Work Group Climate Research Articles

A conceptual review of the love-hate relationship between technology and successful aging at work: Identifying fits and misfits through job design

Previous research suggests that technology can both enhance and undermine successful aging. However, few studies have combined insights on aging and technology in the work context. This paper aims to contribute to the literature on successful aging at work and STAARA technology by integrating these two literature streams through a job design perspective in a conceptual review. Based on insights from the literature on successful aging at work and technology we propose that STAARA technology can facilitate successful aging at work by reducing physical and emotional demands and increasing skill variety, autonomy, and support. Whereas STAARA technology can also harm successful aging at work by reducing autonomy, skill variety, and social support. Self-regulatory behaviors, an open workgroup climate, and HRM practices can help to minimize the potential misfit between technology and aging at work, whereas age discrimination is an important constraint. The propositions of this paper should be tested in future research.

STAFFS’ PSYCHOSOCIAL WORK ENVIRONMENT IN RELATION TO RECIPIENT SATISFACTION IN HOME CARE SERVICES

Abstract In accordance with ‘aging in place’ policy, older persons in Sweden are increasingly encouraged to continue living at home and if necessary be supported by home care service (HCS). Studies have examined whether the work environment of staff has an impact on the experiences and the wellbeing of the older persons in nursing homes, but few have examined such associations in HCS. The setting was 16 HCS work units. Two surveys were sent, one to staff on psychosocial working conditions, one to care recipients on care satisfaction. For each work unit, data on individual recipient satisfaction was matched to average values on psychosocial work conditions. Outcomes analyzed with linear regressions were overall recipient satisfaction, based on one question, and indexes on: assessment of implementation of services, contact with staff, and sense of security. Index on treatment by staff was analyzed with ordered logistic regressions due to skewed distribution. We used cluster correlated standard errors (clustering on work units). Results showed that good working conditions are important for recipient satisfaction, specifically overall recipient satisfaction, treatment by staff, and sense of security. Psychosocial work factors most important were work group climate, overall job strain, sense of mastery, job control, frustrated empathy, balancing competing needs, balancing emotional involvement, and lack of recognition. Having more home help hours was associated to stronger relation between working conditions and recipient satisfaction, especially with overall recipient satisfaction and treatment by staff as outcomes.

The Association Between Work Climate and Group Climate in a Secure Forensic Treatment Setting for Individuals with Mild Intellectual Disability or Borderline Intellectual Functioning

We examined associations between group climate as perceived by 212 individuals with mild intellectual disability and work climate as experienced by 262 sociotherapists in a forensic setting. Results showed that if sociotherapists experienced more job satisfaction, they experienced less negative team functioning. Also, more positive team functioning was related to less repression. Workload and negative team functioning were related to less possibilities for growth by clients. No significant associations were found between other work climate and group climate dimensions. This study emphasized the importance of being aware of parallel processes between work climate and group climate in secure settings.

Factors in the psychosocial work environment of staff are associated with satisfaction with care among older persons receiving home care services.

Older persons in Sweden are increasingly encouraged to continue living at home and, if necessary, be supported by home care services (HCS). Studies have examined whether the work environment of staff has an impact on the experiences and well-being of older persons in residential care facilities, but few have examined such associations in HCS. This study examined associations between home care staff's perceptions of their psychosocial work environment and satisfaction with care among older people receiving HCS. The setting was 16 HCS work units. Two surveys were conducted, one on psychosocial working conditions of staff, one on satisfaction of older persons receiving HCS. For each work unit, data on individual satisfaction were matched to average values concerning psychosocial work conditions. Outcomes analysed with linear regressions were overall satisfaction and indices regarding assessment of performance of services, contact with staff and sense of security. The index for treatment by staff was analysed with ordered logistic regressions. Cluster correlated-standard error clustering on work units was used. Results showed that good working conditions were important for satisfaction with care, specifically overall satisfaction, treatment by staff and sense of security. The most important psychosocial work factors were work group climate, sense of mastery, job control, overall job strain, frustrated empathy, balancing competing needs, balancing emotional involvement and lack of recognition. Receiving more HCS hours was associated with stronger relationships between working conditions and satisfaction with care, especially with overall satisfaction and treatment by staff as outcomes. Managers and policymakers for home care need to acknowledge that the working conditions of home care staff are crucial for the satisfaction of older persons receiving HCS, particularly those receiving many HCS hours. Psychosocial work factors together with job strain factors are areas to focus on in order to improve working conditions for staff and outcomes for older persons.

