Decision Freedom Research Articles

Female managers' organizational leadership during telework: experiences of job demands, control and support.

The frequent use of telework during the COVID -19 pandemic has created a more challenging work situation for managers who need to lead effectively in the virtual space, this especially concerns female managers. Therefor it is of importance to investigate female managers' experiences of job related demands, control and support within this work context. Accordingly, we investigated female managers' experiences of demands, control and support in their organizational leadership during telework. The present study used a deductive, theory-driven, qualitative approach with predetermined themes defined within the demand-control-support model. Data were collected by semi-structured interviews. The female managers had at least 50% of their working hours as telework. The results showed that the female managers experienced demands in terms of hard, fast or even excessive work in order to be available and solve complex problems, and control as varied work content, new learning, planning and decision freedom. Support was experienced in terms of attentive superior manager, good cooperation and helpfulness among colleagues. Theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed in terms of telework situation for female managers.

Psychosocial work environment and burnout among employees of a Ghanaian Public University

ABSTRACT The psychosocial climate of universities becomes very important because of the increasing student enrolment, academic-administrative duties, the quest for promotion, the fast-changing mode of lesson delivery, all leading to work overload. This study aims to examine the influence of psychosocial factors on burnout of employees of a public university in Ghana. A survey measuring burnout and psychosocial work characteristics with the Maslach Burnout Inventory – Educators Survey (MBI-ES) and job demands – Swedish Demand-Control-Support Questionnaire (DCSQ) was completed by 1,222 employees. We developed structural models that suggested that the elements of burnout – emotional weariness, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization – are positively impacted by job demands, social support, job decision freedom, harassment, and discrimination. The results further indicated that job demands, job decision latitude, social support, and harassment have significant effect on emotional exhaustion of the workers. Again, job decision latitude and discrimination significantly influenced depersonalization of the workers. In addition, job demands, job decision latitude, social support, and discrimination affected personal accomplishment. However, there was no statistically significant influence of discrimination on emotional exhaustion, job demand and depersonalization, social support and depersonalization, harassment and depersonalization, and harassment and diminished personal accomplishment. We conclude that by implementing practical interventions, such as regular training on how to reduce job demands, either physical or psychological, and enhancing social support and job control, burnout among the employees can be improved for improved health and quality teaching.

Consensus checking and improving methods for AHP with q-rung dual hesitant fuzzy preference relations

Decision makers (DMs) are often hesitant about the evaluations for subjective or objective reasons, and established preference relations always have various limitations on the way that DMs express themselves. Aiming at investigating the consensus reaching process where DMs needs more decision freedom, this study proposes a novel decision support model for AHP with q-rung dual hesitant fuzzy preference relations (q-RDHFPRs). To do this, we give the definition of q-RDHFPRs and explore the corresponding operational rules. On account of this, we propose a family of algorithms to check and improve consistency and consensus of q-RDHFPRs, which can automatically obtain scientific and effective consensus results. Moreover, a priority method for q-RDHFPRs is proposed to rank the alternatives. The procedure of the q-RDHF-AHP is given in detail, and the example of risk evaluation of Hospital-acquired infections is employed to demonstrate our results. Comparative analyses show that the proposed q-RDHF-AHP method is more powerful for coping with the hesitant and uncertain situations and greatly expands the information description scope of the method.

Risk Factors of Prolapse Lumbar Intervertebral Disc (PLID): A Synthesis of Short Review

Introduction: LDH, defined as the localized displacement of disc material beyond the margins of the intervertebraldisc space is considered the most common cause of lumbosacral radiculopathy. Compared with nonspecific lowback pain without radiating leg pain, LDH is associated with radiating pain/ radiculopathy,severe pain, disability,healthcare use and intervention.Objectives: To explorethe risk-factors associated with PLID/ LDH.Literature: In this review, best evidence synthesis included systemic reviews, cohort studies and case-controlstudies that investigated the risk factors for LDH/ PLID.Critiques: LDH with radiculopathy results from complex relationships between individual, behavioural, andwork-related variables. Evidence revealed that- age, sex, education, BMI, cardiovascular risk factors, smoking,occupational lumbar load by forward bending postures and manual materials handling, perceived risk of workinjury, decision freedom at work, regular or irregular three-shift work or regular night work in and time pressureat work are associated with the development. It is also found that manual occupation, genetics, and previous backpain may contribute to the development of LDH with radiculopathy in adults.Conclusion: Although the literature is varying quality and heterogeneous, but the evidence revealed that LDH/PLID is an important source of pain and disability in society. Future research should focus on prospective designsexamining modifiable risk factors and prevention strategies.

