Search results
1 – 10 of 433Elizabeth Hutton, Jason Skues and Lisa Wise
This study aims to use the dual-continuum model of mental health to explore mental health in Australian construction apprentices from the perspective of key stakeholders in the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to use the dual-continuum model of mental health to explore mental health in Australian construction apprentices from the perspective of key stakeholders in the apprenticeship model. In particular, this study explored how construction apprentices, Vocational Education and Training (VET) teachers, industry employers and mental health workers understood the construct of mental health, factors associated with the dimension of psychological distress/symptoms of mental illness, and factors associated with the dimension of mental wellbeing.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used an exploratory qualitative research design. Data from 36 semi-structured interviews were analysed using thematic analysis. Participants comprised 19 Australian construction apprentices, 5 VET teachers, 7 industry employers and 5 mental health workers.
Findings
In total, 14 themes were generated from the data set. Participants across stakeholder groups reported a limited understanding about mental health. Participants cited a range of negative personal, workplace and industry factors associated with psychological distress/symptoms of mental illness, but only reported a few factors associated with mental wellbeing.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first to use the dual-continuum model of mental health to explore the mental health of Australian construction apprentices, and to explore the factors associated with both dimensions of this model from the perspective of key stakeholders in the Australian construction apprenticeship model.
Details
Keywords
Samuel Frimpong, Riza Yosia Sunindijo, Cynthia Changxin Wang, Carol K. H. Hon, Elijah Frimpong Boadu, Ayirebi Dansoh and (Kenneth) Tak Wing Yiu
Promoting positive mental health is increasingly being encouraged as the focus of research and policies on the mental health of construction personnel. Most measures of mental…
Abstract
Purpose
Promoting positive mental health is increasingly being encouraged as the focus of research and policies on the mental health of construction personnel. Most measures of mental health, however, typically use negative indicators such as depression and anxiety and are not specifically developed for the construction workforce, especially those with a Global South background. These limitations have made it challenging to measure construction personnel’s positive mental health. The purpose of this study was, therefore, to develop a scale for measuring the positive mental health of construction personnel with a Global South background.
Design/methodology/approach
Guided by Keyes’ two-continua model of mental health, the study objectives were addressed through a mixed-methods study using the case of Ghana. Qualitative data collected from eight key stakeholder groups using 16 interviews and two rounds of focus group discussions were analysed thematically. Quantitative data were obtained through a survey of 425 construction personnel and analysed using confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis.
Findings
Thematic analysis revealed a four-dimensional structure of positive mental health, namely, emotional, psychological, social and spiritual. Confirmatory factor analysis and correlation analysis of the results indicated good instrument validity and reliability.
Originality/value
Existing measures of positive mental health are based on a three-dimensional model, i.e. emotional, social and psychological well-being. By including spiritual well-being, this study proposes a four-dimensional measurement model as a more comprehensive and promising measure to use in surveys of positive mental health among the construction workforce, especially those with a Global South background, and to develop suitable interventions for them.
Details
Keywords
Seyed Mehdi Sharifi, Mohammad Reza Jalilvand and Shabnam Emami kervee
The effectiveness of a message and its attributes have become important for digital media. This study aims to investigate how different elements of a website including both…
Abstract
Purpose
The effectiveness of a message and its attributes have become important for digital media. This study aims to investigate how different elements of a website including both argument-oriented and emotional stimuli based on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM) can affect the issue involvement and change the attitude of the website visitors of a healthcare service provider.
Design/methodology/approach
The Ministry of Health and Education (MOHME) website was selected to explore how its content and design can persuade visitors. An online survey was conducted on 355 adults engaging in health protection behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Findings
Structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis showed that one design element, i.e. website navigation and one social cue, i.e. social connectedness, have positive impact on issue involvement, while social presence and website satisfaction have a negative effect on issue involvement because of the random fluctuation suppressor effect. In addition, prior knowledge significantly influenced the issue's involvement. Further, website satisfaction has impacted attitudes directly. There was no significant relationship between argument quality and issue involvement.
