Perceptions Of Coworkers Research Articles

Coworkers' response to occupational health and safety

PurposeThe paper's aim is to document a survey of Australian construction workers that was conducted to examine whether conditions of within‐group homogeneity and between‐group heterogeneity in perceptions of coworkers' safety response were satisfied. The factor structure of coworkers' safety response is to be explored and the relationship between workgroup members' perceptions of their coworkers' safety response and the workgroups' injury rate is to be examined in three organizations.Design/methodology/approachA safety climate survey was conducted within three organizations. Retrospective and prospective workgroup injury data were collected from company records. The factor structure of coworkers' safety response was analysed using principal components analysis (PCA). Within‐group homogeneity and between‐group heterogeneity were examined using inter‐rater agreement and analyses of variance respectively. Bivariate correlations were used to explore linkages between perceptions of coworkers' safety response and workgroup injury rates.FindingsTwo distinct factors were indicated by the PCA were labeled “Coworkers' actual safety response” and “Coworkers' ideal safety response”. “Coworkers' actual safety response” demonstrated significant between‐group variance and within‐group consensus in two of the three organizations. No significant between‐group variation was found for ‘Coworkers' ideal safety response'. Neither aspect of coworkers' safety response was consistently significantly correlated with workgroup injury rate.Research limitations/implicationsFurther research should examine the relationship between coworkers' safety response and workgroup safety performance using measures other than reportable injury rates.Practical implicationsThe confirmation that “Coworkers' actual safety response” is a facet of group safety climate suggests that interventions to develop coworkers' support for safety within workgroups may be helpful. In particular, strategies to speed up the process of assimilation into workgroups through induction and teambuilding exercises should be evaluated.Originality/valueThe study builds on previous research examining group safety climate in construction, providing further evidence that coworkers' safety response items should be included along with supervisors' safety response items in the measurement of group safety climate. The findings suggest important directions for future empirical evaluation of the impact of coworkers' response on workgroup safety climate and performance in the construction industry.

Workplace Romance: A Justice Analysis

The purpose of this study was to investigate the impact of several variables on coworker perceptions of fairness regarding workplace romance (WR) management practices. Data on actual real-life WRs were obtained through personal interviews with part-time and full-time employees who were also pursuing university studies (n = 100). The results of the study indicate that most coworkers perceive managerial inaction regarding WRs to be fair unless (1) the WR is having a negative effect on the workplace, (2) the WR parties work in the same department, or (3) the organization has a WR policy. Managerial action was taken in only 11 of the 100 cases reported. None of the participants reported any positive effect of WRs. In general, coworkers consider it fair for WRs to be accepted as a fact of organizational life and for no action to be taken unless there are negative ramifications of the WR. Contextual factors are important to coworkers who are assessing the fairness of managerial action regarding a WR, and managers can increase the chance of WR management being perceived as fair by taking these contextual factors into account when determining their actions in situations involving WR. Unlike a number of previous studies on WR, this research was based on real-life WRs, rather than scenarios. This study addressed a gap in the literature with respect to variables affecting coworker perceptions of fairness regarding WRs.

The Influence of Coworker Justice Perceptions on Worksite Accommodations and the Return to Work of Persons with Disabilities

This literature review explores research on coworker justice perceptions regarding workplace accommodation necessary in the employment of persons with disabilities. A review of rehabilitation counseling and organizational psychology literature yielded meaningful research acknowledging the importance of coworker's attitudes pertaining to accommodations of employees with disabilities. Research findings suggest that the behaviors of workplace employees are influenced by their feelings of fairness. In the organizational literature the term justice is equivalent to fairness. Research indicates that disability characteristics, organizational factors and coworker perceptions regarding the procedural fairness of accommodations may impact the successful implementation of accommodations for persons with disabilities and are/actors which deserve further exploration and study.

Employee justice perceptions and coworker relationships

PurposeThe purpose of this investigation is to explore whether perceptions of organizational justice are related to coworker trust and morale. As jobs have become more broadly defined and collaboration with colleagues has become increasingly important for accomplishing work, coworker relationships are especially critical to manage effectively.Design/methodology/approachSurvey packets were distributed to 364 non‐supervisory employees at six small companies in a large Midwestern city in the USA. Useable surveys were returned from 264 respondents for a response rate of 72 percent.FindingsThe results showed that distributive, procedural, and interactional justice perceptions are related to perceptions of coworkers. The distribution of rewards, organizational policies and procedures, and interpersonal treatment by supervisors are related to coworker trust and morale.Research limitations/implicationsThis study was a cross‐sectional field study with the data collected at one point in time, precluding statements regarding causality. In addition, common method variance is a concern given the use of a self‐report survey.Practical implicationsThe results highlight the importance of fairness in rewards, procedures, and treatment for productive coworker relationships. Suggestions are provided for managers to enhance perceptions of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice in the workplace.Originality/valuePrior research on justice has focused primarily on individual and organizational outcomes. The study adds to this research base by examining whether perceptions of justice are associated with the quality of coworker relationships.