Going beyond the system: The role of trust in coworker support and organization-based self-esteem in dealing with sexual harassment issues

Sexual harassment has been an entrenched problem in the workplace. Using the 2016 Merit Principles Survey from the US Merit Systems Protection Board, this study advances our understanding of the formal reporting of workplace sexual harassment by focusing on the crucial roles of coworker support and organization-based self-esteem. The findings show that both coworker support and organization-based self-esteem provide a sense of an individual’s worth to the organization, and eventually lead to a positive impact on the perceived effectiveness of formal reporting, as well as an indirect effect, through influence on the procedural justice perceptions of the formal reporting system. This study highlights the importance of establishing both a supportive work-group climate and a respectful and inclusive working environment in order to give employees the confidence to formally report incidences of sexual harassment.

Work Group Climate and Behavioral Responses to Psychological Contract Breach.

Drawing on theories of social exchange and social information processing, we examined whether the influence of psychological contract breach on in-role performance and organization-directed citizenship behavior (OCBO) depends on work group climate levels, specifically procedural justice climate and power distance climate. The findings supported our hypothesis that psychological contract breach more strongly influences in-role performance and OCBO among members of units with favorable procedural justice climates. Support for a hypothesized moderating role of power distance climate was less conclusive. We discuss the implications of our model and findings for theories of employee–organization relationships and practice.

Creative and innovative behaviours of corporate directors: an elusive role of task-related conflicts

The aim of the present work is to examine corporate directors’ boardroom interactions associated with conflicts as well as creativity and innovation phenomena. In line with the behavioral perspective in research on boards, we investigate relationships between task conflicts, an emerging creative and innovative boardroom climate as well as directors’ work behaviors. Drawing upon the survey data from 423 corporate directors, we tested hypothesized relationships by the means of the structural equation modelling technique. The results provide evidence suggesting that task-related conflicts among corporate directors appear to be equally detrimental for the psychological workgroup climate as they are advantageous for initiating creative and innovative work behaviours. In other words, the positive effect of task conflicts on directors’ creative and innovative work behaviours occurs so long as such conflicts do not simultaneously impair their perception of the creative/innovative boardroom environment. By integrating the literature on workplace group conflicts, creativity and innovation with the corporate governance writings, this study offers a new insight into corporate directors functioning. Presented findings have clear implications for future board research and managerial practice.

Workplace civility training: understanding drivers of motivation to learn

Training is recommended as an important human resource management (HRM) practice to prevent mistreatment and enhance civility, but little is known about what influences the effectiveness of civility training. The central aim of this study was to address how workgroup conditions influence employees' attitudes about civility training and motivation to learn, which previous research shows is a predictor of training outcomes. Predictors were posited to include psychological and workgroup climate for civility, and personal and ambient mistreatment experiences. These predictors were hypothesized to drive positive (training discrepancy) and negative (training skepticism) pre‐training attitudes, which in turn were expected to influence motivation to learn. Results suggest the influence of climate for civility and mistreatment experiences on motivation to learn is largely indirect via pre‐training attitudes. Training skepticism and training discrepancy have conflicting influences on motivation to learn. Findings provide an empirical basis for HRM professionals to maximize employee motivation to learn in their own civility interventions.

Psychometric validation of an Organisational Performance Questionnaire (OPQ) based on the Burke-Litwin model

This study reports the findings on the development and validation of an Organisational Performance Questionnaire (OPQ) based on the Burke-Litwin model. Respondents were 398 employees from various public and private sector organisations in South Africa, consisting of different genders (male = 60.8%, female = 39.2%), different functional groupings (mostly operations, finance, human relations = 37.25%) and mostly middle or senior level managers (62.4%). Data were analysed utilising exploratory factor analysis with promax rotation. Results indicated the OPQ to measure all twelve of the Burke-Litwin elements contained in their model: external environment, mission and strategy, leadership, culture, structure, management practices, systems, work group climate, skills/job match, individual needs and values, motivation, and organisational and individual performance. An OPQ based on the Burke-Litwin model appears valid for assessing organisational performance in the South African setting.

