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The Factor Time in Research on Sustainable Employability? Results of Theory-Based Organizational Research

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A special issue of Sustainability (ISSN 2071-1050). This special issue belongs to the section "Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 May 2022) | Viewed by 32818

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Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Annet de Lange

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Psychology, Open University Heerlen, 6419 AT Heerlen, The Netherlands
Interests: human resources; human capital management; sustainable employability; successful aging at work

Prof. Dr. Dorien Kooij

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Guest Editor

Tilburg School of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Tilburg University, 5037 AB Tilburg, The Netherlands
Interests: human resource management; aging and work; work motivation; work psychology

Prof. Dr. Trude Furunes

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Social Sciences, Norwegian School of Hotel Management, University of Stavanger, 4036 Stavanger, Norway
Interests: leadership; health-promoting leadership; age discrimination; ageing; diversity
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Sustainable employability is a well-studied topic in the literature. Several important aspects have been distinguished in earlier research as operationalization of the concept [1–5], such as:

work ability [6],
vitality [7,8], and
employability of workers in organizations [9,10].

Nonetheless, few longitudinal studies have been published on the influence of stability and change, or the time factor in relation to sustainable employability of workers in organizations, as most studies have been cross-sectional in nature and the concepts under study are mostly considered to be static concepts, while in practice, both jobs and people are subject to change across time.

As a result, it remains unclear how fluctuations in different micro-, meso-, or macro-level antecedents affect indicators of sustainable employability across time, and how research can best methodologically design studies on sustainable employability that address the time factor.

We therefore call for new research that pays attention to the time factor and possible fluctuations in antecedents of sustainable employability on:

micro- or worker-level (e.g., time perspective, personality, significant life-events, self-management, resilience, psychosocial work),
meso- or team level (e.g., team cohesion, informal learning in teams), or
macro-level (e.g., leadership, human resource management, culture).

Furthermore, the literature on sustainable employability is limited in the sense that few theories explicitly address or hypothesize about the time factor or time perspective in relation to sustainable employability. Theories such as the socioemotional selectivity theory [11], construal level theory [12], and temporal motivation theory [13] could therefore add to our understanding of how sustainable employability develops across time.

In short, we do not yet know what the role of the time factor is in relation to the development of sustainable employability across time.

In this Special Issue, we call for new:

Theoretical perspectives that shed new light on the time factor or time perspective in relation to sustainable employability of workers in different sectors and organizations;
Longitudinal research that tests relevant theory-based hypotheses on relations between time or the time perspective and micro-, meso- or macro-level antecedents of sustainable employability of workers in different sectors and organizations;
Methodological papers discussing different methodologies (longitudinal survey research, narratives, experimental research, case studies etc.) to investigate the time factor or time perspective in relation to sustainable employability of workers;
Empirical research that introduces new measures for operationalizing the time factor or time perspective in research on antecedents of sustainable employability of workers;
Intervention research in which time is manipulated to influence antecedents of sustainable employability of workers.

Prof. Dr. Annet de Lange
Prof. Dr. Dorien Kooij
Prof. Trude Furunes
Guest Editors

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Keywords

time
time perspective
sustainable employability
longitudinal research
socioemotional selectivity theory
construal-level theory

Published Papers (10 papers)

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Editorial

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7 pages, 232 KiB

Open AccessEditorial

What about the Factor Time in Sustainable Employability Research? An Overview of Theory-Based Organizational Research

by Annet H. De Lange, Dorien T. A. M. Kooij and Trude Furunes

Sustainability 2022, 14(17), 10730; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su141710730 - 29 Aug 2022

Viewed by 1121

Abstract

To facilitate new knowledge development about temporal perspectives on the topic of sustainable employability from an organizational perspective, in this Special Issue, we present new meaningful results of eight different empirical papers. Of these accepted papers, three studies were based on longitudinal survey data (2-wave panel data, whereas one study included cross-sectional survey data. Two studies included interview data (semi-structured interviews versus life-span retrospective interviews). The other two accepted papers included secondary data analyses (secondary fiscal data versus content bibliographical data). The accepted research included a variety of indicators of sustainable employability, such as subjective competency-based measures of internal employability versus objective sustained employment and included data from different occupational contexts in Europe (three studies included Dutch data), Egypt, China and Korea. In this editorial, we discussed the lessons learned from these papers in greater detail and presented a research agenda for future research on temporal perspectives on the concept of sustainable employability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Factor Time in Research on Sustainable Employability? Results of Theory-Based Organizational Research)