Responsibility experience for your own life through volunteering

Phenomenon of the Volunteering reveals itself through dedicated time for volunteering, duration of volunteering commitment, area where volunteering is implemented and through age group of the volunteers. The object of the study is volunteering experience of young adults. Interpretative Phenomenological Analyses is research methodology. According to the phenomenological approach, research itself is not focusing on any foreseen objectives, oriented to the volunteers’ experience. In this article is presented part of the research, giving deeper view on one of the super-ordinates theme, with the aim: to present responsibility for your own life experience of young adults in long term and fulltime volunteering, while volunteered is held in social help area. In the study participated 6 research participants, 3 young men and 3 young women, 20–30 years old. To collect the data of the research were used semi-structured interviews. Conclusions of the study presented in this article shows 1) that through volunteering experience research participants perceived power and duty of own life’s quality. They got awareness about their own life – they can and they must be responsible of own life. 2) This power of responsibility is hidden in themselves and change of own life depends on the decisions made by them while volunteering. Prior experience of responsibility is opening decision possibilities and freedom possibilities in any change of life.

Individualized gamification elements: The impact of avatar and feedback design on reuse intention

Gamification is often equipped with the promise to increase motivation and performance. However, research explaining which gamification design elements are effective and the mechanisms through which these effects can be explained is still at an early stage. By drawing on the three psychological needs – competence, autonomy, and social relatedness – proposed by self-determination theory, we develop a model to explain the effects of feedback and avatar design on reuse. We test these effects with a 2 (avatar similarity: low vs. high) × 2 (embodied feedback: no feedback vs. embodied feedback) × 2 (status feedback: no feedback vs. score and leaderboard) + 1 (control group) experiment. Additionally, we use structural equation modeling to test the derived model. Our results support evidence that different forms of feedback and avatar design influence reuse by satisfying the three psychological needs. Furthermore, our findings also reveal that autonomy for decision freedom is negatively related to reuse intention, which disagrees with existing research and may provide insights into why results on gamification elements are inconsistent.

Parent Affect Spin and Child Adjustment: The Role of Parent Job Characteristics

Affect spin, or individual difference in intraindividual variability of qualitatively different affective states, has been linked to undesirable outcomes in the work sphere. Extending research on affect spin to the work-family interface, we examine the association between working parents’ affect spin and their adolescent children’s adjustment, with regard to psychological distress and delinquency. Drawing on genetic heredity and social learning perspectives, we propose that parent affect spin transmits to child adjustment through child modeling of parent affect spin. We further invoke resource drain theory and contend that the relationship between parent and child affect spin is exacerbated when parents work on jobs with high job demands (i.e., conflictual contact, irregular work schedule) and low job resources (i.e. low decision freedom). We test our model using multisource data of 127 dual-earner families with children (417 participants in total), in which parents’ and children’s affect spin are derived from a total of 13,970 experience sampling responses of affective states over seven days. Results from moderated mediation analysis largely support our predictions, but slightly different results emerge for fathers and mothers. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Novelty detection in continuously changing environments

Self-improving system integration (SISSY) aims at mastering the challenges of system organisation decisions for subsystems with highly dynamic behaviours. This is achieved by increased decision freedom of these subsystems, i.e., by moving the corresponding design decisions from design-time to run-time and from engineers to the systems themselves. As a result, a more robust and efficient constellation of the overall system organisation is maintained even under the presence of continuous change and disturbed conditions. Appropriate integration decisions require a solid foundation of assessing the current conditions and their dynamics using identifying triggers for a necessary evaluation of their own integration status. With this article, we present mCANDIES, a modular novelty detection technique especially suited for SISSY systems that fulfils exactly these identification tasks. mCANDIES tackles an anomaly or novelty detection problem in a modular way by combining the advantages of different detection approaches by exploiting locality in different regions of the input space — depending on, e.g. the density or location of expected observations. This is augmented with information about changes in the underlying model of the observations, i.e., mCANDIES identifies concept drifts. The corresponding information can then be used to trigger online learning behaviour. We analyse the behaviour of mCANDIES on artificial and real-world data sets and compare it to other techniques from the state of the art.

