Does Leaders' Health (and Work-Related Experiences) Affect their Evaluation of Followers' Stress?

Role of safety-specific transformational leadership in fostering extra-role behaviors through psychological contract fulfillment among frontline workers during COVID-19

Objectives. The emergence of COVID-19 has drastically changed the safety outlook of how the work world is viewed by leaders and followers. In this backdrop, the current study aimed at extending the safety leadership literature in the context of organizations operating in crisis situations by investigating the impact of safety-specific transformational leadership on the followers' extra-role behaviors through the mediation of psychological contract fulfillment. Methods. Using a time-lagged and multisource design, data were collected from 384 frontline rescue and healthcare workers dealing with COVID-19-related situations. Results. Results revealed that safety-specific transformational leadership behavior positively affects extra-role behaviors of frontline employees by enhancing their innovative work behavior, knowledge sharing behavior and organizational citizenship behavior. Also, psychological contract fulfillment plays a bridging role in translating the impact of safety-specific transformational leadership behavior on extra-role behaviors. Conclusion. The followers working in an unsafe context view the safety concern of their leader as a fulfillment of their unwritten expectations from their employers. Implications of these findings along with limitations and future research directions are also delineated.

A Systematic Review of Negative Work Behavior: Toward an Integrated Definition

The objective of this systematic review was to identify the overlapping and unique aspects of the operationalizations of negative work behaviors (NWBs) to specify a new integrative definition of NWB. More specifically, we examined (1) how many operationalizations and conceptualizations of NWB can be identified, (2) whether these operationalizations can be categorized into facets, i. e., the nature of NWB, harm, actor types, and roles, with subcategories, (3) what the meaningful overlap in these operationalizations was, (4) whether the operationalizations tapped unique and meaningful elements, i.e., positive labels and dynamic processes, and (5) how the overlapping and unique elements of the operationalizations could be integrated into a new theory-based research model for NWB for future research. In the literature search based on the Prisma framework, Pubmed, PsycINFO, and Google Scholar, we identified k = 489 studies that met the inclusion criteria of our review. The results of these studies revealed 16 frequently studied NWB labels, e.g., bullying and aggression. Many of these could be categorized in the same way, namely, in terms of the type of behavior, type of harm, and type of actor involved in the NWB. In our new definition of NWB, we integrated the content of the overlapping and meaningful unique elements of the 16 labels.

Effectiveness of stress inoculation training on occupational stress of midwives in healthcare centers of Zahedan in Health Transformation Plan in 2017

INTRODUCTION

Occupational stress is a main problem of healthcare workers, which significantly affects their professional and personal performance. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of a stress immunization program on occupational stress of midwives working in health centers.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

In this quasi-experimental study, 80 midwives working in health centers of Zahedan (2017) were divided into test and control groups based on random allocation. The intervention involved a stress immunization program consisting of two workshops (each lasting 4 h) in two consecutive weeks, which was implemented for the intervention group. As data collection tool, Health and Safety Executive Occupational Stress Questionnaire was completed in three steps before, immediately after, and 1 month after the intervention. Data were analyzed using descriptive and analytical statistics, independent t-test, and repeated measures ANOVA.

RESULTS

The findings showed that mean stress score in the intervention group was increased from 79.5 ± 9.7 before intervention to 104.5 ± 17.3 immediately after it, which was increased to 110.5 ± 18.3 1 month after intervention (P < 0.001). In the control group, mean stress score was decreased immediately after as well as 1 month after the intervention, which was statistically significant after the intervention and 1 month after it (P > 0.023).

CONCLUSION

The stress immunization program is an inexpensive and effective way to reduce the stress of midwives; therefore, it is suggested to be used to effectively handle occupational stress among midwives and to improve their quality of care.

Psychometric Properties of a 36-Item Version of the "Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool"

The development of supervisors’ behaviours has been proposed as an innovative approach for the reduction of employees’ work stress. The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) developed the “Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool” (SMCIT), designed to be used within a learning and development intervention. However, its psychometric properties have never been evaluated, and the length of the questionnaire (66 items) limits its practical applicability. We developed a brief 36-item version of the questionnaire, assessed its psychometric properties and studied the relationship with the employees’ psychosocial work environment. 353 employees filled in the brief SMCIT and the “Stress Management Indicator Tool”. The latter is a self-report questionnaire developed by the UK HSE, measuring workers’ perceptions of seven dimensions of the psychosocial work environment that if not properly managed can lead to harm. Data were analysed with structural equation modelling and multiple regressions. The results confirmed the factorial structure of the brief SMCIT questionnaire and mainly supported the convergent validity and internal consistency of the scales. Furthermore, with few exceptions, the relations hypothesized between supervisors’ competencies and the psychosocial work environment were confirmed, supporting the criterion validity of the revised questionnaire and the UK HSE framework. We conclude that the brief 36-item version of the SMCIT represents an important step toward the development of interventions directed at supervisors and we discuss the practical implications for work stress prevention.

Learning Climate and Job Performance among Health Workers. A Pilot Study

This paper will explore if and how psychological strain plays a mediator role between the learning climate and job performance in a group of health workers. Although the relationship between learning climate and job performance has already been explored in the international literature, the role of psychological strain, which may hamper or deepen this relationship, has yet to be investigated. The research hypothesis is that psychological strain mediates the relationship between the climate toward learning (including also the error avoidance climate) and job performance. Data were gathered in a Public hospital in Italy. Participants (N = 61) were health professionals (nurses and obstetricians). Considering the relatively small sample size, a mediation analysis with the aid of the SPSS macro PROCESS was performed. The results show that the relationship between the learning climate (specifically its dimension of organizational appreciation toward learning) and job performance is mediated by psychological strain. The future research agenda and practical implications are discussed in the paper.

Walking the Tightrope: Counterproductive Work Behavior as Compensation for Citizenship Demands

Amidst a struggling economy, organizations are ruled by the survival of the fittest paradigm but it is the employees who tend to pay the price, with increased demands which, oftentimes, fall outside their job scope. In the present paper, we examined whether pressuring people to engage in such organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) might in fact backfire and lead to increased Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB) because of compensatory mechanisms. We propose a typology of OCB that distinguishes between discretionary and elicited OCB, hypothesizing that elicited but not discretionary OCB, positively relates to CWB. By doing so, we wanted to examine if such a distinction can explain conflicting past results concerning the within-person OCB–CWB link, and to test whether increased citizenship demands can have an adverse effect for the organization. Our hypothesis was tested by asking 29 employees twice a day for 10 consecutive working days to report on the elicited and discretionary OCB and CWB they performed (N = 210 responses). Multilevel logistic regression analyses showed that elicited OCB was positively related to CWB, whereas discretionary OCB was not related to CWB. This finding steers theorizing away from the conventional classification of employees as bad apples versus good soldiers, by revealing that CWB can positively relate to OCB as a result of compensatory mechanisms. From a practical point of view, our results imply that employers should be mindful of the unintended consequences that OCB might entail when employees perceive that they are expected to engage in such behaviors.