Stress, interpersonal and inter-role conflicts, and psychological health conditions among nurses: vicious and virtuous circles within and beyond the wards

BACKGROUND

The increasing costs of nurses' occupational-stress, conflicts, and violence within healthcare services have raised international interest. Yet, research/interventions should consider that perceived stress and conflicts- but also potential resources- within the wards can crossover the healthcare settings, impacting nurses' private lives and viceversa, potentially creating vicious circles exacerbating stress, conflicts/violence or, conversely, virtuous circles of psychological/relational wellbeing. Based on the Demands-Resources-and-Individual-Effects (DRIVE) Nurses Model, and responding to the need to go in-depth into this complex dynamic, this study aims to explore potential vicious circles featured by the negative effects of the interplay (main/mediating effects) between perceived stressors in nursing linked to interpersonal conflicts (Conflicts-with-Physicians, Peers, Supervisors, Patients/their families), work-family inter-role conflicts (Work-Family/Family-Work-Conflicts), and work-related stress (Effort-Reward-Imbalance) on nurses' psychological/relational health (Anxiety, Depression, Somatization, Interpersonal-Sensitivity, Hostility). The potential moderating role of work-resources (Job-Control, Social-Support, Job-Satisfaction) in breaking vicious circles/promoting virtuous circles was also explored.

METHOD

The STROBE Checklist was used to report this cross-sectional multi-centre study. Overall, 265 nurses completed self-report questionnaires. Main/mediating/moderating hypotheses were tested by using Correlational-Analyses and Hayes-PROCESS-tool.

RESULTS

Data confirmed the hypothesized detrimental vicious circles (main/mediating effects), impairing nurses' psychological health conditions at individual level (Anxiety, Depression, Somatization), but also at relational level (Hostility and Interpersonal-Sensitivity). The moderating role of all work resources was fully supported.

CONCLUSION

Findings could be used to implement interventions/practices to effectively prevent the maintenance/exacerbation of vicious circles and promote psychological/relational wellbeing in healthcare settings and beyond.

An Examination of the Inverse Relationship Between Dimensions of Political Skill and Interpersonal Conflict at Work: Exploring Perceived Control as a Mediating Factor

Political skill has been established as an antidote to workplace stress and strain. However, despite the scholarly attention it has attracted, we still know very little about mediating mechanisms that explain this relationship and the role of political skill dimensions in mitigating workplace stressors. Thus, in this study, we investigate the impact of perceived control as a mediating mechanism between the political skill dimensions (i.e., social astuteness, interpersonal influence, networking ability, apparent sincerity) and interpersonal conflict (i.e., stress arising due to social interactions). Structural equation modeling was applied to analyze the data collected from 370 employees in a textile organization. The study found that perceived control mediated the relationship of social astuteness, interpersonal influence, and networking ability with interpersonal conflict. It, however, did not mediate the link between apparent sincerity and interpersonal conflict. Limitations, implications, and directions for future research are also discussed.

Ambition: a deterrent to workplace deviance among narcissistic leaders

Purpose

Workplace deviance remains a concern for many organizations, and narcissism has been identified as a primary contributor. The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether political skill and ambition interact with narcissism to attenuate or exacerbate workplace deviance.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors surveyed a sample of 335 participants in leadership positions and empirically tested interactions among political skill, narcissism and ambition in predicting workplace deviance.

Findings

The authors performed moderated hierarchical regression analyses on the data to test the hypothesis and research question. Contrary to expectations, political skill attenuated the relationship between narcissism and workplace deviance. However, ambition was found to attenuate deviance, with the highest levels of deviance evident when narcissism was high, political skill was low, and ambition was also low.

Originality/value

Although research has examined the relationship between narcissism and workplace deviance, to the authors’ knowledge, the study is the first to examine the roles of political skill and ambition in attenuating the manifestation of narcissism into workplace deviance.

