Human resource (HR) flexibility emerges as the most critical source of flexibility for professional services firms (PSFs), given that the success of these companies depends on the knowledge, expertise and behaviors of their employees. Nonetheless, few empirical studies have analyzed the extent to which the characteristics of the workforce explain the results of this type of firm. This study attempts to advance in this line of research by analyzing the influence of HR resource flexibility dimensions (skill flexibility – SF and behavior flexibility – BF) on PSF performance. It also examines whether HR coordination flexibility (CF) strengthens the effect of SF and BF on performance. Matched data from 97 general managers and 291 professionals in a sample of Spanish PSFs is used to test the hypotheses through structural equation modeling methodology. The study demonstrates that employee BF has a significant effect on the development of new services in PSFs. The moderation model shows that HR CF increases the influence of BF on the development of new services. Contrary to what was expected, no significant relationship between SF and PSF performance was found.

This paper investigates how employees' experience of workplace incivility may steer them away from idea championing, with a special focus on the mediating role of their desire to quit their jobs and the moderating role of their dispositional self-control. Data collected from employees who work in a large retail organization reveal that an important reason that exposure to rude workplace behaviors reduces employees' propensity to champion innovative ideas is that they make concrete plans to leave. This mediating effect is mitigated when employees are equipped with high levels of self-control though. For organizations, this study accordingly pinpoints desires to seek alternative employment as a critical factor by which irritations about resource-draining incivility may escalate into a reluctance to add to organizational effectiveness through dedicated championing efforts. It also indicates how this escalation can be avoided, namely, by ensuring employees have access to pertinent personal resources.

The effectiveness of entrepreneurial leadership (EL) at different levels has been widely recognized by scholars who have carried out substantial exploration; however, the empirical studies on the effectiveness of EL are scattered and their results are mixed. This study aims to organize these findings, advance knowledge about the multilevel effectiveness of EL and clarify the heterogeneity in the relationship between EL and effectiveness outcomes. Based on a systematic review of the extant literature and the construction of an integrated framework, this study examines the influence of EL on effectiveness outcomes at multiple levels and the moderators of this relationship through meta-analysis of 35 empirical studies including 35 independent samples. The results show that EL can improve effectiveness outcomes at different levels of organization, team and individual; cultural context obviously moderates this relationship, whereas the moderating effects of enterprise type and EL measure are all not significant. This study helps to determine the specific association of EL with effectiveness outcomes at different levels, and identify important factors influencing this relationship, which broadens the understanding of leadership effectiveness and provides certain value for enterprises to give full play to the role of EL at all levels.

Although studies have identified a link between employee intrinsic motivation (IM) and creativity and between positive mood and creativity, some of this study has been equivocal and little research has included these variables in an integrative model. Drawing from several theories of IM, we address this gap by proposing that IM is a critical intervening mechanism in the relationship between positive mood and creativity, and team knowledge sharing affects the power of this mechanism. Research on field data from 120 R&D team members in 30 teams found that team-level knowledge sharing moderated the relationship between employees' positive mood and IM, and IM mediated the relationship between employees' positive mood and their creativity. Implications of our findings are discussed.

In rapidly changing work environments, individuals need a willingness and ability to learn new skills and knowledge to contribute to their organization's goals and their own employability. As the baby-boomer generation begins to exit the workplace, organizations need to pay attention to developing the capability of younger, novice workers who will increasingly comprise the core workforce of the future. The present study, grounded in social cognitive theory, develops and examines a model of learning and development for younger workers. In total, 1,732 employees in New Zealand aged 16–24 years completed a survey relating to their perceptions, beliefs, and intentions regarding learning and development. The results from structural equation modeling show that individual and work-environment factors both influence younger workers' developmental intentions but affect this through different pathways. The study contributes to a better understanding of the development process for younger workers and offers implications for management based on these findings.

Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) refer to customized work arrangements and employment conditions employees negotiate with employers. Significant scholarly attention has been paid to understand the responses of i-deals' recipients. However, little attention has been paid to coworkers' reactions to the i-deals. This study examines how coworkers react to focal employees' i-deals. We tested our hypotheses with a sample of 253 employee–coworker pairs and found that coworkers are more likely to accept focal employees' flexibility i-deals than development i-deals. Specifically, we found that coworkers view focal employees' development i-deals as more threatening to their status than flexibility i-deals, and status threat mediates the relationship between development i-deals and coworkers' acceptance. In addition, flexibility i-deals increase coworkers' perception of obtaining future i-deals more than development i-deals, and this perception mediates the relationship between flexibility i-deals and coworkers' acceptance. Furthermore, the results show that coworkers' relative leader–member exchange moderates the above relationships.

This paper investigates the mediating role of work engagement in the relationship between employees' perceptions of work–family conflict – defined as the extent to which the quality of their family life suffers due to work obligations – and their job performance. It also notes a buffering role of the satisfaction that employees feel about how their career has progressed since they joined the employing organization. Three-wave, time-lagged data reveal that an important reason work–family conflict diminishes job performance is that employees become less engaged with their work. Yet, this mediating role of work engagement is less salient to the extent that employees are satisfied with how their organization has supported their career goals over the course of their employment. This study accordingly pinpoints a prominent risk for employees who suffer from negative spillovers of work stress into the family domain, then make this situation worse by failing to meet organization-set performance expectations, which can generate even more stress. Employers can mitigate this risk though, by ensuring that their employees feel satisfied with how their career has progressed.

In a global society experiencing an increasing shortage of qualified workers and the recognition that individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be effective employees, there is an uptick in private sector initiatives to address employment needs through the recruitment of workers with ASD. A case study methodology with consensual qualitative research analysis was used to gain a rich understanding of employment of people with ASD at a medium-sized clothier in collaboration with a service provider for people with ASD. Perceptions of implementation and effectiveness were collected. Results suggest the hiring of people with ASD was positively perceived by employees. Components of this success included changes to the physical work environment, diversity training specific to individuals with disabilities, and a company climate of engaging and supporting employees with ASD. This research suggests that the collaborative initiative may prove a meaningful model for other companies interested in employing people with ASD.

Anchored in conservation of resources theory, this study considers how employees' experience of job stress might reduce their organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB), as well as how this negative relationship might be buffered by employees' access to two personal resources (passion for work and adaptive humor) and two contextual resources (peer communication and forgiving climate). Data from a Mexican-based organization reveal that felt job stress diminishes OCB, but the effect is subdued at higher levels of the four studied resources. This study accordingly adds to extant research by elucidating when the actual experience of job stress is more or less likely to steer employees away from OCB – that is, when they have access to specific resources that hitherto have been considered direct enablers of such efforts instead of buffers of employees' negative behavioral responses to job stress.