Social Interdependence and Orientation Toward Life and Work1

The relationship between social interdependence and orientation toward life and work was investigated in this study. Participants were 135 dyads of Chinese employees from 4 companies. Cooperativeness was significantly related to positive indexes of orientation toward life and work, competitiveness was related to a positive orientation toward life, and a predisposition to act individualistically was related to general measures but very few of the work‐specific measures. Coworkers' ratings indicate that cooperators were perceived as being very positive and productive employees, while competitors and individualists were perceived negatively in terms of work productivity and relationships with others. The discrepancy between self‐perceptions and perceptions of coworkers indicate that competitors especially may have a self‐beneficial delusion about the effectiveness of their behavior.

Public Managers' Religiosity: Impacts on Work Attitudes and Perceptions of Co-Workers

ABSTRACT Do public managers' religious beliefs and behaviors affect their work and their work-related attitudes? Perhaps due to the sensitive nature of this question, there is almost no empirical work on the topic. Our study uses questionnaire data (n = 765) from the National Administrative Studies Project-III to test hypotheses about the impacts of U.S. public managers' religiosity, as well as their political activity, on work attitudes. Religiosity is defined by public managers' responses about attending religious services. Political behavior is defined in terms of membership in political organizations and election groups. An application of ordinary least squares regression shows that religious public managers tend to have a stronger orientation toward job security and a more favorable view of their organization and fellow employees. Public managers are no more or less oriented to security than other respondents in the sample, but they have more negative views about their organization and fellow employees. These findings do not change when obvious controls are introduced into the model.

Machiavellians’ Motives in Organizational Citizenship Behavior

This study investigated the relationship between Machiavellianism, a predisposition toward manipulative behavior, and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), defined by being helpful, cooperative, and conscientious. Given past findings that Machiavellians seek opportunities for impression management to obtain personal benefit, we hypothesized that the negative association between Machiavellianism and organizational citizenship behaviors toward the organization (OCBO) is stronger than the negative association between Machiavellianism and organizational citizenship behaviors toward individuals or groups (OCBI). Additionally, we hypothesized that Machiavellianism is associated with the OCB motive of impression management, but negatively associated with the OCB motives of organizational concern and prosocial values. Participants were 606 working adults (as well as their supervisors and co-workers) from various organizations in the U.S. South and West. Results generally confirmed the predicted relationships, which were consistent across supervisor and co-worker perceptions as well. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Let Them Eat (Genetically Re-engineered) Cake and the Little Purple Pill: A Rejoinder to Miles, Munilla and Covin

Relationships with one’s employees, co-workers, or superiors create ethical dilemmas. Employees’ judgments and ethical perceptions have been extensively studied in Western cultures, but not in developing countries. The purpose of this investigation is to examine employees’ self-reported work-related ethics and compare them to their perceptions of co-workers’ and top managements’ along various morally challenging situations in three developing countries’ organizations. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Oman, known as the Gulf countries, were selected as the research setting – and provided the sampling frame – for this study. The results suggest that respondents perceived all ethically challenging situations as unethical and had significant differences among themselves regarding the ethical perceptions of self, as compared to perceptions of peers’, and top managements’. Discussion of the results and implications are provided.

Coworker Perceptions of Outcome Fairness of Breastfeeding Accommodation in the Workplace

The effect of workplace accommodation on perceptions of fairness was investigated. Vignettes describing an organization that did or did not accommodate the needs of a breastfeeding employee were used to test the hypotheses. Accommodation had a positive effect on perceptions of fairness. This effect was stronger for participants with children. Perceived personal cost of the accommodation had a negative effect on fairness. Evidence was also obtained indicating that need-based concerns affect perceptions of fairness. For example, participants who believed that breastfeeding is a private issue that does not belong in the workplace reported the accommodation as less fair.

Facilitation Strategies Used by Job Coaches in Supported Employment Settings: A Preliminary Investigation

Coworker perceptions of facilitation strategies provided by job coaches, and needed by coworkers, and discrepancies between facilitation strategies provided by job coaches and those perceived as being needed by co-workers were analyzed in relation to the types and frequency of problems reported to be exhibited by supported employees (N = 83). The results of this preliminary investigation indicated that when the frequency of work problems was low, the majority of the problems resulted in the need for and provision of less intensive facilitation strategies. Coworkers perceived they needed either low or a mixed level of support, not a high level of support, even when the frequency of work problems was high, except when the problems were related to challenging behaviors such as self-injury and property destruction. The most intriguing finding was that job coaches generally used the level of facilitation strategies that matched coworker needs.

