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The purpose of this paper is to examine how promotion- and prevention-focussed job crafting impacts the motivation of older employees to continue working beyond retirement age. The authors hypothesized that promotion-focussed job crafting (i.e. increasing social and structural job resources, and challenging job demands) relates positively and prevention-focussed job crafting (i.e. decreasing hindering job demands) relates negatively with motivation to continue working after reaching the official retirement age, and that these relationships are sequential mediated by work sense of coherence and burnout.

Data from 229 older employees (mean age=55.77) were analyzed using structural equation modeling.

Promotion-focussed job crafting was positively and prevention-focussed job crafting was negatively related with employees’ work sense of coherence, which was predictive of employees’ burnout, which in turn was predictive of motivation to continue working beyond retirement age.

Despite the cross-sectional study design, the results unfold how promotion- and prevention-focussed job crafting are related with motivation to continue working beyond retirement age through work sense of coherence and burnout.

Given today’s aging and shrinking workforce, older employees working beyond their official retirement age are a necessity for organizations’ functional capability. The results suggest that organizations should encourage employees’ promotion-focussed job crafting and limit prevention-focussed job crafting. Promotion-focussed job crafting facilitates employees’ work sense of coherence, which keeps them healthy and motivates older employees to continue working beyond retirement age.

This study adds to the literatures on job crafting and motivation to continue working beyond retirement age and explicates intervening processes in this relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate aspects related to difficulty to retain nursing assistants at nursing homes in Sweden related to perceived work environment characteristics.

To reveal aspects related to difficulty to retain nursing assistants, the paper uses the BIKVA model, sense of coherence and New Public Management (NPM). In total, three focus groups with nursing assistants at three nursing homes are interviewed with corresponding individual interviews with their senior managers and users. The purpose is to analyze the situation from the affected group of nursing assistants. The focus of this study is how nursing assistants discuss related to recruit and retain nursing assistants at nursing homes and elderly care and the response from senior management related to those aspects.

The main conclusions are that nursing assistants consider their job as meaningful, but limited latitude and direct involvement in managing their daily tasks in a continuous communication with management affect negatively. Furthermore and combined with wage levels, aspects related to scheduling, working hours, shift work, split shifts and understaffing generate a burdensome and stressful environment affecting the possibility to retain staff in a negative direction.

The research uses a new approach utilizing the BIKVA model, sense of coherence and NPM. The study shows that central in retaining nursing assistants at nursing homes relates to aspects such as wages, staffing, shift work and split shifts and continuous communication between nursing assistants and management.

This paper aims to explore the concept of capabilities and where they come from as well as their impact on integration and performance.

The paper is presented in the form of a theoretical development and literature review.

This paper proposes a theory of capability development and discusses the conditions under which a capability is effective. In particular, for a capability to be effective both local and global coherence are required. But a capability effectiveness and coherence has an inverted U shape. It increases with coherence up to a certain threshold then decreases. As a result, the development of capability is a powerful integration mechanism that crosses levels and functions.

This is a theoretical paper; the propositions offered have still to be empirically tested.

Opening up the capability black box might help managers better grasp how to develop and shape organizational capabilities that are deemed to contribute to competitive advantage (e.g. the pricing capability). First, capabilities are not to be equated with competitive advantage. They may lead to a competitive advantage only where the context is favorable. Thus consistency with the environment challenges is an important factor to watch. This suggests that managers should give attention to the relationships between what they perceive to be their capabilities and the nature of the challenges faced by the organization. Further this research might promote the development of tools to measure coherence within a context and manage appropriate levels of dissent to trigger the re‐shaping of existing capabilities or the emergence of new one.

The paper bridges highly theoretical questions with practical considerations.

This study aims to describe nurse leaders’ experiences of work-related well-being and its association with background variables, working conditions, work engagement, sense of coherence and burnout.

An electronic survey design was used. Data was collected between December 2015 and May 2016 with an instrument that included demographic questions and four internationally validated scales: the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale, QPS Nordic 34+, the shortened Sense of Coherence scale and the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Data was analysed using statistical methods.

