PurposeEmployee health is a major challenge for enterprises. Fostering a healthy work environment and promoting employee engagement are key to addressing this challenge. Health-promoting leadership and employee health are the driving forces of corporate development; at the same time, employability is the core element of employee relations. Based on self-determination theory, this study aims to explore the effects of health-promoting leadership and employee health on employee engagement in light of employee employability.Design/methodology/approachThe data of this study encompass 723 valid questionnaires from employees of MSME in China. This study focuses on health-promoting leadership and employee health, engagement relationship and the above relationship moderating by employability.FindingsHealth-promoting leadership plays a key role in the workplace, results show that health-promoting leadership has a positive impact on employee health and employee engagement, while employee health did not have a positive effect on employee engagement. Employability negatively moderated the relationship between employee health and employee engagement.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is based on cross-sectional survey data collected at the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic rapidly and continuously changed the organizational responses to employee health. Future studies could utilize longitudinal methods or focus on measurement instruments of the culture of health, to create additional insights about health promoting.Originality/valueThis study adds important knowledge regarding health-promoting leadership and employee health in Chinese MSMEs, an area for which limited research exists. The findings provide insights and knowledge about health-promoting leadership how to affect employee health and to improve engagement outcomes. The findings also identify the moderating role of employability.

Purpose Job crafting can improve employees’ performance and competitive advantage. This study integrated the self-determination and equity theories to examine the relation between an individual’s Confucianism and job crafting by highlighting the mediating effect of psychological contract fulfilment and the moderating effect of distributive justice on this relation. Participants and Methods Data were collected in two waves from 372 employees in numerous private companies in Guangxi, China. Results The hypothesized model was supported in part. Specifically, as expected, psychological contract fulfilment mediated the positive relation between Confucianism and task crafting and cognitive crafting. Confucianism had a positive effect on psychological contract fulfilment and relational crafting, while psychological contract fulfilment had no mediating effect and its positive effect on relational crafting was not significant. Distributive justice moderated the relation between psychological contract fulfilment and cognitive crafting and task crafting positively. Conclusion This study reveals the mechanism of Confucianism’s effect on job crafting from a new perspective and confirms its differing effects on different types of job crafting. Business managers should give attention to Confucianism and maximize their organization’s psychological contract fulfilment to improve employees’ job crafting.

PurposeDrawing upon self-determination theory, this study investigates the direct and indirect impact of health-promoting leadership on employee engagement via workplace relational civility and explores the moderating effect of employability on these factors.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected a total of 723 matched and valid responses from nurses in Guangxi, China. Data regarding health-promoting leadership, workplace relational civility, employability and employee engagement were gathered using a survey administered in two waves, 1 week apart. The authors utilised structural equation modelling and linear regression to test the model.FindingsThis study reveals that health-promoting leadership has both direct and indirect positive effects on nurses' engagement through workplace relational civility. Furthermore, the authors found that employability negatively moderates the impact of workplace relational civility on nurses' engagement but does not moderate the impact of health-promoting leadership on nurses' engagement.Originality/valueThis is one of the few studies that have examined the effects of health-promoting leadership within the nursing industry. The authors confirm the importance of health-promoting leadership and workplace relationship civility on employee engagement. In addition, this study demonstrates the moderating role of employability in employment relationships.