The mediating relationship of self-awareness on supervisor burnout and workgroup Civility & Psychological Safety: A multilevel path analysis

The purpose of this study was to examine whether managerial self-awareness (defined as degree of agreement between self and subordinate ratings of leaders’ behaviors) mediates the relationship between supervisor burnout and supervised workgroup climate. Using an HLM approach, supervisor emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and personal accomplishment exhibited significant indirect relationships with workplace Civility and Psychological Safety, via managerial self-awareness. No direct relationships between supervisor burnout and workgroup climate were found, suggesting that self-awareness may be an important mediator for individual characteristics of leaders previously thought to be non-significant. Additional post hoc comparisons indicated that workgroups with supervisors who over-rated their own performance behaviors reported the lowest levels of Civility and Psychological Safety compared to workgroups with supervisors who accurately rated or under-rated their own performance behaviors. However, supervisors that under-rated their own performance reported the highest levels of burnout, highlighting the importance of self-awareness (accurately rating oneself) in relation to individual and group outcomes. The relationships between supervisor burnout, managerial self-awareness, and workgroup perceptions of Civility and Psychological Safety differed when considering the directionality of self-other rating agreement, with the negative impact of burnout at the supervisor level having a more direct impact on the workgroup level perceptions of Civility and Psychological Safety when the workgroup is managed by an under-rater, as opposed to an accurate- or over-rater. Practically, organizations should consider the role of managerial self-awareness in influencing subordinate performance and creating desirable work climates. Also, this study suggests the effects of burnout extend beyond the individual and have significant implications for the performance of those in the supervision of the burned out manager.

Helping people to ‘make things happen’: A framework for proactivity at work

Proactivity, which involves self-initiated change in oneself or change in the environment to bring about a better future, is an increasingly important behaviour at workplace. This paper summarises a model of proactivity at work. We first discuss the importance of proactivity, presenting empirical evidence about its benefits for individual and organisational performance. We then discuss current perspectives on proactivity, explaining it as a goal-directed process that involves, first, the setting of a proactive goal (proactive goal generation), and second, striving to achieve that proactive goal (proactive goal striving). We then present three motivational pathways of proactivity and the related ‘can do,’ ‘reason to,’ and ‘energised to’ motivational states that prompt proactive goal generation and goal striving. Next we present distal antecedents of proactivity that influence the proactive motivational states and thereby lead to proactive behaviours, including contextual variations in work design, leadership, and group climate, as well as individual characteristics such as personality and learning styles. We consider the potential dark side of proactivity and propose the expanded concept of wise proactivity to articulate the type of proactivity that is likely to be truly desirable within the workplace. We conclude the paper by discussing the applications of proactivity in the coaching context.

A Workgroup Climate Perspective on the Relationships Among Transformational Leadership, Workgroup Diversity, and Employee Creativity

Previous research on the effects of workgroup diversity and workgroup functioning and outcomes has produced mixed results. We address these inconsistencies by proposing a model that considers the effects of both transformational leadership and workgroup climate on one workgroup outcome believed particularly relevant to diversity: employee creativity. Multilevel analyses of 172 individuals working in 31 teams found that innovation workgroup climate level mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and employee creativity. Furthermore, results indicated that diverse groups had higher innovation climate strength when transformational leadership was high, and that innovation climate level was more strongly related to employee creativity when innovation climate strength was high. Overall, these results suggest that transformational leadership may lessen the negative effects associated with workgroup diversity. Implications for both theory and practice are discussed.

The impact of leadership on workgroup climate and performance in a non‐profit organization

PurposeThe purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the impact of leadership on workgroup climate and performance in a religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.Design/methodology/approachThe impact of leadership is investigated using a questionnaire comprised of established scales such as the transformational leadership scales (TLS), team climate inventory questionnaire (TCI), team effectiveness, workgroup cohesion, and interdependence scales. This is a context based study that considers the unique culture comprised of social, political, economic, technologic, personnel, and personal concerns. Descriptive, correlation, hierarchical regression, and SPSS macro developed by Preacher and Hayes were used as statistical techniques to assess the indirect effects (Sobel Tests) of variables.FindingsTransformational leadership was identified as a key variable for the functioning of workgroup performance whilst transactional leadership was identified as a key influencing factor of workgroup climate. In addition, the study found a significant and positive large effect of workgroup climate on workgroup performance whilst both transformational and transactional leadership did not influence workgroup performance through workgroup climate. This finding provides areas in need of further research.Research limitations/implicationsThere is likely to be posing risks of method variance or response biases as all data were drawn from employee surveys. There is also likely to be selection bias as the authors could not directly compare respondents with non‐respondents. The fact that there may be operational differences in other as well as smaller organizations, based on the limited size and the ability to allocate job functions, could limit the generalization of this result to other organizations.Originality/valueThis study makes a significant contribution to both scholarly theory and workplace practice in the non‐profit sector as the findings indicated that the influence of workgroup climate on workgroup performance provided an enabling context for the delivery of leadership in a religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.