Originality/value
Previous works have studied health-related behaviors in offline contexts; however, the scholars have not focused on the individuals' persuasion using ELM regarding the healthcare services provided in online communities. The results of the current study have theoretical and practical implications for scholars, website designers and policymakers.
Details
Keywords
Wayne de Fremery and Michael Keeble Buckland
The purpose of this paper is to provide a new and useful formulation of relevance.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a new and useful formulation of relevance.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is formulated as a conceptual argument. It makes the case for the utility of considering relevance to be function of use in creative processes.
Findings
There are several corollaries to formulating relevance as a function of use. These include the idea that objects by themselves cannot be relevant since use assumes interaction; the affordances of objects and how they are perceived can affect what becomes relevant but are not in themselves relevant; relevance is not an essential characteristic of objects; relevance is transient; potential relevance (what might be relevant in the future) can be distinguished from what is relevant in use and from what has been relevant in the past.
Originality/value
The paper shows that its new formulation of relevance brings improved conceptual and terminological clarity to the discourse about relevance in information science. It demonstrates that how relevance is articulated conceptually is important as its conceptualization can affect the ways that users are able to make use of information systems and, by extension, how information systems can facilitate or disable the co-production of creative outcomes. The paper also usefully expands investigative opportunities by suggesting relevance and creativity are interrelated.
Details
Keywords
Jianping Hu, Xinjiang Ye and Shengyu Gu
The study advances an enhanced model encompassing psychological involvement, denoted as the psychological continuum model (PCM) and perceived customer service quality as…
Abstract
Purpose
The study advances an enhanced model encompassing psychological involvement, denoted as the psychological continuum model (PCM) and perceived customer service quality as intermediaries in the association between subjective customer knowledge (SCK) and behavioral loyalty. The purpose of this study is to assess the mediating role of psychological engagement and consumers' perceived service quality in the relationship between SCK and behavioral loyalty among members of nonprofit sports service organizations. Additionally, the study aims to examine the impact of membership duration on the relationship between consumer knowledge and behavioral loyalty.
Design/methodology/approach
The study used a quantitative research design, and primary data were collected through a structured questionnaire from 527 members of nonprofit Chinese sports clubs who were selected using a simple random sampling technique. A 5-point Likert scale questionnaire was developed to measure all constructs in the intended research model. The suitability of the measurement model was analyzed by performing confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze the data using AMOS-24.
Findings
The results of the overall direct effect indicate a significant influence of subjective knowledge on perceived service quality, perceived service quality significantly and positively influences psychological engagement; psychological engagement was found to be an important predictor of consumer behavioral loyalty.
Originality/value
The results offer information for nonprofit sports club (NPSC) managers who seek to increase the attractiveness and retention of their clubs' members by establishing the importance of subjective consumer knowledge.
Details
Keywords
Users' voluntary forwarding behavior opens a new avenue for companies to promote their brands and products on social networking sites (SNS). However, research on voluntary…
Abstract
Purpose
Users' voluntary forwarding behavior opens a new avenue for companies to promote their brands and products on social networking sites (SNS). However, research on voluntary information disseminators is limited. This paper aims to bring an in-depth understanding of voluntary disseminators by answering the following questions: (1) What is the underlying mechanism by which some users are more enthusiastic to voluntarily forward content of interest? (2) How to identify them? We propose a theoretical model based on the Elaboration-Likelihood Model (ELM) and examine three types of factors that moderate the effect of preference matching on individual forwarding behavior, including personal characteristics, tweet characteristics and sender–receiver relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
Via Twitter API, we randomly crawled 1967 Twitter users' data to validate the conceptual framework. Each user’s original tweets and retweeted tweets, profile data such as the number of followers and followees and verification status were obtained. The final corpus contains 163,554 data points composed of 1,634 valid twitterers' retweeting behavior. Tweets produced by these core users' followees were also crawled. These data points constitute an unbalanced panel data and we employ different models — fixed-effects, random-effects and pooled logit models — to test the moderation effects. The robustness test shows consistency among these different models.