Research

Jump to: Editorial

17 pages, 2398 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Predicting Employability of Congolese Information Technology Graduates Using Contextual Factors: Towards Sustainable Employability

by Héritier Nsenge Mpia, Simon Nyaga Mwendia and Lucy Waruguru Mburu

Sustainability 2022, 14(20), 13001; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su142013001 - 11 Oct 2022

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2319

Abstract

Predicting employability in an unstable developing country requires the use of contextual factors as predictors and a suitable machine learning model capable of generalization. This study has discovered that parental financial stability, sociopolitical, relationship, academic, and strategic factors are the factors that can contextually predict the employability of information technology (IT) graduates in the democratic republic of Congo (DRC). A deep stacking predictive model was constructed using five different multilayer perceptron (MLP) sub models. The deep stacking model measured good performance (80% accuracy, 0.81 precision, 0.80 recall, 0.77 f1-score). All the individual models could not reach these performances with all the evaluation metrics used. Therefore, deep stacking was revealed to be the most suitable method for building a generalizable model to predict employability of IT graduates in the DRC. The authors estimate that the discovery of these contextual factors that predict IT graduates’ employability will help the DRC and other similar governments to develop strategies that mitigate unemployment, an important milestone to achievement of target 8.6 of the sustainable development goals. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Factor Time in Research on Sustainable Employability? Results of Theory-Based Organizational Research)

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19 pages, 1073 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Make Time for Employees to Be Sustainable: The Roles of Temporal Leadership, Employee Procrastination, and Organizational Time Norms

by Juncheng Zhang, Shuyu Zhang, Fang Liu and Weiqi Chen

Sustainability 2022, 14(14), 8778; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14148778 - 18 Jul 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2328

Abstract

Extended work availability (EWA) captures the experience of an employee who needs to be available for job demands during nonworking hours. It is a ubiquitous phenomenon because of the prevalent use of information and communication technology (ICT) such as mobile devices and internet services for work purposes. Although it has been found to impair employee health and well-being, evidence that delineates how to mitigate employee EWA is sparse. Thus, an important research question is: How can managers alleviate employee EWA in the ICT-prevalent work environment? Given EWA has a close connection with the time-based work–nonwork conflict, the present study addresses this question by taking a temporal lens and focusing on the roles of three time-related determinants of employee EWA. Particularly, we first include temporal leadership as a predictor of employee EWA, which concerns a particular type of time management behavior in which a manager aims at helping employees to achieve effective use of time while performing job duties. Then, we incorporate both the individual tendency to delay an intended course of action (i.e., procrastination) and the time management environment in an organization (i.e., organizational time norms) into our research model to further reveal how employee EWA could be shaped. Drawing on spillover theory, the goal of the present study was to examine the effect of temporal leadership in determining employee EWA, as well as the roles employee procrastination and organizational time norms play. Analyses of cross-sectional survey data from a sample of 240 full-time employees showed that temporal leadership has a U-shaped association (β = 0.32, p < 0.001) with employee EWA. Both employee procrastination (r = 0.40, p < 0.001) and organizational time norms (r = 0.30, p < 0.001) are positively related to employee EWA, respectively. Moreover, the U-shaped association between temporal leadership and employee EWA becomes more salient when the organizational time norms is strong, with a standardized regression coefficient of 0.24 (p < 0.05) for the interaction between temporal leadership squared and organizational time norms. These findings contribute to a more comprehensive view of how managers can alleviate employee EWA in today’s ICT-prevalent work environment. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Factor Time in Research on Sustainable Employability? Results of Theory-Based Organizational Research)

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13 pages, 841 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Age Discrimination and Employability in Healthcare Work: A Double-Edged Sword for Older Workers?

by Karen Pak, Trude Furunes and Annet H. De Lange

Sustainability 2022, 14(9), 5385; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su14095385 - 29 Apr 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 2678

Abstract

Due to the aging workforce, older workers, especially in the healthcare industry, must remain employable. However, older healthcare workers may face age discrimination that can limit their employability chances. In this study, we examined (a) the causal direction of the relationship between age discrimination and internal employability and (b) differences between age groups (young (≤30), middle-aged (31–44), and older (≥45) healthcare workers) in this relationship. Based on the Selection Optimization Compensation theory, we postulated that (i,ii) internal employability and age discrimination are inversely negatively related to one another over time and that (ii–iv) this relationship would be strongest for older employees compared to other age groups. We conducted a two-wave complete panel study among 1478 healthcare professionals to test these hypotheses. The results of our multi-group structural equation modeling analyses suggested that internal employability is a significant negative predictor of age discrimination. Moreover, results suggested that internal employability and age discrimination have a reciprocal relationship among older workers but are unrelated for younger and middle-aged workers. Theoretical and practical implications of our results are discussed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Factor Time in Research on Sustainable Employability? Results of Theory-Based Organizational Research)

