Sandra Ohly

University of Kassel · Institute of Economics (IVWL)

To replicate and extend previous research regarding antecedents of proactive behaviour at work, we examined four forms of work motivation (job self-efficacy, role breadth self-efficacy, intrinsic work motivation and role orientation) in a sample of 98 employees in software development using co-worker rated proactive behaviour as an outcome. Correla...

Work characteristics such as time pressure and job control can be experienced as a challenge that is positively associated with performance-related behaviors. Using experience-sampling data from 149 employees, we examined the relationships between these work characteristics and creativity and proactive behavior on a daily level. Results from multil...

In recent years, researchers in work and organizational psychology have increasingly become interested in short-term processes and everyday experiences of working individuals. Diaries provide the necessary means to examine these processes. Although diary studies have become more popular in recent years, researchers not familiar with this method sti...

Using multisource data, this study focused on the process aspect of creativity at work. A modification of Amabile's (19882. Amabile , T. M. 1988. “A model of creativity and innovation in organizations”. In Research in organizational behavior, Edited by: Staw , B. M. and Cummings , L. L. Vol. 10, 123–167. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press. View all refere...

The chapter on work design and performance provides a review of the work characteristics that have been linked to performance outcomes such as proficiency, adaptivity, proactivity/creativity, and safety performance. Using Stephen Humphrey and colleagues' meta-analysis as a starting point, it provides an update on more recent research and broadens t...

Introduction High email load has been associated with impaired well-being because emails impose specific demands, disturb the workflow, and thereby overtax individuals’ action regulation toward prioritized goals. However, the causes and well-being-related consequences of email load are not yet well understood, as previous studies have neglected the...

In our mobile working world, boundaries between work and non‐work domains are more and more blurred, which can impair professionals' recovery and well‐being. Consequently, managing work–non‐work boundaries represents an important challenge for professionals. Research suggests that boundary work tactics conveyed in boundary management interventions...

Based on the job-demands resources theory, we examine whether leadership behavior affects followers' work engagement in the context of remote work during times of crisis, and how this effect can be explained. We focus on consideration leadership and its impact on followers' engagement under conditions of enforced remote work during the COVID-19 pan...

With an increasing use of work-related technologies after hours and mobile working, boundaries between work and personal life domains blur more and more, impairing recovery. Qualitative studies have shown that individuals use various boundary work tactics to actively manage their work–nonwork boundaries. However, it remains largely unknown how the...

In the present study, we introduce the concept of availability ambiguity and propose that it extends our understanding of the consequences of availability expectations after hours beyond the absolute level perceived by employees. Thus, we investigated how the level and ambiguity of supervisors’ availability expectations contribute to ICT communicat...

Objectives: To examine the effect of automatic communication notifications on performance and strain. Because of the benefits of communication, we expected this effect to be moderated by fear of missing out (FoMO) and social norms of responsiveness, expressed in the experience of telepressure. Methods: A field experiment (N = 247) was conducted...

Pervasive and ubiquitous computing facilitates immediate access to information in the sense of always-on. Information such as news, messages, or reminders can significantly enhance our daily routines but are rendered useless or disturbing when not being aligned with our intrinsic interruptibility preferences. Attention management systems use machin...

Pervasive and ubiquitous computing facilitates immediate access to information in the sense of always-on. Information, such as news, messages, or reminders, can significantly enhance our daily routines but are rendered useless or disturbing when not being aligned with our intrinsic interruptibility preferences. Attention management systems use mach...

Based on the stressor-detachment model, previous research has assumed that work-related ICT use in the evening impairs psychological detachment. However, since most of the studies to date have assessed cross-sectional relationships, little is known about the actual direction of effects. In this 5-day diary study, we implemented a day-level longitud...

Abstract Employee energy is an important predictor of organizational success. It is a resource (Hobfoll, 1989) which can be depleted due to work demands and replenished during non-work time (Meijman & Mulder, 1998). But the rapid development of new technologies leads to continuous growth in ‘technology-assisted supplemental work’ (hereafter: TASW;...