Measuring psychological and physiological stress in emergency clinicians

BackgroundEvidence regarding stress, team structure and decision-making has been used to inform efficacious team composition and deployment. There have been limited attempts to establish the relationship between psychological stress with physiological data within professional environments. The current study explored measures of psychological and physiological stress in Australian emergency practitioners. MethodsThirty-seven staff in an Australian emergency department completed an online survey assessing freedom to make decisions, social support, and psychological job demands. Seven participants provided saliva samples three times daily for seven days (valid n=141 samples). Cortisol levels of the samples were analysed using competitive enzyme immunoassay kits, and α-amylase using kinetic enzyme assay kits. ResultsYears of emergency experience was positively associated with freedom to make decisions, and social support was negatively correlated with psychological demand. No consistent pattern was observed between cortisol level and reported psychological demand, decision freedom or social support. Physical activity was not reflected in elevated α-amylase. Diurnal variation of cortisol and α-amylase was not affected by shiftwork. ConclusionsThe data supports the case for using multiple assessments to measure stress. While the psychological data is consistent with previous findings, there are possible disparities between psychological reports and physical indicators of stress.

The representation of freedom in decisions: Good outcomes or real choice?

ABSTRACTFive studies replicate and extend recent experimental findings on a divergence between theoretical and subjectively-experienced decision freedom. While conditions like conflict, uncertainty, or complexity are structural indicators of free choice, they empirically decrease experienced freedom. Subjective freedom itself seems to depend on easy decisions with positive outcomes of a high certainty. Studies 1 and 2 conceptually replicate this strong focus of subjective freedom on positive valence by using semantic and qualitative data. The replication proved successful. Given this prevalence of positivity, Studies 3, 4, and 5 proceed to test the hypothesis that people do not recognize features of free choice beyond their positive feeling. This hypothesis was disconfirmed: although participants experienced decision conflicts as uncertain and less free, they judged higher conflict as less determined, more open, unpredictable, and more contingent on the personality of the decider. We discuss resulting hypotheses and a necessary differentiation in the representation of freedom.

From command-and-control to good forest governance: A critical interpretive analysis of Lithuania and Slovakia

As countries with a socialist history, Lithuania and Slovakia have experienced radical transitions in all societal spheres. Despite economic liberalization and privatisation, both countries retain centralized forest management systems. Our study suggests a new methodology for assessing to what extent forestry in a given country is steered by command-and-control as opposed to more adaptive forms of governance. Our ‘Critical Interpretive Analysis’ (CIA) differs in several important aspects from more positivist methods prevalent in recent comparative analyses of forest policies in (post)transitional countries. The analysis involves five criteria, four of which (Efficiency, Equity, Transparency and Participation) are established principles of good governance, and a fifth criterion (Adaptiveness) stemming from the concept of adaptive governance. We found that Lithuania and Slovakia perform best for Transparency, primarily due to extensive availability of information about forest resources. Performance on the other criteria is poor; many of the shortcomings stem from excessive regulation that curbs the decision freedom in all forests irrespective of their ownership or functional priorities. We conclude that forest governance still largely follows the command-and-control traditions in both countries.

Impact of Freedom of Choice on Income: An Evidence from Pakistan

People make hundreds of economic decisions each day, from what they will eat or even to decide career move. Research advocates that human behavior is strongly affected by freedom given to him and those blocks avoid them to act in accordance to their interests. The current study under hand is an attempt to explore the impact of freedom of choice on household incomes. Study consumed World Value Survey data for the years 2012-2014 for Pakistan. A simple Linear Regression analysis was used to measure the psychological behaviors on decisions which further affects the income of households in Pakistan (N=1200 where Punjab=604, Sindh=278, KPK=168 and Balochistan=150 ). Here Income of an individual is taken as dependent variable and Socio-economic variables (Freedom of choice, Mistrust, Risk aversion, Creativity, Loneliness, Age, Gender, Employment level, No. of children) were taken as independent variables. Study revealed that freedom has a positive impact on income of an individual. It is also concluded by the research that persons with higher level of perceived decision freedom tend to be more resilient and ultimately finds best ways to increase his income level.