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24 pages, 3091 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Special Employment Centres, Time Factor and Sustainable Human Resources Management in Spanish Hotel Industry: Can Corporate Social Marketing Improve the Labour Situation of People with Disabilities?

by Marco Antonio Cruz-Morato, Josefa García-Mestanza and Carmen Dueñas-Zambrana

Sustainability 2021, 13(19), 10710; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su131910710 - 27 Sep 2021

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 3032

Abstract

Background: Low-quality jobs, long working hours and difficult scheduling of hours have been usually reported in the hotel industry. The situation is more difficult for people with disabilities (PWD), even more in the COVID-19 crisis, especially in terms of labour inclusion (due to the labour discrimination usually suffered by this collective). Thus, Special Employment Centres (SEC) have been created in Spain to spread protected employment of PWD. Although they are improving the situation in the short term, the long-term impact developing sustainable employment is not clear. The objective of this paper is to analyze the Spanish situation, the possible differences between sheltered employment and the ordinary labour market, how SEC could be improving (or not) their labour situation in the hotel sector in the long term, and the potential of incorporating Corporate Social Marketing to overcome the problem. Methods: A content bibliographic analysis has been carried out according to the latest research about this topic, using a ProKnow-C methodology. Results: There seems to be two different groups of papers (supply and demand sides), being the supply side one (focused on HR practices about PWD inclusion and managers’ perceptions of workers with disabilities) more related to our research objective. Furthermore, few articles were found about SEC and Corporate Social Marketing in relation to this topic, highlighting the originality of this research approach. Conclusions: According to our bibliographic portfolio, the presence of labour discrimination in the regular market is more evident; and, in the long term, two opposite situations could be happening simultaneously: (a) SEC would be reinforcing the social stigma, hindering the labour situation of PWD; (b) SEC could be changing the social perspectives of clients and all society in a positive manner. Therefore, it would be necessary to go in-depth into the present subject, from an academic but also practical perspective, incorporating an innovative Corporate Social Marketing approach in order to shed new light on this issue and improving effective sustainable employment of PWD. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Factor Time in Research on Sustainable Employability? Results of Theory-Based Organizational Research)

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14 pages, 278 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainable Employability: Empirical Evidence from Korea

by Chang Seop Rhee, Sohee Woo, So-Jin Yu and Hyunjung Rhee

Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 8114; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13148114 - 20 Jul 2021

Cited by 9 | Viewed by 2553

Abstract

A firm’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) aids in social well-being, but it is costly. It is thus necessary to study whether a firm’s CSR activities are valuable in terms of costs and benefits for shareholders’ interest. Recent studies reported that firms’ CSR activities help to develop the corporate environment and improve financial performance. In addition, prior studies explained that a firm’s CSR activities can have a positive effect on financial performance by increasing employees’ commitment to their firm. The purpose of this study research is to examine the effect of CSR activities on sustainable employability through empirical analysis. We measured the sustainable employability using the percentage of regular employees and then examined the effect of CSR activities on sustainable employability using 3802 firm-year data for Korean listed firms. From the empirical results, we found that firms engaging in CSR activities improve more in terms of sustainable employability than do firms who are not engaging in CSR activities. We also found that the companies engaging in a high CSR index score showed greater sustainable employability than did those with a low CSR index score. The results of this study suggested a way to increase sustainability in terms of employment by supporting a rational basis for companies to adopt CSR. These findings are expected to contribute to academia and the capital market by providing empirical evidence that a company’s CSR activities have a positive impact on sustainable employability. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Factor Time in Research on Sustainable Employability? Results of Theory-Based Organizational Research)

22 pages, 2103 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Dynamics of Subjective Career Success: A Qualitative Inquiry

by Leon Hupkens, Jos Akkermans, Omar Solinger and Svetlana Khapova

Sustainability 2021, 13(14), 7638; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13147638 - 08 Jul 2021

Cited by 8 | Viewed by 4023

Abstract

Current perspectives on career success have yet to show whether and how subjective career success evaluations may change over time and across career phases. By adopting a retrospective life-span approach to careers, our qualitative inquiry into the career experiences of 63 professionals contributes to the temporal understanding of subjective career success by exploring patterns in how subjective career success perceptions and priorities may change over time. The temporal development of subjective career success was explored among early-career, mid-career, and late-career workers by piecing together retrospective evaluations of career success perceptions. Our findings point to common patterns in career success perceptions across the lifespan. Specifically, we found five shift components of career success perceptions during people’s careers: (1) quitting striving for financial success and recognition; (2) an increased focus on personal development across the career; (3) a stronger emphasis on work–life balance across the career; (4) a shift toward being of service to others; and (5) no change in subjective career success components across the career. These patterns reflect ways in which workers engage in motivational self-regulation and the corresponding career goal-setting across the lifespan. The theoretical implications are discussed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Factor Time in Research on Sustainable Employability? Results of Theory-Based Organizational Research)

