Ana Lisbona

Foreign language needs at workplace have been considered to better prepare students for their future careers. This paper reported on the process of developing and validating an instrument to transversally assess foreign language communicative skills needs at workplace as perceived by employers and presented results to propose related formative proposals at university level. Its development was based upon five components and scales, and contained descriptors attached to the levels of language proficiency. After the questionnaire was developed, a pilot study was undertaken for 104 employers and the formal administration collected data from 119 employers, both samples included employers with internship agreements with two Spanish universities. Results indicated that this instrument has strong and justified construct validity and reliability. The further descriptive analysis revealed employers’ preference in the ability to debate and converse, to understand public announcements and work-related texts, to communicate using ICTs at the B2 and C1 levels, and to know differences between foreign and own’s cultures.

Proactivity about a professional career predicts the employability of students in the job market. Having a scale will facilitate research and intervention using proactive behaviors. The objective of the present study is to adapt the Proactive Career Behavior questionnaire in Spanish distance university students. To that end, the questionnaire is administered to 934 undergraduates. The factorial structure, validity and reliability of the questionnaire are analyzed, as well as the invariance of the scale as a function of gender. The current study demonstrates that the Spanish questionnaire was found to be a reliable and valid measure of proactive career behavior of distance undergraduates. The same number of items and the tetra-factorial structure of the original are maintained. The original structure shows to be invariant across gender. The Spanish version of the questionnaire has adequate psychometric properties. Reliability is high and validity is right. The hypothesized relationships between constructs are supported. The Spanish adaptation shows reliable and valid outcomes for both genders, with resilience, personal initiative, and future orientation correlating with students’ proactive career behaviors.

La evaluación de las intenciones y competencias emprendedoras de los estudiantes de modalidad a distancia no se ha tenido demasiado en cuenta, por lo que se aplicó el cuestionario GUESSS a 2458 discentes de la Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia. Los objetivos fueron: a) describir las intenciones y competencias emprendedoras, las experiencias en emprendimiento y la valoración de la universidad como ecosistema emprendedor; b) detectar agrupamientos respecto al perfil emprendedor; c) identificar variables influyentes de la intención emprendedora. Se llevó a cabo una investigación cuantitativa, no experimental, transversal y de encuesta. Se implementaron análisis multivariante de conglomerados y de regresión lineal múltiple, las pruebas U de Mann-Whitney, H de Kruskal-Wallis y el coeficiente de Spearman. La intención emprendedora fue relativamente baja y las competencias emprendedoras estaban considerablemente desarrolladas. Valoraron favorablemente a la universidad como ecosistema emprendedor, requiriendo mejoras en cuanto al fomento de los emprendimientos. Se identificaron dos conglomerados de estudiantes: alto/bajo potencial emprendedor. La variable que mejor predijo la intención emprendedora fue la actitud; el peso de las competencias emprendedoras no resultó despreciable. El control conductual percibido y las normas subjetivas no mostraron una relación fuerte con la misma. El modelo predictivo mostró gran capacidad explicativa. Puesto que la educación emprendedora permite mejorar las competencias e intenciones emprendedoras, conocer los antecedentes psicosociales que llevan a los sujetos a emprender puede contribuir al diseño de programas formativos para el emprendimiento más realistas y viables, adaptados a los distintos perfiles de alumnos.

En los últimos años las instituciones universitarias, junto al interés tradicional sobre el rendimiento académico, están mostrando atención hacia el bienestar de los estudiantes. El concepto de engagement trata de vincular ambos ámbitos y sugiere que hay mecanismos motivacionales comunes al bienestar y rendimiento. Los adultos universitarios especialmente optan por cursar estudios universitarios por un afán de desarrollo que se traduce en una pasión por aprender. Esta pasión, ha evidenciado efectos tanto positivos como negativos sobre el bienestar. Por otra parte, el perfeccionismo ha mostrado ser un predictor del desempeño académico con resultados ambivalentes en la salud de estudiantes. Por ello, se pretende en el siguiente trabajo analizar la relación del perfeccionamiento sobre el engagement académico y el efecto mediador de la pasión en 545 estudiantes universitarios de educación a distancia a través de un diseño cuasiexperimental. Se realizan análisis de mediación utilizando el método Partial Least Squares (PLS) con el software SmartPLS. Los resultados señalan que las dimensiones de pasión armoniosa y obsesiva, y el perfeccionismo autocentrado y socialmente prescrito difieren en sus puntuaciones en engagement académico. Así, el perfeccionismo autocentrado presenta una relación significativa con el engagement, tanto directamente como a través de la pasión, especialmente la armoniosa. Se observa un efecto diferente con el perfeccionismo socializado. El modelo presenta un adecuado nivel predictivo (Q2= [.435 - .630]). Por tanto, la pasión constituye una variable mediadora entre las creencias perfeccionistas de los estudiantes y el engagement académico en la muestra de estudio (SRMR<.08; R2= 45% p<.005). Las implicaciones teóricas y prácticas son analizadas, como la importancia de implementar estrategias que fomenten en el estudiantado un papel activo, retador y flexible de su aprendizaje.

