Sense Of Work Research Articles

Organizational identification and burnout syndrome in healthcare workers: The mediating effect of organizational justice.

Healthcare workers typically perform their work under adverse conditions, increasing their susceptibility to developing burnout syndrome (BO). The paucity of research on the relationship between organizational identification (OI) and perceptions of organizational justice has created the need to address this topic more deeply. This study aimed to assess the relationship between OI and BO, identifying whether perceptions of organizational justice act as mediating variables. In total, 402 healthcare workers (physicians, professionals, and nursing assistants) completed Colquitt's (2001) Organizational Justice Scale, Mael and Ashforth's (1992) Organizational Identification Scale, and Maslach's (1986) Burnout Inventory. Two competing structural equation models were evaluated. Our partial mediation model showed that the direct relationship between OI and BO was not significant (β= -0.16; p = 0.07). Therefore, a total mediation model was selected, showing that the indirect effects of OI on BO through perceptions of distributive justice (β= -0.16; p = 0.00) and interpersonal justice (β= -0.11; p = 0.02) were significant. Adjusting the processes of health institutions considering a vision of organizational justice and increasing the worker's sense of belonging to his or her organization and his or her work team would, in turn, result in a lower probability of experiencing burnout syndrome.

Care workers’ sense of responsibility, working conditions, and the quality of care in South Korea

As countries like South Korea expand their paid care services, ensuring quality care has become critical. Since care work involves significant emotional labor, a worker’s sense of responsibility for the care recipient's well-being affects the quality of care delivered. In this study, we explore this particular determinant of quality care that has been underexplored to better understand its nature. However, a worker's sense of responsibility or commitment level is not static and varies depending on various factors including working conditions. Using 2018 Korean childcare and eldercare survey data, we empirically examine the relationship between a worker's commitment levels and working conditions by conducting Tobit and generalized maximum entropy (GME) analyses. Results indicate that training, shorter commutes, predictable schedules, and easy interactions with the care recipient’s family are associated with higher levels of commitment. Our findings highlight the importance of supportive working conditions in promoting quality care.

Introduction: Cultivating Humanity with Martha Nussbaum

Introduction: Cultivating Humanity with Martha Nussbaum

Managing millennials: Embracing generational differences

The topic of the Millennial Generation in the workplace drives much business conversation, as members of this generation form a growing percentage of the employee base. Both popular media and scholarly literature have painted the population of younger workers in an uncharitable light. The goals of this article are to contextualize the results of a large, empirical study in a more favorable manner and to suggest that embracing generational differences provides an opportunity as well as a challenge. This article examines traits of the different generations, in addition to the relationship between organizational commitment and workplace culture. We present findings that show millennials (also known as Generation Y, or Gen Y) as the only generational group that does not conceptually link organizational commitment with workplace culture. This group also thinks of work differently than members of the other generations, yet these differences can be understood through a managerial lens focusing on qualities such as duty, drive, and reward. We argue that by changing performance evaluation metrics to encompass a greater variety of measures, managers can provide a more detailed picture of the employee's work, and thus impact the worker's sense of duty. Additionally, by providing a more transparent workplace, employers can increase the employee's drive and clearly demonstrate the reward that workers will receive. Finally, changes that help newer employees adjust to the workplace can also allow the organization to operate more efficiently, benefiting employees of all generations.

Informalisation and the end of trade unionism as we knew it? Dissenting remarks from a Tanzanian case study

