Engaging leader – Engaged employees? A cross-lagged study on employee engagement

The goal of this study is to provide a cross-lagged examination of the relationships between engaging leadership, job resources and employee work engagement. We propose a mediation model and we postulate that engaging leadership can increase perceptions of three specific job resources (i.e. autonomy, support from colleagues and opportunities for learning and development) which theoretically correspond to the three facets of engaging leadership (i.e., inspiring, connecting and strengthening, respectively). Subsequently, in keeping with the extant body of Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) research, we link job resources to employee work engagement. Our hypotheses were tested on data collected at two time-points – T1 (N = 759) and T2 (N = 273) –from employees working for a hotel chain in the Netherlands. In line with our expectations, engaging leadership showed a significant cross-lagged relationship with autonomy and support from colleagues, but did not predict learning opportunities and work engagement across time. While we formulated specific hypotheses, we also tested reversed causation relationships. We found no direct effect from engaging leadership on employee work engagement, however, the reversed effect was significant; employee perceptions of engaging leadership were shaped by their own engagement experiences. Importantly, engaged employees at T1 reported more job resources at T2. By providing a cross-lagged examination of our model, we showed that engaging leaders as well as employees’ positive affective state of being engaged, are essential to shaping a resourceful work context. A comprehensive view on the triggers and outcomes of work engagement and engaging leadership is needed, as the traditional unidirectional cause-effect rationale fails to explain how these concepts relate to one another and to employee experiences of job resources.     

Do Lets Work?

This study aims to uncover some of the reasons for differences in attitudes towards family‐friendly and equal opportunities (EO) policies for women between senior and junior staff and between male and female staff. This in‐depth case study of a multi‐national corporation in Hong Kong that included a survey questionnaire, interviews and participant observation suggests four categories of female employees according to their approach to EO: advocators, supporters, outsiders and rejecters. The approach adopted was dependent on the woman's level of empathy towards the situation of working women and the extent of her career ambition. Four categories of male employees can also be classified depending on their level of empathy towards women's situation (similar to women's case) and their extent of career satisfaction (in contrast to women's career ambition), namely, antagonists, outsiders, fence‐sitters and sympathizers. Women at higher levels were less supportive of EO than women at lower levels. No such clear relationship between organizational level and attitudes towards EO was observed among men. In Hong Kong, female managers had little expectation that their organization would be family‐friendly and women workers who consciously chose to balance work and family accepted that it meant fewer promotional chances. No such self‐adjusted depressed ambition was observed among men.     

Living on the margin: disabled Iranians in Belgian society

This paper explores the antecedents, experiences and consequences of marginalization as reported and dealt with by disabled Iranian immigrants in Belgium. This work extends the work of Gallie and colleagues and Siegrist demonstrating that the forces of marginalization applicable to all immigrants are particularly pertinent to disabled immigrants. The research is based on 26 in‐depth, face‐to‐face interviews, focus groups, interviews with government officials and immigration experts, ethnographic work and official government statistics. The findings detail how the combined forces of history, context and reasons for immigration; isolation, vulnerability and perceived loss of control; religion and rejection; lack of reciprocity in social exchanges; problems in obtaining jobs; and difficulties in negotiating an entry into Belgian society combine to sustain marginizalation. As a consequence, disabled immigrants in this group are generally excluded from society and discriminated against in terms of citizenship, education, jobs and general acceptance.     

Leaving an Institution in Flanders (Belgium): A Road to Homelessness?

People living in an institution will leave this residential context one day and have to proceed to a stable independent way of living. This transition is not without difficulties as it turns out this socially vulnerable group runs an increased risk of becoming homeless. Research in Flanders (Belgium) has shown that a considerable share of the homeless population has previously stayed in an institutional setting, mostly in youth care (48.7%), psychiatric (34.4%) and penitentiary (33.1%) institutions. Moreover, the share of homeless people with a history in one of these institutions has increased in the past decades. Institution leavers, face at least three obstacles to a stable housing situation in Flanders: a lack of affordable housing, a lack of access to (non-residential) social assistance and personal difficulties in coping with living independently. Yet, there are several programs that support institution leavers and prepare them for the transition to an independent living situation and legal developments that strengthen their position in society and on the housing market. In this paper, we explore these initiatives and developments in three case studies (Antwerp, Ghent and Leuven). Based on in-depth interviews with “street-level bureaucrats” who work in these institutions (youth care, psychiatric and penitentiary settings), social support services and social housing organizations, we reconstruct the pathways of institution leavers to the housing market, the support they receive and the experienced difficulties.     

