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1 – 10 of over 5000M. P. Ganesh and Meenakshi Gupta
The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of procedural justice on team members’ commitment and the role of task routineness and participatory safety in this…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand the impact of procedural justice on team members’ commitment and the role of task routineness and participatory safety in this relationship.
Design/methodology/approach
Survey method was used to collect data from 177 respondents from 33 software development teams. Participatory Safety Scale from Anderson and West’s Team Climate Inventory, Colquitt’s Procedural Justice Scale, a modified version of Mowday et al.’s Organizational Commitment Scale and Daft and Macintosh’s Task Routineness Scale were used to measure the variables studied. Regression analysis was used to test the main, mediating and moderating effects.
Findings
Results showed a significant positive impact of procedural justice perception on participatory safety dimensions and team commitment. Task routineness did not show any significant moderation effect. Perception of participatory safety had a partial mediation effect.
Research limitations/implications
A relatively smaller sample size, purposive sampling technique and absence of relevant control variables are the key limitations of this study.
Practical implications
The findings will provide managers insights on designing the team tasks and procedures to nurture participatory safety and commitment in teams.
Originality/value
The study is unique in terms of selection of variables, design (moderation and mediating effects) and the context (software development teams). The study provides a holistic picture of team dynamics by studying variables related to procedures, task and psychological states of the individual.
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Weiyi Cong, Shoujian Zhang, Huakang Liang and Qingting Xiang
Job stressors have a considerable influence on workplace safety behaviors. However, the findings from previous studies regarding the effect of different types of job stressors…
Abstract
Purpose
Job stressors have a considerable influence on workplace safety behaviors. However, the findings from previous studies regarding the effect of different types of job stressors have been contradictory. This is attributable to, among other factors, the effectiveness of job stressors varying with occupations and contexts. This study examines the effects of challenge and hindrance stressors on construction workers' informal safety communication at different levels of coworker relationships.
Design/methodology/approach
A three-dimensional framework of informal safety communication is adopted, including self-needed, citizenship and participatory safety communication. Stepwise regression analysis is then performed using questionnaire survey data collected from 293 construction workers in the Chinese construction industry.
Findings
The results demonstrate that both challenge and hindrance stressors are negatively associated with self-needed and citizenship safety communication, whereas their relationships with participatory safety communication are not significant. Meanwhile, the mitigation effects of the coworker relationship (represented by trustworthiness and accessibility) on the above negative impacts vary with the communication forms. Higher trustworthiness and accessibility enable workers faced with challenge stressors to actively manage these challenges and engage in self-needed safety communication. Similarly, trustworthiness promotes workers' involvement in self-needed and citizenship safety communication in the face of hindrance stressors, but accessibility is only effective in facilitating self-needed safety communication.
Originality/value
By introducing the job demands-resources theory and distinguishing informal safety communication into three categories, this study explains the negative effects of challenge and hindrance job stressors in complex and variable construction contexts and provides additional clues to the current inconsistent findings regarding this framework. The diverse roles of challenge and hindrance job stressors also present strong evidence for the need to differentiate between the types of informal safe communication.
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Suzanne Nobrega, Cesar Morocho, Michelle M. Robertson, Alicia Kurowski, Serena Rice, Robert A. Henning and Laura Punnett
Total Worker Health® (TWH) programs, which represent a holistic approach for advancing worker safety, health and well-being, require an employer to adapt programmatic coordination…
Abstract
Purpose
Total Worker Health® (TWH) programs, which represent a holistic approach for advancing worker safety, health and well-being, require an employer to adapt programmatic coordination and employee involvement in program design and delivery. Organizational readiness for such measures requires competencies in leadership, communication, subject expertise and worker participation. In the absence of documented methods for TWH readiness assessment, the authors developed a process to prospectively identify implementation facilitators and barriers that may be used to strengthen organizational competencies and optimize the organizational “fit” in advance.
Design/methodology/approach
The mixed-method baseline assessment instruments comprised an online organizational readiness survey and a key leader interview; these were administered with key organizational and labor leaders in five US healthcare facilities. Findings about organizational resources, skills available and potential implementation barriers were summarized in a stakeholder feedback report and used to strengthen readiness and tailor implementation to the organizational context.
Findings
The research team was able to leverage organizational strengths such as leaders' commitment and willingness to address nontraditional safety topics to establish new worker-led design teams. Information about program barriers (staff time and communication) enabled the research team to respond with proactive tailoring strategies such as training on participant roles, extending team recruitment time and providing program communication tools and coaching.