A total of 155 nurse leaders completed the questionnaire, giving a 44% response rate. Most of them worked as nurse managers (89%). Participants’ work-related well-being scores ranged from 8 to 10. Statistically significant relationships were found between participants’ work-related well-being and their leadership skills, current position, sense of coherence and levels of burnout. In addition, there were statistically significant relationships between work-related well-being and all dimensions of working conditions.

This study underlines the fact that work-related well-being should not be evaluated based on a single factor. The participants’ perceived work-related well-being was high, although almost half of them reported always or often experiencing stress. The results suggest that nurse leaders may have resources such as good leadership and problem-solving skills, supportive working conditions and a high sense of coherence that prevent the experienced stress from adversely affecting their work-related well-being.

Prediction of increased risk of suicide is difficult. We had the opportunity to follow up 20 patients receiving electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) because of severe depression. They filled in the Antonovsky sense of coherence test (SOC) and Beck depression inventory (BDI) before and after a series of ECT treatments. Seventeen surviving patients had a mean observation time of 20.6 months, whereas the three deceased patients had 11.3 months. There was a lower mean age at onset of illness and a longer mean duration of disease in the deceased. Other clinical parameters did not differ. The surviving patients had a significant decrease on the BDI from 35 to 18 (P<0.001) and an increase on the SOC test after ECT from 2.45 to 3.19 (P<0.001), indicating both less depression and better functioning in life. The deceased had a larger change on the BDI from 32 to 13, not attaining significance because of the low number of deceased. The SOC test, however, did not increase to a purported normal level; that is, from 2.43 to 2.87. Although the SOC scale has been shown to predict mortality in substance abusers, the SOC test has not been part of earlier reviews of predictive power. Tentatively, a low pathological score on the SOC test may indicate low sense of coherence in life that might increase the propensity for suicide. These preliminary results need replication in larger studies.

In the present study an art-based leadership intervention has been evaluated in comparison to a conventional leadership development program. The purpose of this paper is to explore effects on two aspects of personality, namely Sense of Coherence and Agreeableness, as well as on two aspects of leadership behaviors evaluated by subordinates – Laissez-faire and Capacity to Cope with stress.

Participating leaders were randomized to two-year-long leadership programs, with follow-up at 12 and 18 months. The art-based program built on an experimental theater form, a collage of literary text and music, followed by discussions. The comparison program utilized more conventional pedagogical methods.

Leaders in the art-based group, compared to the leaders in the conventional group, showed a significant improvement in Sense of Coherence (stress resilience) and Agreeableness (pro-social behavior). Likewise, the leaders receiving art-based intervention showed a significant improvement in leadership behavior evaluated by subordinates; Laissez-faire decreased (increased responsibility) and Capacity to Cope with stress increased, while the opposite was found in the leaders in the conventional group.

This study represents a new, cross-disciplinary approach. To the knowledge, previous research has not attempted a comparison between art-based leadership approach and a more conventional education. The art-based intervention seems to be more effective in stimulating long-term favorable changes in leaders’ behavior than the conventional program. These positive findings are consistent with earlier findings from this research regarding improved neurobiological resilience and mental health in subordinates of the leaders receiving art-based intervention.

In workplace health promotion, enhancing resources are less explored than risk factors. The aim of this paper is to explore the usability of the sense of coherence (SOC) theory to identify considerable and positively perceived work‐related factors and processes.

The study had a salutogenic approach to workplace health promotion. A total of 13 focus group interviews were conducted with hospital employees in Sweden. A deductive analysis was made with the SOC theory as a framework.

Work‐related specific enhancing resources (SER) were identified and analysed into the three components of SOC: comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness. SER's implication in daily performance is explained by employee expressions. Through increased understanding and awareness, SER could contribute to savoring positive experiences, and enhance SOC among employees. Antonovsky's concept Generalized Resistance Resources is suggested to be enlarged based on the expressed significance of concrete daily positive work occurrences to increase one's SOC.

Not all hospital professions were represented in the study. Further studies are required to involve physicians, paramedics, managers, as well as other settings, to compare and complement with additional experiences of workplace resources.

The study presents an opportunity to explore, understand, and foster workplace resources through assistance from the SOC theory. The SER presented in this study may serve as initial examples in workplace discussions about work‐related resources contributing to a sense of coherence.

