Voice Options Research Articles

Effectiveness and Feasibility of a Self-guided Mobile App Targeting Emotional Well-being in Healthy Adults: 4-Week Randomized Controlled Trial.

Commercial smartphone apps designed to promote emotional well-being are becoming increasingly popular, but few apps have been empirically validated. This study examined the feasibility and effectiveness of a self-guided app designed to reduce daily stress via positive messaging and tailored short inspirational talks (ie, peps). A total of 166 participants (n=112, 67.5% female; mean age 38.48, SD 6.73 years) were recruited through social media advertising and randomized into an intervention (Hey Lemonade app plus twice daily mood monitoring using the Multidimensional Mood Questionnaire [MDMQ]) or active control (twice daily mood monitoring [MDMQ]) group. Primary (coping self-efficacy [CSE]; 3 subscales) and secondary outcomes (vitality, satisfaction with life, perceived stress, positive and negative affect, and hassles and uplifts) were measured at the baseline (week 1) and end point (week 4). The app evaluation questions were assessed at week 2. All interactions and measurements were collected on the internet and through the apps. In total, of 166 participants, 125 (75.3%) completed the trial. There were no differences in dropout rates between the groups (62/81, 76% intervention; 63/85, 74% control). There were significant group-by-time interactions for vitality and hassles but no significant effect for CSE total (P=.05). For the intervention group, the change from baseline to week 4 was significant for vitality (P=.002) and hassles (P=.004), CSE total (P=.008), and CSE Emotional subscale (P=.02). For the control group, any changes over 4 weeks were not significant for any outcome. There was a significant group-by-time interaction for MDMQ calmness (P=.04). By week 4, calmness was significantly higher in the intervention group (P=.046). Of those in the intervention group at week 2 (n=68), 39 (57%) participants recommended the app and 41 (60%) participants wanted to continue using it. Pep talks and customizable voice options were the most popular features. Participants who had access to the smartphone app on an as-needed basis over the 4-week trial showed significant improvements in emotional well-being indicators. More broadly, this suggests that simple accessible solutions may generate meaningful well-being outcomes. Whether these changes are sustained and can be generalized to other population groups is yet to be determined. Australian and New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry (ANZCTR) 12622001005741; https://www.anzctr.org.au/Trial/Registration/TrialReview.aspx?id=384304&isReview=true.

Looking for ‘Voice’ in Business and Citizen Groups: Who’s Being Heard?

Why do some associations provide members with an effective voice whereas others appear to have internal democracy in name only? We theoretically combine population ecology with Hirschman’s strategic response model. This leads us to hypothesize that in dense, competitive organizational environments, the effective alternatives available make it likely that dissatisfied members respond with exit rather than voice. However, in low-dense, monopoly-like situations dissatisfied members demand and receive effective voice options. We further hypothesize that the particular sets of incentives of firms and individuals as members moderates this effect. We assess our argument on the basis of the Comparative Interest Group elite survey among interest group leaders in five European countries and at the EU level. We control for the level of professionalization and use country dummies to identify country-level differences. We find strong empirical support for our theoretical argument. The contribution of this article is to theoretically connect macro-level population-level factors to micro-level intra-organizational processes and specifies the nature of the organizational link between interests in society and those represented in the interest group system.

Relational Exchange in Non-union Firms: A Configurational Framework for Workplace Dispute Resolution and Voice

For much of the 20th century, a sizeable proportion of the workforce in the United States had access to a combination of dispute resolution and voice options through the union grievance process. The vast majority of today’s workforce, however, no longer does. The focus of this article is the proliferation of alternative relational exchange models developed in non-union firms. The author develops a theoretical framework proposing variation in the overarching non-union models employed by firms as a function of distinct organizational features and strategies. These models are the product of distinct configurations of voice and dispute-resolution strategies. The author proposes five alternative non-union models, discusses the internal and external characteristics associated with them, and evaluates distinct employer and worker outcomes.

Worker Voice in America: Is There a Gap between What Workers Expect and What They Experience?

