High Performance Expectations Research Articles

Impact of Leadership on Employee Behaviour and Attitude in The Ministry of Finance, Ghana

Purpose: This study investigates the influence of leadership on employee behaviour and attitude in the Ministry of Finance in Ghana. It specifically focusses on how leadership practices affect productivity in a public sector setting. The research investigates the adaptive qualities of leadership styles and their efficacy in meeting the varied demands of employees, based on the principles of Situational Leadership Theory (SLT). Methodology: The study utilises a descriptive survey method. The study population consists of all 628 employees of the Ministry, with a sample size of 246 determined through a multi-stage sampling process. Data is obtained by questionnaires. Findings: The findings suggest that leadership roles and practices have a moderate impact on employee behaviour and productivity. Leaders are seen as successful role models, but they are lacking in providing personalised support and effectively communicating goals. The effectiveness of leadership tactics is not considerably influenced by age. The study's findings suggest that implementing leadership development programs, improving communication methods, and providing individualised support mechanisms will promote organisational efficiency and employee engagement in the Ministry of Finance. Policy Implications and Recommendations: Ministries should develop and implement comprehensive training programmes for leaders that focus on enhancing role modeling, setting high performance expectations, and providing effective intellectual stimulation. Governmental ministries should introduce policies and practices that improve the communication of organizational goals and increase employee involvement in the goal-setting process.

Assessing the Psychometric Properties of Quality Experience in Undergraduate Research Using Item Response Theory

AbstractUndergraduate research, recognized as one of the High-Impact Practices (HIPs), has demonstrated a positive association with diverse student learning outcomes. Understanding the pivotal quality factors essential for its efficacy is important for enhancing student success. This study evaluates the psychometric properties of survey items employed to gauge the quality of undergraduate research, including alignment with Kuh and O’Donnell’s (2013) eight HIP characteristics, alongside assessments of reliability, validity, and generalizability across demographic groups. The study assesses the validity and reliability of these measures at both the scale and item levels using data from the National Survey of Student Engagement’s (NSSE) HIP Quality Topical Module. The methodological approaches employed include Exploratory Factor Analysis, Parallel Analysis, Item Response Theory, and Differential Item Functioning (DIF). Our findings uncover a misalignment between NSSE’s HIP Quality module items and HIP characteristics, leading to the identification of seven subscales instead of eight. Nevertheless, four subscales—Reflective and Integrative Learning, Real-World Applications, Interactions with Others, and High-Performance Expectations—emerge as valid indicators of undergraduate research experiences. While specific items yield valuable insights at the item level, refinement is recommended for others. Despite the identification of two items exhibiting DIF, their negligible effect sizes suggest that major revisions are unwarranted solely on DIF grounds. This study offers recommendations for item refinement, including the incorporation of new items, wording updates, and tailored utilization of assessment tools within educational institutions. These recommendations are intended to empower educators and researchers to effectively capture the quality dimensions of students’ undergraduate research experiences, thereby fostering their academic success.

Balancing the performance benefits and health costs of leader high performance expectations: the role of servant leadership

PurposeLeader high performance expectation (LHPE) as a performance management practice is becoming more common in today’s business environment, with managers setting ambitious goals to motivate employees to excel at their jobs. This study aims to critically examine LHPE as a performance management practice within contemporary organizations, focusing on whether LHPE has opposing effects on employee performance and health, as well as how servant leadership can improve the benefits of LHPE while lowering its costs.Design/methodology/approachA path analysis of data from a three-wave survey of 416 full-time employees was used to test our hypotheses.FindingsLHPE has opposing effects on employees via two distinct pathways: motivational effects on employee performance via harmonious work passion and strain effects on employee health via work strain. In the face of LHPE, servant leadership can assist in achieving a mutual gain between employee performance and health.Originality/valueThis study contributes uniquely to the field of employee relations by offering a comprehensive analysis of LHPE’s dual effects. It moves beyond traditional views that focus on singular outcomes, providing a deeper understanding of how LHPE can both motivate and strain employees. Highlighting servant leadership’s role signifies a novel approach to managing LHPE’s complexities, presenting valuable insights for HR practitioners and organizational leaders. This research underlines the importance of balancing performance expectations with employee well-being, aligning with modern perspectives on positive employment relationships.

