Principles and Practice of Structural Equation Modeling (2nd ed.)

Grounded in Basic Psychological Need Theory, we examined the direct effects of the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs at school (i.e., satisfaction of autonomy needs at school, satisfaction of relatedness needs at school, and satisfaction of competence needs at school) on prosocial behavior and antisocial behavior as well as the mediation effects of school satisfaction on the relations between the satisfaction of three basic psychological needs at school and prosocial behavior as well as antisocial behavior. We employed a sample of 801 Chinese children (429 males; Mage = 9.47) in a three-wave longitudinal study, with each wave occurring 6 months apart. Direct and indirect effects were estimated by Structural Equation Modeling. Results indicated that: (1) Satisfaction of relatedness needs at school and competence needs at school, but not satisfaction of autonomy needs at school, displayed direct effects on prosocial behavior. Also, satisfaction of relatedness needs at school, but not satisfaction of autonomy needs at school or competence needs at school, displayed direct effects on antisocial behavior. (2) Both satisfaction of relatedness needs at school and competence needs at school displayed indirect effects on prosocial behavior and antisocial behavior via school satisfaction as a mediator. However, satisfaction of autonomy needs at school failed to have indirect effects on prosocial behavior or antisocial behavior via school satisfaction. These findings suggest differential predictors of children's prosocial and antisocial behavior, supporting the separability of the two constructs. The findings also suggest developmental differences in need satisfaction, with the satisfaction of autonomy needs playing a relatively less important role in school-age children. We also discussed limitations and practical applications of the study.

The Effects of Satisfaction of Basic Psychological Needs at School on Children's Prosocial Behavior and Antisocial Behavior: The Mediating Role of School Satisfaction.

Human beings must develop many skills to cope with the large amount of challenges that currently exist in the world: media empowerment for an active and democratic citizenship, knowledge acquisition and conversion for lifelong and life-wide learning, 21st century skills for matching demand and supply in labor markets, and dispositional employability for unpredictable future career success. One of the tools for achieving these is online education, in which students have the chance to manage their own time, content, and goals. Thus, this paper analyzes these issues from the perspective of skills gained through e-learning and validates the Socio-Technical E-learning Employability System of Measurement (STELEM) framework. The research was carried out with former students of the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses validate several consistent and reliable scales in two areas: (i) employability, based on educational social capital, media empowerment, knowledge acquisition, knowledge conversion, literacy, digitalness, collaboration, resilience, proactivity, identity, openness, motivation, organizational culture, and employment security; and (ii) socio-technical systems existing in this open online university, based on its information and communications technology (ICT), learning tasks, as well as student-centered and organizational approaches. The research provides two new psychometrical scales that are useful for the evaluation, monitoring, and assessment of relationships and influences between socio-technical e-learning organizations and employability skills development, and proposes a set of indicators related to human and social capital, valid in employability contexts.

Opening the Black-Box in Lifelong E-Learning for Employability: A Framework for a Socio-Technical E-Learning Employability System of Measurement (STELEM)

This study examines the relationship between job insecurity and discretionary behaviors, that is, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) and counterproductive work behaviors (CWB), with the purpose to extend knowledge on the theoretical explanations for these outcomes. Considering the employment relationship with the organization, two different perspectives are suggested and compared in a multiple mediator model, in order to understand the reasons for discretionary behaviors. We draw upon social exchange theory as the basis of psychological contract perceptions and we rely on the group value model to explain organizational justice evaluations. A total of 570 blue-collar workers in Italy participated in our survey. The results show that job insecurity is indirectly related to OCB and CWB through psychological contract breach and organizational injustice. Both mediational mechanisms have equivalent strength in explaining the relationships, namely, they are complementary processes in accounting for both behaviors. These findings suggest that employees' behaviors in job insecure contexts are driven not only by concerns related to the exchange of resources with the organization, but also by evaluations about their value as important members of the group.

Job insecurity and discretionary behaviors: Social exchange perspective versus group value model

Purpose




The purpose of this paper is to test the hypothesized mediation model that specifies psychological climate dimensions as antecedents of job insecurity, while accounting for occupational self-efficacy. Stemming from the conservation of resources theory, the authors hypothesize that job challenge, role harmony, leader support and co-worker cooperation negatively relate to job insecurity due to its positive correlation with occupational self-efficacy.




Design/methodology/approach




Data were collected with a sample of 329 white-collar employees from the ICT sector who were employed full-time and for a period of at least six months in their current organization. All hypotheses were tested via structural equation modeling using the bootstrap method to test the significance of indirect effects.




Findings




Among the four work environment domains, only job challenge had a significant contribution in explaining job insecurity variance. This relationship was fully mediated by occupational self-efficacy.




Research limitations/implications




The cross-sectional research design limits the ability to make causality inferences, while the convenience sampling method limits the generalizability of findings.




Practical implications




The study results indicate that well-designed (i.e. challenging, autonomous and important) job tasks may be advantageous in organizational interventions aimed at reducing job insecurity due to their potential to strengthen employees’ efficacy beliefs.




Originality/value




The study results contribute to current knowledge regarding the relative importance of work environment antecedents of job insecurity, as well as the prominent role played by occupational self-efficacy in explaining some of these relationships.