This article is the fifth in a series to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the ILR Review. The series features articles that analyze the state of research and future directions for important themes this journal has featured over many years of publication. The decline in unionization experienced in the United States over the past 40 years raises a question of fundamental importance to workers, society, and the field of industrial relations: Have workers lost interest in having a voice at work, or is there a gap between workers’ expectations for a voice and what they actually experience? And if a “voice gap” exists, what options are available to workers to close that gap? The authors draw on a nationally representative survey of workers that both updates previous surveys conducted in 1977 and 1995 and goes beyond the scope of these previous efforts to consider a wider array of workplace issues and voice options. Results indicate that workers believe they should have a voice on a broad set of workplace issues, but substantial gaps exist between their expected and their actual level of voice at work. Nearly 50% of non-union workers say they would vote for a union, compared to approximately one-third in the two prior national surveys, which points to continued interest in unions as a voice mechanism. Additionally, the authors find significant variation in the rates of use of different voice options and workers’ satisfaction with those options. The results suggest that a sizable voice gap exists in American workplaces today, but at the same time, no one voice option fits all workers or all issues.

Online Support Shows Potential of Tech-Based MH Care, Insel Says

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Clinical and Research NewsFull AccessOnline Support Shows Potential of Tech-Based MH Care, Insel SaysNick ZagorskiNick ZagorskiSearch for more papers by this authorPublished Online:13 Jun 2018https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.pn.2018.6b22AbstractOnline counseling networks like the Crisis Text Line or 7 Cups show how simple technological approaches can reduce delays in care and build online help communities.“There has been a dramatic shift in the service economy in the last few years,” said Thomas Insel, M.D., in the lecture he presented at APA’s 2018 Annual Meeting last month. “How people expect to get goods and services has fundamentally changed.” Technology can expand the reach of mental health services as well as offer certain advantages, says Thomas Insel, M.D.David HathcoxThe field of medicine is not exempt from these changes: he noted that companies like Google and Facebook are betting that the way that people get health care now—through traditional doctor visits and medical facilities—will be changing. Large tech firms invested over $3 billion in health care last year, looking to leverage the power of Big Data and social networks for new health care screening and delivery models.“From their point of view, why not try and bend the curve?,” Insel asked. He noted that today’s health care, especially mental health care, is constrained by imprecise diagnoses, lack of access to treatment, delays in treatment initiation, and fragmented care. These shortcomings and barriers to care are a shame, Insel continued.Adding technology to tested mental health interventions could make these treatments work more consistently and reach more people, Insel said. “I call it high tech for high touch,” he said. “It’s like putting treatment on steroids.” Insel noted the success of the Crisis Text Line, a text-based counseling service for people experiencing thoughts of suicide or self-harm. According to the company’s website, “Every texter is connected with a crisis counselor, a real-life human being trained to bring texters from a hot moment to a cool calm through active listening and collaborative problem solving.” An algorithm used by the company enables messages to be interpreted for severity and triaged to the appropriate professionals.Another company providing a similar service is 7 Cups. (Insel disclosed that he serves on the company’s board.)7 Cups is an online and text-message-based peer-support network in which people who want to talk can search for an online “listener” who meets their needs. Some encounters may involve crises but others are on a broad topics—for example, discussions of relationship problems or frustrations. Individuals who complete a listening session are eligible to participate in a short training session and become listeners themselves—thus expanding the reach of the online support community. While these “listeners” are nonprofessional, 7 Cups also offers online therapy services through messaging and voice options with licensed therapists for a modest fee (for example, $150 for a month of unlimited chatting).“This whole company consists of 15 people working without a central office, and their therapists served over 575,000 people in California last year,” Insel said. By comparison, psychotherapists working in brick-and-mortar settings in the state served around 480,000 people in same period. Insel acknowledged that 7 Cups may not necessarily be providing higher quality psychotherapy, but he pointed out that the company does routinely fire psychotherapists who don’t meet quality standards. And if online methods can deliver effective therapy, the potential could be enormous. Though Insel had referenced several criticisms about traditional mental health care, he did say that one area where psychiatry is not faltering is in the quality of treatment it provides. He doesn’t typically hear psychiatrists tell him they cannot give good care. “They say that they have a lot of barriers to providing care, but when they can give care, it works.” ■ ISSUES NewArchived