Unraveling the Ethical, Prosocial, and Performance Outcomes of Leader High Performance Expectations

Unraveling the Ethical, Prosocial, and Performance Outcomes of Leader High Performance Expectations

A Machine Learning-Based Forecast Model for Career Planning in Human Resource Management: A Case Study of the Turkish Post Corporation

In sustainable and competitive business management, it is crucial for organizations to consider organizational change and transformational leadership in human resource (HR) management to adapt to the changes in their environment. This capability enables large-scale enterprises to maintain their presence in an increasingly competitive environment through enhanced management capacity. Enterprises that adopt transformational leadership in HR management must equip leadership candidates with competencies such as creating a shared vision, providing appropriate role models, encouraging the adoption of group goals, meeting high performance expectations, and providing individual support and the development of intellectual stimulation. By identifying potential leadership candidates using a decision support model, the necessary competencies can be developed through in-service training and experiential learning during their careers. Innovative and effective approaches to identifying leadership candidates can be developed by analyzing complex big data using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) techniques. In this article, a forecast model using machine learning (ML) algorithms for a human resource management career planning approach was developed for the Turkish Post Corporation (PTT) and it was tested to predict potential leadership candidates by analyzing the big data of 5000 employees. The Turkish Post Corporation ML algorithms were applied to 100 randomly selected data points using the k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN), Random Forest (RF), Gradient Boosting (GB), and Support Vector Machine (SVM) algorithms to predict the types of titles held by the staff employed at PTT. The kNN, GB, RF, and SVM algorithms achieved accuracy rates of 96%, 91%, 73%, and 41%, respectively. The case study results indicate that promotion decisions in large-scale and rooted enterprises can be effectively modeled using big data and ML algorithms, highlighting significant potential for HR management and leadership development practices in the public sector.

A Healthy Balance: The Effects of the Interaction between Work Autonomy and Work Demands on R&D Team Members' Creative Behavior and Taking Charge

ABSTRACTIn the era of digital intelligence, how to improve the behavioral quality of R&D team members by granting work autonomy and proposing corresponding work demands is a pressing issue in the transformation of organizational management into digital intelligence. Based on the conservation of resources theory, this study investigates the effects of the interactions among work time autonomy, work method autonomy, and different types of work demands on team members' creative behavior and taking charge. By analyzing the two‐stage data of 233 paired samples of team members and leaders, the results showed that: Work time autonomy was significantly positively correlated with creative behavior and taking charge of team members, and work method autonomy was significantly positively correlated with creative behavior and taking charge of team members, while the interaction between work time autonomy and work method autonomy was significantly positively correlated with the team members' taking charge; the interactions among work time autonomy, work method autonomy and innovative job requirements positively affect team members' creative behavior and taking charge; while the interactions among work time autonomy, work method autonomy and high performance expectations negatively affect team members' taking charge. This study provides a way to realize scientific management in the period of digital intelligence transformation.

Burnout: Historical Background, Concepts, Methodological Problems, Prevention And Different Perspectives On A Striking Phenomenon

Burnout, historically the successor to neurasthenia, is considered an exhaustion phenomenon caused by prolonged work-related stress. The very concept of "being burned out" implies an image that is immediately understandable and concise to any layperson. Academic psychiatry and psychology pose conceptual challenges to this popular model, which was first published in 1974 by the German-American psychotherapist Herbert Freudenberger. To date, more than 140 definitions of burnout have been proposed. All of the main features of burnout, especially the experience of exhaustion, are non-specific. Various burnout development models have been proposed, which were assumed to represent a quasi-natural process. None could be confirmed empirically. An expert consensus on the diagnostic criteria and conceptual classification, whether as an independent disorder or as a risk condition, could not be achieved. Nevertheless, burnout is classified as a work-related disorder in the ICD-11. Current findings indicate that the experience of burnout among members of the baby boomer generation often reflects their high performance expectations of themselves, while the identical subjective feeling in Generation Z is often associated with missing or unsustainable professional goals. The research on the burnout phenomenon, which largely ignores the fact that burnout - in the absence of reliable diagnostic criteria - must be considered a subjective model, meets social expectations but does not meet scientific criteria. A parallel recording of ICD/DSM diagnoses and subjective disorder models is recommended in everyday therapeutic practice in order to meet the needs of both sides.

Developmental leadership as a driver of employee feedback behaviors: the roles of learning goal orientation and leader high performance expectations

PurposeDrawing on goal orientation theory, this study intends to investigate whether, how and when developmental leadership influences employees’ feedback seeking behavior (FSB) and feedback avoidance behavior (FAB).Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a two-wave survey of 416 full-time employees in China. The hypotheses were tested with path analyses.FindingsDevelopmental leadership exerts a positive influence on employees’ FSB and a negative impact on FAB through learning goal orientation (LGO). Additionally, leaders’ high performance expectations (LHPE) not only strengthen the positive effects of developmental leadership on FSB but also intensify its weakening effects on FAB.Originality/valueThe findings enrich current understanding by associating developmental leadership with employees’ FSB/FAB, offering a new viewpoint on its positive impacts. This study also provides deeper insights into when the benefits of developmental leadership are intensified.

