Routine Work Activities Research Articles

The importance of understanding work-as-done: Implications for research and practice in organizational psychology

This paper aims to describe how the concept of ‘work-as’ proxies can offer important insights for work and organizational psychologists. We explore how routine work activities can reflect those that are actually carried out when following a work-as-done perspective, rather than through the commonly used perspective of work-as-imagined. In highlighting these different perspectives, we suggest that they allow for a more in-depth understanding of what workers do and the processes they use. The value of this approach is illustrated through three case studies of applied research that have examined work in practice across the different contexts of job interviews, clinical handovers and decision making in teams. The paper challenges some of our existing assumptions of how we view work and highlights the benefits of adopting a work-as-done approach for practitioners and researchers.

Differences in Workplace Risk Perception between Foreign-Born and First-Generation Mexican American Construction Workers.

Risk perception is used to quantify risks in the industry and is influenced by different socio-demographic variables. This work aims to determine significant differences in the risk perception between Mexican American migrants and first-generation Mexican American construction workers. This study used a sample of 112 construction workers. A guided questionnaire was applied to collect socio-demographic information. For workplace risk behaviors, we used a 21-item questionnaire adapted from the previous instrument. Each question asked the participant’s perception of the frequency with which they carried out risky activities during routine work activities and the severity of the possible injuries, using a five-level Likert scale. Then, an inferential analysis was carried out using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The main results highlight that time of residence in the United States had a significant influence (p = 0.012) on risk perception in the surveyed construction workers. On the other hand, the age and time they have been working for the organization did not significantly influence risk perception. Finally, risk perception can vary in construction workers according to different variables. It is essential to investigate the factors that influence it, to prevent risky behaviors that can lead to accidents.

A micro‐process model of institutional complexity in public hybrid organizations: Construal of identity threats and mitigation strategies

AbstractThis article analyses how non‐managerial professionals in public service organizations experience the tension between managerial and professional institutional logics and manage to minimize it through identity work. By studying how academics in ten Canadian public universities talk about their routine work activities, it is found that they interpret the institutional contradictions between these logics as threats to their identities and mitigate them by undertaking discursive strategies to author legitimate selves. Three mitigation strategies of delegitimization, selective identification and appropriation of realized publicness are identified. These findings are synthesized in a process model of construal and response that illustrates a set of micro‐practices of professionals by which the institutional hybridity is maintained. By moving beyond professionals' resistance and hybridization (integrating the two logics) and identifying a recursive relational positioning mechanism as a way of coping with institutional complexity, this study complements previous findings in the growing literature on organizing professionalism.

Socio-psychological Implications of the Outbreak of COVID-19: Issues, Challenges and Future Prospects

The epidemic outbreak of Corona-virus emerged in the capital of Hubei province of China in December 2019 has engulfed almost all the sections of the society across globe irrespective of age, sex, race, religion, and color. The exposure of Covid-19 has increased the risk of numerous problems like stress, disorder, unemployment, poverty and other numerous challenges. This paper talks about the socio-psychological implications pertaining to the spread of coronavirus and how it has caused deaths in lakhs and how developing cum developed countries alike have imposed lockdowns, curfews, restrictions on public movements, markets, workplace, constructions, and transport and instructed people to maintain social distance which has adversely affected the daily life of common masses; particularly the daily wage earners who have no other alternative to feed their respective family thereby putting them in a state of dilemma. Many health experts have given a warning that if the disease is not controlled, it will take a heavy toll on the global level. The paper discusses about the Covid-19 has created anxiety, stress, strain, confusion, trauma, mental health problems, violence against women, children and encourage the risks of suicidal behavior. It also talks about the effects of Covid-19 on the marginalized and poor sections of the society such as migrant workers, street vendors and daily wage labours and how keeping social distance, avoiding gathering, staying at home, avoid travelling, keeping away from doing daily routine work activities etc. are some of the important challenges faced by common masses.