Forty years of political skill and will in organizations: a review, meta-theoretical framework and directions for future research

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to review the scholarship on political skill and political will so that the authors might inspire future work that assesses these constructs individually and in tandem.

Design/methodology/approach

The “political skill” and “political will” concepts were introduced about 40 years ago, but they only have been measured and produced empirical results much more recently. Since that time, substantial research results have demonstrated the important roles political skill and political will play in organizational behavior. This paper provides a comprehensive review of this research, draws conclusions from this work and provides a meta-theoretical framework of political skill and political will to guide future work in this area.

Findings

Scholarship in this area has developed quite rapidly for political skill, but less so for political will. The authors hope that recent developments in a political will can set the stage for scholars to create a theoretical and empirical balance between these two related constructs.

Originality/value

The authors corral the vast and widespread literature on political skill and will and distill the information for scholars and practitioners alike.

Twenty-five years of career growth literature: a review and research agenda

Purpose

The dynamic career scenario and the significant change from traditionally placing careers in employers’ hands to self-managing one’s careers have sparked profound scholarly interest in career growth. This paper aims to analyze quadricentennial literature on career growth published during the years 1995 through 2020. In this paper, through bibliometric and integrative reviews, the authors address the two critical questions, “what do we know?” and “where should we go?” While the bibliometric review examines the evolution and trends, the integrative review examines the dynamics of conceptual frameworks, primary research foci, research context and quality in research designs and methods.

Design/methodology/approach

The study adopted preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses guidelines to identify the papers for this review. The data set comprised 102 papers and 60 papers for bibliometric and integrative review, respectively. “CiteSpace” is used for the bibliometric analysis and the template designed by the authors is used for the integrative review.

Findings

The results present conceptual clarification for career growth and its related constructs. The bibliometric analysis findings highlight the extensive research on career growth followed by organizational career growth and career growth opportunities. The findings also show that seven of the top 10 productive authors are from China. This study also identifies theoretical, conceptual and methodological opportunities and provides recommendations intended to further research engagements across the different aspects of career growth.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to introduce bibliometric analysis into career growth literature. This research adopts an integrative review approach and offers insights into career growth literature.

Impact of Psychological Aggression at the Workplace on Employees' Health: A Systematic Review of Personal Outcomes and Prevention Strategies

Psychological aggression perpetrated by customers, coworkers, and supervisors is a behavior frequently experienced in the workplace with negative consequences for an individual's health. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the personal outcomes of overt workplace psychological aggression and summarize empirical evidence on how to prevent and reduce its effects. A search on PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, and Web of Science electronic databases was made. Data were obtained from 30 studies (26 cross-sectional, 3 longitudinal, 1 quasi-experimental) representing 20,683 employees. Longitudinal studies indicated that workplace psychological aggression is significantly associated with musculoskeletal injury and psychological strains (anxiety, depression, anger) over time. Research also suggests that psychological aggression at work predicts fear, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, personal accomplishment, and physical symptoms, for example. Additionally, the information collected suggested that support from coworkers, supervisors, and management; informational support; political skills; job resources; and confidence to prevent and respond to aggression moderate significantly the impact of workplace psychological aggression on personal and organizational outcomes. Perceptions of a violence-prevention climate, aggression-preventive supervisor behavior, and aggression-preventive employee effort are also significantly associated with a reduction in psychological aggression at work and strains. In conclusion, this review allows us to understand the effects of the psychological aggression by identifying the preventive strategies that could be adopted by managers, supervisors, or leaders to deal with it and promote individual's health in the workplace.