Diary studies on social interactions are increasingly common in management research. Yet due to the high demands involved, participants may experience burden and respond by showing insufficient effort responding (IER). Moreover, repeated reflection on the variables of interest may change individuals’ perceptions of their work, thereby compromising...

ICT can contribute to flexible working, but the question arises if women and men differ in the way they use ICT. Re-analyzing data collected in two diary studies comparing men and women on the length of ICT use, the type of positive and negative events in relation to ICT during the day, on the way home and in the evening, revealed little to no gend...

With our research, we contribute to the research on proactive work behavior in two ways. First, we examine a person's gender as a boundary condition for proactive behavior at work. Based on social role theory, we argue that women are less likely to receive credit for showing personal initiative (PI) than men. Second, we examine agency and communion...

Although work events can be regarded as pivotal elements of organizational life, only a few studies have examined how positive and negative events relate to and combine to affect work engagement over time. Theory suggests that, to better understand how current events affect work engagement (WE), we have to account for recent events that have preced...

Research suggests that work-related use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) after hours involves both harms and benefits for employee well-being. Yet, these findings are mainly based on examining the extent of ICT use as the focal construct of interest. Based on cognitive appraisal theories of stress, we argue that research needs t...

Acting as a reviewer is considered a substantial part of the role-bundle of the academic profession (quality assurance (QA) and quality enhancement (QE) role). Research literature about peer review, for example, for journals and grants, shows that acting as a peer reviewer adds to an academic’s reputation. However, little is known about academics’...

Although work events can be regarded as pivotal elements of organizational life, only a few studies have examined how positive and negative events relate to and combine to affect work engagement over time. Theory suggests that to better understand how current events affect work engagement (WE), we have to account for recent events that have precede...

In the last decade, the effects of interruptions through mobile notifications have been extensively researched in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. Breakpoints in tasks and activities, cognitive load, and personality traits have all been shown to correlate with individuals' interruptibility. However, concepts that explain interruptibility in...

In the last decade, the effects of interruptions through mobile notifications have been extensively researched in the field of Human-Computer Interaction. Breakpoints in tasks and activities, cognitive load, and personality traits have all been shown to correlate with individuals' interruptibility. However, concepts that explain interruptibility in...

Purpose Although the appraisal of a situation as challenging has positive effects on performance and stress-related outcomes, the situational and individual characteristics that make challenge appraisal likely are far from clear. The purpose of this paper is to test these characteristics based on a review of the conceptualizations of challenge and...

Zusammenfassung Der vorliegende Beitrag der Zeitschrift Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation befasst sich mit den Zusammenhängen von interpersonellen Teamprozessen und der wahrgenommenen Zufriedenheit auf Teamebene. Interpersonelle Prozesse umfassen Konflikt- und Affektmanagement sowie motivationale Teamprozesse. In dieser Studie wird die Rolle von Au...

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of information and communication technology (ICT) use for employees by exploring affective ICT events and their relation to employee recovery. We conducted two daily diary studies with knowledge workers in Germany. In study 1 (N = 153), we followed a qualitative approach by developing a taxonomy...

Today's information and communication devices provide always-on connectivity, instant access to an endless repository of information, and represent the most direct point of contact to almost any person in the world. Despite these advantages, devices such as smartphones or personal computers lead to the phenomenon of attention fragmentation, continu...

Creativity is the generation of novel and useful ideas. Organizations, including universities and other research institutions, need to develop novel and useful products to satisfy constantly evolving customer needs. Furthermore, organizational procedures and processes develop over time, and continuous improvements in processes contribute to organiz...

Following the publication online of this article, the authors would like correct the last sentence on Page 115: “Challenge appraisal positively affected learning but had no effect on vitality, whereas hindrance appraisal had no effect on learning but was POSITIVELY related to vitality.” The sentence should have read as “Challenge appraisal positiv...

Sharon Parker, Caroline Knight, and Sandra Ohly are excited to announce their forthcoming chapter in the most recent edition of The Handbook of Human Resource Management. This chapter focuses on how work design research has changed over the years and where it is likely to head in future. Poor quality jobs continue to exist, so there is no better ti...