Meaningful Consent: The Economics of Privity in Networked Environments

Recent work on privacy (e.g. WEIS 2013/4, Meaningful Consent in the Digital Economy project) recognises the unanticipated consequences of data-centred legal protections in a world of shifting relations between data and human actors. But the rules have not caught up with these changes, and the irreversible consequences of ‘make do and mend’ are not often taken into account when changing policy.Many of the most-protected ‘personal’ data are not personal at all, but are created to facilitate the operation of larger (e.g. administrative, economic, transport) systems or inadvertently generated by using such systems. The protection given to such data typically rests on notions of informed consent even in circumstances where such consent may be difficult to define, harder to give and nearly impossible to certify in meaningful ways. Such protections typically involve a mix of data collection, access and processing rules that are either imposed on behalf of individuals or are to be exercised by them. This approach adequately protects some personal interests, but not all – and is definitely not future-proof. Boundaries between allowing individuals to discover and pursue their interests on one side and behavioural manipulation on the other are often blurred. The costs (psychological and behavioural as well as economic and practical) of exercising control over one’s data are rarely taken into account as some instances of the Right to be Forgotten illustrate. The purposes for which privacy rights were constructed are often forgotten, or have not been reinterpreted in a world of ubiquitous monitoring data, multi-person ‘private exchanges,’ and multiple pathways through which data can be used to create and to capture value. Moreover, the parties who should be involved in making decisions – those connected by a network of informational relationships – are often not in contractual, practical or legal contact. These developments, associated with e.g. the Internet of Things, Cloud computing and big data analytics, should be recognised as challenging privacy rules and, more fundamentally, the adequacy of informed consent (e.g. to access specified data for specified purposes) as a means of managing innovative, flexible, and complex informational architectures. This paper presents a framework for organising these challenges using them to evaluate proposed policies, specifically in relation to complex, automated, automatic or autonomous data collection, processing and use. It argues for a movement away from a system of property rights based on individual consent to a values-based ‘privity’ regime – a collection of differentiated (relational as well as property) rights and consents that may be better able to accommodate innovations. Privity regimes (see deFillipis 2006) bundle together rights regarding e.g. confidential disclosure with ‘standing’ or voice options in relation to informational linkages. The impacts are examined through a game-theoretic comparison between the proposed privity regime and existing privacy rights in personal data markets that include: conventional ‘behavioural profiling’ and search; situations where third parties may have complementary roles conflicting interests in such data and where data have value in relation both to specific individuals and to larger groups (e.g. ‘real-world’ health data); n-sided markets on data platforms (including social and crowd-sourcing platforms with long and short memories); and the use of ‘privity-like’ rights inherited by data objects and by autonomous systems whose ownership may be shared among many people.

Discussion of “Ethical Climate, Social Responsibility and Earnings Management”

In this discussion of Shafer’s (J Bus Ethics, 2013, doi: 10.1007/s10551-013-1989-3 ) empirical research published in this issue, I raise several issues for future research. For example, I encourage ethics research to more carefully consider their use of climate versus culture, and call for an elucidation of the different characteristics of the two constructs. Additionally, the relationship between corporate ethical climate and employees’ perceptions of the importance of ethical behavior is complex. Because research commonly calls for organizations to improve their climate in order to improve ethical behavior, an exploration of the exit, voice, loyalty, or neglect options of employees in light of varying organizational ethical climates should be further explored.

More Than a Feeling

A key insight from investigations of individual relative deprivation (IRD) is that people can experience objective disadvantages differently. In this study, university faculty (N = 953) who reported greater IRD in response to a mandatory furlough (i.e., involuntary pay reductions) were more likely to (a) voice options designed to improve the university (voice), (b) consider leaving their job (exit), and (c) neglect their work responsibilities (neglect), but were (d) less likely to express loyalty to the university (loyalty). Consistent with the emotions literature, (a) anger mediated the relationship between IRD and voice, (b) fear between IRD and exit, (c) sadness between IRD and neglect, and (d) gratitude between IRD and loyalty. IRD was inversely associated with self-reported physical and mental health via these different emotional pathways. These results show how discrete emotions can explain responses to IRD and, in turn, contribute to organizational viability and the health of its members.

Die Entmachtung der Politik

A state portion as indicator for the range of national activities, remaining on high level of approximately 50% of the gross domestic product, as well as the ’dilution’ of private property by taxation, duties and governmental regulations mean a break with the civil law society. The unresolved problems of the future assurance (like those of the social security system), the current evaluation of the conditions of upbringing, education and training as partially inadequate and insufficient as well as the generally short time horizon of politics call into question the competence and authority of the state in democratically organized societies. Alternate strategies of mobile factors and a globalized economy also de-monopolize the national policy. Does that mean the end of national power? Can there be a democracy without nation? On the basis of the rather pessimistic theses of Guéhenno (1994), the author argues for a regaining of collective rationality by an improvement of the exit (migration) and voice (disagreement) options.

