Employee empowerment has long been associated with organizational outcomes such as innovation, greater effectiveness, and better performance. Non-academic professional employees in higher education are responsible for the important day-to-day operations of a university; therefore, organizational strategies such as employee empowerment that encourage initiatives and innovative behaviors among them may become crucial to the long-term survival of today's colleges and universities. Surprisingly, non-academic professional employees in higher education have received little attention in the scholarly literature. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between the levels of empowerment and perceived organizational support for innovations and organizational trust among non-academic professional employees within a public comprehensive university in a Midwestern state. The study also tested the hypotheses that organizational trust may affect perceived employee empowerment and influence the relationship between perceived organizational support for innovation and employee empowerment. A survey instrument was distributed by email to all eligible professional and scientific employees (N = 558) in the selected university. Data were collected using a web survey method. A total of 255 completed instruments were returned, which yielded a 45.7% net response rate. Overall, there was substantial evidence supporting a relationship between empowerment and the four distinct cognitions of empowerment, supporting the notion that empowerment is the "gestalt" of the four dimensions. Perceived organizational support for innovation was a significant predictor of employees' perceived empowerment among non-academic professional employees. The respondents who reported higher levels of perceived organizational support for innovation perceived higher levels of empowerment. The study's findings indicated the influence of organizational trust on empowerment. The findings also showed administrative responsibilities had a positive direct effect on organizational support for innovation and a positive indirect effect on empowerment. Knowing that the success of empowerment initiatives may depend on the extent to which organizational members feel valued and affirmed, which requires an organizational climate that they perceive as supportive of innovation, change, and risk-taking behaviors, administrators in higher education can maximize their organizational strategies by acquiring internal mechanisms that can stimulate and encourage new ideas for innovation proposal, adoption, and implementation to occur.

The work environment has vastly become more demanding and organizational practises have required have needed to be cognisant of methods to keep employees engaged. The topic of flexible working arrangements (FWA) has grown in popularity by research scholars and business practitioners. Considerable research has been conducted on the various dynamics of FWA and the influence of employee engagement. This research however aims to explore emerging themes in perceived organizational support (POS) and employee engagement in the context of flexible work arrangements, to gain in-depth understanding of the relationship between POS and employee engagement, in addition to what has been contributed to literature. The research study was conducted through qualitative methodology of exploratory obtained by the researcher. 14 semi-structured interviews were largely conducted through virtual communication platform, Zoom; and where possible interviews were conducted face-to-face, through open-ended questions. Respondents consisted of 7 Managers and 7 Employees from different organisations across three different industries. The analysis of the interviews was conducted through the six-stage thematic analysis. The research found four emerging themes FWA associated with flexible working schedules, enabling infrastructure, work life balance and adapting to a new way of working. The research also found a positive relationship between employee engagement and POS through common themes such as trust between managers and employees, decision making and dedication to work tasks. The perspectives and views from the participants were commonly affected by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic and therefore the researcher made every attempt to gain perspectives prior the pandemic and during the pandemic from the participants. The research was limited to medium to large sized organisations operating in South Africa. / Mini Dissertation (MBA)--University of Pretoria, 2021. / Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) / MBA / Unrestricted

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Job stress is a common occurrence and of the utmost concern for management (Avey, Luthans, & Jensen, 2009). Canadian employees report workplace stress as a primary cause of mental health concerns which can subsequently impact workplace productivity and job performance (Mental Health Commission of Canada, 2019). In addition, the novel Coronavirus has had several negative consequences on people including for example the forced closure of work which has resulted in financial, social and health-related problems in part due to the consequences of stress (Brooks et al., 2020; Hossain, Sultana, & Purohit, 2020; Probst, Humer, Stippl, & Pieh, 2020; Sharma et al., 2020). Sports organizations are their employees are certainly not immune to the deleterious effects of stress (c.f., MacIntosh & Burton, 2019). Consequently, one of the management considerations to attenuate for stress is known as job characteristics (c.f., Hackman & Oldham, 1976). Hackman and Oldham (1976) developed the job characteristics theory, which can be used to understand the relationship between job characteristics, job design with various outcomes of interests such as performance. They suggested five characteristics of the job (i.e., skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback) that influenced personal and work-related outcomes (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). Research has shown that when employees are faced with stressful conditions and high job demands, moral and economic support from the organization is needed (Krishnan & Mary, 2012). Organizational support theory (OST) proposes that employees form a general perception and belief concerning how the organizational management values their contributions and cares about their well-being (Eisenberger et al., 1986; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002). According to OST, such perceptions could have considerable effects on work outcomes (Eisenberger & Stinglhamber, 2011; Rhoades & Eisenberger, 2002), employees’ work attitudes and behaviors including feelings of stress (Kurtessis et al., 2015). The purpose of this study was to investigate the causal relationship between job characteristics, perceived organizational support, job stress, and job performance. This research was conducted on the employees within the sports sectors in Canada (N = 146) during the Covid-19 pandemic. Using a structural equation model (SEM), this study describes the relationships which exist based upon validated existing measures, specifically: Job Characteristics questionnaires (Morgeson & Humphrey, 2006), Perceived Organizational Support (SPOS) short version questionnaire (Eisenberger, Cummings, Armeli, & Lynch, 1997), Job Stress Scale (Parker & DeCotiis, 1983) and Williams and Anderson’s job performance questionnaire (Williams & Anderson, 1991). The results of the study confirm that job characteristics components can decrease overall job stress and improve job performance amongst sports employees even during a pandemic. Moreover, there is a significant impact between the level of organizational support and job stress. Specifically, when organizational support increases, job stress will be reduced. This study contributes to the extant sport management literature within organizational behavior and provides an account of the importance for management to take a person-centered approach, particularly during high-stress times such as the Covid-19 Pandemic.