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Psychological climate predicting job insecurity through occupational self-efficacy

Exploring determinants of human happiness has been increasingly prevalent in studies over the last few decades. Aim of this study was primarily to explore age differences in life satisfaction in Croatian adults ranging in age from early 20s to 40s. Additionally, we aimed to predict life satisfaction based on gender, basic psychological needs satisfaction, and self-esteem. Data was collected on 393 participants (54.6% female, Mage = 31.23) from two planned subsamples, emerging adults (N = 206, 53.2% female, Mage = 23.29) and middle-aged adults (N = 187, 56.1% female, Mage = 39.97). Participants completed Basic Psychological Needs Scale, Self-esteem scale, and Satisfaction with Life Scale. Results were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Significant latent means differences were found for autonomy and relatedness, with middle-aged adults scoring 0.27 and 0.26 units lower than emerging adults. As for life satisfaction prediction, results showed that women, people with higher self-esteem, and people with higher psychological need satisfaction had higher life satisfaction. Findings also suggested that psychological need satisfaction and self-esteem are equally important predictors of life satisfaction at different stages of life. These results suggest that increasing the satisfaction of basic psychological needs and self-esteem could serve as a possible intervention path to desirable changes in person’s life satisfaction.

Emerging Adults Versus Middle-Aged Adults: Do they Differ in Psychological Needs, Self-Esteem and Life Satisfaction

Ciljevi ovog istraživanja bili su: (1) revidirati model dispozicijske zaposljivosti Fugatea i Kinickija (2008) u hrvatskom ekonomskom kontekstu i (2) validirati novu Skalu dispozicijske zaposljivosti testirajuci njezinu diskriminantnu i inkrementalnu valjanost u odnosu na temeljne samoevaluacije. Hrvatska verzija Skale dispozicijske zaposljivosti konstruirana je na temelju kvalitativne studije i primijenjena na heterogenom uzorku od 966 zaposlenika. Osim navedenog, izmjerili smo temeljne samoevaluacije kao i cetiri kriterijske varijable: subjektivni karijerni uspjeh, opce zadovoljstvo poslom, relativni prihod i percipiranu zaposljivost. Konfirmatorna faktorska analiza provedena je kako bi se ispitalo procjenjuju li mjere dispozicijske zaposljivosti i temeljnih samoevaluacija dvije razlicite dimenzije. Rezultati su u skladu s hipotezom o diskriminantnoj valjanosti ovih konstrukata. Nadalje, rezultati hijerarhijskih regresijskih analiza pokazali su da je dispozicijska zaposljivost objasnila dodatni udio u varijanci subjektivnoga karijernog uspjeha, zadovoljstva poslom i percipirane zaposljivosti povrh kontrolnih varijabli i temeljnih samoevaluacija. Ovi rezultati upucuju na karakteristike koje ljude cine zaposljivima u razlicitom ekonomskom kontekstu te pružaju empirijsku podrsku valjanosti nove Skale dispozicijske zaposljivosti. Na kraju razmatramo ogranicenja, implikacije i prijedloge za buduca istraživanja.

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The role of dispositional employability in determining individual differences in career success

Against the backdrop of various and sometimes unexpected transformations of working conditions, qualitative job insecurity has become increasingly prevalent in academia and beyond. As a result, there is a great need for identifying factors that may mitigate its detrimental outcomes on employee well-being. To do so, the current study aimed to investigate the role of two proactive participation strategies-participatory decision-making and job crafting-as a means of counteracting the effects of qualitative job insecurity on burnout, work engagement and job satisfaction. The study was based on a sample of higher education employees in Belgium and Switzerland (N = 915). To test the hypotheses, moderation analyses were conducted in the overall sample and across different staff categories (i.e., senior and junior academic staff, administrative employees). Around 30% of the tested moderation effects were statistically significant, revealing that the negative outcomes of job insecurity were less salient at high values of the moderators. In particular, our findings suggest that encouraging participative decision-making may serve as a means to maintain academic employees' job satisfaction and prevent burnout in turbulent times. Moreover, job crafting may be additionally targeted at preserving work engagement, even though its moderator effects were not universal.

Proactive strategies for countering the detrimental outcomes of qualitative job insecurity in academia.

By acknowledging the uncertainty and unpredictability of the job search process in an unemployment setting, the present study explored the predictive strength of dispositional employability in job search behaviours. Dispositional employability has been recognized as a potentially important personal resource that promotes job opportunities. However, it has rarely been assessed in an unemployment setting to date. According to recent employability models that differentiate between distal (i.e., personal strengths) and proximal (e.g., perceived employability) determinants of behaviour on the labour market, we hypoth - esized that: (i) dispositional employability relates positively to job search intensity and (ii) perception of one’s employment possibilities (i.e., perceived employability) serves as an explanatory mechanism of this relationship. The hypothesized structural model was tested among a heterogeneous sample of 533 unemployed persons in Croatia. The results of structural equation modelling provided support for our hypotheses: dispositional employability related positively to job search intensity via perceived employ - ability. Accordingly, nurturing dispositional employability may be beneficial for unemployed persons as it relates positively to engagement in job search behaviour.

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Jasmina Tomas

Papers

Emerging Adults Versus Middle-Aged Adults: Do they Differ in Psychological Needs, Self-Esteem and Life Satisfaction

Psychological climate predicting job insecurity through occupational self-efficacy

The role of dispositional employability in determining individual differences in career success

Proactive strategies for countering the detrimental outcomes of qualitative job insecurity in academia.

Searching for a Job on the Contemporary Labour Market: The Role of Dispositional Employability