Work and Organizational Psychology

Debate among researchers and practitioners persists as to how to define a workplace well-being construct that measures people's experienced well-being. Existing definitions often have a differing narrow focus on eudaimonic or hedonic aspects of well-being. An inductive approach to determining key features of workplace well-being through exploring real-life work experience might alleviate this issue as checking the meanings people assign to well-being would create further insight into key aspects of the workplace well-being concept. Further, the endeavor to understand how different people at work experience well-being is important as their understanding is likely to impact on how they maintain and enhance well-being, how they rate their well-being in occupational surveys, how they respond to interventions, and how they manage their own well-being. Therefore, this research explores through two studies of lay descriptions of workplace well-being and extends previous research by using an inductive framework of an occupationally heterogeneous sample. Different groups of employees in different work settings were given qualitative surveys and took part in interviews and focus groups in order to establish components of workplace well-being. Dominant components were established through thematic content analysis. Similarities and differences were found between lay and theoretical conceptualizations of well-being. Results indicate that a multicomponent measure of workplace wellbeing should go beyond hedonic and eudaimonic aspects by including an energy component and social and physical aspects of well-being at work. Further, the use of a context-specific definitions and resulting implications for designing workplace well-being interventions is also discussed.

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What Are the Key Components of Workplace Well-Being?: Examining Real-Life Experiences in Different Work Contexts

Rook

¹

,

O’Brien

²

,

Adarves-Yorno

³

2021

The Palgrave Handbook of Workplace Well-Being

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0

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Debate among researchers and practitioners persists as to how to define a workplace well-being construct that measures people's experienced well-being. Existing definitions often have a differing narrow focus on eudaimonic or hedonic aspects of well-being. An inductive approach to determining key features of workplace well-being through exploring real-life work experience might alleviate this issue as checking the meanings people assign to well-being would create further insight into key aspects of the workplace well-being concept. Further, the endeavor to understand how different people at work experience well-being is important as their understanding is likely to impact on how they maintain and enhance well-being, how they rate their well-being in occupational surveys, how they respond to interventions, and how they manage their own well-being. Therefore, this research explores through two studies of lay descriptions of workplace well-being and extends previous research by using an inductive framework of an occupationally heterogeneous sample. Different groups of employees in different work settings were given qualitative surveys and took part in interviews and focus groups in order to establish components of workplace well-being. Dominant components were established through thematic content analysis. Similarities and differences were found between lay and theoretical conceptualizations of well-being. Results indicate that a multicomponent measure of workplace wellbeing should go beyond hedonic and eudaimonic aspects by including an energy component and social and physical aspects of well-being at work. Further, the use of a context-specific definitions and resulting implications for designing workplace well-being interventions is also discussed.

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Playing Politics: An Upper Echelons' Perspective on Political Behaviour During Acquisition Decision Making

Lou,

Shepherd,

Strobl

et al. 2024

British J of Management

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The pre‐deal phase of an acquisition is complex, with high stakes and high uncertainty. Consequently, acquisition decision making can be seen as an inherently political process. While political behaviour is a central concept in organizational theory, and despite its inevitability during acquisition decision making owing to the contested nature of the pre‐deal phase, there is a shortage of theory and evidence concerning the antecedents, consequences and moderators of political behaviour. To address these theoretical shortcomings, we develop and test a theoretical model of political behaviour focusing on the psychological context of the top management team (TMT). We argue that while political behaviour risks undermining acquisition performance, the degree of board involvement during the pre‐deal phase can enable some TMTs to attenuate the damaging effects of political behaviour. Further, we theorize two key antecedents variously fuelling and constraining political behaviour. We contend that while TMT cohesion reduces political behaviour, cognitive diversity increases political behaviour while suppressing the potential for TMT cohesion to prevent political behaviour. We test our theoretical model using a field‐based sample of 109 UK acquisitions, combining multiple informants with objective secondary data.

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Work and Organizational Psychology

Cited by 5 publications

References 17 publications

What Are the Key Components of Workplace Well-Being?: Examining Real-Life Experiences in Different Work Contexts

What Are the Key Components of Workplace Well-Being?: Examining Real-Life Experiences in Different Work Contexts

What Are the Key Components of Workplace Well-Being?: Examining Real-Life Experiences in Different Work Contexts

Playing Politics: An Upper Echelons' Perspective on Political Behaviour During Acquisition Decision Making

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