Acceleration in professional service firms: Mood and error orientation

Due to technological, societal and global changes, the pace of work is accelerating in the last decade. Work-related acceleration is reflected in work intensification, intensified learning as well as autonomy demands, and is said to affect employee well-being unfavourably. As such, the main focus of this project is the examination of the impact of acceleration on irritation (i.e. nervousness, irritability) and error orientation (i.e. attitude towards errors) of employees. However, depending on the resources of employees, acceleration may not necessarily lead to negative outcomes. Autonomy as a situational resource, psychological contracts as social resource and humor styles as personal resources are believed to be relevant moderators. As knowledge intensity is rising in the work-context of organizations, knowledge is considered the key resource of production processes in the 21st  century. Thus, online surveys will be administered in knowledge-intensive, classical professional service firms (PSF), specifically tax consultant offices.

• Funding: Feodor Lynen-Scholarship, Alexander von Humboldt-Stiftung, Germany
• Duration: 2012-2014
• Internal associates: Christian Korunka