UTAUT2 및 TRI 이론을 기반으로 중국 노인 이용자 디지털 미술관 사용 행동에 연구

The purpose of this study is to explore the factors that affect the willingness and behavior of elderly Chinese users to use digital art museums and related new technologies, by combining the UTAUT2 model and the TRI model, in order to provide theoretical basis and practical guidance for the future development and optimization of digital art museums. The research results demonstrate that higher performance expectations, effort expectations, hedonic motivation, price value, and social influence can positively enhance user willingness to use, ultimately affecting usage behavior. And the facilitating factors can directly and positively affect the user's willingness and behavior to use. On the contrary, higher levels of discomfort and lack of security can have a negative impact on the user's willingness to use, affecting their usage behavior.

Local Knowledge Integrated in Learning Experiences

Development, smartness, and equity are often defined through cosmopolitan perspectives. Schools and communities from rural regions in Portugal must develop additional measures to compensate for structural disadvantages. These measures often serve to achieve urban models and standards with which comparisons are made. This article explores rural schools and community leaders’ strategies to integrate place-sensitive knowledge into their students’ educational experiences. These place-based approaches are developed against the erosion of local knowledge and may contribute to broadening a perspective on development, keeping schooling still accountable to local contexts. This contribution grounds on a national-level study on young people growing up in border regions, their schools, and communities’ resilient approaches, and draws on semi-structured interviews conducted with schools’ head teachers (N=38) and policymakers from municipalities (N=36). The study took place in all 38 municipalities of Mainland Portugal that border Spain. Findings indicate that the majority of schools and municipalities cooperate to promote the best conditions for students’ school success, developing strategies that acknowledge communities as a resource and as curriculum, while meeting national-level demands and students and families’ expectations for high performance on national-level standardise exams. Other strategies include the incorporation of local knowledge into various learning experiences, in which students are co-creators and active participants and local-based subjects focus on local sustainability and development, environmental challenges, preserving traditions, heritages, and patrimony. These topics are often explored in the context of citizenship education, non-formal education activities promoted by schools or the community, or in purposeful and structured projects. Although schools from rural border regions recognise the national policy of curriculum flexibility as an opportunity to incorporate local knowledge they do not fully benefit from this opportunity.

Explaining the academic achievement gap of immigrant youth in Austria

Informed by a risk and resilience developmental perspective, this study tests individual, family and school level processes as potential explanations of the immigrant academic achievement gap. In total, 1155 adolescents (48% girls; 20% immigrants, 11–14 years) attending grades 5, 6, 7 and 8 in secondary schools participated. Controlling for gender, age, citizenship, country of birth, SES, and school type, immigrant adolescents had lower levels of academic achievement compared to non-immigrants. High levels of scholastic anxiety, low levels of scholastic self-concept, high levels of parental performance expectations, and high school performance expectations helped to explain these associations. In the full model, only scholastic anxiety and self-concept remained significant mediators. Recommendations are to implement positive and growth-oriented student-centred teaching styles to reduce the immigrant academic achievement gap.

How does high-performance work system influence employees' creativity? The role of critical reflection and human resource management attribution

PurposeHigh-performance work system (HPWS) is considered a solid predictor of both organizational and individual outcomes. The current study examines the impact of employees' perception of HPWS and supervisor-rated employee creativity (EC). Critical reflection is hypothesized as a mediator of the above relationship. Human resource management (HRM) attribution moderates the indirect relationship between HPWS and EC and completes a moderated mediation model.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative research design is adopted with data collected from 531 employees and their direct supervisors from 12 firms in Vietnam. Partial least square structural equation modelling is used to test the hypotheses.FindingsEmployees' perception of HPWS is significantly associated with supervisor-rated creativity. Critical reflection has been found to partially mediate the above relationship. In addition, employees' exploiting attribution of HPWS intensifies the positive relationship between HPWS and critical reflection.Research limitations/implicationsThe research suggests that HPWS can be viewed from both the bright and dark sides. The resource offered by HPWS goes hand in hand with pressure from high-performance expectations. Employees may need to engage in a resource investment decision to avoid net resource loss. In addition, attention should be paid to employees' perception of the justification for HPWS implementation.Originality/valueThis study offers an alternative way to explain the association between HPWS and employee creativity. Based on the Conservation of Resource Theory, employee creativity is viewed as a stress coping strategy with HPWS conceptualized as a stressor. In addition, the mediating role of critical reflection represents a novelty. Furthermore, the role of HRM attributions is explained.