Facilitating Application of Electrical Safety Best Practices to “Other” Workers

The premise of this paper is that a significant portion of the workforce has been unintentionally overlooked in some efforts to reduce electrical injuries and fatalities in North America. This paper discusses the limitations, application, and potential impact of North American standards providing measures for electrical injury and fatality prevention and protection to workers. In particular, it discusses workers who may not be considered the primary beneficiaries of the requirements in the standard NFPA70E, Standard for Electrical Safety in the Workplace. For many organizations, the focus of and improvement in electrical safety programs have largely addressed electrical workers whose primary work tasks involve construction, operation, and/or maintenance of electrical equipment. However, nearly 50% of workplace electrical injuries and fatalities are not of electrical workers. Managers and administrators, painters, truck drivers, farm workers, and grounds keepers and gardeners are among the top ten occupations having the most fatal electrical injuries. For these nonelectrical workers, the exposure to electrical hazards ranges from the use of common portable tools and appliances to unintentional contact with overhead power lines in the course of routine work activities. This paper provides methods to help facilitate the application of specific requirements in NFPA70E and CSA Z462 and other best practices to these “other” workers.

A Case Study of the Transformative Effect of Peer Injection Drug Users in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Canada

This study was conducted not only to explore how peers intervene to shape social networks but to capture the transformative role of peer-led intervention by local needle exchange programs and a supervised injection facility in Vancouver, Canada. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with peer volunteers as they were involved in their routine work activities. Interviews were analysed thematically using two methods of coding analysis. Findings suggest that peers were taking on important education and safety roles and were able to alter the behaviour, attitude, and intention of injection drug users within the Downtown Eastside area of the city. Further, peer injection drug users were able to reach individuals who were reluctant to seek medical help, housing, or prevention services. Peers serve as an agent of change in the Downtown Eastside to disseminate information and risk-reduction skills to the most marginalized people.

O Círculo de Cultura: estratégia de educação popular em saúde para trabalhadoras rurais

O objetivo deste trabalho é relatar a experiência de educação popular, orientada pelo Círculo de Cultura, sobre os riscos laborais presentes no cotidiano de trabalho das mulheres trabalhadoras rurais. Realizou-se uma pesquisa-ação, com abordagem qualitativa. Participaram 16 profissionais da Estratégia Saúde da Família e 15 mulheres de um município de Santa Catarina. Foram realizadas entrevistas individuais com os profissionais, observação da rotina de trabalho das mulheres e atividades de Educação Popular em Saúde. O material discursivo foi analisado pela técnica de Análise de Conteúdo. As interpretações desse material permitiram conhecer os riscos presentes nas atividades das mulheres trabalhadoras, e o desenvolvimento do Círculo de Cultura proporcionou, pelos saberes dos participantes, a produção de conhecimentos para o enfrentamento dos riscos laborais e o fomento do autocuidado no trabalho no meio rural. Por fim, considera-se que Círculo de Cultura é uma estratégia de educação em saúde que possibilita a ampliação do conhecimento popular e científico, propiciando avanços na promoção da saúde, na perspectiva de mobilizações individuais, coletivas e sociais.

Development and testing of a work measurement tool to assess caregivers' activities in Residential Aged Care Facilities

The introduction of computerized information systems into health care practices may cause changes to the way healthcare workers conduct their routine work activities, such as work flow and the time spend on each activity. To date the available work measurement tools are confined to activities in hospitals and do not cover residential aged care facilities (RACFs). There is little evidence about the effects of technology on caregivers' work practices, including the distribution of time on activities in a RACF. This requires the measurement of caregivers' activities using a valid and reliable measurement tool. The contribution of this research is to develop and test such a tool. The tool was developed based on literature research and validation in two RACFs. The final instrument contains 48 activities that are grouped into seven categories. They include direct care, indirect care, communication, documentation, personal activities, in-transit and others. This measurement tool can be used to measure the changes in caregivers' work activities associated with the introduction of computerized information systems in RACFs, including the efficiency gains of such systems.

Masculinity in the Workplace: The Case of Mexican Immigrant Gardeners

In many parts of the United States, jardinería, or suburban maintenance gardening, has become a gendered occupational niche for Mexican immigrant men. Based on participant observation research with a group of Mexican immigrant gardeners in Los Angeles, this article examines the construction of masculinity in a workplace occupied by Mexican immigrant men. These jardineros construct, affirm, challenge, and negotiate their masculinity through their routine work activities and through their daily on-the-job interactions with their fellow workers. Moving beyond a sort of reiteration of a flat, cultural concept of machismo, jardinero masculinity stresses a more nuanced structural understanding of Mexican immigrant men’s masculinity and how it is intertwined with their performance of masculinized ‘‘dirty work’’ in private households. It is a distinctly working-class form of masculinity, which results from the interplay between very specific, localized cultural constructions, and deployment in the context of racialized nativism and citizenship hierarchy in the United States.