This study contributes to public health research and workplace health promotion with a salutogenic focus on how to explore enhancing work‐related resources with the assistance of the practical SOC theory.

The levels of work-related stress and the incidence rates of subsequent related illnesses are increasing in our society, leading to high individual and socioeconomic burdens. Mindfulness training has been shown to be an effective method of improving stress resilience. This paper aims to investigate the efficacy of nature-based mindfulness training in professionals with high levels of work-related stress.

In this controlled pilot study, a total of 56 volunteers completed a nature-based mindfulness training progam and were compared to 8 participants (waitlist controls). Psychometric assessments were performed at baseline and after two and four months of training.

After two months of training, the scores for self-efficacy, sense of coherence, level of mindfulness and overall psychiatric symptom load had significantly improved in the intervention group, while the control group did not show any significant improvements. A comparison between the intervention and control groups showed a significant difference regarding the sense of coherence only.

Since this was an exploratory study with a small control group, further studies are needed to verify our findings.

In conclusion, nature-based mindfulness training seems to be a promising tool for the improvement of resilience and overall psychological health in professionals.

This was the first study to systematically investigate effects of nature-based mindfulness training in people with high work-related stress.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the tensions between external accountability obligations, educator's professional values, and student needs. Strategic, cognitive, and moral dimensions of this tension are captured with the central category of integrity.

This is a mixed methods study that compares five exceptionally high performing middle schools with four exceptionally low performing middle schools in the state of California (USA), controlling for demographics, school context factors, and below average performance range.

It is found that schools under similar circumstances differ on the degree of integrity. Schools with high integrity have a good balance between values and reality, are more cohesive and more open to dissent. In each case, integrity was associated with an expansion of agency that combined moral earnestness with prudent strategizing and actively constructing interpretive frames that maintained a school's sense of self‐worth. Integrity develops or survives with a good dose of educational leaders’ personal strength, but also depends on leaders’ insistence to fully exhaust the moral horizon of an institution which obligates educators to balance equity, system efficiency, child‐centeredness and professionalism with prudence.

This is a case study of nine schools in one state. Explanatory relationships can be explored, but not generalized.

The research has implications for leadership. It demonstrates the power of integrity as a key virtue of leadership under accountability pressures. It shows the different ways integrity can be forged in schools and the different ways it can be missed with consequences for school life.

The paper stresses the point that it is quite conceivable that ideological zeal, Machiavellian strategizing, or eager system conformism may produce more forceful agency than integrity. But as everyday responses they are not as realistic, ethical or productive as the striving for integrity.

The practitioner literature often points to integrity as a desirable quality when dealing with tensions of the sort addressed in this paper, but little systematic theoretical thinking and empirical exploration of this concept exists. The paper makes an advance in both areas.

Guided by the salutogenic model of health and well-being, this study aims to use empirical measures of sense of coherence (SOC) and generalized resistance resources (GRRs) to gain a better understanding of the facilitators of successful transition and integration of refugees to Canada and relate these findings to current program development and delivery for the settlement of refugees.

Survey research and structural equation modeling.

The authors found that newcomers with a stronger SOC were more likely to report successful integration outcomes. GRRs were found to have both direct and indirect effects on the positive settlement of refugees, with the SOC acting as a strong mediator of indirect effects.

Owing in part, to the disruption caused by the global pandemic, the authors’ data collection period was protracted and the final sample size of 263 is smaller than the authors would have preferred. Another limitation of this study has to do with its cross-sectional design, which limits the articulation of cause-and-effect relationships among the variables.

In terms of program development and delivery for the settlement of refugees, the authors’ results provide further evidence that refugee participation in socially valued decision-making represents a key determinant of healthy resettlement.

Much research on refugee settlement originates within “a pathogenic paradigm” that focuses on the stressors and obstacles encountered by people who have been displaced. Taking its cue from Israeli health sociologist, Aaron Antonovsky’s salutogenic model of health and well-being, this study uses empirical measures of Antonovsky’s interrelated concepts of SOC and GRRs to gain a better understanding of the facilitators of successful transition and integration of refugees to a prairie province in Canada and relate these findings to current program development and delivery for the settlement of refugees.