Unionism and employment conflict resolution: Rethinking collective voice and its consequences

IX. Conclusions and Overall Assessment The central proposition advanced by FM today, less than one in eight private sector workers belongs to a union. But while F&M and, later, Freeman and Rogers (1999), attributed the decline in unionization to employer/management opposition and weak labor law, some of this decline can be attributed to worker resistance. Such resistance may stem, in turn and following F&M, from recognition of the net negative consequences of unionism's monopoly face, but also, and contrary to F&M, from recognition of the net negative consequences of unionism's collective voice/response face. If workers judged unions' voice response face, in particular, grievance procedures, to be effective in redressing worker grievances, more union workers would likely remain union members and more unorganized workers would join unions — even in the “face” of employer opposition. While there is little question that there are widely varying types of real-world employment relationships or that unions are best suited to protecting worker interests in certain of these (usually highly adversarial) relationships, the fact that workers as a whole decreasingly choose to become union members suggests that they do not perceive union voice to be effective in redressing deteriorated employment relationships or to be more effective in this respect than nonunion voice options. Such reasoning is consistent with the picture sketched in this paper — a different picture from that forwarded by F&M — of unionism and grievance procedures as largely reactive, adversarial-oriented mechanisms for dealing with workplace conflict resolution, especially in a pluralist, mixed-motive type of employment relationship.

Exit, Voice and Loyalty Reactions to Job Insecurity in Sweden: Do Unionized and Non‐unionized Employees Differ?

Although job insecurity has received growing recognition in connection with the transformation of working life, little is known about how unionization affects its consequences. Data from Swedish health care employees indicate that job insecurity is related primarily to coping strategies in the exit and voice domains. Union members were less inclined to make use of the exit and voice options compared with their non‐unionized co‐workers, and more typically expressed loyalty to the organization. The collective support derived from union membership may make individual voice expressions less important, a finding that has to be replicated in countries with lower unionization rates.

Quality of life: Efficiency, equity and freedom in the United States and Scandinavia

The article discusses three basic elements of quality of life and seeks to illuminate these from two cultural perspectives. The elements are 1) social equity (including issues like virtues, justice, fairness, equal moral value, human rights, resource ethics etc. and 2) efficiency (including issues like economic efficiency, productivity, material well being, etc.) 3) freedom (including liberty, pursuit of happiness, individual choice, exit and voice options, etc.). Concerns for social equity, efficiency and freedom are at the heart of the political debate in many countries. In this article, we will look at some of the ways in which the Scandinavian cultures and the American culture view these basic elements of quality of life. It is argued that social equity drives efficiency and freedom of choice.

Minds and Machines

Interacting over the telephone with a machine, rather than a person, by listening to a menu of recorded voice options and responding by pressing numbers on a push-button telephone has become one of the realities defining life in the current era. Experiencing these interactive voice response (IVR) systems can be frustrating if the menu doesn't lead to a satisfactory result, but the convenience and continuous around-the-clock availability of such systems are major advantages, and dissatisfied users may forget that having direct access to a person at the other end of the line doesn't guarantee a good outcome. See also p 905. The use of computer-automated IVR systems is also expanding into one of the most personal areas of human experience—the evaluation and treatment of mental disorders.¹The use of computerized systems for collecting data and administering rating scales²on mental health topics seems straightforward enough, but there has even

Democracy and Empowerment

The article argues that institutions of parliamentary democracy are currently being undermined and calls for the development of new means of democratic empowerment. The meaning of ‘democratic empowerment’ differs sharply depending on whether one refers to a predominantly aggregative, or a predominantly integrative strategy of empowerment. The article seeks to clarify the phrase. For a predominantly aggregative strategy of empowerment, as proposed by Paul Hirst, the primary means of empowerment is exist. For a predominantly integrative strategy of empowerment, proposed by David Burns, Robin Hambleton and Paul Hoggett the primary means of empowerment is voice. The article concludes that a democratic strategy of empowerment must aim to balance exit and voice options. An example of how balance could be institutionalized is found in Denmark.