Suchergebnisse

A recent cross-cultural study suggests employees may be classified, based on their scores on a measure of work ethic, into three profiles labeled as "live to work," "work to live," and "work as a necessary evil." The present study assesses whether these profiles were stable before and after an extended lockdown that forced employees to work from home for 2 years because of the COVID-19 pandemic. To assess our core research question, we conducted a longitudinal study with employees of a company in the financial sector, collecting data in two waves: February 2020 ( n = 692) and June 2022 ( n = 598). Tests of profile similarity indicated a robust structural and configural equivalence of the profiles before and after the lockdown. As expected, the prolonged pandemic-based lockdown had a significant effect on the proportion of individuals in each profile. Implications for leading and managing in a post-pandemic workforce are presented and discussed. JEL CLASSIFICATION: M12

The goal of the present study is twofold. First, we take a person-centered approach to individual differences in work ethic. Here, we focus on the identification and stability of profiles of work ethic dimensions across individuals from two relatively diverse samples. Second, we examine the extent to which work ethic profile membership influences which characteristics of an ideal coworker are viewed as most important. To assess our hypotheses, we used a diverse US-based sample of 2440 as well as a sample of 692 employees in sales-related positions in the financial sector in Mexico. Results from a series of latent profile analyses (LPAs) clearly support the idea that from the combination of scores on the seven dimensions of work ethic, clear and reliable profiles emerge and were generalizable across samples. The three profiles were identified as "Live to Work," "Work to Live," and "Work as a Necessary Evil." Significant differences were found in 5 of 11 desired attributes of an ideal coworker between the employees in the three emerging profiles. Also, in line with our hypotheses, results show that employees belonging to the profile with the highest scores on the core dimensions of the work ethic construct reported that the top desired characteristic in an ideal peer is the hard worker attribute.