This paper analyses the political organisation by informal transport workers, and their partial achievements in claiming rights at work from employers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city, from 1995 to the present. The paper takes issue with the influential view that, due to widespread economic informalisation, trade unionism and workplace labourism are no longer a viable option for defending workers' interests. From less despondent approaches to the possibilities for labour(ism), it borrows the insight that making sense of workers' unrest requires a political economy approach. This entails, first and foremost, locating workers within their economic structure, and understanding their relationship to capital. The paper thus starts by sketching out the state of public transport in Dar es Salaam, the predominant employment relationship in the sector, and the balance of power between bus owners and workers. It then analyses workers' organisation since 1997, workers' strategies to achieve (in conjunction with the Tanzania transport workers union) the formalisation of the employment relationship with bus owners, and their progress towards it. The conclusion reflects on the broader lessons that can be learned from this case study. [Informalisation et fin du syndicalisme traditionnel? Réflexions dissidentes à partir d'une étude de cas en Tanzanie.] Cet article analyse l'organisation politique des travailleurs informels du secteur des transports, et les résultats de leurs revendications pour faire valoir leurs droits fondamentaux au travail auprès des employeurs à Dar es Salaam, première ville de Tanzanie, de 1995 à maintenant. L'article conteste l'opinion influente selon laquelle, en raison de la généralisation du travail informel économique, le syndicalisme et le labourism ou « travaillisme » sur le poste de travail ne sont plus une option viable pour défendre les intérêts des travailleurs. À partir d'approches moins pessimistes sur le potentiel du « travail(lisme) », l'article suit l'idée selon laquelle la compréhension des conflits sociaux nécessite une approche en terme d'économie politique. Ceci implique, avant toute chose, de placer les travailleurs au sein de leur structure économique, et comprendre leur relation au capital. L'article commence donc par esquisser l'état du transport public à Dar es Salaam, les relations d'emploi prédominantes dans le secteur, et le partage du pouvoir entre les propriétaires des bus et les travailleurs. L'article analyse ensuite l'organisation des travailleurs depuis 1997, les stratégies des travailleurs pour arriver (en conjonction avec le syndicat des travailleurs du transport de Tanzanie) à la formalisation des relations d'emploi avec les propriétaires des bus, et les progrès accomplis. La conclusion se penche sur les leçons plus larges pouvant être tirées de cette étude de cas. Mots-clés : syndicats; économie informelle; droits du travail; transport urbain; gouvernance urbaine; Tanzanie

Prosocial Motivation, Stress and Burnout Among Direct Support Workers

This study explores whether the desire to engage in work that is beneficial to others moderates the effects of stress on burnout. Based on a survey of 1570 direct support professionals in Ontario, this study conducted linear regression analyses and tested for the interaction effects of prosocial motivation on occupational stress and burnout. Prosocial motivation significantly moderated the association of emotional exhaustion (EE) and role boundary stress with depersonalization (DP). Prosocial motivation also moderated the effects of role ambiguity stress with a direct support worker's sense of personal accomplishment. In contrast, prosocial motivation magnified feelings of EE when interacted with a sense of personal accomplishment. Prosocial motivation plays an important role in explaining the relatively low levels of DP in the sector. The study advances our understanding of the key components of burnout among direct support workers.

Violência e masculinidade nas relações de trabalho: imagens do campo em pesquisa etnográfica

Este artigo analisa desenhos feitos por trabalhadores e que foram coletados durante uma pesquisa etnográfica de cerca de nove meses, conduzida por um dos autores deste estudo. Foram analisados 53 desenhos feitos por operadores de rotativas que produzem jornais em uma das maiores gráficas desse tipo na Europa. A empresa passava por uma grande mudança tecnológica, ao final da qual quatro de suas nove maiores máquinas foram substituídas. Como resultado, aproximadamente 65 trabalhadores ficaram sem trabalho. Além disso, ocorreu uma divisão entre os impressores que permaneceram no velho equipamento e aqueles que foram selecionados para o novo. As imagens desenhadas pelos trabalhadores expressam forte hostilidade, interpretada neste artigo a partir do conceito de violência simbólica de Bourdieu (1999). Essa violência está associada à sexualidade, à opressão e à autodestruição, condições essas articuladas com a dominação masculina e com as transformações decorrentes das mudanças ocorridas no espaço organizacional estudado. Nesse sentido, o artigo procura contribuir para uma maior compreensão das organizações, seja por destacar a relação entre masculinidade e violência simbólica nas empresas, seja por mostrar a possibilidade e a utilidade do emprego de métodos projetivos em pesquisa etnográfica. Além disso, ele aponta a necessidade de serem estudadas as diversas formas como a violência pode se manifestar no contexto organizacional.