Functional Freedom: A Psychological Model of Freedom in Decision-Making.

The freedom of a decision is not yet sufficiently described as a psychological variable. We present a model of functional decision freedom that aims to fill that role. The model conceptualizes functional freedom as a capacity of people that varies depending on certain conditions of a decision episode. It denotes an inner capability to consciously shape complex decisions according to one’s own values and needs. Functional freedom depends on three compensatory dimensions: it is greatest when the decision-maker is highly rational, when the structure of the decision is highly underdetermined, and when the decision process is strongly based on conscious thought and reflection. We outline possible research questions, argue for psychological benefits of functional decision freedom, and explicate the model’s implications on current knowledge and research. In conclusion, we show that functional freedom is a scientific variable, permitting an additional psychological foothold in research on freedom, and that is compatible with a deterministic worldview.

Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the Finnish Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) in 590 Professional Musicians.

Background: Poorly functioning work environments may lead to dissatisfaction for the employees and financial loss for the employers. The Job Content Questionnaire (JCQ) was designed to measure social and psychological characteristics of work environments.Objective: To investigate the factor construct of the Finnish 14-item version of JCQ when applied to professional orchestra musicians. Methods: In a cross-sectional survey, the questionnaire was sent by mail to 1550 orchestra musicians and students. 630 responses were received. Full data were available for 590 respondents (response rate 38%).The questionnaire also contained questions on demographics, job satisfaction, health status, health behaviors, and intensity of playing music. Confirmatory factor analysis of the 2-factor model of JCQ was conducted. Results: Of the 5 estimates, JCQ items in the "job demand" construct, the "conflicting demands" (question 5) explained most of the total variance in this construct (79%) demonstrating almost perfect correlation of 0.63. In the construct of "job control," "opinions influential" (question 10) demonstrated a perfect correlation index of 0.84 and the items "little decision freedom" (question 14) and "allows own decisions" (question 6) showed substantial correlations of 0.77 and 0.65. Conclusion: The 2-factor model of the Finnish 14-item version of JCQ proposed in this study fitted well into the observed data. The "conflicting demands," "opinions influential," "little decision freedom," and "allows own decisions" items demonstrated the strongest correlations with latent factors suggesting that in a population similar to the studied one, especially these items should be taken into account when observed in the response of a population.

Employee substitutability as a tool to improve the robustness in personnel scheduling

Organisations usually construct personnel rosters under the assumption of a deterministic operating environment. In the short term, however, organisations operate in a stochastic environment as operational variability arises. This variability leads to the occurrence of unexpected events such as employee absenteeism and/or a demand for personnel that is higher or lower than expected. In order to deal with these uncertainties, organisations need to adopt proactive and reactive scheduling strategies to protect the personnel roster and to respond to this operational variability, respectively. In this paper, we discuss a proactive approach that exploits the concept of employee substitutability to improve the flexibility of a personnel shift roster to respond to schedule disruptions. We propose a pre-emptive programming approach to construct a medium-term personnel shift roster that maximises the employee substitutability value. Moreover, we assess different proactive strategies to introduce robustness with respect to the definition and formulation of employee substitutability and different reactive strategies that impact the decision freedom for schedule recovery. The robustness of the generated personnel shift rosters is evaluated using a three-step methodology of roster construction, daily simulation and optimisation, and evaluation.

How gamification motivates: An experimental study of the effects of specific game design elements on psychological need satisfaction

The main aim of gamification, i.e. the implementation of game design elements in real-world contexts for non-gaming purposes, is to foster human motivation and performance in regard to a given activity. Previous research, although not entirely conclusive, generally supports the hypothesis underlying this aim. However, previous studies have often treated gamification as a generic construct, neglecting the fact that there are many different game design elements which can result in very diverse applications. Based on a self-determination theory framework, we present the results of a randomized controlled study that used an online simulation environment. We deliberately varied different configurations of game design elements, and analysed them in regard to their effect on the fulfilment of basic psychological needs. Our results show that badges, leaderboards, and performance graphs positively affect competence need satisfaction, as well as perceived task meaningfulness, while avatars, meaningful stories, and teammates affect experiences of social relatedness. Perceived decision freedom, however, could not be affected as intended. We interpret these findings as general support for our main hypothesis that gamification is not effective per se, but that specific game design elements have specific psychological effects. Consequences for further research, in particular the importance of treatment checks, are discussed.