Originality/value
A new method has been developed for prospective organizational readiness assessment to implement a participatory TWH program. The authors illustrate its ability to identify relevant organizational features to guide institutional preparation and tailor program implementation.
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This article argues that there are two main barriers preventing imagining and actioning an inclusive, holistic strategy for prostitution reform in the UK. It identifies five key…
Abstract
This article argues that there are two main barriers preventing imagining and actioning an inclusive, holistic strategy for prostitution reform in the UK. It identifies five key tenets needed to improve the situations for men and women involved in selling sex. Findings from innovative research methods are used to explore how community safety may be improved.
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For many years I lived among debilitating violent conflict in Northern Ireland. My experience of working in other conflict-related zones such as Haiti, Nicaragua, Gaza, the…
Abstract
Chapter Summary
For many years I lived among debilitating violent conflict in Northern Ireland. My experience of working in other conflict-related zones such as Haiti, Nicaragua, Gaza, the Balkans and the Ukraine has demonstrated to me the commonality of the human experience of violence. Knowing the effects is one thing; knowing how to heal them is another.
Addressing circumstances related to violent conflict and its impact can take many forms. The one I have chosen to rely upon most often has been clean language interviewing. I call upon this method in situations that demand high levels of sensitivity for the safety of the local people and my personal safety. For example, when working with people with a history of violence who initially perceive me to be of a particular worldview unrelated or even antagonistic to their own.
Impartiality is imperative when working with groups of opposing views. Clean language interviewing, used in a sympathetic manner, is a practical way for me to demonstrate neutrality to others even in the most challenging of situations and it allows me to engage with people and their desires, beliefs and values.
Having the ability to ask searching questions that are challenging and yet non-confrontational has been an important resource for me as a facilitator and participatory action researcher (Snoddon, 2005, 2014). In this chapter I share some of these experiences using a case study of my work with Haitian armed gangs. My aim is to take you into the world of conflict resolution where credibility can rest on your very next question.
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Abimbola Asojo, Hoa Vo, Thomas Fisher and Virajita Singh
In this study, an interdisciplinary research team at a Midwest US University collaborated with a local county to co-envision interior design strategies for five county buildings…
Abstract
Purpose
In this study, an interdisciplinary research team at a Midwest US University collaborated with a local county to co-envision interior design strategies for five county buildings: three libraries and two government buildings to reduce in-person contact in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors' interdisciplinary team used a community-based participatory design process which focused on creating consensus, while seeking out divergent perspectives among stakeholders to serve the needs of diverse users. The design process involved meetings with stakeholders remotely and analyzing survey results from the target occupants collected by the county.
Findings
The county with a population of 550,321 is the second most populous and diverse county in the state. The authors' collaborative efforts resulted in short-and long-term recommendations for the interior space planning to promote health, safety, and well-being for the county's diverse user groups of young children, adults, elderly and vulnerable populations. The short-term recommendations focus on service redesigns that can be implemented as the state shifts out of the stay-at-home order and the community returns to the county's public-facing buildings. The long-term recommendations focus on experiences and design strategies that can be carried forward to future-proof buildings in a post-COVID era and provide models for other counties.
Research limitations/implications
One limitation is the dynamic nature of how rapidly our team responded to a critical need in the community to develop tangible interior design solutions during the initial stages of the COVID-19 pandemic for the county. The solutions we proposed were based on the scientific evidence available earlier on during that phase of the pandemic. The authors hope to conduct further studies in the future and conduct assessments of our rapid design responses.
Practical implications
This paper documents a dynamic experience during a once in a lifetime pandemic and thus contributes to further the body of knowledge about the role of interior design in shaping health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Originality/value
The article presents a timely interdisciplinary response to the COVID-19 pandemic to promote community safety inside public buildings at the county. The interior design solutions reflected intensive literature reviews, critical space planning, innovative use of lighting, and thoughtful furniture/material selections.
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Amber Yun-Ping Lee, Po-Chien Chang and Heng-Yu Chang
The purpose is to examine the cross-level relationship between workplace fun and informal learning with workplace friendship as a mediator and team climate as a moderator.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose is to examine the cross-level relationship between workplace fun and informal learning with workplace friendship as a mediator and team climate as a moderator.
Design/methodology/approach
Adopting a two-wave survey procedure, data were collected from 251 employees working across 45 teams of a leading heat transfer manufacturer in Asia. Hierarchical linear modeling was used to test our hypothesized cross-level moderated mediation model.