A Work Group Climate Perspective of the Relationships among Leadership, Diversity and Creativity

Previous research on the effects of workgroup diversity and workgroup functioning and outcomes has produced mixed results. We address these inconsistencies by proposing a model that considers the e...

Climate for Innovation, Creative Efficacy and Team Innovation: The Moderating Role of Team Leadership

Organizational climates are defined as a set of shared perceptions regarding the policies, practices, and procedures that an organization rewards, supports, and expects. Organizational climates exert an important influence on organizations and employees who work in them. In recent years, climate researchers have switched their focus from global to facet-specific climates. This study defines climate for innovation (or support for innovation) as the innovation aspect of the work group climate, which reflects shared perceptions among group members regarding their work environment that is creativity-/ innovation-relevant. Previous studies have found that climate for innovation is significantly related to team innovation. However, the research on the relationship between climate and innovation at the team level is still lacking, especially in the Chinese context. Moreover, previous research has not answered the following questions: what is the psychological mechanism that channels the impact of climate for innovation on team innovation? What is the role of team leader in this relationship? This study aims to address the two questions by examining the mediating effect of team creative efficacy and the moderating role of team leader's behaviors of leading innovation. Data were collected from a high-tech company in China. Teamwork is popular in this company. A team leader is assigned to each team and this leader acts not only as the job coordinator but also as a coworker of team members. We randomly selected 90 RD teams from a list of 380 teams provided by the HR department, and finally got a sample of 51 teams with average team size of 3.6. We used hierarchical regression and bootstrap method with the aid of SPSS macro developed by Preacher and Hayes (2008) to test our hypotheses. With team innovation as the dependent variable, the results showed that the regression coefficients of climate for innovation on both team creative efficacy and team innovation were significantly positive. After adding leader's leading innovation behavior and its interaction term with team creative efficacy, the regression coefficient on team innovation of the interaction term was significant. The moderating pattern showed that the relationship between team creative efficacy and team innovation becomes stronger as leaders' leading innovation behavior growing from low to high. In addition, the mediating test with bootstrap method displayed that team creative efficacy acts as the mediator between climate for innovation and team innovation. Furthermore, conditional indirect effect test also showed that the mediating effect of team creative efficacy on the climate for innovation-team innovation linkage is significant only when the level of leader's leading innovation behavior is high. All hypotheses were supported. Findings of this study shed light on the innovation process at the team level. First, this research extends social cognitive theory to the work group level by revealing the mediating effect of team creative efficacy on the climate for innovation-team innovation relationship. This result adds to our understanding of the mechanisms through which climate for innovation influences team innovation. Future research should investigate additional mediators, such as team members' external social networks. Second, the result of the positive relationship between climate for innovation and team innovation in the Chinese sample confirms the findings obtained from Western world and enriches the climate and innovation literature. Finally, the catalyst role of team leadership implies that innovation-supportive leadership can strengthen the effect of team creative efficacy on team innovation and the indirect effect of climate for innovation on team innovation.

Assessing Workgroup Norms for Civility: The Development of the Civility Norms Questionnaire-Brief

This research describes the development and validation of the Civility Norms Questionnaire-Brief (CNQ-B), a 4-item measure designed to assess workgroup climate for civility. Climate for civility is defined as employee perceptions of norms supporting respectful treatment among workgroup members. Five samples (N = 2,711) of adult employees, including two from distinct organizations and three from multiple organizations, responded to the CNQ-B and additional measures. Evidence for the internal consistency, and convergent and discriminant validity of the CNQ-B was observed. Additionally, evidence for the criterion-related and incremental validity of the CNQ-B was demonstrated as it was a significant predictor of later-assessed incivility experiences and accounted for significant variability in work attitudes beyond incivility experiences and related measures. The CNQ-B is a psychometrically sound instrument despite being composed of only four items. The CNQ-B can be used by researchers and practitioners alike to assess climate for civility, to study climate for civility as a precursor to incivility experiences, and to target workgroups that could benefit from interventions (e.g., training) to enhance civility and reduce incivility. This is one of the first studies to conduct a rigorous psychometric assessment of a measure of workgroup climate for civility that is grounded in theory and research on workplace civility and incivility. At four items, the CNQ-B is the shortest assessment tool currently available that is designed for this purpose.