Taiwanese Employees' Justice Perceptions of Co-Workers' Punitive Events

The authors examined justice perceptions of Taiwanese employees in response to co-workers' punitive events (punishment by a superior). They developed a hypothesis based on Chinese indigenous wu-lun principles and the concept of empathy. Results of the study showed that perceived vertical (between superior and subordinate) and horizontal (between subordinates) relationships jointly affected justice perceptions. Respondents who perceived low (negative) leader-member exchange with the superior and high (positive) liking of the punished person showed the lowest justice perceptions. In conclusion, the authors note that comparative analysis of organizational justice is a promising direction for future research.

Job satisfaction and perceptions of health.

Workers' perceptions of health have become one focus of research on the costs of health care, yet little is understood about the relationship between perceptions of health and perceptions of work. An exploratory cross-sectional study was conducted on a large southern university campus to determine if perceptions of select facets of work were related to perceptions of health. Results indicated that satisfactory perceptions of coworkers was the strongest predictor of current and future health perceptions, and the strongest predictor of perceptions of resistance to illness. Other significant job-facet predictors of health perceptions were autonomy, the work done on the present job, and pay. Satisfaction with supervision and opportunities for promotion were not predictive of health-perception measures. Implications for enhanced employee health include a greater emphasis on coworker relationships, especially in the current context of organizational change in business and industry.

Self- and Co-Worker Perceptions of Ethics and Their Relationships to Leadership and Salary

Self- and Co-Worker Perceptions of Ethics and Their Relationships to Leadership and Salary

SELF-AND CO-WORKER PERCEPTIONS OF ETHICS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIPS TO LEADERSHIP AND SALARY.

This research examined perceptions of ethics on the premise that such perceptions have important implications for ethical behavior in organizations. Various raters assessed managers' ethics; subord...

Information seeking among safety and health managers.

A national survey of information seeking about work-related safety and health matters was conducted among 574 safety and health managers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Science and Education Administration. Specific beliefs about the seriousness, likelihood, and effectiveness of present work hazards as well as the need for additional information were used to predict self-reported information-seeking activities. The results revealed that the beliefs of how well the managers protect themselves from hazards, the seriousness of needing information, the likelihood of needing additional information, and the usefulness of this information were significant predictors of safety and health information seeking. Manager beliefs of how well coworkers protect themselves from hazards and felt need for additional information were not related to information seeking. Manager perceptions of coworkers as less careful and informed concerning safety are discussed.

The on-Call Experience: Missed Opportunities for Resident Education

The on-call experience has been long neglected and devalued as an educational experience for residents in psychiatry. A program was instituted to reverse this trend. It included providing an academic orientation to emergency psychiatry, uniform morning-after supervision, mobilization of specially-prepared nursing staff to collaborate and follow through on contacts, and support for continuity of treatment of cases picked up while on-call. Results of before and after polling of residents and nurses demonstrated significant positive shifts in attitude toward the value of on-call work and perceptions of co-workers.

Physical Disability and Interpersonal Perception

This study investigated whether individuals with severe physical handicaps see themselves and ochers differently than do individuals who are physically normal. The present study compared self and interpersonal perceptions of orthopedically disabled and non-disabled subjects (5s) as well as long-term and short-term disabled persons. Subjects.-30 orthopedically disabled, and a like number of non-disabled college students were matched for age and grade-point average. The disabled Ss, mostly individuals who had suffered from poliomyelitis, ranged in age from 18 to 36 yr., and had been disabled from 3 to 26 yr. (mean of 10.10) at the time of testing. Tests.-Each S described himself, his ideal self, and the most and the least preferred co-worker he had ever had. These descriptions were made on a 24-item, 6-point scale which contained bipolar items such as friendlyunfriendly, cooperative-uncooperative. Two scores were obtained. The first was a self-satisfaction score based on the discrepancy between self- and ideal-self descriptions. This score has been ~~sed as a measure of personal adjustment (2, 3). It indicates how satisfied S is with himself, i.e., how similar he is to how he would ideally like to be. The second score, based on descriptions of most and least preferred co-workers, is called Assumed Similarity between Opposites (ASo) and has been extensively used in studies of group effectiveness. On the basis of previous work (I), it is interpreted as an index of perceived psychological distance. Results.-Disabled and conuol Ss differed neither in self-satisfaction nor in ASo scores. However, Ss who had been disabled for relatively shorcer time tended to be less self-satisfied (Rho = .40, p > .05). Length of disability was also correlated wich Assumed Similarity between Opposites (Rho = .65, P > .Ol). Discussion.-The findings of this study indicate that disabled individuals, as a group, do not differ from non-disabled persons in their perceptions of themselves and their perceptions of most and least preferred co-workers. However, the more recently disabled individuals appear to be less well satisfied with themselves than are persons who have been disabled for longer periods of time, i.e., the latter appear to be becter adjusted to their disability. Similarly, we find that persons wich long-standing disability have higher ASo scores than do those with disabiliry of more recent origin. In line with previous work, Yhis study was supported in pan by U. S. Public Health Service Grant M-1774. We are indebted to Dr. E. B. Hutchins who collecred some of the data for this investigation.