The Involvement of Social Workers in Fundraising

Despite growing interest in fundraising as part of the social worker's role, there has been no comprehensive research on this subject. The purpose of the present research is to begin to bridge that gap. Five dimensions of fundraising are defined and a theoretical framework, comprised of factors that may be related to social workers' involvement in this activity, is developed. Data were collected by means of a structured questionnaire, administered to social workers in welfare departments in Israel. Statistical analysis of the findings indicates low to moderate mean levels of social worker involvement in fundraising. The variable that contributes most to involvement in fundraising is the social worker's sense of efficacy for this activity. The paper offers several theoretical and practical conclusions and suggests directions for further research.

コンクリート床下地の上面作業しやすさに影響する要因の抽出およびならしのしやすさを表す物理量の設定

This study aims at obtaining an indicative quantity of easiness of leveling, as basic stage, so as to clarify a relation between finishability and characteristics of freshly mixed concrete. Approach used in this study is described in procedural manner as follows; At first, based on opinions from finishing workers, several characteristics of concrete are picked up, which affects finishing. Then, methods are developed for measurement affecting easiness of leveling, as observed behavior of concrete caused motions during finishing. Finally, quantitative value of easiness of leveling is obtained, corresponding sense of workers, which is resulted measurements from sorts of concretes.

Impacts of Home-Based Telework on Quality of Life for Employees and Their Partners. Quantitative and Qualitative Results From a European Survey

The study investigates the effects of home-based telework on quality of life (QoL). Four dimensions of QoL were analysed; overall satisfaction with life, sense of belonging, sense of becoming and sense of being. Through cross-national survey data (from 217 job holders and 112 partners) and by means of structural equation modeling, a positive association was found between home-based telework to a worker's sense of belonging (beta = 0.30, p < 0.001). On the other hand, a negative path was detected from the job holder's home-based telework to his or her partner's overall satisfaction with life (beta = −0.27, p < 0.05). After controlling for subdimensions of life quality, home-based work did not affect the job holder's overall life satisfaction. Moreover, the more concentration the job holder reported, the lower the sense of belonging was reported by his or her partner (beta = −0.28, p < 0.05). No simple explanation for the negative effects were found, but our interviews with the group of workers and their families leave us the impression that the problem of overworking and withdrawal was most relevant to the cases, in combination with negative spill-over effects and unclear boundary settings in the home.

The role of organizational service climate in generating control and empowerment among workers and customers

Previous studies have found a relationship between service climate and customers’ satisfaction. This paper presents two studies that used structural equation modeling to examine the role of control and empowerment in mediating this relationship. In the first study, questionnaires were administered to 113 pairs of customers and service workers. The results show that service climate is related to a customer's satisfaction through the mediation of a service worker's self-reported control of the service situation. In the second study, the service worker's sense of empowerment was predicted with service climate and the supervisor's empowering behavior. The data was gathered with questionnaires administered to 255 workers in service roles. Service climate was found to have a positive effect on empowering leadership behaviors of the service worker's supervisor which, in turn, enhance the service worker's sense of empowerment. The results are discussed in regard to the role of control and empowerment in service organizations.

The Crucible Concept: Thematic and Narrative Patterns in Cervantes's "Novelas ejemplares"

