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1 – 10 of 641Early childhood teachers play a significant role in building children’s success in their first years of school. Therefore, a healthy early childhood workforce in a healthy working…
Abstract
Purpose
Early childhood teachers play a significant role in building children’s success in their first years of school. Therefore, a healthy early childhood workforce in a healthy working environment is an essential aspect of effective early childhood services. This paper aims to explore the extent to which psychological hardiness can be considered as a mediator variable between exposure to workplace bullying and job anxiety among early childhood teachers.
Design/methodology/approach
A homogeneous sample comprised of 200 early childhood teachers. For data collection, the researcher used the workplace bullying scale, the psychological hardiness scale and the job anxiety scale among early childhood teachers (prepared by the researcher).
Findings
The findings indicated that psychological hardiness mediates the relationship between exposure to workplace bullying and job anxiety among early childhood teachers.
Originality/value
The research result highlighted the necessity of providing counseling programs for early childhood teachers helping them eliminate work stress that affects their job performance. In addition, the kindergarten administration must concentrate on how to effectively communicate and cooperate with early childhood teachers in light of regulations, policies and laws to defeat the spread of workplace bullying. The results of this research contributed to the existing literature by examining the relationship between the research variables, particularly in the early childhood education context.
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The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between teachers' organizational commitment perceptions and both their psychological hardiness and some demographic…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between teachers' organizational commitment perceptions and both their psychological hardiness and some demographic variables in a sample of Turkish primary schools.
Design/methodology/approach
A total of 405 randomly selected teachers working at primary schools in Ankara participated in the study. Personal Views Survey III‐R and the Organizational Commitment Scale were used to gather data.
Findings
This paper supports the argument that psychological hardiness is a meaningful construct predicting the perceptions of primary school teachers on organizational commitment. Results reveal that psychological hardiness is positively and significantly related to both identification and internalization components of teacher commitment, whereas it is negatively and significantly correlated to the commitment predicated on compliance. Teacher compliance commitment is negatively associated with both identification and internalization. Although gender and years of experience are significant predictors of identification and internalization, the variables of subject specialization and age did not significantly predict all three subscales of teacher commitment.
Originality/value
This paper represents a different approach to organizational commitment by examining teacher commitment under three components – compliance, identification, and internalization. This paper also explores the relationships between organizational commitment and teacher psychological hardiness which is a personality style reducing the negative effects of stress. Results from this study are discussed in relation to practical implications in school settings.
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Xinying Yu and Yuwen Liu
With the spread of COVID-19, governments have initiated lockdown procedures and forced organizations to switch to remote working. Employees working remotely in isolated and…
Abstract
Purpose
With the spread of COVID-19, governments have initiated lockdown procedures and forced organizations to switch to remote working. Employees working remotely in isolated and confined situations are experiencing great stress and uncertainty. This study aims to investigate how remote workers perform during lockdowns.
Design/methodology/approach
Drawing on social information processing theory, this study developed and tested hypotheses linking professional isolation, cynicism and task performance. This study was comprised of 497 remote workers in the financial industry in China.
Findings
The findings revealed that professional isolation is positively related to cynicism, and cynicism is negatively related to task performance. Cynicism mediates the relationship between professional isolation and task performance. The results indicated that psychological hardiness moderated the mediation effect of professional isolation on task performance through cynicism.
Practical implications
This research offers implications for managers and practitioners on reducing employees' feeling of isolation through effective communication, collaboration and support via online platforms and preventing and reducing cynicism by introducing clear organizational policy and practice to balance job demands and job resources. Meanwhile, managers can develop commitment, control and challenge components of employees' psychological hardiness to enhance job performance.
Originality/value
This study extends the remote working literature in a crisis situation and fills the gap in the cynicism literature by understanding the role played by cynicism for remote workers. The current study also adds to the literature by highlighting the importance of psychological hardiness for remote workers during the pandemic.
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Paul T. Bartone, Jarle Eid, Bjorn Helge Johnsen, Jon Christian Laberg and Scott A. Snook
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the influence of psychological hardiness, social judgment, and “Big Five” personality dimensions on leader performance in US military…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the influence of psychological hardiness, social judgment, and “Big Five” personality dimensions on leader performance in US military academy cadets at West Point.
Design/methodology/approach
Army cadets were studied in two different organizational contexts, i.e. summer field training and during academic semesters. Leader performance was measured with leadership grades (supervisor ratings) aggregated over four years at West Point.
Findings
After controlling for general intellectual abilities, hierarchical regression results showed leader performance in the summer field training environment is predicted by Big Five extroversion, and hardiness, and a trend for social judgment. During the academic period context, leader performance is predicted by mental abilities, Big Five conscientiousness, and hardiness, with a trend for social judgment.
Research limitations/implications
Results confirm the importance of psychological hardiness, extroversion, and conscientiousness as factors influencing leader effectiveness, and suggest that social judgment aspects of emotional intelligence can also be important. These results also show that different Big Five personality factors may influence leadership in different organizational contexts.
Practical implications
The study identifies personality factors related to leader performance in different types of work environments or contexts. Results can be used to improve leader selection and development programs.
