Research projects

Entrepreneurship and well-being have a complex relationship. Founders often find deep meaning and satisfaction in their work as they can customize it to their personal needs and preferences. At the same time, they face challenges such as constant work, scarcity of resources and uncertainty, which can lead to stress and potential health issues. The usual support systems found in established organizations are often lacking in the early stages of start-ups. Despite the time demands of their projects, founders benefit from social contacts that can have a positive impact on their well-being. In this paper, we examine the role of the team for the well-being of founders.

Founding a new company is like a journey with many unexpected twists and turns. Along the way, founders have to constantly rethink and adapt their tasks, roles and the structure of their company. It becomes particularly challenging when you start up as a team. This is because it is not just about adapting as an individual, but also about coordinating all team members with each other. This type of collaboration brings with it additional complexity. The aim of the research project is to better understand how and why adaptation processes in entrepreneurial teams develop over time.

New findings in start-up research show how important teamwork is for business success. However, it is not yet entirely clear how exactly personal characteristics such as founder self-efficacy - i.e. the belief in one's own ability to master entrepreneurial tasks - influence the founding team and are influenced by the team. This study aims to close this gap by investigating how founder self-efficacy and team action are related.

The development of a leadership identity, especially for experts transitioning into leadership roles, is becoming increasingly important. The aim of this paper is to explore how people combine their professional expertise with new leadership roles. Using a combination of methods, this study aims to shed light on the challenges and strategies involved in this dual identity integration and offers valuable insights for leadership development in academic and similar professional settings.

Proactive employees think forward, show perseverance and actively consider how they can contribute to the goals of the organization - and this beyond their own tasks. As a result, they can make a significant contribution to long-term success, especially in today's corporate environment, which is characterized by competition, change and growing challenges. Although many organizations are aware of this and the demand for proactive candidates is increasing, job advertisements are rarely aligned with this. In this project, we aim to identify which job characteristics are most valuable to proactive individuals and how these can be used for targeted recruitment. In the future, companies can use these insights to increase the efficiency as well as effectiveness of their recruiting. The project contributes to a better understanding of proactivity in organizations.

Over the past few years, we as a society have been confronted with a variety of crises, such as the global economic crisis, the COVID-19 pandemic, or the current gas crisis. In times of crisis and uncertainty, leaders take on a special significance. What is unclear so far is which leadership behaviors are effective in these contexts.... The inclusion of well-being indicators at different times of the crisis is essential, as the stress associated with the crisis as well as strain on resources can increase the risk of mental illness. The focus of our research is therefore particularly on what form of leadership contributes to employee well-being in times of crisis.

Due to distributed collaboration in today's working world, management communication often takes place via electronic communication media. In this context, it is particularly challenging for managers to maintain trust and relationships with employees. It is therefore an open research question how successful leadership can be achieved by means of electronic communication. Empathy is the ability to empathize with others and understand feelings, which can help strengthen relationships and increase employee satisfaction. The goal of this project is to recognize and promote empathy in leadership communication using Natural Language Processing. The project is realized within the framework of the Center for Responsible Digitalization (ZEVEDI).

The increasing spread of mobile information and communication technologies (ICT) is changing the world of work: the pace and density of work is increasing, and work-related communication and the exchange of information is possible regardless of time and place. For employees, this offers new opportunities to shape their working lives. However, the use of mobile technologies also brings with it new demands, such as an increasing lack of boundaries in work. However, a lack of switching off from work is in turn a central factor influencing the recovery and health of employees.

Previous intervention research has been able to show that organizational as well as individual strategies mediated in interventions can in principle have a positive effect on health. The aim of the project is to investigate the effectiveness of behavioral strategies in the context of the digitalized world of work for improved recovery and health of employees.

What kind of working conditions help people develop new ideas and tackle problems independently? How do people succeed in voluntarily learning new things at work and abandoning old, familiar ways of working? The role of structuring work and that of social networks and communications processes has been examined in research projects that have been completed. The focus is currently on time pressure, emotions and intrinsic motivation. This is being handled in conjunction with the Management and Micro-Economics Department at the Goethe University in Frankfurt.

