Department of Leadership and Organizational Behaviour

Career Development International

Purpose – Career satisfaction is a key component of subjective career success, yet it may fluctuate across career paths. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, this study aims to examine the antecedents and outcomes of individual change profiles in career satisfaction over time. Design/methodology/approach – Using a longitudinal growth mixture model with a sample of 490 employees from the UK, we identified two distinct patterns of career satisfaction: rising and declining. Findings – The results showed that remaining opportunities increased the likelihood of belonging to the rising career satisfaction profile relative to the declining career satisfaction profile. Furthermore, the rising career satisfaction profile was associated with decreased levels of burnout (i.e. emotional exhaustion and disengagement). Originality/value – Together, our study contributes to a more nuanced understanding of the dynamic nature of subjective career success and underscores the value of person-centered approaches for designing targeted interventions supporting employee well-being.

Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 99(2) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.70125

Abstract The central questions addressed in this special issue are who receives flexibility i‐deals, who benefits from them, and under what conditions. Although flexibility i‐deals are often portrayed as individualized arrangements that enhance well‐being and work–life integration, the articles in this issue show that access to and outcomes of such deals are unevenly distributed across employees and social groups. Collectively, the papers examine how flexibility i‐deals are shaped by individual, organizational, and societal barriers, with particular attention to underexamined groups such as ethnic minority employees, employees with disabilities, older workers, and workers with limited bargaining power. Across diverse contexts, the studies demonstrate that flexibility i‐deals are negotiated, granted, and enacted within relational systems structured by power, legitimacy, and status. Building on these contributions, this editorial develops a multilevel process model of flexibility i‐deals that captures barriers across the stages of requesting, negotiation, granting, implementation, and outcomes. By drawing attention to relational inequality of access to flexibility i‐deals, the special issue challenges the assumption of a symmetric bargaining space and reconceptualises flexibility i‐deals as arrangements that may either alleviate or reproduce organizational inequality.

Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology 99(2) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/joop.70132

Abstract This study examines how motivational climates change in response to external shocks (e.g. COVID‐19) and through leader behaviours that shape shared perceptions of success at work. Our study focuses on the perceived motivational climate in a context where employees move from in‐person to socially distanced work, that is, remote work and contact reduction in the workplace. We draw on the literature from organizational climate, achievement goal theory (AGT), and the social information processing (SIP) perspective to propose that both the average motivational climate level and motivational climate strength (consensus) decrease over time because of such contextual changes. Furthermore, we propose that mastery‐oriented and performance‐oriented leader behaviours attenuate this decrease in both the average motivational climate level and motivational climate strength (consensus). A three‐wave study of 37 work groups (612 employees) shows that both mastery and performance climate strength (consensus) erode over time and that mastery‐ and performance‐oriented leader behaviours attenuate this erosion. In addition, mastery‐oriented leader behaviour buffers any decline in the average mastery climate level. We discuss the implications of these findings for theory and future research.

Magma forskning og viten 29(3) p. 64-67 Doi: https://doi.org/10.23865/magma.v29.1584

Temanummeret MAGMA 03/2026 undersøker hva som skjer med ledelse når kunstige intelligente agenter inntar organisasjoner. I denne redaksjonelle artikkelen bruker vi myten om «trollmannens læregutt» som inngang til spørsmålet: Når har noe agens – evnen til å handle på egen hånd? Redaktørene trekker en linje fra samfunnets første forsøk på å regulere kollektiv «kunstig intelligens» gjennom organisasjonsretten, til dagens KI-agenter som utfordrer etablerte forestillinger om autoritet, ansvar og kontroll. Vi bruker denne historien som inngang til presentasjon av artiklenes bidrag til debatten: Leverandørenes løfter om agenter som kan styre egne prosesser provoserer fram en grunnleggende faglig uenighet om digitale systemers handlekraft. Tretten bidrag belyser problematikken fra ulike vinkler. Noen stiller overordnede teoretiske spørsmål om hva ledelse er i hybride menneske–KI-systemer; andre undersøker konkrete konsekvenser for styring, etikk, teamdynamikk og militær beslutningstaking. Bidragene spenner fra kritiske motperspektiver der KI-agens avvises som illusjon til rammeverk for å lede i en virkelighet der grensen mellom menneskelig og maskinell handlekraft blir stadig mer uklar. Samlet håper vi at nummeret leverer et faglig fundert bidrag til en stadig viktigere offentlig debatt, forankret i ledelsesteori og empirisk forskning. English abstract The Manager, the Employee, the Robot and the Sorcerer's Apprentice: A Special Issue on Management and Artificial Intelligence Agents This special issue of MAGMA 03/2026 examines what happens to leadership when artificially intelligent agents enter organizations. In this editorial, we use the myth of "the sorcerer's apprentice" as an entry point to the question: When does something have agency – the capacity to act on its own? The editors draw a line from society's first attempts to regulate collective "artificial intelligence" through corporate law, to today's AI agents that challenge established notions of authority, accountability, and control. We use this story as a gateway to presenting the articles' contributions to the debate: vendors' promises of agents capable of orchestrating their own processes provoke a fundamental scholarly disagreement about the degree to which digital systems can be said to act. Thirteen contributions illuminate the issue from different angles. Some raise overarching theoretical questions about what leadership means in hybrid human–AI systems; others examine concrete implications for governance, ethics, team dynamics, and military decision-making. The contributions range from critical counter-perspectives that dismiss AI agency as an illusion, to frameworks for leading in a reality where the boundary between human and machine agency grows increasingly blurred. Taken together, we hope this issue delivers a scholarly contribution to an ever more important public debate, grounded in leadership theory and empirical research.