Magister Commercii (Industrial Psychology) - MCom(IPS) / Quality education is regarded as a powerful tool in ensuring the economic, democratic and social development of nations (Kubberud, Helland & Smith, 1999). To deliver quality education, well functioning teachers are needed (Kubberud, Helland & Smith, 1999) Substantial evidence exists showing that a significant number of teachers worldwide struggle with high levels of distress and burnout (Chaplain et al., 2003). Change in the work environment is often regarded as stressful and can lead to decrease in a sense of general well-being amongst teachers (Verhaeghe, Vlerick, Gemmel, Van Maele & De Backer, 2006). Internal and external factors of change management have shaped the teaching environment in South Africa and have contributed to instability with regard to motivational levels of teachers in recent years. Actions such as intentions of leaving the teaching profession and quitting their job, could have resulted due to feelings of low job satisfaction. However, job satisfaction is not only reflected in high labour turnover but as well in absenteeism, being unproductive or even being unwell at work (Jackson, Rothmann & Van de Vijver, 2006). Continuous exposure to things like high job demands, lack of job resources, change, competitiveness and rivalry, can result in stress and burnout. Stressful events may lead to ill- health and might impact negatively on the work-related well-being of employees. The purpose of the research paper was to grasp the effects of stress factors (namely work overload and work/family conflict) on educators and to establish to what extent it contributes to the workplace outcomes of those educators in terms of their work engagement, job satisfaction levels and the intention to quit. A quantative research method was use to generate the results, by means of survey distribution to the targeted population. The results found that work family conflict and job overload did not explain a significant proportion of the variance in work engagement, job satisfaction or intention to quit.

In the late 1990's researchers began studying spirituality as a workplace phenomenon. In the year 2000 a distinction was made between individual spirituality and organisational spirituality. This meant that spirituality could be studied on more than one level and that it was no longer just a personal phenomenon, but rather that organisations (as non-human entities that are made-up of clusters of humans) could in fact also be spiritual entities. In 2004, Kinjerski and Skrypnek, identified a third dimension of spirituality distinct from individual spirituality and organisational spirituality the experience of spirit at work. The aim of this study was to gain insight into the functionality of spirituality by testing the relationship between these three spirituality constructs individual spirituality, organisational spirituality and the experience of spirit at work and the resultant impact of these constructs on two positive work outcomes work engagement and affective organisational commitment. A sequential mixed methods approach was utilised in this study and the research was conducted in two phases. The first phase of the research was quantitative. During the quantitative phase of the research an online survey was distributed to respondents across South Africa. The second phase of the research was qualitative and consisted of follow-up semi-structured personal interviews with selected respondents to the survey. It was found that the three spirituality constructs individual spirituality, organisational spirituality and the experience of spirit at work are independent constructs but that strong positive correlations exist between individual spirituality and spirit at work, between individual spirituality and organisational spirituality and between spirit at work and organisational spirituality; with the strongest correlation between spirit at work and organisational spirituality. From these correlations one can conclude that the experience of spirit at work has the greatest impact on work engagement and organisational commitment; followed by the level of organisational spirituality in the workplace. Therefore, organisations that are more spiritual seem to have employees who are more engaged in their work and more committed to their respective organisations. Spirit at work was found to be the strongest predictor of work engagement, meaning that when there is an increase in experiences of spirituality in the workplace, work engagement levels also increase. This means that the extent to which people feel engaged and immersed in their work, is dependent on the extent to which they experience spirit in their work. This finding highlights the critical importance of enabling employees to discover their strengths and passions and matching them to work that they both enjoy and are good at, for enhanced work engagement. Spirit at work was also found to be the strongest predictor of organisational commitment. As the experiences of spirit at work increase, the levels of affective organisational commitment in the organisation also increases. It could thus be argued that when people experience spirit at work or in their work, they tend to be more committed to their organisations. The current study has strengthened the business case for workplace spirituality. The findings of this study indicate that the organisational environment is the greatest predictor of whether employees will experience spirit at work or not and thus indirectly the greatest factor for predicting work engagement and organisational commitment levels. These findings substantiate the need for organisations to start playing a more active role in creating a work environment that is conducive for employees to experience spirit at work. There are a number of things that organisations can do to create more spiritual work environments and as a result reap the benefits of greater work engagement and greater organisational commitment. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2016. / Human Resource Management / PhD / Unrestricted

The thesis concerns a topic of work engagement of individuals on managerial positions within a context of selected factors that positively influence such an engagement. Factors that keep those individuals on a imaginary line further from potential negative consequences, e.g. burnout syndrome, are elaborated. A theoretical part aims to elaborate a field of personality of manager, a theoretical background of work engagement, its theories and concepts and eventually concrete moderating factors stated in literature. An empirical part introduces a research mapping those moderating factors of managers within the Czech population. The goal is to find out which factors positively influence their work engagement. In regard of a connection between the work engagement and stress there is an additional research goal aiming to find out which strategies help managers to decrease their stress level. Based on gathered data 6 factors positively influencing the work engagement were arised: social support, job autonomy, variety of tasks, goal achievement, feedback and work meaningfulness; and four factors helping to decrease the stress level: analysis of situation, problem- focused coping, distance and physical activity. Key words: Work engagement, manager, moderating factors

