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Purpose The importance and benefit of work meaningfulness has been recognized from many previous studies. The purpose of this study aimed at how employees in Taiwan sense their work as meaningful by introducing prosocial motivation along with two organizational-related factors – task significance and external prestige. Design/methodology/approach In total, 451 questionnaires were used to analyze the relationships among task significance, external prestige, prosocial motivation and work meaningfulness. Findings The results confirm the research hypotheses. This study advanced our understanding of how work meaningfulness arises through an integration of an individual’s psychological state with work contexts. The implications for managerial practices and future research are discussed. Originality/value This research represented an initial empirical test for measuring these constructs in Taiwanese society. While all the measurements have good reliabilities, it is only a good start. The examination of these constructs using these measurements needs additional research, preferably, in different cultural and industrial contexts.

PurposeAlthough the sense of entitlement was traditionally associated with a range of maladaptive personality characteristics, the purpose of the current study is to take an initial step to explore a positive implication of psychological entitlement.Design/methodology/approachThe target population for this study comprises employees from various industries in Taiwan. To examine the research hypotheses, structural equation modeling techniques were employed to perform a mediation analysis and conditional process analysis.FindingsThe results of this research showed that career ambition mediates the relationship between psychological entitlement and job involvement, where psychological entitlement is positively related to career ambition, and career ambition is positively related to job involvement. Nonetheless, the authors' data did not support the proposed moderation effect of self-efficacy on the relationship between career ambition and job involvement.Originality/valueThis work is among the first to investigate how an employee's psychological entitlement is associated with his/her job involvement and the boundary conditions that affect this relationship.

Fractals, mathematically defined as “self-similar subsets at different scales”, are ubiquitous in nature despite their complexity in assembly and formulation. Fractal geometry formed by simple components has long been applied to many fields, from physics and chemistry to electronics and architecture. The Sierpiński carpet (SC), a fractal with a Hausdorff dimension of approximately 1.8933, has two-dimensional space-filling abilities and therefore provides many structural applications. However, few studies have investigated its mechanical properties and fracture behaviors. Here, utilizing the lattice spring model (LSM), we constructed SC composites with two base materials and simulated tensile tests to show how fractal iterations affect their mechanical properties and crack propagation. From observing the stress–strain responses, we find that, for either the soft-base or stiff-base SC composites, the second iteration has the optimal mechanical performance in the terms of stiffness, strength, and toughness compared to the composites with higher hierarchies. The reason behind this surprising result is that the largest stress intensities occur at the corners of the smallest squares in the middle zone, which consequently induces crack nucleation. We also find that the main crack tends to deflect locally in SC composites with a soft matrix, but in global main crack behavior, SC composites with a stiff matrix have a large equivalent crack deflection. Furthermore, considering the inherent anisotropy of SC composites, we rotated the samples by 45°. The results show that the tensile strength and toughness of rotated SC composites are inferior and the crack propagating behaviors are distinct from the standard SC composites. This finding infers advanced engineering for crack control and deflection by adjusting the orientation of SC composites. Overall, our study opens the door for future engineering applications in stretchable devices, seismic metamaterials, and structural materials with tunable properties and hierarchies.

The current study is developed to identify factors that affect trainees' acquiescent tendency in organizational trainer evaluations. We posit that conflict-handling style affects ones tendency to acquiesce in trainer evaluations, and this relationship is regulated by cultural influence. Surveys were sent to employees with training experience in Taiwan and North America, 395 valid responses were collected. Results showed that the two individual conflict-handling styles: nonconfrontation style and dominating style, are positively related to acquiescent tendency; and their relationship is found moderated by the influence of Confucian work dynamism, thus confirming the influence of cultural norms. Our findings contribute to HRD practitioners by highlighting the different conflict-handling style and culture influence will result in different level of acquiescent propensity, trainer evaluations results should be interpreted more carefully and cautiously.