French Managers and Their Subordinates’ Well-Being

Authors: B. Gangloff, N. Malleh

Abstract:

Well-being at work has many positive aspects. Our general hypothesis is that employees who feel well-being at work will be positively valued by their superiors, and that this positive value, which evokes the concept of social norms, allows us to assign to well-being at work a normative status. Three populations (line managers, students destined to become human resource managers, and employees) responded to a well-being questionnaire. Managers had to indicate, for each item, if they appreciated (or not) an employee feeling the well-being presented in the item; students had to indicate which items an employee should check if s/he wants to be positively (versus negatively) appreciated by his/her superior; and employees had to indicate to what degree each item corresponded to the well-being they used to feel. Three hypotheses are developed and confirmed: Managers positively value employees feeling some sense of well-being; students are aware of this positivity; spontaneously employees show a state of well-being, which means, knowing that spontaneous self-presentation is often produced by social desirability, that employees are aware of the well-being positivity. These data are discussed under a conceptual and applied angle.

Keywords: Normativity, well-being at work, organization, evaluation.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1127424

References:

[1] V. Dagenais-Desmarais, “Du bien-être au travail: fondements théoriques, conceptualisation et instrumentation du construit,” Thèse de doctorat en psychologie, Université de Montréal, 2010.
[2] V. Dagenais-Desmarais, and C. Privé, “Comment améliorer le bien-être psychologique,” Gestion, 2010, vol. 3, n° 35, pp. 69-77. doi: 10.3917/riges.353.0069
[3] N. Delobbe, L. Van Tolhuysen, P. Berck, and F. Wattiaux, “Bien-être et performance au travail,” Direction Générale Humanisation du Travail, SPF Emploi, Travail et Concertation Sociale, 2009.
[4] C.L. Keyes, “Promoting and protecting mental health as flourishing: a complementary strategy for improving national mental health,” American Psychologist, 2007, vol. 62, n° 2, pp. 95-108. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.62.2.95
[5] E. Morin, “Sens du travail, santé mentale et engagement organisationnel,” Institut de recherche Robert-Sauvé en santé et en sécurité du travail (IRSST), 2008.
[6] A. Boyd, “Employee traps-corruption in the workplace,” Management Review, 1997, vol. 86, n°8, p. 9.
[7] R.H. Price, and R. Hooijberg, “Organizational exit pressures and role stress: impact on mental health,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, 1992, vol. 13, n° 7, pp. 641- 651.
[8] R. Cropanzano, and T.A. Wright, “A 5‐year study of change in the relationship between well‐being and performance,” Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research, 1999, vol. 51, pp. 252‐265.
[9] T.A. Judge, C.J. Thoresen, J.E. Bono, and G.K. Patton, “The job satisfaction-job performance relationship: a qualitative and quantitative review,” Psychological Bulletin, 2001, vol. 27, n° 3, pp. 376-407. doi: I0.1037//0033-2909.I27.3.376
[10] K. Lee, and N.J. Allen, “Organizational citizenship behavior and workplace deviance: the role of affect and cognition,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2002, vol. 87, n° 1, pp. 131-142. doi: 10.1037//0021-9010.87.1.131
[11] J.K. Harter, F.L. Schmidt, and T.L. Hayes, “Business-unit-level relationship between employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and business outcomes: a meta-analysis,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2002, vol. 87, n° (2), pp. 268-279. doi: 10.1037//0021-9010.87.2.268
[12] M. Patterson, P., Warr, and M. West, “Organizational climate and company productivity: the role of employee affect and employee level,” Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 2004, vol. 77, n° (2), pp. 193-216. doi: 10.1348/096317904774202144
[13] T.A. Wright, and S.E. Hobfoll, “Commitment, psychological well-being and job performance: an examination of conservation resources theory and job burnout,” Journal of Business and Management, 2004, vol. 9, n° (4), pp. 388-406.