Originality/value
This is the first study to examine the influence of psychological hardiness together with Big Five personality factors on leader performance. It identifies hardiness as an important predictor of leadership, while also showing that organizational context makes a difference for what Big Five personality factors influence leader performance: extroversion appears to be more influential in highly social and active work environments, whereas conscientiousness has greater salience in academic and business settings.
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Yew Ming Chia and Mackayla J.T. Chu
This study aims to investigate the two-way interaction effects of empowerment and hardiness on the presenteeism of hotel employees.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the two-way interaction effects of empowerment and hardiness on the presenteeism of hotel employees.
Design/methodology/approach
Data were collected from 358 hotel employees in Sabah, East Malaysia, via a questionnaire survey and analyzed using multiplicative regression analysis.
Findings
The results confirm the presence of a two-way interaction effect between empowerment and hardiness on the presenteeism of hotel employees at a significance level of 0.01. Further analysis indicates that the higher the level of hardiness, the greater is its negative effect on the relationship between empowerment and the presenteeism of hotel employees.
Research limitations/implications
The survey was cross-sectional and causal relationships among the variables cannot be inferred. The results were gathered from selected hotels and should not be generalized to all hotel employees in Sabah, East Malaysia.
Practical implications
The findings challenge the assumption of a positive association between empowerment and presenteeism and demonstrate that different levels of hardiness can influence this relationship. When empowering employees, management staff should also consider the provision of resilience-related training programs for less hardy employees. This would enable such employees to handle their presenteeism behavior arising from the increased level of empowerment.
Originality/value
This study provides the first empirical evidence of a two-way interaction effect of predictors on the presenteeism of hotel employees and could serve to influence mainstream journals in the presenteeism literature. Researchers could apply the analytical approach to examine future studies relating to higher-order effects of predictors on the presenteeism of hotel employees.
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Penelope Allison, Anna Mnatsakanova, Erin McCanlies, Desta Fekedulegn, Tara A. Hartley, Michael E. Andrew and John M. Violanti
Chronic exposure to occupational stress may lead to depressive symptoms in police officers. The association between police stress and depressive symptoms and the potential…
Abstract
Purpose
Chronic exposure to occupational stress may lead to depressive symptoms in police officers. The association between police stress and depressive symptoms and the potential influences of coping and hardiness were evaluated. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
Stress level was assessed in the Buffalo Cardio-Metabolic Occupational Police Stress Study (2004–2009) with the Spielberger Police Stress Survey. The frequency and severity of events at work were used to calculate stress indices for the past year. The Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression (CES-D) Scale was used to measure depressive symptoms during the past week. Linear regression was used to evaluate the association between the stress indices and depressive symptom scores. Models were adjusted for age, sex, race, smoking status and alcohol intake, and stratified by median values for coping (passive, active and support seeking) and hardiness (control, commitment and challenge) to assess effect modification.
Findings
Among the 388 officers (73.2 percent men), a significant positive association was observed between total stress and the CES-D score (β=1.98 (SE=0.36); p<0.001). Lower CES-D scores were observed for officers who reported lower passive coping (β=0.94 (SE=0.45); p=0.038) and higher active coping (β=1.41 (SE=0.44); p=0.002), compared with their counterparts. Officers higher in hardiness had lower CES-D scores, particularly for commitment (β=0.86 (SE=0.35); p=0.016) and control (β=1.58 (SE=0.34); p<0.001).
Originality/value
Results indicate that high active coping and hardiness modify the effect of work stress in law enforcement, acting to reduce depressive symptoms.
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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the hardiness of university business students. Overall hardiness, and its individual components of commitment, control…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of the hardiness of university business students. Overall hardiness, and its individual components of commitment, control and challenge, were all explored in relation to students’ quality of university life, quality of life and learning performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 722 Vietnamese business students was surveyed to collect the data. Structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to determine whether hardiness and/or its components enhanced students’ quality of university life, quality of life and learning performance. Necessary condition analysis (NCA) was then employed to explore the levels of hardiness and its components necessary for each of the key areas.
Findings
SEM results revealed that overall hardiness had a positive effect on all three key areas. In terms of individual components, commitment, control and challenge were found to have positive impacts on learning performance; however, control did not affect quality of university life, and challenge had no effect on quality of life. NCA results show that these components of hardiness had varying degrees necessary for students to experience success in these areas.
Practical implications
Findings suggest that university administers should consider the role which student hardiness, and its individual components, can play in relation to student success at university. Specifically, universities should practice hardiness training and assessment programs to equip their students with hardy attitudes and skills.
Originality/value
This study is one of the first to examine of the levels of the components of hardiness (i.e. commitment, control and challenge) necessary for students to achieve success in the quality of university life, quality of life and learning performance.
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Rajasekhar David, Sharda Singh, Sitamma Mikkilineni and Neuza Ribeiro
Today’s competitive business world presents unanticipated challenges to enterprises worldwide. So, the well-being of the employees may be a sustained competitive edge for…
Abstract
Purpose
Today’s competitive business world presents unanticipated challenges to enterprises worldwide. So, the well-being of the employees may be a sustained competitive edge for corporations in improving employee performance. Positive psychology served as the foundation for this study, investigating the interplay between employee well-being and task performance by incorporating organizational-specific factors like organizational virtuousness (OV) and individual-specific factors such as Psychological Capital (PsyCap).
