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1 – 10 of over 4000Ewa Wikström, Jonathan Severin, Ingibjorg H. Jonsdottir and Magnus Akerstrom
Process facilitation as part of a complex intervention for changing or improving practices within workplaces is becoming a common work method. The aim of this study was to…
Abstract
Purpose
Process facilitation as part of a complex intervention for changing or improving practices within workplaces is becoming a common work method. The aim of this study was to investigate what characterizes the process-facilitating role in a complex intervention.
Design/methodology/approach
The present study focuses on a complex work environment intervention targeting eight organizational units (workplaces) in the Swedish healthcare sector. The study applies a mixed-method approach and has been carried out in two steps. First, a qualitative process evaluation was performed. Secondly, an evaluation was conducted to see to what extent these identified conditions and mechanisms affected the quantitative intervention effect in term of sickness absence.
Findings
The analysis shows that the facilitating role consisted of three overlapping and partially iterative phases. These phases involved different activities for the facilitating role. Depending on how the facilitating role and the intervention were designed, various supporting conditions were found to significantly affect the outcome of the intervention measured as the total sickness absence.
Research limitations/implications
It is concluded that the facilitation is not static or fixed during the change process. Instead, the facilitation role develops and emerges through the process of support during the different implementation phases.
Practical implications
The facilitative role of performing support is based on a combination of support role activities and expert role activities. The support role focuses on support activities, while the expert role includes capacity building through knowledge- and legitimacy-oriented activities.
Originality/value
This study contributes to earlier research by developing a methodological approach for carrying out process facilitation in complex interventions.
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Tiina Kalliomäki-Levanto and Antti Ukkonen
Interruptions are prevalent in knowledge work, and their negative consequences have driven research to find ways for interruption management. However, these means almost always…
Abstract
Purpose
Interruptions are prevalent in knowledge work, and their negative consequences have driven research to find ways for interruption management. However, these means almost always leave the responsibility and burden of interruptions with individual knowledge workers. System-level approaches for interruption management, on the other hand, have the potential to reduce the burden on employees. This paper’s objective is to pave way for system-level interruption management by showing that data about factual characteristics of work can be used to identify interrupting situations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors provide a demonstration of using trace data from information and communications technology (ICT)-systems and machine learning to identify interrupting situations. They conduct a “simulation” of automated data collection by asking employees of two companies to provide information concerning situations and interruptions through weekly reports. They obtain information regarding four organizational elements: task, people, technology and structure, and employ classification trees to show that this data can be used to identify situations across which the level of interruptions differs.
Findings
The authors show that it is possible to identifying interrupting situations from trace data. During the eight-week observation period in Company A they identified seven and in Company B four different situations each having a different probability of occurrence of interruptions.
Originality/value
The authors extend employee-level interruption management to the system-level by using “task” as a bridging concept. Task is a core concept in both traditional interruption research and Leavitt's 1965 socio-technical model which allows us to connect other organizational elements (people, structure and technology) to interruptions.
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Rocco Palumbo, Alessandro Hinna and Maurizio Decastri
Involving employees in making management decisions is a powerful way to enhance organizational performance. However, employee involvement (EI) might exacerbate psychosocial stress…
Abstract
Purpose
Involving employees in making management decisions is a powerful way to enhance organizational performance. However, employee involvement (EI) might exacerbate psychosocial stress at work. This paper aims to investigate this issue, illuminating the implications of EI on work-related stress.
Design/methodology/approach
Secondary data were collected from the third wave of the European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks. A conditional process analysis based on ordinary least square regression and bootstrap sampling was accomplished to obtain evidence of the implications of EI on psychosocial risks (PSR) at work, taking into consideration the mediating role of organizational health promotion initiatives (HPI).
Findings
EI increased the sources of psychosocial stress at work, adding to individual job demands. Involving employees was positively related to a greater organizational concern for HPI, which, in turn, lessened psychosocial strain.
Practical implications
Although it contributes to organizational performance, EI propels work-related stress, which undermines individual and collective wellbeing. Involvement practices should be coupled with tailored HPI to address the PSR at work triggered by involvement, empowering people to cope with strain.
Originality/value
Scientific literature emphasizes the positive implications of EI on organizational performance, but little is known about its side effects on work-related stress. The paper provides original insights into this topic, arguing that HPI are necessitated to address the drawback of involvement on work-related stress.