Background: The central point of this study is team initiative, and we analyzed how the theoretical model of antecedents and consequents of personal initiative contribute to explaining the relationship between team initiative and its antecedents and consequents. Authentic leadership is proposed as the antecedent, and the consequent leads to two types of outcomes, one of which is related to employee well-being, and the other is related to performance. However, little is known about what occurs in this relationship once the focus shifts to the team level. From a team perspective, with the label team initiative, we propose a collective construct defined similarly to personal initiative. This study shows the relationship between team initiative and its two consequences, team work engagement and performance, which are measured in terms of team productivity by the leader. Methods: Our model was tested in a field study with 344 employees of 79 work teams belonging to 55 organizations. Results: The analysis of the results using SEM and a regression analysis supported our main hypotheses. Conclusions: The finding that initiative is related to performance establishes the importance of initiative at the team level. It also emphasizes its impact on employee well-being through team work engagement and suggests the importance of authentic leadership.

Organizational research has shown that personal initiative is related to both climate for initiative and work engagement. Yet little is known about what happens to this relationship once the focus shifts to the team level. When organizational and team goals are involved this renders the relationship more complex, and team identification and organizational identification are likely to be key to understanding it. In this paper we develop a model to deal with these complexities. This predicts (a) that team identification will impact on team initiative through team work engagement while (b) organizational identification will impact on team initiative through climate for initiative. It is also expected that team initiative will, in turn, impact on team productivity, and on radical innovation as evaluated by the team leader. This model was tested in a field study with 327 participants of 76 workteams belonging to 50 organizations. Results of SEM and regression analysis supported our main hypotheses. Findings showed that initiative is related to performance and also underline the importance of initiative at a team level. At the same time they suggest that to develop teams with high levels of initiative it is important to promote both organizational and team identification.

Background: In working women, there are barriers when combining the mother and work role, especially during the breastfeeding period. Recent literature shows that improving organizational support increases trust performance via different domains (i.e., organizational identification) and that improving support for breastfeeding increases lactation rates and duration. Breastfeeding support in the workplace is one component that contributes to a mother’s ability to continue to breastfeed once she has returned to work. This is a Human Resource Management practice that facilitates a work–life balance. Working mothers have, at least, two roles: mother and worker and, when mothers return to work, they have to manage both identities. Is lactation a way to keep both identities connected? Is organizational support of breastfeeding a way to improve organizational identification? The aim of this paper is to analyze a hierarchical model to explain how managers and co-worker support to breastfeeding predict trust and organizational identity in a sample of Spanish working mothers (N = 1,028). Materials and Methods: To analyze the indirect effect, it was tested using a mediation model with PROCESS in two random samples and carried out structural equation modeling to confirm structural relationship in the proposed model. Results: Outcomes reveal effects of managers’ support to lactation and vertical trust in organizational identity but not in co-worker path. Conclusion: The findings suggest the manager’s role in maintaining trust from working women and create and maintenance organizational identification.

In this study, we conceptualize personal initiative as a collective construct and adapt and validate a scale to evaluate it with a sample of 308 Spanish participants belonging to 91 work teams. Personal initiative at group level is a behavioural syndrome in which the team shows an approach to work that is self-initiated, proactive, persistent, capable of modifying the atmosphere and pro organization. As a predictive variable, we analysed the climate for initiative as well as personal initiative at group level. The resulting variables that were analysed referred to organization and team performance, with the team productivity and innovation as the criteria, analysing radical innovation. The scale has suitable psychometric properties. The results show that there is a relationship between the two predictive variables. Furthermore, personal initiative at group level is related to team productivity, while the climate for initiative is related to innovation.

Research on positive emotions associated with the performance of an activity, such as work or study, has increased exponentially in recent years. Passion is understood as an attitude and intense emotion in the performance of an activity, and it has shown both positive and negative consequences for well-being. A link between social identity and positive emotions through social category membership has been described. The aim of this work is to study the relationship between social identity, the dimensions of passion and the positive impact on university responses. A quasi-experimental design was used on a sample of 266 university students from different Spanish universities (Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia, Universidad Miguel Hernández and Universidad de Alicante). Descriptive analyzes were performed on the study’s variables using SPSS 18. Structural equation modeling was carried out with AMOS 18 and the mediational analysis with MODMED macro developed by Preacher, Rucker, and Hayes (2007). The results show that the identity of the studies had an indirect effect on positive responses mediated by passion for the studies (RMSEA = .07; CFI = .97; NFI = .96; TLI = .92). It is observed that the harmonious and obsessive dimensions of passion differ in the mediating effect on happiness and satisfaction with studies. Practical and theoretical implications for well-being are discussed.