According to conservation of resources model and control theory, routinized task behavior that develops through repeated execution under stable circumstances helps employees to deal with demanding aspects of their jobs. In two studies, we investigated whether routinized task behavior predicts momentary levels of energy. In the first study, 328 empl...

Der vorliegende Artikel argumentiert, dass ein Fokus auf Energie als hoch aktivierter affektiver Zustand neue Möglichkeiten eröffnet, Wohlbefinden bei der Arbeit und Arbeitsleistung zu fördern. Dazu werden exemplarische Forschungsarbeiten dargestellt und diskutiert, etwa zu affektiven Arbeitsereignissen, Erholung und zu Merkmalen von Arbeitsaufgabe...

The development of novel and useful ideas is a process that can be described in multiple steps, including information gathering, generating ideas and evaluating ideas. We evaluated a university course that was developed based on design thinking principles which employ similar steps. Our results show that the course was not effective in enhancing st...

In the conceptualization of thriving at work, it is emphasized that employees’ learning and vitality are two equally important components of thriving and that thriving is facilitated by contextual features and available resources. In this study, we examined the effects of two challenge stressors (time pressure and learning demands) on thriving at w...

The aim of this chapter is to provide an extensive overview of existing theories, which can be used by conceptualizing an overall framework of antecedents and consequences of work-related ICT use during after-hours (see Chap. 5). Thus, in the following we describe the border and boundary theory (see, among others, Ashforth, Kreiner and Fugate, Acad...

In the present work, we focus on individuals’ recovery during non-work time and well-being as two important concepts in work and industrial psychology. In this chapter, we present the conceptualizing of these core concepts. First, we describe theories of work recovery and offer an overview of its operationalization in empirical research. Second, we...

Determining and identifying opportune moments for interruptions is a challenging task in Ubiquitous Computing and Human-Computer-Interaction. The current state-of-the-art approaches do this by identifying breakpoints either in user tasks, activities or by processing social relationships and contents of interruptions. However, from a psychological p...

Our diary study with 124 knowledge workers (5 workdays, 3 measurement occasions per workday) shows that challenge stressors (time pressure, learning demands) differentially affect both components of thriving at work (learning, vitality). Further, cognitive appraisals of the work situation (challenge, hindrance) are used to explain these differentia...

Das in Kapitel A beschriebene Projekt TANDEM – „Austausch von Innovation und Erfahrung im demografischen Wandel“ – stellt Unternehmen Konzepte und Maßnahmen zur Förderung ihres organisationalen Innovationspotenzials zur Verfügung. Basis des TANDEM-Projektes ist eine Online-Plattform, die einen Austausch über innovative Ideen ermöglicht. Mitarbeiten...

Das Projekt TANDEM – „Austausch von Innovation und Erfahrung im demografischen Wandel“ - beinhaltet Konzepte und Maßnahmen, die es Unternehmen ermöglichen, ihr Innovationspotenzial auf die organisationalen Herausforderungen des demografischen Wandels auszurichten. Grundlage ist dabei eine Online-Plattform, die über eine geeignete Darstellung und sp...

Das Verbundprojekt ist als Aktionsforschungsprojekt angelegt. Aktionsforschung ist keine ausschließlich auf die Überprüfung bzw. Gewinnung theoretischer Erkenntnisse zielende Forschung, sondern sie orientiert sich bei der Problemwahl und der Problemlösung an konkreten gesellschaftlichen Bedürfnissen und bemüht sich gleichzeitig, wissenschaftliche G...

Die Innovationsfähigkeit von Unternehmen im demografischen Wandel wird im vorliegenden Buch interdisziplinär betrachtet. Faktoren, die die Innovationsfähigkeit eines Unternehmens beeinflussen, können grundsätzlich drei Ebenen zugeordnet werden: (1) der Fähigkeit eines Unternehmens, sich an veränderte Markt- und Umweltbedingungen anzupassen (Organis...

Das Statistische Bundesamt prognostiziert einen Bevölkerungsrückgang von heute 82 Millionen auf knapp 69 Millionen im Jahr 2050. Im Jahr 2050 werden über 30% der Bevölkerung 65 Jahre oder älter sein (Eisenmenger et al. 2006); und dieses Bild des demografischen Wandels spiegelt sich in Unternehmen vor allem durch alternde Belegschaften wider. Unter...

