2, we demonstrated that when merely creative ideas were expressed by the subordinate, performance goal leaders responded like mastery goal leaders. However, as in Study 1, performance goal leaders were less receptive to, and less supportive of, subordinates’ creative input than mastery goal leaders when the composition of subordinates’ creative input included both problem identifications and creative ideas.

Choking under pressure (CUP) research shows that individuals working on higher-order cognitive tasks do not benefit from higher working memory (WM) capacity under pressure. This CUP effect, or reduced WM/ performance link, entails that high working memory individuals (high WMs) perform at about the same level as low WMs. However, it still is an open question which specific components create a high pressure situation. We hypothesized that CUP effects should occur in situations where high WMs are faced with a self- improvement goal, particularly when they do not have much room to improve their performance any further. Study 1 demonstrated that the positive WM/math performance link was reduced in the mere presence of a self-improvement goal. Study 2 further showed that the WM/math performance link was only reduced when self-improvement instructions emphasized that there was not much room left for improvement. Discussion fo- cuses on implications for both CUP and achievement goal research.

In various domains, experts are found to possess elaborate domain-specific representations they developed over years. In this study, we provide the first systematic attempt to characterise the short- term representations among individuals with different expertise levels. We showed videos of soccer game plays to expert, near-expert and non-expert soccer players and asked them to describe the actions taking place. Verbalisations were coded based on Fischer’s Skill Theory. Monte Carlo permutation tests revealed that players with higher expertise constructed representations of higher complexity (regardless of their specific content). Taking the content of the representations into account, we found that higher expertise soccer players relatively more often included high complexity levels of actions not including the ball and (moving) players on the field. These findings improve our understanding of perceptual-cognitive expertise by demonstrating how actors with different levels of expertise integrate the information they perceive to construct their representations in real time.

In the present research we investigated when and why leaders tend to oppose or adopt radical creative ideas voiced by their subordinates. In a field study (Study 1, N = 127) we showed that leaders’ performance goals were positively related to their tendency to oppose radical creative ideas, whereas leaders’ mastery goals were positively related to their tendency to adopt them. We replicated these findings in an experimental study (Study 2, N = 90), in which we showed that performance goal leaders were more likely to oppose radical creative ideas voiced by their subordinates than mastery goal leaders, whereas mastery goal leaders were more likely to adopt those ideas than performance goal leaders. In Study 2, we further showed that the effects of leaders’ achievement goals on their oppose and adopt responses were mediated by the leaders’ interest in exploration. Finally, in Study 3 (N = 91), we experimentally demonstrated that oppose and adopt responses of performance goal leaders, rather than mastery goal leaders, were sensitive to the behavioural mode by which subordinates voiced their radical creative ideas. That is, performance goal leaders were less likely to oppose and more likely to adopt radical creative ideas when subordinates voiced them in a considerate mode rather than an aggressive mode.