Social Value Orientation and Climate Strength as Moderators of the Impact of Work Group Cooperative Climate on Affective Commitment

abstractWe investigate the moderating role of an individual's social value orientation (which refers to self‐ versus other‐regarding preferences) and of climate strength (which refers to the extent of agreement among group members on group norms and values) on the relationship between work group cooperative climate and affective commitment among professional employees. We develop two plausible but opposite hypotheses on the moderation effect of social value orientation, one based on the behavioural assimilation assumption and the other on goal transformation theory. We argue that the work group's climate strength is an important contingency factor that affects which of both contradictory predictions holds. In a sample of 209 academic employees of a Belgian university, we find support for our arguments. Specifically, a cooperative climate enhances the affective commitment of employees with a prosocial value orientation (as predicted by the behavioural assimilation argument) but only when there is strong consensus among group members about the group's climate (high climate strength). Conversely, for those whose social value orientation is towards the self rather than others, a cooperative climate enhances affective commitment (consistent with goal transformation theory), especially when the climate is not agreed upon (low climate strength). These findings underscore recent claims that the predictive power of different theories in organizational behaviour depends on an individual's motives and values. We discuss the implications of our findings for the management of work groups consisting of employees with different social value orientations.

Predictors of Organisational and Job Commitment in Diverse Organisation

Group level variables such as group task, group process, group composition, group cohesiveness and group structure have been found to have effect on the behaviour and affective states of their members. Hence there is a strong need to device a comprehensive understanding of the effects of group factors on the individual with the consideration of the relationships among these group factors and their relative importance in predicting commitment. Four different firms situated in different localities in Chennai city have participated in this study and purposive sampling was adopted for the selection of 475 employees from these firms. A structured questionnaire was distributed and collected data were analysed using hierarchical stepwise multiple regression analysis to assess the extent of variance in commitment can be explained by group factors. The results show that the task autonomy feedback, task related support, task interdependence, task variety and work group climate have emerged as important predictors of both organizational and job commitment in the diverse organization.

The “social-physiology” of safety. An integrative approach to understanding organisational psychological mechanisms behind safety performance

This paper aims at contributing to a comprehensive perspective on occupational safety by integrating research on different specific organisational psychological concepts found to contribute to different types of organisational performance, and apply these to an occupational safety context. A second aim was to present perspectives on how occupational safety may be promoted within an organization. The following mechanisms are suggested. A leadership style promoting co-operation, inspiring, fostering group goals, as well as providing individualized support and empowering workers may intrinsically be expected to comprise rich and open communication and thus support the development of high-quality interactions between managers and employees. Such interaction and communication may promote the development of mutual trust, and the development of a good workgroup climate. Trust, in turn, may further promote communication and interaction. Mutual trust, high-quality relations, and a strong group climate may promote workers’ motivation and intentions to contribute to the organisational goals. Managers successful in demonstrating true and consistent priority of workers’ safety may promote the development of workers’ trust but also convince that safety is a prime organisational goal. This may promote workers’ motivation to behave safely. Trustful relations characterized by empowerment and participation are then likely also to support the realization of safety intentions into safe behavior.

Improvisational theatre as team development intervention for climate for work group innovation

Orientation: Changes in business environments have resulted in a need for the development of innovative teams. Improvisational theatre as a technique could contribute to the understanding of how individuals can work together and be innovative.Research purpose and motivation: This study evaluates the influence of a team development intervention utilising improvisational theatre exercises on innovative work group climate.Research design, approach and method: A quasi-experimental non-equivalent control group design was employed with an experimental group and a control group from a healthcare managerial division.Main findings: Repeated-measures ANOVA results indicated that for innovative work group climate as a whole, as well as for three of its factors, namely participative safety, vision, and task orientation, the experimental group’s scores improved significantly (p < 0.05). Support for innovation did not show significant differences.Practical/Managerial implications: This research has shown that improvisational theatre is a team development tool that can be used to assist work teams in creating a climate for innovation.Contribution/value-add: This study extends the body of knowledge in the field of team building and highlights the contribution that improvisational theatre can make toward the development of work teams.