The aim of this work is to provide insight into the process of employee recovery and well-being in regard to work-related ICT use during after-hours. Therefore, we discuss (1) theories that help us to understand the determinants and outcomes of this behavior, (2) our core concepts recovery and well-being, and (3) previous empirical findings on ICT...

In this chapter, we conclude the presented work. Furthermore, we provide suggestions for future research and potential practical implications at this initial state of the research. We end with the overall contribution of this work.

In this chapter, we interconnect all the previous theories and empirical results presented above and propose a conceptual overall framework of antecedents and consequences of work-related ICT use during non-work time with the focus on employee recovery and well-being processes. In our opinion, the previous consideration of ICT use as ‘double-edged’...

To date, only few empirical studies have examined antecedents and consequences of work-related ICT use during non-work time. In this chapter, we provide an overview of these studies to demonstrate the current state of research in this field. At first, we offer an extensive overview of operationalization of ICT use. Then, we present empirical eviden...

Die Autoren des vorliegenden Sammelbandes stellen neue Methoden und Konzepte vor, wie Unternehmen das Wissen jüngerer und älterer Mitarbeiter erfolgreich kombinieren und damit unter geänderten Rahmenbedingungen des demografischen Wandels erfolgreiche Innovationen generieren können. Innerhalb des Verbundprojektes TANDEM erfolgte die Initiierung alte...

Purpose Affective events theory (AET) highlights the importance of work events as antecedents of distinct emotions, attitudes, and work behavior. However, few attempts have been made to systematically classify positive and negative work events. The aim of this study was to develop a comprehensive taxonomy of affective work events to provide a commo...

Based on activation theory and appraisal theory, this study examines the curvilinear relationship between time pressure and work engagement. Further, we argue that this curvilinear relation holds only if time pressure is not induced by unreasonable or unnecessary tasks. We tested our hypotheses in a heterogeneous sample of 191 employees. Results of...

Die Autoren des vorliegenden Sammelbandes stellen neue Methoden und Konzepte vor, wie Unternehmen das Wissen jüngerer und älterer Mitarbeiter erfolgreich kombinieren und damit unter geänderten Rahmenbedingungen des demografischen Wandels erfolgreiche Innovationen generieren können. Innerhalb des Verbundprojektes TANDEM erfolgte die Initiierung alte...

Creativity, the generation of novel and useful ideas, is regarded as a key activity in modern work organizations as it helps organizations to be successful in changing and competitive markets (Oldham & Cummings, 1996). Organizations need to develop novel and useful products to satisfy constantly evolving customer needs. Furthermore, organizational...

Mobile technology, with both its ever-improving connectivity and the capabilities of mobile terminals, has revolutionized the way we can work (and lead our private lives). Basically, connectivity through mobile devices and the ability they provide to work at any place and any time can be a double-edged sword: on the one hand, it can open up importa...

Recent research has revealed that use of smartphones for work in the evening is associated with lower well-being. In this study, based on self-determination theory, we examined the role of autonomous and controlled motivation for well-being in the evening. Hierarchical regression analyses using data from 1,714 working individuals revealed that work...

Job and task characteristics such as job control, job complexity and task routinization affect the daily experience of working individuals. We examined these relationships in a diary study with 320 working individuals who provided data on 10 occasions. In an initial questionnaire participants rated their level of routinization of 5 work tasks and s...

Dieses Kapitel beschäftigt sich mit dem Zusammenhang von Arbeitsgestaltung und Kreativität. Es werden drei grundlegende Theorien zur Arbeitsgestaltung erläutert. Darüber hinaus stellen wir dar, inwiefern die Arbeitsmerkmale Autonomie/Handlungsspielraum, Arbeitskomplexität, Stressoren und soziale Merkmalen im Zusammenhang mit Kreativität stehen. Fer...

Although research has focused on how service employees regulate their emotions, few studies have explored why they do so. In this article, we first described which kinds of motives for emotion regulation exist in customer interactions. Second, we investigated how the motives are related to four emotion regulation strategies. The application of an e...