Findings
Preference matching significantly affects users' forwarding behavior, implying that SNS users are more likely to share contents that align with their preferences. In addition, we find that popular users with lots of followers, heavy SNS users who author tweets or forward other-sourced tweets more frequently and users who tend to produce longer original contents are more enthusiastic to disseminate contents of interest. Furthermore, interaction strength has a positive moderating effect on the relationship between preference matching and individuals' forwarding decisions, suggesting that users are more likely to disseminate content of interest when it comes from strong ties. However, the moderating effect of perceived affinity is significantly negative, indicating that an online community of individuals with many common friends is not an ideal place to engage individuals in sharing information.
Originality/value
This work brings about a deep understanding of users' voluntary forwarding behavior of content of interest. To the best of our knowledge, the current study is the first to examine (1) the underlying mechanism by which some users are more likely to voluntarily forward content of interest; and (2) how to identify these potential voluntary disseminators. By extending the ELM, we examine the moderating effect of tweet characteristics, sender–receiver relationships as well as personal characteristics. Our research findings provide practical guidelines for enterprises and government institutions to choose voluntary endorsers when trying to engage individuals in information dissemination on SNS.
Details
Keywords
Joseph Siu-Lung Kong, Ron Chi-Wai Kwok, Gabriel Chun-Hei Lai and Monica Law
Research on knowledge creation within eSports learning is scarce. This study extends the understanding of competition-oriented collaborative learning in eSports by examining the…
Abstract
Purpose
Research on knowledge creation within eSports learning is scarce. This study extends the understanding of competition-oriented collaborative learning in eSports by examining the relationship between the dynamics of knowledge creation modes and the continuum of the motivational profile, along with the moderating effects of mutualistic co-presence therein.
Design/methodology/approach
Participants were recruited from the community of massively multiplayer online gamers (MMOGs). Through a quantitative survey, their motivations (i.e. self-extrinsic, self-intrinsic, peer-extrinsic and peer-intrinsic motivations), knowledge creation involvements (i.e. internalization, externalization, combination and socialization) and perception of mutualistic benefit of self and peers were captured for hypothesis testing.
Findings
Significant and positive direct relationships were observed between four motivations and four knowledge creation modes. The mutualistic co-presence positively moderated the positive relationship between the self-extrinsic, peer-extrinsic and peer-intrinsic motivations and socialization. When mutualistic self-benefit were outweighed, peer-extrinsic motivated gamers became less likely to perform internalization, whereas self-extrinsic and peer-extrinsic motivated gamers were less likely to perform combination.
Originality/value
This study is among the first to rationalize the relationship between motivational profile and the dynamics of knowledge creation in eSports learning. The conceptualization of the new construct – mutualistic co-presence – using the ecological concept of symbiosis is uncommon in prior literature. The findings also demonstrate that the four modes of knowledge creation in eSports learning are continuous and interwoven; they can be initiated at any point and do not necessarily occur in a specific sequence.
Details
Keywords
During everyday work, individuals often engage in unplanned conversations that help them develop relationships, share information and coordinate tasks. Unfortunately, the…
Abstract
Purpose
During everyday work, individuals often engage in unplanned conversations that help them develop relationships, share information and coordinate tasks. Unfortunately, the work-from-home mandates issued due to the pandemic have reduced the frequency of unplanned conversations among employees. So, as businesses reopen, organizations are considering post-pandemic workplace solutions that can facilitate unplanned conversations. To aid these efforts and move research and theory on unplanned conversations forward, this study proposes and tests a multi-factor model of the antecedents of unplanned conversations.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopted a multi-methodological approach and collected data using automated sensing technology, structured observations and cross-sectional survey methods. A total of 5,297 unplanned conversations among 61 employees were recorded using the custom mobile application and structured observations. Cross-sectional survey data about these employees' work contexts were also collected.