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The high employee turnover rate in the U.S. restaurant industry constitutes a major expense for restaurants. The research problem for this study was to determine if restaurant employees' perceptions of their supervisor's servant leadership practices were associated with the employees' organizational commitment and perceived organizational support, which have been shown to reduce turnover. Greenleaf's servant leadership theory provided the theoretical framework. The research question for this study was whether restaurant employees' perceptions of their supervisor's servant leadership practices were associated with the employees' organizational commitment and perceived organizational support, thereby potentially reducing employees' turnover rate. A purposive sample of 88 nonsupervisory employees of several South Florida casual dining restaurants completed a demographic questionnaire, short forms of the Servant Leadership Scale and Survey of Perceived Organizational Support, and the Organizational Commitment Scale. Correlation analysis was used to determine any significant (p < 0.5) relationships between the independent and dependent variables. The study correlation results suggested that instituting a servant leadership approach may enable casual dining restaurants to raise their nonsupervisory employees' organizational commitment and perceived perception of organizational support, thereby possibly retaining them longer. The findings have implications for social change because they may motivate casual dining restaurants to institute servant leadership, thereby potentially increasing the well-being and job satisfaction of their employees and the service experience of their customers.

Research has shown that organizations outside of academia that provide career-enhancing training opportunities have employees with greater levels of perceived organizational support, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment than do organizations without such training. Increasingly, colleges and universities are looking to attract and retain the most talented individuals; providing opportunities for growth through career-enhancing training opportunities may be one way to do so. This study examined whether or not faculty at institutions providing career-enhancing training opportunities showed a similar positive relationship between perceived organizational support, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment as have employees at organizations outside of academia; this study also examined if those levels varied by gender. A sample of 90 faculty members at both private and public academic institutions was recruited via LinkedIn and the Walden Participant Pool and were administered a 13-item demographic questionnaire, followed by The Survey of Perceived Organizational Support, The Job Satisfaction Survey, and The Three Component Model of Organizational Commitment Survey. Both a correlation and moderation analysis showed no significant relationship between the variables, suggesting the need for a larger sample. Although this study had non-significant results, it contributes to positive social change by promoting discussion of effective ways to improve faculty recruitment and retention and by highlighting the need for further research into the relationship between career enhancement and perceptions of organizational support, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.

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This is a qualitative study with the purpose of examining the emotional labor affecting socialworkers, working with children and youths, and whether they get sufficient support to manage their work tasks. The study aims to answer the two following questions: “Do socialworkers, working with children and youths, feel that they are emotionally affected by their work and if so, how do they manage this?” and “In what ways is support from the workplace crucial to manage the emotional labor?”. The theories that this study is based on are Hochschild's theory about emotional labor, Goffman’s dramaturgical theory and organizational theory. Four qualitative interviews with social workers, working with children and youths, were conducted and the data was analyzed in accordance with Braun and Clarke’s (2008) thematic analysis.The findings indicate that social workers, working with children and youths, are emotionallyaffected by their work, both in positive and negative ways. To manage this they account fordifferent ways to work with their emotions, for instance they enter a professional role, convey certain feelings and hide some feelings. The findings also indicate that support from the workplace is essential to manage the emotional aspects of the work and avoid negative workrelated consequences for the social workers. This entails support from colleagues andstability within the organization, but some also indicate that support from family and a stablehome is a necessity to be able to manage the emotional aspect of work.

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