Faster Than a Speeding Bullet

Compliance with the various Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rules and regulations is rapidly becoming a challenge in hospitals as the frequency and complexity of the new mandates have increased. Although compliance officers may oversee major elements emanating from the regulatory agencies, practical application during routine work activities requires current information and peer-to-peer reinforcement. This article addresses some of the more recent changes-or proposed changes-that may impact hospital case management practice and the case managers' role as patient advocate. The settings include acute care hospitals, short-stay hospitals, long-term acute care hospitals, and critical access hospitals. The more information hospital case managers have about the regulatory changes that affect the hospital, its patients, physicians, and associates, the better they can serve as sources of information, resources, and advocates. Direct interactions between the case manager and the physician are the best opportunities to share information. Influencing medical documentation at the point of service will be dependent upon the case managers' ability to link documentation improvements with benefits for the physician. Hospital-Issued Notice of Noncoverage letters are tools that warrant the case managers' attention to protect the patient and the hospital against financial risk.

The Social Capital of French and American Managers

Accumulating empirical evidence on American managers shows that social-capital effects on performance are a function of the information and control benefits of bridging structural holes—the disconnections between nonredundant contacts in a network. Is that network form of social capital unique to Americans? France seemed to us a productive site for comparative research because the image from past research is that French managers are more regulated than Americans; more regulated by bureaucratic authority and more regulated by peer pressure, with both amplified by the greater reliance in France on internal labor markets. People comfortable with knowing their place in a chain of bureaucratic control could be uncomfortable with the negotiated control exercised by network entrepreneurs, so the positive association between structural holes and performance in the United States could be negligible or even reversed for French managers.We use network and performance data on two study populations of senior managers, one in France and one in the United States, to describe social capital similarities and differences between the populations. The network form of social capital is similar in the two populations: More successful French managers, like Americans, tend to have networks rich in structural holes. The French and American managers make similar distinctions between kinds of relationships. Relations that bridge structural holes are similarly detached from routine work activities for the French and the Americans. The interesting difference is that social capital develops differently in the two populations. The French managers operate with a less porous social boundary around their firm and associate negative emotions with bridge relations. Reinforcing Aix-en-Provence observations on the significance of adult education for Franco-German differences in organization, we find that exposure to peers in other firms via executive education is for our French managers the only factor positively associated with the social capital of bridge relationships.

The Social Organization of Some Science Research Apprentices in Scientific, Recreational, and Routine-Work Activities

The activity of the Jackson Memorial Laboratory in promoting basic research includes an effort to provide an opportunity for young people to come in contact with research problems, techniques, and programs. An attempt is made to encourage and assist students of promise to explore the possibilities of research as a career by serving as apprentices to laboratory staff members who are engaged in full time research within the fields of experimental biology, psychology, or -medicine. Each year the Laboratory maintains a Summer Apprenticeship Program for collegiate students and one for precollegiate students. In the collegiate program, each accepted applicant works as a science apprentice under the direction of his staff sponsor throughout a 10-week period. At the end of the summer each apprentice presents an oral report on the results of his experimental work and files a written dissertation in the Laboratory's library. In addition to the specific apprentice training, each apprentice is exposed to a daily colloquium on research problems, theory, and methods. Also, each is exposed to most of the Laboratory's scientific conferences, evening seminars, and special demonstrations. The apprentices room and board at the Summer Student Colony, which is near the Main Laboratory building and is admirably located for a wide variety of individual and group scientific, recreational, and routinework activities. The purpose of this investigation was to study the social organization of some science students in the Summer Apprenticeship Program for collegiate students during three successive summers. This investigation was conducted as a portion of a larger study in which the science apprenticeship programs at the Laboratory are being evaluated, and in which preliminary information concerning the psychological characteristics and abilities of young potential research scientists is being collected. A description of the particular social organization believed to be conducive for effective apprentice training in the biological sciences has not been reported, so it was hoped that progress towards this long'A portion of this paper was presented at a panel on Group Structure at the Annual