Design/methodology/approach
In total, 639 dyadic responses were gathered from the banking sector, encompassing employees in both private and public banks in India, along with their immediate supervisors. The hypotheses were subsequently examined by applying Structural Equation Modeling (SEM).
Findings
OV and PsyCap are considerably associated with the well-being of employees and task performance, according to the findings. Employee well-being mediates the relationships between the perceptions of Organizational Virtuousness (OV) and task performance, as well as between PsyCap and task performance.
Research limitations/implications
The intense competition and series of scandals in Indian banks urge the introduction of some behavioral precautionary measures. Banks need to understand and intervene in positive organizational behavior and help the employees build strong PsyCap to enhance their well-being and task performance to gain a competitive edge.
Originality/value
The present study integrated Positive Organizational Behavior (POB) and Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) to enhance work performance.
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The author identifies the traits of consumer resilience in emerging markets, classifies these major traits into five categories and analyses the influence relationships among them…
Abstract
Purpose
The author identifies the traits of consumer resilience in emerging markets, classifies these major traits into five categories and analyses the influence relationships among them with distinctive focus on the psychological and personal resilience aspects.
Design/methodology/approach
The influence relations among the traits of consumer resilience from an expert perspective were identified with typical focus on electronic supply chains, and later the same was analysed through an intelligent influence modelling method, the grey causal modelling (GCM).
Findings
The major traits were analysed using the GCM, where the cause–consequence relations were observed for various objectives and the situational effects are noted. By constructing a magnitude plot and further a causal magnitude table, the important influence traits of consumer resilience for the considered case were observed and the same were auxiliary validated using an interpretive structural modelling (ISM) based approach.
Research limitations/implications
As perceived from the results, it is evident that social support and recommendations from customers emerge as the principal influence traits of consumer resilience from an expert perspective, considering the case. The study can be further extended empirically to validate the findings.
Practical implications
Altogether, the author can recommend for practitioners that the influence of family, society, friends, peers as well as ratings from the customers can determine the level of consumer resilience. Hence, practitioners of customer relationship management can focus on improving the product and brand awareness among customers, so that more customers may recommend for typical products.
Originality/value
Consumer resilience depend on several factors, where the author has identified 25 major traits of the same and classified them into five major categories, including individual psychological factors, individual attitudes, individual socio demographic factors, micro environmental factors and macro environmental factors and the influence relations among them were studied from an expert perspective.
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Shalini Srivastava and Banasree Dey
The purpose of this paper is to assess the influence of workplace bullying on job burnout of employees and investigate the mediating role of hardiness in the relationship and the…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to assess the influence of workplace bullying on job burnout of employees and investigate the mediating role of hardiness in the relationship and the extent to which the mediation is moderated by emotional intelligence.
Design/methodology/approach
The present data were collected from 350 employees working in varied companies in the ITES-BPO sectors of Delhi NCR of India. The study used stratified sampling method for good coverage from different departments of the organizations. The present data were collected in two stages following the suggestion given by Podsakoff et al. (2003) so as to minimize common method bias.
Findings
The findings suggest that workplace bullying is positively related to job burnout, and workplace bullying is negatively associated with hardiness. Hardiness was also found to be negatively associated with job burnout. It has also been found that workplace bullying is associated with job burnout through hardiness, and emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between hardiness and job burnout. The results also indicate that the indirect effect of workplace bullying on job burnout via hardiness is conditional on emotional intelligence.
Research limitations/implications
As the present study pertains to only one part of India, i.e. Delhi NCR of India, the results cannot be generalized. Future research can take a larger sample for the same. The demographic variables’ effect was out of the scope of this study. If demographics were taken into consideration, it might have resulted in interesting results. Moreover, the employees who were physically present at the time of data collection were asked to respond in a given time frame. One might argue that employees were not given enough time to respond. Future work can also incorporate other sectors so as to do a comparative study between sectors.
Practical implications
Based on the study results, it may be suggested that managers may do well to devise strategies for coping with the phenomenon of workplace bullying and job burnout in employees, to provide a healthy work environment with better employee morale and enhanced productivity.
Social implications
The findings of the study have implications for organizations in the service sector, particularly the BPO-ITES sector examined in the study. This being a customer-focused industry expects employees to ensure meeting deadlines and enhanced customer satisfaction; therefore, it would be worthwhile for managers to help employees in dealing with job stressors in their work environment. It would be useful to raise awareness about workplace bullying and encourage employees to report such incidents while assuring the complete support of the management.
Originality/value
While a review of extant literature indicates that emotional intelligence may lead to a reduction in job burnout of employees, yet, emotional intelligence has not been used previously as a moderator in mitigating the influence of workplace bullying and job burnout. Moreover, the role of hardiness as a mediator in the above-mentioned relationships has not been addressed in previous studies.
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