The Impact of Changes in Professional Autonomy and Occupational Commitment on Nurses' Intention to Leave: A Two-Wave Longitudinal Study in Japan

This study aimed to investigate changes in nurses’ attitudes toward professional autonomy and occupational commitment over time, and their effect on nurses’ intentions to leave, using a two-wave longitudinal design. Anonymous, self-report questionnaires were distributed to all nurses working at 28 hospitals in western Japan on two separate occasions (n = 1778). Multivariate analysis using a generalized estimation equation was conducted, with the intention to leave at Time 2 as the dependent variable, and the changing secular trends in all subscales of attitudes toward professional autonomy and occupational commitment as the independent variables. Age, sex, education, and intention to leave at Time 1 were control variables. Results showed that increasing changing secular trends in control over work conditions, which is a subscale of attitudes toward professional autonomy, increased intention to leave at Time 2, while increasing changing secular trends in all subscales of occupational commitment decreased intention to leave at Time 2. Nurses with a progressive attitude toward discretion of control over work conditions may have higher intentions to leave. Therefore, increasing control over their work conditions may reduce this intention. Additionally, it is necessary to continually enhance nurses’ occupational commitment by offering professional development programs.

Occupational commitment from a life span perspective

Purpose

The purpose of this review is to integrate and organize past research findings on affective, normative and continuance occupational commitment (OC) within an integrative framework based on central life span concepts.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors identified and systematically analyzed 125 empirical articles (including 138 cases) that examined OC with a content valid measure to the here applied definition of OC. These articles provided information on the relationship between OC and four distinct life span concepts: chronological age, career stages, occupational and other life events, and occupational and other life roles. Furthermore, developmental characteristics of OC in terms of construct stability and malleability were reviewed.

Findings

The reviewed literature allowed to draw conclusions about the mentioned life span concepts as antecedents and outcomes of OC. For example, age and tenure is more strongly positively related to continuance OC than to affective and normative OC, nonlinear and moderating influences seem to be relevant in the case of the latter OC types. The authors describe several other findings within the results sections.

Originality/value

OC represents a developmental construct that is influenced by employees’ work- and life-related progress, associated roles, as well as opportunities and demands over their career. Analyzing OC from such a life span perspective provides a new angle on the research topic, explaining inconsistencies in past research and giving recommendation for future studies in terms of dynamic career developmental thinking.

The Moderating Effect of Employee Political Skill on the Link between Perceptions of a Victimizing Work Environment and Job Performance

Research has generally revealed only a weak link, if any at all, between victimization-related experiences and job performance. Drawing on the commonly used conservation of resources perspective, we argue that such inconsistent evidence in the organizational literature stems from an over-focus on personal resources at the expense of considering the role of social resources. Victimization is an interpersonal phenomenon with social ramifications. Its effects may be better captured when measured from the standpoint of the social environment, and analyzed relative to an employee’s capacity to effectively regulate those social resources. With the latter capacity being encapsulated by the construct of political skill, we conducted two studies to explore the moderating influence of employee political skill on the relationship between employee perceptions of a victimizing work environment and employee task performance. In Study 1, employees with low political skill exhibited reduced task performance when perceiving a victimizing environment, and this link was found to be mediated by tension in Study 2. Those with high political skill exhibit no change in performance across victimization perceptions in Study 2, yet an increase in performance in Study 1. We discuss our findings relative to the victimization and political skill literatures.

Burnout, Depression and Proactive Coping in Underground Coal Miners in Serbia - Pilot Project

Mining is unsurprisingly considered a high-risk occupation because it involves continuous hard labour under highly demanding and stressful conditions. Many of these work stressors can impair individuals’ well-being in both a physiological and psychological sense. The aims of this study were to assess the prevalence of burnout and depressive symptoms and to evaluate aspects of proactive coping among underground coal miners in Serbia. The study involved 46 male underground coal miners. Burnout was measured with the Copenhagen Burnout Inventory, depression was assessed with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9, and level of proactive coping was measured with the Proactive Coping Inventory. The results showed a low level of burnout syndrome among the underground coal miners (12.46±4.879). Depression was slightly above the minimum (1.2±2.094), and the majority of the participants had no symptoms of depression (93.5%). Overall, the underground coal miners’ ability to proactively cope with work stress was very good (42.17±6.567). This is in contrast to the findings of the few previous international studies and is a good basis for further research using a larger sample in Serbia.