The Crucible Concept: Thematic and Narrative Patterns in Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares. By E. T. Aylward. Madison: Farleigh Dickinson UP, 1999. 327 pages. E. T. Aylward is one of the more innovative and fearless Cervantes scholars active today. He has few peers when it comes to advancing original-and provocative-interpretations. One expects him to do that, and in the present study he does not disappoint. Challenges to idles revues and idees fixes are salutary, of course. Criticism would stagnate without them. Aylward had previously advanced the view that Rinconete y Cortadillo and El celoso extremeno were of suspicious origin. Here he adds El licenciado Vidriera (LV) to that short list, linking all three to the Porras manuscript. Of all the points made here, the inclusion of LV among the texts of doubtful authenticity is probably the one that will provoke most discussion. The evidence adduced in support of this claim centers around commonalities he perceives among the three texts, specifically their experimental nature, which, in turn, has to do with their bipartite generic structure, the absence of flashbacks in all three, and their ironic tone. The author's procedure throughout is to focus on both form and content, in an effort to arrive ultimately at the work's sense or meaning. The study might thus be as an updated, post-structuralist sentido y forma. Indeed, the debt to Casalduero is acknowledged and is frequently evident. I sense an uneasy alliance between form and content, however-much more so than in Casalduero-and it is on that basis that I would classify the study as post-structuralist, or perhaps postmodern. The dis-ease of postmodernism is most evident in the contrast between the title itself, which relates to thematic content, and the stated intention of seeking the unity of the collection, its artistic wholeness, through its narrative structure (31). At the same time, the approach is reminiscent of the British School's thematic-structural approach to Comedia criticism. The concept of the crucible was suggested by Ruth El Saffar's notion of alchemical purgation, as she applied it to the Persiles. As Aylward says, viewed from this angle, Cervantes's Novelas can be seen to represent life as a sentimental crucible in which the protagonists' inflated egos undergo a process of psychological dissolution and coagulation in a series of harrowing and sometimes near-miraculous occurrences ... I have designated this `crucible concept' as the overriding thematic element that manages to hold together an otherwise curious and incongruous collection (11). Another kind of unity, or at least consistency, is seen in the fact that all of the novelas ejemplares can be considered literary experiments (195). In terms of structure, the stories are grouped according to narrative procedure and organization, with chapter one devoted to La Gitanilla and La ilustre fregona; chapter two to the symmetrical design of El amante liberal, La fuerza de la sangre, and La espanola inglesa; chapter three to the Porn-as manuscript, from which Rinconete y Cortadillo, El celoso extremeno, and El licenciado Vidriera are said to derive; chapter four to Los dos doncellas and La senora Cornelia; and chapter five to El casamiento enganoso and El coloquio de los perros. …

A research note on workers' culture in China

Abstract This article reports a part of the field research carried out in Shanghai in 1991, dealing with worker's culture. Specifically, it examines the factory's role in shaping the worker's sense of future and meaningful life. In this particular aspect, factory identity among workers appears to be very weak, while those whose factory identity is strongest tend to be cadres and party members. This article argues that such lack of factory identity partially explains why lifetime employment yields such dramatically divergent results in China and Japan. Finally, this article looks into the notion of activism vs passivism and confirms, with qualification, previous studies on authority in the Chinese work place.

The implementation and adoption of new technology in organizations: The impact on work, people, and culture

AbstractThis article examines the impact of computer technology on the workforce and workplace. It summarizes research and examines in practice the implementation and adoption of new technology in companies. Two cases are presented: a metal fabrication factory and a professional publishing company. Results of a pre‐implementation survey given to personnel in the factory highlight how a top‐down change strategy and worker's sense of mistrust and inequity, led to problems with the introduction of computerized machinery and control systems. Surveys taken one and three years after the introduction of word processing and data‐based management tools in the publishing company, by comparison, show how a more participatory change strategy coupled with extensive user training and support, contribute to success with technological change and alter perceptions of the company culture.

Educated mis-employment in Hong Kong: Earnings effects of employment in unmatched fields of work

The under-utilization of workers' skills acquired through vocational education constitutes a subtle form of “mis-employment”, in the sense of workers not being able to secure employment in their matched fields of work. This paper presents an empirical study on the problem of mis-employment in Hong Kong. Earnings functions are analyzed, separately, for graduates from various fields of education and for workers employed in various fields of work. It is found that the mis-employed graduates from some educational fields received lower earnings than their colleagues working in the matched work fields. Therefore, the mis-employment hypothesis obtains partial support here. It is also found that the demand side of the labour market predominates over the supply side in wage determination.