The working world is increasingly changing as a result of global competition, technical innovations and developments in demographic processes. As a result, the working methods of many employees are having to change too; they have to adapt and learn new things. However, people cope with changes in different ways. One response is, for example, “resistance to change”. We are currently examining various reasons why new technologies are not being used in a research project in cooperation with the Centre of Human Resources Information Systems (CHRIS).

Literature:

Sonnentag, S., Niessen, C. & Ohly, S. (2008). Learning and Training. In Chmiel, N. (Ed.) Introduction to work and organisational psychology: A European Perspective. Oxford: Blackwell.

Sonnentag, S., Niessen, C. & Ohly, S. (2004). Learning and Development at work. In C. L. Cooper, & I. T. Robertson (Eds.). International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology. Chichester: Wiley

Oreg, S., Bayazit, M., Vakola, M., Arciniega, L., Armenakis, A., Barkauskiene, R., Bozionelos, N., Fujimoto, Y., Gonzales, L., Han, J., Hrebickova, M., Jimmieson, N., Kordacova, J., Mitsuhashi, H., Mlacic, B., Feric, I., Kotrla Topic, M., Ohly, S., Saksvik, P. O., Hetland, H., Saksvik, I., & van Dam, K. (2008). Dispositional resistance to change: Measurement equivalence and the link to personal values across 17 nations.Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 935-944.

Which factors motivate employees to introduce their ideas to the ideas management system? How does this management system need to be organised in order to pick up as many suggestions as possible and document them?

Recent Study:

Erfolgsfaktoren und Hemmnisse im idea management.

Literatur:

Ohly, S. (2009). Motivation zur Ideenkommunikation. Ansätze aus der Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie. Ideenmanagement: Vorschlagswesen in Wirtschaft und Verwaltung, 2, 55-57.

Ohly, S. & Stelzer, F. (2007). Über die Motivation zur Teilnahme am Ideenmanagement.Wirtschaftspsychologie, 9, 25-33.

Presentations:

IHK Braunschweig:

Wie kann man Kreativität und Innovation fördern? Psychologische Ansätze zum Ideenmanagement.

Ideen entwickeln und bewerten - Kreativität in der Produktion - speziell Gruppenfertigung.

What are reasons for regulating emotions in any interaction with customers and why do some people still manage to smile in difficult situations? Do older service provider have an advantage over their younger colleagues here? What role do customer orientations and organisational ties play for the well-being and work performance of service providers? This involves cooperating with the Department of Occupational and Organisational Psychology at the Goethe University in Frankfurt here.

To what degree does using new information and communications technologies at work provide advantages or disadvantages for the work/life balance of employees when they have finished their working day?

We are examining this issue within the interdisciplinary research project known as “Always online? A new communications paradigm for the communications society”. This was funded by the state offensive for developing academic/economic excellence (LOEWE) in the state of Hesse: the active period was from January 2014 until December 2016.

We are currently examining which experiences at work trigger emotional conditions such as annoyance, vigour or weariness. Using a qualitative analysis of diary entries, we identify four categories of positive experiences and seven categories of negative ones. Ongoing studies are designed to further examine the validity of these results.

german Translation of the Scale by Oreg (2003). Indications for Validity and Factor structre you can find in Oreg (Oreg et al., 2008). individual items need to be adjusted in accordance with the context of the survey (er9). More information about the scale you can find in (Oreg, 2003).

Resistance to Change - Survey (german Translation)

References:

Oreg, S. (2003). Resistance to change: Developing an individual difference measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88, 680-693.

Oreg, S., Bayazit, M., Vakola, M., Arciniega, L., Armenakis, A., Barkauskiene, R., … Ohly, S.,. . . van Dam, K. (2008). Dispositional resistance to change: Measurement equivalence and the link to personal values across 17 nations. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 935-944.

• Job Self-Efficacy from Ohly & Fritz, 2007

Measurement of innovative behavior (Innovative Behavior Measure) from Ohly et al., 2006

Further information on the English page

References:

• Ohly, S., Sonnentag, S., & Pluntke, F. 2006. routinization, work characteristics, and their relationships with creative and proactive behaviors. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 27: 257-279.

• Zhou, J., & George, J. M. 2001. When job dissatisfaction leads to creativity: Encouraging the expression of voice. Academy of Management Journal, 44: 682-696.