Findings
The study results showed that the model significantly predicted the frequency of unplanned conversations. Notably, technical expertise, perceived time pressure and team psychological safety significantly predicted the frequency of unplanned conversations. The study findings have both theoretical and practical significance.
Originality/value
Previous research studies have primarily focused on the influence of workplace designs on unplanned conversations. However, this study demonstrates that several other factors facilitate unplanned conversations. This research theorizes and empirically tests the relationship between unplanned conversations and several individual, team and organizational factors.
Details
Keywords
A.J. George and Julie-Anne Tarr
To increase university–industry collaboration and research commercialisation, the Australian government recently introduced the Intellectual Property (IP) Framework, a set of…
Abstract
Purpose
To increase university–industry collaboration and research commercialisation, the Australian government recently introduced the Intellectual Property (IP) Framework, a set of online standard contracts. This follows a predecessor standard contract initiative, the IP Toolkit, which has not previously been evaluated. This paper aims to examine standard contracting in the innovation sector, tracing the policymaking behind the IP Toolkit using the lens of Macneil’s relational contract theory, to assess prospects of success for the new IP Framework, and similar initiatives in other jurisdictions.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a disciplined-configurative case study, drawing on qualitative secondary data analysis and applying Macneil’s relational contracting theory to guide case construction and generate hypotheses around likely success of standard contracting initiatives (stakeholder sentiment, stakeholder adoption). Within-case analysis process-traces development of the IP Toolkit, to discover what the policymakers wanted, knew and computed – and to detail observable implications Macneil’s theory predicts. Its themes are triangulated with multiple sources.
Findings
The case study, via Macneil’s theory, confirms the first hypothesis (resistant stakeholder sentiment) and partly validates the second hypothesis (low levels of adoption), demonstrating limited suitability of standard contracting in the dynamic and highly uncertain space of university–industry collaboration.
Research limitations/implications
The study provides insights into the limited role that standard contracts can play in improving national collaborative research and development performance.
Originality/value
This is a novel theory-driven case study triangulated with previously unpublished data on the IP Toolkit’s website usage, and data from recent consultations on the new IP Framework. It has broader implications for other jurisdictions considering adoption of the standard contract model.
Details
Keywords
Julia A. Fulmore, Kim Nimon and Thomas Reio
This study responded to the call to empirically reconcile conflicting findings in unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) literature. It did so by examining the influence of…
Abstract
Purpose
This study responded to the call to empirically reconcile conflicting findings in unethical pro-organizational behavior (UPB) literature. It did so by examining the influence of organizational culture on the relationship between affective organizational commitment and UPB.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of 710 U.S. service sector employees based on a three-wave data collection design, structural invariance assessment was utilized to evaluate the relationship between affective organizational commitment and UPB across organizational cultures with opposing effectiveness criteria (i.e. focused on stability vs flexibility).
Findings
The result indicated a statistically significant positive direct effect between affective organizational commitment and UPB for the stability-focused cultures, while finding a statistically insignificant effect for the flexibility-focused cultures. These results support organizational culture research, which shows that organizational cultures with opposing effectiveness criteria (i.e. stability vs flexibility) can either encourage or discourage ethical behavior.
Practical implications
While leaders and managers encourage employee commitment to the organization, it is important to understand that increased organizational commitment is not limited to positive outcomes. Cultivating elements of flexibility-oriented cultures, like promoting teamwork (as in clan cultures) or fostering innovation and adaptability (as in adhocracy cultures), can be a strategic approach to minimize the chances of UPB among committed employees.
Originality/value
By integrating insights from social exchange theory, Trevino’s interactionist model and the competing values framework, we have contributed to a nuanced understanding of how different organizational cultures can suppress or stimulate UPB.
Details