Spaceflight alters reaction time and duration judgment of astronauts.

We report a study on astronauts aimed at characterizing duration judgment before, during, and after long-duration stays on board the International Space Station. Ten astronauts and a control group of 15 healthy (non-astronaut) participants performed a duration reproduction task and a duration production task using a visual target duration ranging from 2 to 38s. Participants also performed a reaction time test for assessing attention. Compared to control participants and preflight responses, the astronauts' reaction time increased during spaceflight. Also, during spaceflight, time intervals were under-produced while counting aloud and under-reproduced when there was a concurrent reading task. We hypothesize that time perception during spaceflight is altered by two mechanisms: (a) an acceleration of the internal clock through the changes in vestibular inputs in microgravity, and (b) difficulties in attention and working memory when a concurrent reading task is present. Prolonged isolation in confined areas, weightlessness, stress related to workload, and high-performance expectations could account for these cognitive impairments.

The indirect effects of transformational leadership in soccer programmes for socio-economically disadvantaged individuals: Need satisfaction as a mechanism towards personal development

Objectives The purpose of the present study was to examine the direct and indirect effects of coach transformational leadership (TL) on the current lives of socio-economically disadvantaged individuals within a sport-based education programme. Design Cross-sectional. Methods 159 participants completed questionnaires on the perceptions of their lead coaches’ TL, perceived basic need satisfaction (autonomy, competence, relatedness) in relation to programme attendance, and feelings of resilience and life-satisfaction in their current life. Results PROCESS analysis revealed that all differentiated TL behaviours (but high-performance expectations) had a positive indirect effect on outcomes (resilience and life-satisfaction) via competence and a negative indirect effect on outcomes via relatedness. High-performance expectations demonstrated a direct effect on life satisfaction. Conclusion The results demonstrate how distinct coach transformational behaviours impact differently on the lives of disadvantaged individuals within a sports-based education programme. The differentiated conceptualisation of TL revealed nuanced results, furthering our understanding of how each TL interacts with the three basic psychological needs. Finally, our results demonstrate the significance competence may hold in transferring the effect of different transformational behaviours onto the everyday lives of disadvantaged individuals.

Time perception in astronauts on board the International Space Station

We perceive the environment through an elaborate mental representation based on a constant integration of sensory inputs, knowledge, and expectations. Previous studies of astronauts on board the International Space Station have shown that the mental representation of space, such as the perception of object size, distance, and depth, is altered in orbit. Because the mental representations of space and time have some overlap in neural networks, we hypothesized that perception of time would also be affected by spaceflight. Ten astronauts were tested before, during, and after a 6–8-month spaceflight. Temporal tasks included judging when one minute had passed and how long it had been since the start of the workday, lunch, docking of a vehicle, and a spacewalk. Compared to pre-flight estimates, there is a relative overestimation for the 1-min interval during the flight and a relative underestimation of intervals of hours in duration. However, the astronauts quite accurately estimated the number of days since vehicle dockings and spacewalks. Prolonged isolation in confined areas, stress related to workload, and high-performance expectations are potential factors contributing to altered time perception of daily events. However, reduced vestibular stimulations and slower motions in weightlessness, as well as constant references to their timeline and work schedule could also account for the change in the estimation of time by the astronauts in space.

The Silent Mental Health and Well‐Being Crisis of Early Career Researchers in Aquatic Sciences

The Silent Mental Health and Well‐Being Crisis of Early Career Researchers in Aquatic Sciences

Before supporting athletes, evaluate your coach–athlete relationship: Exploring the link between coach leadership and coach–athlete relationship

The overall quality of coach–athlete relationship has been shown to positively associate with coach leadership effectiveness on athletes’ outcomes. Nonetheless, others also showed no associations when each subdimension of coach–athlete relationship was separately examined. This study used canonical correlation analysis (CCA) to examine the complete set of correlations between coach transformational leadership (six dimensions) and quality coach–athlete relationship (six dimensions). A total of 213 athletes (122 male; 91 female) from various performance levels and sports completed a multi-section questionnaire. CCA revealed positive, negative and no correlations between the coach transformational leadership and coach–athlete relationship variable sets. For example, the Direct Commitment dimension of the coach–athlete relationship was negatively related to the Individualised Support dimension and positively associated with the High-Performance Expectation dimension of coach transformational leadership. In light of these results, we discuss whether viewing the coach–athlete relationship as an inherent dimension embedded within the conceptualisation of coach leadership is suitable and accurate.