Findings
Out of the three forms of workplace fun, only two – manager support for fun and coworker socializing – supported our hypotheses. Therefore, not all types of workplace fun are equal and one of the key factors through which fun influences informal learning is by maintaining harmonious interpersonal interactions and high relationship quality in teams.
Originality/value
Based on social interdependence theory, this study uncovers the cross-level mechanism of how workplace fun affects informal learning. The findings extend existing research on workplace fun by focusing on not only individual factors but also interpersonal and contextual elements. The findings also provide practical implications for managers to understand the possible impact of workplace fun on employees' informal learning.
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Michael J. Burke and Sloane M. Signal
While research on workplace safety spans across disciplines in medicine, public health, engineering, psychology, and business, research to date has not adopted a multilevel…
Abstract
While research on workplace safety spans across disciplines in medicine, public health, engineering, psychology, and business, research to date has not adopted a multilevel theoretical perspective that integrates theoretical issues and findings from various disciplines. In this chapter, we integrate research on workplace safety from a variety of disciplines and fields to develop a multilevel model of the processes that affect individual safety performance and safety and health outcomes. In doing so, we focus on cross-level linkages among national, organizational, and individual-level variables in relation to the exhibition of safe work behavior and occurrence of individual-level accidents, injuries, illnesses, and diseases. Our modeling of workplace safety is intended to fill a theoretical gap in our understanding of how the multitude of individual differences and situational factors interrelate across time to influence individual level safety behaviors and the consequences of these actions, and to encourage research to expand the limits of our knowledge.
Michelle Chin Chin Lee and Mohd. Awang Idris
The importance of organizational climates in enhancing employees’ job performance is well studied in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of…
Abstract
Purpose
The importance of organizational climates in enhancing employees’ job performance is well studied in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) and team climate on job performance, particularly through job engagement, by using a multilevel survey. The study also predicted that only PSC (and not team climate) predicted job resources (i.e. role clarity and performance feedback).
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 412 employees from 44 teams (72.6 per cent response rate) in Malaysian private organizations participated in the current study.
Findings
Research findings revealed that performance feedback and role clarity mediate the relationship between PSC and job engagement, and that there is no direct effect between the variables, team climate, and job resources. As expected, the study also discovered that job engagement mediates the relationship between PSC and team climate related to job performance.
Practical implications
This paper suggests the importance of PSC as the precursor to better working conditions (i.e. job resources) and to indirectly boosting employees’ engagement and job performance.
Originality/value
The study compared two distinctive organizational climate constructs that affect the different types of job resources using multilevel approach within the Asian context.
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Federico Ricci, Andrea Chiesi, Carlo Bisio, Chiara Panari and Annalisa Pelosi
This meta-analysis aims to verify the efficacy of occupational health and safety (OHS) training in terms of knowledge, attitude and beliefs, behavior and health.
Abstract
Purpose
This meta-analysis aims to verify the efficacy of occupational health and safety (OHS) training in terms of knowledge, attitude and beliefs, behavior and health.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors included studies published in English (2007–2014) selected from ten databases. Eligibility criteria were studies concerned with the effectiveness of OHS training for primary prevention of workplace injury; and studies focused on examined outcome related to OHS.
Findings
The selected studies (n = 28) highlighted a strong support for the effectiveness of training on worker OHS attitudes and beliefs and, to a lesser extent, on worker’s knowledge but only medium for behavior and small evidences for its effectiveness on health.
Research limitations/implications
Future research should more deeply investigate the efficacy on knowledge increase of trainings delivered by experts and researchers, applying different methods, in a small group; training delivered by peer and by researcher, applying different methods; and trained workers less than 29 years and more than 49 years old, considering that workers in these age groups are particularly vulnerable to fatalities.
Practical implications
Our study is a contribution for those they intend to grant effective training, in response to specific needs of OHS. The evidences presented could be considered a first step to identify the factors related to the efficacy of OHS training to plan adequate interventions.
Social implications
The OHS training is effective on the basis of the extent interventions are carried out for each specific learning outcome.
Originality/value
This meta-analysis suggested that classroom training, although the most used and studied, does not ever revealed itself very effective: it was not significant for outcomes in terms of knowledge and showed a decreasing efficacy for attitudes and beliefs, behaviors and health. It seemed that there was a distinction between interventions on knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, as opposed to behavioral interventions and health.
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