Age at First Marriage and Age at Death in the Lincolnshire Fenland, 1252–1478

In five Lincolnshire villages between 1252 and 1478 there is evidence that men and women married fairly late before the Black Death, and that by 1348/9 the Western European marriage pattern of late and prudential marriage was well established. Households were usually nucleated; husbands were on average eight years older than their wives before 1348/9, and five years older after 1348/9. Marriages were short: according to the best calculation shorter before 1348/9 than after, most often terminated by the death of the first husband, and were unlikely to produce more than three children. Since there were more males than females amongst children and young adults, many men remained unmarried, but since the death rate of women was very high, men lived longer.     

The Migrant Mortality Advantage: A 70 Month Follow-up of the Brussels Population

There is considerable evidence that first generation immigrants to developed countries tend to have lower mortality than does the population as a whole at their destination. This advantage is usually ascribed to a selection process which makes migrants more robust than the local population and/or an acculturation process whereby third-world migrants lose their natural healthy life style as they take on modern urban dietary and living habits. We investigate immigrant-local mortality differences using a 6-year follow-up of the complete Brussels population aged 25–55, as enumerated at the Belgian census, 1991. We show that adult migrants have lower mortality than their native-born counterparts, despite their often poorer living arrangements, work status and human capital. This effect differs by origin group. The effects of age on mortality are similar for all groups, with mortality increasing about 8% a year. This increase is slightly greater for the Belgian born than for immigrants, which makes the selectivity explanation unlikely. Years since migration does not significantly increase the mortality risk for most groups, contradicting the acculturation hypothesis. Thus, explanations ascribing immigrants' mortality advantage to migrant selectivity, pre-modern cultural practices, or an artefact of population recording practices are insufficient. We propose, instead, an explanation based on the meaning migration has for the immigrant, and the hope engendered in the move, particularly that from a lesser to a more developed country.     

《薛福成日记》序言

薛福成是清末著名思想家、政论家和外交家,他在曾国藩、李鸿章的幕府中供职近二十年,协助处理了许多重大事件,后在中法战争中筹防浙东军务有功,被任命出使英、法、义、比四国钦差大臣,在国外五年,办理诸多事务。《薛福成日记》由此分为幕府二十年与国外五年前后两个时期,这二十五年(1869-1894)是中国社会急剧变化的时期。薛氏日记对许多重大事件都有记录,其保留的资料中有极少见或失传的文字,有不少内容为已出的刻本所无。南京图书馆古籍部与南京大学历史系协作,组织人员整理了薛氏日记,供学术界参考、利用。     

Debt management in a small open economy: A theoretical and an empirical study for Belgium

This article analyzes the effects of debt management and its consequence for the control of base money in a small open economy (Belgium). The study compares the effects obtained from a small theoretical model with the results of a larger empirical model.The theoretical model focuses on the financing of government by money operation, on the bond rate, and on the international reserve of the Central Bank.The empirical model is a medium-term one, including the demand and the supply sectors of the economy and permitting simultaneous analysis of real and financial variables.The effects of an endogeneous or exogenous debt management have been studied by numerical simulation of modification in the public expenditure, the world trade, and the discount rate.     

Book Reviews

No abstract available for this article.     

Differences in the job satisfaction of high-paid and low-paid workers across Europe

Data from six waves of the European Community Household Panel (1996–2001) in 11 countries suggest that low-paid employees are significantly less satisfied with their job than the high-paid in southern Europe, but not in the northern countries. Proxying job satisfaction for job quality, the authors show that while low-paid employment does not necessarily mean low-quality employment, workers in some countries suffer the double penalty of low pay and low job quality. Such dualism across European labour markets, they argue, reflects different country-level approaches to the trade-off between flexibility and security, calling for a policy focus on the latter to enhance job quality.