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17 pages, 518 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Employable through Social Media: An Intervention Study

by Omar Habets, Beatrice Van der Heijden, Omar Ramzy, Jol Stoffers and Pascale Peters

Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 5093; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13095093 - 01 May 2021

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2421

Abstract

This longitudinal, quantitative study contributes to the debate on technology-based professional development by examining the extent to which a learning (LinkedIn) intervention in a university setting affects an individual’s social media use for professional development, and the extent to which this relates to self-reported employability. In addition, we investigated how this relationship is moderated by an individual’s motivation to communicate through social media (LinkedIn). Based on social capital theory and the conservation of resources theory, we developed a set of hypotheses that were tested based on longitudinal data collected from university employees (N = 101) in middle- and high-level jobs. First, in line with our expectations, social media use for professional development was significantly higher after the learning intervention than before. Second, partially in line with our expectations, social media use for professional development was positively related with the employability dimension anticipation and optimization. Third, contrary to our expectations, motivation to communicate through social media (LinkedIn) did not have a moderating role in this relationship. We concluded that the learning intervention has the potential to foster social media use for professional development, and in turn, can contribute to individuals’ human capital in terms of their employability. Hence, the intervention that forms the core of this empirical research can be a sustainable and promising human resource management (HRM) practice that fits the human capital agenda. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Factor Time in Research on Sustainable Employability? Results of Theory-Based Organizational Research)

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22 pages, 521 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Job Design to Extend Working Time: Work Characteristics to Enable Sustainable Employment of Older Employees in Different Job Types

by Hiske den Boer, Tinka van Vuuren and Jeroen de Jong

Sustainability 2021, 13(9), 4719; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13094719 - 23 Apr 2021

Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4088

Abstract

Due to an aging workforce and an increasing structural labor shortage across Western economies, it is important to design jobs for older workers that support their continued employability. The aim of this qualitative study was to investigate how job type (operational, professional and managerial jobs) influences work characteristics older workers need to continue working. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 21 older (55+) Dutch employees working in the health and education sector. A full thematic analysis of interview transcripts was performed, and work characteristics were identified, coded, categorized and compared to discover patterns of similarities and differences between job types. The results show that job types have a number of work characteristics in common: operational job types share autonomy with managers and client interaction with professionals, and professionals and managers share mentorship. Unique work characteristics for operational roles are supervisor support and comfortable workspace. Professionals especially want to use their expertise and flexible working hours, and managers are different because they value personal development and contact with colleagues. In conclusion, the results show that certain work characteristics have a different impact on the design of future jobs for older workers, depending on the type of job of the employee. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Factor Time in Research on Sustainable Employability? Results of Theory-Based Organizational Research)

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19 pages, 333 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Impact of Work Engagement on Future Occupational Rankings, Wages, Unemployment, and Disability Pensions—A Register-Based Study of a Representative Sample of Finnish Employees

by Jari J. Hakanen, Petri Rouvinen and Ilkka Ylhäinen

Sustainability 2021, 13(4), 1626; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/su13041626 - 03 Feb 2021

Cited by 10 | Viewed by 6245

Abstract

Despite ample interest in the potential consequences of work engagement over the last two decades, the question of whether work engagement predicts proximal and more distal career-related outcomes has gained surprisingly little attention. Using Conservation of Resources (COR) theory and a sustainable careers framework, the aim of this study was to investigate whether work engagement predicts register-based outcomes of wages, moves in occupational rankings, unemployment, and disability pensions. We used nationally representative survey data (n = 4876; response rate 68.7%) on Finnish employees derived from the Quality of Work Life Survey (QWLS) and matched respondent data to the Finnish Longitudinal Employer–Employee Data (FLEED), which covered the period 2013–2015. We utilized ordinary least squares (OLS) and instrumental variable (IV) estimations to strengthen causality in the analyses. Even after controlling for outcomes at baseline and several covariates, e.g., health, we found that work engagement positively predicted future wages and the probability of rising in occupational rankings, and negatively predicted future unemployment and disability pensions. This study extends the scope of the possible benefits of work engagement for employees, organizations, and society at large and contributes to career research by indicating the importance of work engagement for objectively measured indicators of sustainable careers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Factor Time in Research on Sustainable Employability? Results of Theory-Based Organizational Research)

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