[14] T.A. Wright, R. Cropanzano, and D.G. Bonett, “The moderating role of employee positive well-being on the relation between job satisfaction and job performance,” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 2007, vol. 12, n° (2), pp. 93-104. doi: 10.1037/1076-8998.12.2.93
[15] K. Daniels, “Measures of five aspects of affect well-being at work,” Human Relations, 2000, vol. 53 n° 2, pp. 275-294.
[16] P.M. Hart, and C.L. Cooper, “Occupational stress: towards a more integrated framework,” in N. Anderson, D.S. Ones, H. K. Sinangil & C. Viswesvaran (Eds), Handbook of industrial work and organizational psychology, London, UK: Sage, 2001, vol. 2, pp. 93-114.
[17] D. Holman, “Employee well-being in call centres,” Human Resource Management Journal, 2002, vol. 12, n° (4), pp. 35-50.
[18] S. Vanhala, and K. Tuomi, “HRM, company performance and employee well-being,” Management Revue, 2006, vol. 17, n° (3), pp. 241-255.
[19] P. Warr, “A conceptual framework for the study of work and mental health,” Work and Stress, 1994, vol. 8, n° (2), pp. 84-97.
[20] C. Ryff, and C. L. M. Keyes, “ The structure of psychological well-being revisited,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1995, vol. 69, n° 4, pp. 719-727.
[21] E. Diener, J. J. Sapyta, and E. Suh, “Subjective well-being is essential to well-being,” Psychological Inquiry, 1998, vol. 9, n° (1), pp. 33-37.
[22] R. W. Lent, “Toward a unifying theoretical and practical perspective on well-being and psychosocial adjustment,” Journal of Conseling Psychology, 2004, vol. 51, n° 4, pp. 482-509.
[23] R. M. Ryan, and E.L. Deci, “On happiness and human potentials: a review of research on hedonic and eudaimonic well-being,” Annual Review of Psychology, 2001, vol. 52, pp. 141-166.
[24] A. H. Maslow, “A theory of human motivation,” Psychological Review, 1943, vol. 50, n° 4, pp. 370-396. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0054346
[25] C. Rogers, “Client-centered therapy: its current practice, implications and theory,” London: Constable, 1951.
[26] M. E. P. Seligman, The President's Address (1998 APA Annual Report), American Psychologist, 1999, vol. 54, pp. 559-562.
[27] D. Watson, L. A. Clark, and A. Tellegen, “Development and validation of brief measures of positive negative affect: the PANAS scales,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1988, vol. 54, n° 6, pp. 1063-1070.
[28] C. Maslash, and S. E. Jackson, “Maslach burnout inventory,” CA: consulting psychologists press, Palo Alto, 2nd ed., 1981.
[29] E. Diener, R. A. Emmons, R.J. Larsen, and S. Griffin, “The Satisfaction with Life Scale,” Journal of Personality Assessment, 1985, vol. 49, n° 1, pp. 71-75.
[30] T. A. Wright, R. Cropanzano, and D.G. Meyer, “State and trait correlates of job performance: a tale of two perspectives,” Journal of Business and Psychology, 2004, vol. 18, n° 3, pp. 365-383.
[31] R. Massé, C. Poulin, C. Dassa, J. Lambert, S. Bélair, and M. A. Battaglini, “Elaboration et validation d’un outil de mesure du bien-être psychologique : l’EMMBEP,” Revue Canadienne de Santé Publique, 1998, vol. 89, n° 5, pp. 352-357. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.17269/cjph.89.1014
[32] B. Gangloff, “Normativity of the acceptance of professional injustices via the legislator's paradigm: a study on recruiters,” in Proc. 5th International Conference of Applied Psychology, Timisoara, Roumania: Editura Eurobit, 2008, pp. 219-228.
[33] J. M. Jellison, and J. Green, “A self-presentation approach to the fundamental attribution error: the norm of internality,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1981, vol. 40, n° 4, pp. 643-649.
[34] E. D.Pulakos, S. Arad, M. A. Donovan, and K. E. Plamondon, “ Adaptability in the work place: Development of a taxonomy of adaptive performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2000, vol. 85, pp. 612–624.
[35] E. D. Pulakos, N. Schmitt, D. W. Dorsey, J.W. Hedge, and W. C. Borman, “Predicting adaptive performance: Further tests of a model of adaptability,” Human Performance, 2002, vol. 15, pp. 299-323.
[36] B. Charles-Pauvers, N. Commereiras, D. Peyrat-Guillard, and P. Roussel, “Les déterminants psychologiques de la performance au travail : un bilan des connaissances et proposition de voies de recherche,” Note du Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire de Recherche sur les Ressources Humaines et l’Emploi, 2006, n°436, 56p.