Exploration and exploitation activities for design innovation

ABSTRACTThis paper focuses on design innovation: that is, the development of products that are new in terms of products’ appearance, the emotions products evoke, and/or the way they enable customers to express their identity. Although prior research acknowledges the importance of design innovation for product and organisational performance, studies on how to manage design innovation are relatively scarce. The present study attempts to fill this gap by investigating design innovation and its management in terms of the degree of exploration and exploitation activities and designers’ decision freedom when developing new offerings. We collected data on projects in which external design consultancies were actively involved during the development process (n = 83). For each project, we surveyed both the external senior designer and the project manager at the client’s side. Our results suggest that exploration activities enhance design innovativeness, and that design innovativeness results in better market performance. Furthermore, we find that exploitation activities moderate the relation between design innovativeness and process performance: when exploitation activities are high (low), design innovativeness results in better (worse) process performance. In addition, we find that when designers have decision freedom, the positive relation between exploration activities and design innovativeness is enhanced. However, our data also suggest that design innovativeness has a negative (positive) influence on market performance when designers have high (low) levels of decision freedom.

New World, Old Ideas—A Narrative of the Lithuanian Forestry Transition

Radical socio-economic transition has brought significant yet vaguely understood challenges for forestry in the countries of the former Eastern Bloc. This study narrates the case of the Lithuanian forestry transition, structured along the divides of actor versus structure and material versus ideational world. The narrative exposes remarkably stable forest policy with a significant exception of increased environmental consideration, induced mainly by strong external pressures. The forest policy arena is dominated by state authorities that are grounded in the theory of normal forest, rather distrust private forestry and primarily rely on regulatory instruments. Though the prevailing forestry paradigm has been challenged by researchers, arguing for administrative reforms, increased economic efficiency and larger decision freedom, the alternative ideas were either neglected or denounced fiercely. Such conservatism is a combined effect of ideological heritage of the forestry profession intermingled with vested interests by state forestry authorities.

Responses to Organizational Mandates: How Voice Attenuates Psychological Reactance and Dissent

Organizations sometimes create policies that restrict the decision freedom of their members. When doing so, they might create psychological reactance and dissent. This study examines whether providing voice into a decision can reduce the likelihood that those affected by the decision perceive it as imposing on their rights, can have negative emotional reactions to its adoption, and can want to engage in organizational dissent. Undergraduate students were randomly assigned to read scenarios in which a university committee decided to recommend that a university-wide, mandatory, comprehensive exit examination requirement be adopted after a student group either supported the requirement or opposed it. The results confirmed an indirect path between voice and dissent that flowed through perceived imposition on students’ rights and negative emotional reactions to the adoption of the requirement. The limitations of the study and implications of the results for theory and research are discussed.

Same-Sex <i>Loving</i>: Subverting White Supremacy Through Same-Sex Marriage

This Article marks the 40th anniversary of Loving v. Virginia - the landmark decision that responded to the question of the constitutionality of anti-miscegenation laws by firmly stating that the fundamental right to marry could not be restricted by race - by taking up the issue of the case's applicability in the context of same-sex marriage. The invocation of Loving has generally been in a manner that invites comparisons between interracial and same-sex marriage. Pro same-sex marriage arguments that utilize this comparison - which has come to be known as the “Loving Analogy” - include the decision's freedom of choice and antidiscrimination elements, but rarely incorporate the Supreme Court's antisubordination message, as articulated through its anti-white supremacy stance. This Article seeks to rectify that. It argues that same-sex marriage subverts White supremacy by undermining heterosupremacy, countering notions of White superiority, and, because of the very existence of interracial same-sex couples, striking society “color-blind,” thus rendering race temporarily invisible. This Article reaches the conclusion that same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue that works against heterosupremacy and White supremacy and that Loving v. Virginia is indeed a case that can and should be extended to sanction same-sex marriage and support Lesbian and Gay couples.