Determinants of Maintenance Cost of Hospital Buildings: An Artificial Neural Network Approach

Hospital maintenance organizations are under constant pressure to plan maintenance work due to insufficient budgets. The ability to predict maintenance costs is a significant function of the maintenance organization. This paper reports a study that investigated the critical determinants associated with the maintenance costs of hospital buildings. The research developed a questionnaire instrument that included 18 determinants of the maintenance cost of hospital buildings. The average maintenance cost is about RM550,000, and the average age of the buildings is about 20 years. The size of most of the hospitals is more than 21,000 square meters. Using maintenance cost as the dependent variable, an artificial neural network model to predict maintenance cost was presented. The model revealed that the critical determinants of maintenance costs are the size of the hospitals, improper use of the hospital buildings, poor budgeting, absence of forecasting techniques, and high-performance expectations of the buildings. This research provides new information on the cost profile of the maintenance cost of hospital buildings.

A framework for human-centered production planning and control in smart manufacturing

Smart manufacturing systems have to meet high performance expectations in form of customer individual products, short lead times, high due date reliability and resilience by the integration of new technologies and by intelligent process design. The planning and control of such smart manufacturing systems necessitates several instances of human decision-making. The latest research at the nexus of operations management and psychology reveals that human decision-making in such fast-paced, dynamic and complex environments is often biased, resulting in suboptimal operational performance. Human-centered design of planning and control processes can mitigate biased decisions, thus boosting performance in smart manufacturing systems. Current research is silent about the impact and mitigation of cognitive biases in operations management, though. We intend to close this research gap. We combine systematic reviews of literature on behavioral operations management and cognitive biases in operations management, particularly in production planning and control with an in-depth case study based on 12 expert interviews. We explore two decision-making models and combine them in a PPC framework. We create a framework for human-centered PPC in smart manufacturing systems, which includes the main impact factors, challenges and performance capabilities. Based on a detailed case study of a steel producer, we present a framework of human-centered PPC comprising five hypotheses on the impact of cognitive biases on human decision-making and on manufacturing performance.

Assessing the Efficiency of Remote Sensing and Machine Learning Algorithms to Quantify Wheat Characteristics in the Nile Delta Region of Egypt

Monitoring strategic agricultural crops in terms of crop growth performance, by accurate cost-effective and quick tools is crucially important in site-specific management to avoid crop reductions. The availability of commercial high resolution satellite images with high resolution (spatial and spectral) as well as in situ spectra measurements can help decision takers to have deep insight on crop stress in a certain region. The research attempts to examine remote sensing dataset for forecasting wheat crop (Sakha 61) characteristics including the leaf area index (LAI), plant height (plant-h), above ground biomass (AGB) and Soil Plant Analysis Development (SPAD) value of wheat across non-stress, drought and salinity-induced stress in the Nile Delta region. In this context, the ability of in situ spectroradiometry measurements and QuickBird high resolution images was evaluated in our research. The efficiency of Random Forest (RF) and Artificial Neural Network (ANN), mathematical models was assessed to estimate the four measured wheat characteristics based on vegetation spectral reflectance indices (V-SRIs) extracted from both approaches and their interactions. Field surveys were carried out to collect in situ spectroradiometry measurements concomitant with the acquisition of QuickBird imagery. The results demonstrated that several V-SRIs extracted from in situ spectroradiometry data and the QuickBird image correlated with the LAI, plant-h, AGB, and SPAD value of wheat crop across the study site. The determination coefficient (R2) values of the association between V-SRIs of in situ spectroradiometry data and various determined wheat characteristics varied from 0.26 to 0.85. The ANN-GSIs-3 was found to be the optimum predictive model, demonstrating a greater relationship between the advanced features and LAI. The three features of V-SRIs comprised in this model were strongly significant for the prediction of LAI. The attained results indicated high R2 values of 0.94 and 0.86 for the training and validation phases. The ANN-GSIs-3 model constructed for the determination of chlorophyll in the plant which had higher performance expectations (R2 = 0.96 and 0.92 for training and validation datasets, respectively). In conclusion, the results of our study revealed that high resolution remote sensing images such as QuickBird or similar imagery, and in situ spectroradiometry measurements have the feasibility of providing necessary crop monitoring data across non-stressed and stressed (drought and salinity) conditions when integrating V-SRIs with ANN and RF algorithms.