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The current study was motivated by the need to establish the factors that predispose leaders to engage in counterproductive work behaviours (CWBs) in organisations. Corporate scandals continue to rise unabated and their damage to organisations financially, is unendurable, hence the need to mitigate them so that organisations can thrive under the harsh economic conditions that have ravaged the global economies in recent history. Evidence from the literature shows that leadership plays a significant role in combating CWBs in organisations therefore making it an integral component under the current study

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The objective of the study was to investigate how individual appraisal of high workload as a challenge or a hindrance stressor correlates with work engagement and burnout. The work environment is fraught with high workloads, resulting in stress for employees. The cost of employee stress and ill health to organisations and society is reported to be high due to lost productivity and healthcare costs. The current study used the challenge-hindrance stressor model to determine the impact of appraisal on the relationship between work overload and work engagement/burnout. The current study proposed that employees experience both work engagement and burnout concurrently depending on whether they appraise work overload as a challenge or a hindrance stressor. An explanatory quantitative design was used to survey employees from multiple organisations in South Africa, yielding 144 full-time, permanently employed respondents. Findings from the study indicated that stressors that were appraised as challenges were linked to work engagement, whereas stressors that were appraised as hindrances were linked to burnout. The study also found that employees appraise work overload as a hindrance not a challenge, resulting in a negative relationship between work overload and work engagement and a positive relationship between work overload and burnout. The implication is that when employees have high workloads, their engagement does not increase; their likelihood of burnout increases. The study determined no positive outcomes of high workloads, only the risk of highly engaged employees becoming fatigued and burnt out. Hence, it is recommended that organisations manage the workloads of their employees.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19, i.e., C-19) pandemic promulgated psychological distress among employees across the United States, necessitating the examination of its consequential negative impact. By drawing upon conservation of resource and scarcity theory, this research develops a theoretical model that demonstrates how employees’ psychological distress triggered by the C-19 pandemic (C-19PD) sways their task performance, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), and work withdrawal via work engagement. As first-stage moderators, I propose core self-evaluations (CSE), servant leadership, and perceived organizational support (POS) as moderators of the link between C-19PD and work engagement. As second-stage moderators, I propose task interdependence, constraints, and telecommuting intensity as moderators of the link between work engagement and task performance, OCB, and work withdrawal. An individual-level survey study was designed to gather a data set of 275 currently employed workers from four public universities in the U.S., and the mediation hypotheses were supported. However, the moderating effects of CSE, servant leadership, and POS (i.e., first stage moderators) and task interdependence, constraints, and telecommuting intensity (i.e., second stage moderators) were not supported. Implications for theory, limitations, future research directions, and practical applications are discussed.

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No description available.

[pt] O principal objetivo dessa dissertação foi analisar o papel mediador do Trabalho Significativo nas relações dos Traços de Personalidade com o Bem-estar no Trabalho. Para tal, foram realizados dois estudos distintos sendo que no estudo um, o objetivo foi investigar as relações entre os fatores de personalidade, o trabalho significativo e o engajamento no trabalho, antes e durante a pandemia de COVID-19. A análise de rede da amostra de 963 adultos, com 828 respondentes antes da pandemia e 135 durante o contexto pandêmico, demonstrou que o trabalho significativo não só atuou como mediador entre os fatores abertura e conscienciosidade e o engajamento no trabalho, como também demonstrou a constância dessas relações nas duas amostras, antes e durante a pandemia. No estudo dois, o objetivo foi analisar se o trabalho significativo atuaria como mediador das relações dos fatores de personalidade com o engajamento no trabalho e a adição ao trabalho. Os resultados apontaram que o trabalho significativo apresenta uma mediação total nas relações dos fatores abertura e conscienciosidade com o engajamento no trabalho. Porém, no caso da mediação entre neuroticismo e o engajamento essa mediação foi parcial. As relações dos fatores de personalidade com a adição ao trabalho, não foram mediadas pelo trabalho significativo. Os achados desta dissertação evidenciam a relevância do trabalho significativo como um fator que impacta nas relações das características pessoais dos indivíduos com os níveis de engajamento e adição ao trabalho que esses vivenciam. Tais resultados são importantes para o desenvolvimento de intervenções clínicas que contribuam para a promoção do bem-estar e para a prevenção do adoecimento dos profissionais. / [en] The main objective of this dissertation was to test a model of mediation between meaningful work on the relations of personality traits with engagement and workaholism. To this end, two studies were carried out. In study 1, the objective was to evaluate if there was a constancy in the relationships between personality factors, meaningful work and engagement at work before and during the pandemic. The network analysis of the sample of 963 adults, with 828 respondents before the pandemic and 135 during the pandemic context, demonstrated that meaningful work not only acted as a mediator between the factors openness and conscientiousness, and engagement at work, but also demonstrated the consistency of the networks in the two samples, before and during the pandemic. In study two, the objective was to analyze whether the relationships of personality factors with work engagement and workaholism were mediated by meaningful work. This time, the results showed that the mediation of meaningful work in the relationship of the factors openness and conscientiousness with engagement at work was total. But in the case of mediation between neuroticism and engagement it was partial. Relationships of personality factors with workaholism were not mediated by meaningful work. The findings of this dissertation show the relevance of meaningful work as a factor that impacts the relationships of individuals personal characteristics with the levels of engagement and workaholism they experience.