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- Eigeninitiative (1)
- Entrepreneurship (1)
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- Institut für Management und Organisation (IMO) (3) (entfernen)
Micro- and small enterprises are of great importance for the economic growth in developing countries, as they contribute to employment creation and innovation. In light of their economic relevance, several approaches to support micro- and small enterprises have emerged, including building human capital through business trainings. However, the effects of existing business trainings on entrepreneurial success have so far been limited. One promising alternative training approach that has emerged in the last years is personal initiative training, which teaches self-starting, future-oriented, and persistent entrepreneurial behavior. This dissertation helps to improve the understanding of personal initiative training by shedding light on the mechanisms through which it affects business success, on supporting factors, and on its long-term impacts. Chapter 1 provides an overview on the topic of personal initiative training for entrepreneurs in developing countries. Chapter 2 introduces personal initiative training and other proactive behavior trainings in various contexts of work, including entrepreneurship. The chapter presents action regulation theory and the theory on personal initiative as the theoretical foundation of the training. In addition, the chapter provides insights into training and evaluation methods and makes recommendations for the successful implementation of personal initiative training. Chapter 3 offers a first answer to the question how personal initiative after training can be maintained over time. The chapter introduces training participants' need for cognition as beneficial factor for post-training personal initiative maintenance. Chapter 4 explains how action regulation trainings like personal initiative training contribute to poverty reduction in developing countries by supporting entrepreneurial success. Chapter 5 enlarges upon the topic of personal initiative training for entrepreneurial success in developing countries. The chapter focuses on how personal initiative training supports female entrepreneurs in developing countries by helping them to overcome the uncertainty involved in entrepreneurial actions. Chapter 6 summarizes the overall findings and illustrates the theoretical and practical implications that result from this dissertation. In sum, this dissertation makes a contribution to the better understanding of personal initiative training and its effects on entrepreneurship in developing countries and thereby helps to create effective interventions to combat poverty in developing countries.
This dissertation focused on the nature and role of organizational practices for the employment of older people and the extension of their working lives. The set of four articles is driven by the objective to further deepen our understanding of how organizations can facilitate ageing at work to the benefit of both, employees and employers. Findings are empirically based on qualitative expert interview data from Germany and the U.S. and several quantitative field studies among older employees in Germany. To bridge gaps in measurement of organizational practices related to aging at work, this dissertation proposes a new comprehensive, multifaceted, and thoroughly conceptualized measure of organizational practices related to aging at work, the Later Life Workplace Index (LLWI). Through the course of the four articles the LLWI is conceptually developed based on qualitative interview data, operationalized, validated based on multiple field studies among older workers, and applied in a multi-level study among older employees of 101 organizations. Results suggest that organizational practices are not uniform, but multifaceted in their presence within organizations and their effects for the employment of older workers. The LLWI distinguishes nine domains of practices including an age-friendly organizational climate, work design, individual development, and practices tailoring the retirement transition. Thus, it may lay the foundation for more granular organizational level research in the field. Further, this dissertation's fourth article applies the LLWI and argues based on person-environment fit and socio-emotional selectivity theory that organizational practices address different individual needs and, thus, affect employment depending on employees' individual characteristics. Results suggest that older employees' retirement intentions are effected by individual development, transition-to-retirement, and continued employment practices depending on their health resources. Application of the new measure in practice to improve organizations' response to the aging workforce and opportunities for future research based on the LLWI are discussed.
This dissertation investigates work ability as a concept that supports workers, employers, and societies in the extension of working lives, and how work ability is related to the level of self-determination in the transition to retirement, and ultimately life satisfaction. In the first study of this dissertation, the Work Ability Survey-R (WAS-R) was translated from English into German and then evaluated regarding its psychometric properties and construct validity. The WAS-R operationalizes work ability as the interplay of personal and organizational resources and thus allows companies to derive targeted interventions to maintain work ability. In the second study, the WAS-R was examined together with the questionnaire Work-Related Behavior and Experience Pattern (Arbeitsbezogenes Verhaltens- und Erlebensmuster, AVEM) regarding its construct validity. A striking feature of this study was the high number of participants with the answering pattern indicating low work-related ambitions and protection. Persons with this pattern are in danger of entering the risk pattern for burnout in the future. The findings support the validity of the WAS-R. In the third contribution, two studies examined the experience of control (i.e., autonomy) in the transition to retirement as a mediator between previous work ability, health, and financial well-being, and later life satisfaction in retirement. Control was found to partially mediate the relationship between work ability and later life satisfaction. Different mechanisms on later life satisfaction of work ability and health, and the subjective and objective financial situation were found. This dissertation contributes to research on and practice with aging workers in two ways: (1) The German translation of the WAS-R is presented as a useful instrument for measuring work ability, assessing individual and organizational aspects and therefore enabling employers to make targeted interventions to maintain and improve work ability, and eventually enable control during later work life, the retirement transition and even old age. (2) This dissertation corroborates the importance of good work ability and health, even in old age, as well as control in these phases of life. Work ability is indirectly related to life satisfaction in the long period of retirement, mediated by a sense of control in the transition to retirement. This emphasizes the importance of the need for control as postulated by the SDT also in the transition to retirement.