Search results

In our 10th volume of Research in Occupational Stress and Well Being, we offer eight chapters that examine the role of the economic crisis in occupational stress and well being research. The first three chapters are considered more general overviews, and each examines a different aspect of economic stress and well being. Our lead chapter, by Songqi Liu and Mo Wang, provides an in-depth review of perceived overqualification. They develop and present a multilevel model of perceived overqualification that explicitly addresses antecedents, consequences, as well as the intermediating linkages within the relationships. The second chapter by Mindy K. Shoss and Tahira M. Probst also takes a multilevel approach by examining outcomes of economic stress. Specifically, they discuss how employee experiences with economic stress give impetus to emergent outcomes and employee well being. In our third overview chapter, Aimee E. A. King and Paul E. Levy develop a theoretical framework for organizational politics in an economic downturn. Specifically, they propose an integrative model that examines the role of the economic downturn, politics, and well being.

Recent changes in the economy have altered both the internal and external operations of organizations. In response to the economic downturn, organizations have been forced to dramatically change their work practices and processes. Such practices inevitably create concern for employees as resources become more scarce, rewards and processes become more uncertain, and the marketplace becomes more competitive. To avoid these stressful situations and survive within their organizations, workers have to become more flexible and responsive. However, the specific ways in which the economic downturn will affect worker well-being has yet to be determined. In this chapter, we propose an integrative model of the politics– stress relationship and demonstrate the key role played by economic conditions.

Maximilian Buyken is a PhD candidate at the Department of Work and Organizational Psychology at Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany. He received his diploma (German equivalent of a Master's degree) from Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany. His particular research interests are career adaptability – especially in the face of economic stressors – occupational health psychology and the connection between the two research areas, for example, the function of career adaptive behaviors as coping mechanisms with regard to psychological strain.

While research has been conducted on the causes of workarounds, less is known about their impact on business processes and system outcomes. This study aims to investigate the impact on accounting information quality from workarounds implemented by personnel at a large global organization.

Interviews and qualitative analysis methods were used at one large multinational organization in the midst of a multi-year SAP implementation. A subset of employees in the desired categories (systems designers and advisors) was gained through snowball sampling.

Workarounds have significant impacts on the quality of both financial and managerial accounting information quality. System users are often unable to fully comprehend their place in the task chain, and thus are unaware of the implications of their actions on information quality.

Control issues are an inherent part of workaround outcomes, as is the notion of system success. The current research suggests a need for much more work in these areas, including additional exploration of the outcomes of workarounds.

The examples demonstrated very clearly that deviations from standard procedures have very real consequences. In particular, the completeness, neutrality and accuracy were impacted, making it difficult for the organization to achieve relevance and faithful representation in their financial information. Additional insights are provided concerning the importance of knowledge sharing and the degree to which an organization may achieve a more integrated information system.

This paper complements existing research on workarounds through analysis of impacts on accounting information quality. An important contribution of the current study is to continue the move away from focusing solely on the causes of workarounds, and instead investigate the outcomes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine workarounds from the perspective of the users of the system, focusing on the outcomes of workarounds and their effect on the quality of accounting information.

Interviews were conducted with employees in the accounting functions at two international organizations using SAP for their enterprise system. Results were coded by two experienced researchers and one undergraduate student, and included a categorization of the outcomes of workarounds.

The most striking result is the difference in views of workarounds between the two organizations. While workarounds are discouraged by the accounting function at both organizations, one seeks out workarounds and enforces standards while the other has not yet achieved process standardization. Not surprisingly, users view the workarounds of others as very detrimental to the quality of accounting information, but view their own workarounds as critical to maintain quality.

Organizations should obtain input from system users to document the extent that workarounds are used within the organization to determine the impact on the quality of their financial reporting.

The focus on outcomes of workarounds is an important shift in the literature, and more work is needed to further refine the categories used in this research, particularly for the effect of workarounds on internal controls and information quality. Additionally, this research surfaced a very strong difference in the actions taken to deal with workarounds, which may be due to organizational cultures.

The worlds of literature and business are as different as they get. While literature often revels in the artistic and abstract aspects, business focuses on the more practical and realistic facets of life. Literature talks ideas, business speaks money. Writers express themselves with words, business men prove themselves through numbers. Former US President Calvin Coolidge once exclaimed, “The business of America is business. Not Art!” (West brook, 1980:1). However, this difference is, at most, on the surface. Literature and business intertwine on more perspectives than one might think. For example, there are traces of corporate capitalism in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in which workers are portrayed as “slaves to the economic system” (Watts, 1982:77). Or Joseph Heller’s Something Happened depicts the harsh rules of business by which any one who is not contributing efficiently to the success of a company will be discarded, also known as corporate Darwinism (Horner, 1992:27). Or in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, with a humourous tone, medieval England is modernised with various economic measures, such as new currency, stock exchange in the court, and full‐time employment for the knights, and hence saved from financial ruins (West brook, 1980:49). In other words, literature has been drawing inspirations from the financial market. Therefore, it might not be surprising if there are major themes in literature than can be applied to the corporate world. In fact, managers at all levels can learn valuable lessons for the many areas of business from literature.

Issues like fiscal crises and sequestration may cause elected officials to get citizen input in the budget process. This action can be viewed as a reactive strategy used when the relationship with citizens is weakening; or, a proactive strategy to keep governance relationships strong. This conundrum prompts examination of how budgetary participation mechanisms serve representative democracy and governance goals. Using survey results from public officials in 391 midwestern cities regarding perceptions of governance relationships and the use of participation mechanisms, we find no significant relationships and weak explanatory power in the causal model. When trust in government keeps falling, the relative strength of the relationship between public officials and citizens is an issue that public administrators must understand to develop effective budget participation mechanisms.

Citizen participation in local government processes is touted as an effective means to enhance responsiveness and accountability. The topic has received considerable attention in the normative literature, yet there is persistent evidence that citizen participation occurs infrequently and has little influence on decision making. This study compares the perspectives of three different groups of stakeholders: elected officials, administrators, and citizens. Examination of the perspectives of these three groups of actors is important because it provides insight into the relationships between the groups and expectations regarding how input is used and how it influences decisions. Attention to these items can make participation more valuable and can inform other governments as they ponder how to align the priorities of different actors in their budgeting processes.

This final chapter draws together the key findings presented in the preceding pages and considers emergent conclusions and implications for mental health and wellbeing in schools. The author draws upon the evidence presented by the book’s eclectic range of contributors and the health promoting schools’ (HPSs) framework to provide a road map of what an effective whole school approach (WSA) might look like moving forward. Crucially, lessons from recent crises in education, including COVID-19-driven changes in pathways to support, are highlighted as pivotal factors in a future vision which sees schools as an effective and sustainable frontline force to help tackle the global burden of child and adolescent mental health through a proactive, preventive stance. With this future focus in mind, next steps are considered in terms of developing effective and sustainable mental health and wellbeing support for all within healthy school settings.