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Thomas Kalischko and René Riedl
The potential applications of information and communication technologies in the workplace are wide-ranging and, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, have increasingly found…
Abstract
Purpose
The potential applications of information and communication technologies in the workplace are wide-ranging and, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic, have increasingly found their way into the field of electronic performance monitoring (EPM) of employees. This study aims to examine the influence of EPM on individual performance considering the aspects of privacy invasion, organizational trust and individual stress within an organization. Thus, important insights are generated for academia as well as business.
Design/methodology/approach
A theoretical framework was developed which conceptualizes perceived EPM as independent variable and individual performance as dependent variable. Moreover, the framework conceptualizes three mediator variables (privacy invasion, organizational trust and individual stress). Based on a large-scale survey (N = 1,119), nine hypotheses were tested that were derived from the developed framework.
Findings
The results indicate that perception of EPM significantly increases privacy invasion, reduces organizational trust, increases individual stress and ultimately reduces individual performance. Moreover, it was found that privacy invasion reduces organizational trust and that this lowered trust increases individual stress. Altogether, these findings suggest that the use of EPM by employers may be associated with significant negative consequences.
Originality/value
This research enriches the literature on digital transformation, as well as human–machine interaction, by adopting a multidimensional theoretical and empirical perspective regarding EPM in the workplace context, in which the influence of EPM perceptions on individual performance is examined under the influence of different aspects (privacy invasion, organizational trust and individual stress) not currently considered in this combination in the literature.
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Mohd Abass Bhat, Shagufta Tariq Khan and Riyaz Ahmad Rainayee
This paper aims to examine employee perceptions of the labor market in the employee turnover intention model and explores how different situations outside work (labor market…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine employee perceptions of the labor market in the employee turnover intention model and explores how different situations outside work (labor market conditions) play a role in employee-organizational membership. In addition, it also examines the mediating role of commitment in the relationship between stress and the turnover model.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 628 private school teachers working in the economically depressed state of J&K (India), which were randomly selected. Confirmatory factor analysis was used for validation of a scale. Structural equation modeling and PROCESS by Hayes was used to test the hypothesized relationships between the study variables.
Findings
The antecedents of occupational stressors contribute negatively toward employees’ psychological state resulting in undesirable employee-organizational relationships such as high turnover intentions and low organizational commitment. Nevertheless, lack of external job opportunities compels employees to maintain organizational membership, even though against the stressful working environment.
Research limitations/implications
This study while acknowledging the inherent limitations, questionnaires are susceptible to and single sectional nature of the study poses limitations.
Practical implications
The practical implication explains that the employee and organization relationship is governed more by external economic conditions than by the psychological feelings of the employees toward the organization (organizational commitment). As also, the moral system of employees, as well as their feelings toward the noble profession makes them feel morally exalted and this binds them to the membership of the organization.
Originality/value
This study mainly focuses on, to understand if and how the conditions of the labor market relate to the employees’ attitudes. This would enable us to gain more insights to the systematic relations of employees’ attitudinal variables such as occupational stress, organizational commitment and employee turnover intentions.
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Flavia Bonaiuto, Stefania Fantinelli, Alessandro Milani, Michela Cortini, Marco Cristian Vitiello and Marino Bonaiuto
This study aims to test the role that organizational sociopsychological variables may play in influencing job stress and work engagement in an organizational identity change…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to test the role that organizational sociopsychological variables may play in influencing job stress and work engagement in an organizational identity change scenario.
Design/methodology/approach
On a sample of 118 employees of an Italian company in the personnel training services sector, multivariate statistical analysis tests a pattern where organizational variables such as work support (by supervisors and coworkers, independent variables) – moderated by corporate identification (moderating variable) – and mediated by organizational trust (mediating variable) – boosts employee work engagement and lowers psychosocial risks (dependent variables).
Findings
The mediating effect of “organizational trust” is significant in the relationships of “supervisor social support” and “coworker social support” with the “absence of psychosocial risks.” Moreover, an increase in supervisor social support can lead to a statistically significant increase in work engagement. This occurs only for employees with low or medium identification and not in highly identified individuals.
Originality/value
The findings from the analysis on moderation are of primary importance because they show us a new perspective that can play the role of a guiding and practical principle on how to act on an organization’s human resources, specifically targeting those with lower or medium corporate identification.
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