The Biography of a Memorial Icon: Nathan Rapoport's Warsaw Ghetto Monument

ion, in addition to the ways it diffuses a work's sense of mimetic witness, may frustrate as well the memorial's capacity as locus for shared self-image and commonly held ideals. In its hermetic and personal vision, abstraction encourages private visions in viewers, which would defeat the communal and collective aims of public memorials. On the one hand, the specificity of realistic figuration would seem to thwart multiple messages, while abstract sculpture could accommodate as many meanings as could be projected onto it. But in fact, it is almost always a figurative monument like the Warsaw Ghetto Monument that serves as point of departure for political performances. It is as if figurative sculpture like this were needed to engage viewers with likenesses of people, to evoke an empathic link between viewer and monument that might then be marshaled into particular meaning. In referring to the general condition of the world, an inner state of mind, broken trust in mankind, or even art's inability to represent the real, abstract forms still offer artists the widest possible variety of expression. Maya Lin's succinctly abstract Vietnam Veterans Memorial, for example, commemorates the nation's ambivalence toward the Vietnam War and its veterans in ways altogether unavailable in figuration.8 Instead of merely condemning the figurative mode as archaic and out-of-touch, however, we might also acknowledge the need in public audiences for figuration, even as we recall the constructed nature of figurative iconography. In this way, we can keep monumental figuration from naturalizing itself, from putting a finish on its significance. By breaking the figurative icon into its performative parts and reinvesting the memorial text with the memory of its own constructedness, we might thus remember the essential abstraction of figurative iconography. Through this attention to the activity of memorialization, we might also remind ourselves that public memory is constructed, and that there are worldly consequences in the kinds of historical understanding generated by monuments. Our questions have not been, Can a monument witness events? or How do monuments distort history? but rather, How have monuments like this organized historical memory? What are the social, political, and aesthetic dimensions comprising the monument's public life? What is our role in it all? and finally, What are the consequences for our current lives in light of the ways our past is memoThe Biography of a Memorial Icon 101 This content downloaded from 157.55.39.78 on Wed, 22 Jun 2016 06:10:50 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms rialized? In these questions, we find that the performance of the Warsaw Ghetto Monument depends not on some measured distance between history and its monumental representation but in the conflation of private and public memory, in the memorial activity by which minds reflecting on the past inevitably precipitate in the present historical moment.

Supervision in Social Work from a Gestalt Perspective

Social work supervision is viewed here as going beyond the traditional emphases and focusing on the learning process between the supervisor and supervisee in a phenomenological and holistic approach. The Gestalt concepts of phenomenology of the here and now, intrajection, organization of elements into meaningful wholes, tendency for closure, and impasse are described as they apply to supervision. This approach focuses on teaching the social work supervisee a process for dealing with case situations as opposed to offering singular solutions to singular case situations. This enhances the social worker's sense of professional identity and improves client treatment.

Labor's view of quality of working life programs

The quality of working life and the quality of business ethics cannot be separated. In the private sector, the profit priority motivates most employer behavior, which can be characterized as mean and rationalistic. Management-initiated ‘quality of life’ programs are usually disguised attempts to achieve a speedup. From the union perspective, fair wages and working conditions are synonymous with the quality of working life, and unions pursue these through collective bargaining, which is essentially adversarial in both the public and private sectors. AFSCME's approach is to negotiate for better staffing, career ladders, and other workplace improvements that contribute to a worker's sense of dignity and satisfaction.

Unemployment and Training Schemes

AN article on “Training and Unemployment” by Mr. Morris S. Viteles appears in the Human Factor, 7, No. 9. Mr. Viteles points out that the feeling of economic insecurity consequent upon unemployment and fear of unemployment is responsible for a great deal of the individual maladjustment in industry at the present time. Training schemes applied to entrants have tended to increase their efficiency and stability. At the same time, injustice has been done to workers of many year's standing, who are not given the benefit of this aid to efficiency, on the assumption that their experience makes it unnecessary, and that they would resent it. The writer advocates the training of older workers as well as new, and also the incorporation of instruction in allied tasks and processes into every training scheme-so that the mobility and adaptability of the workers within any given organisation unit may be at a maximum. Considerable increase in the worker's sense of security would follow, since he is good for more than one job. The chief psychological problems involved are those concerning the nature of motor skills and the probability of a general underlying factor; the transference of skill; and the possibility of accurately assessing individuals before giving them training. Mr. Viteles does not suggest that training is the panacea for unemployment, but he does maintain that when the more fundamental problems are solved, and further knowledge of occupational trends is available, it will be of ever-increasing value.