Führungskräfte auf dem Meditationskissen – eine Investition in die Führungskultur bei Bosch

As a result of our fast paced working environment managers are constantly faced with high requirements, which leads to a high stress load. These can impact their professional and individual achievements negatively. The following practice case is illuminating “mindfulness” which plays a highly decisive role in facing these challenges. In the automotive electronics (AE) division at Bosch interventions have been developed, in which “mindfulness” is in the focus. In this case, concrete topics of the interventions are examined, as well as questions about how and why this procedure is useful. The results of the evaluation show, that even when requirements remain high, the perceived stress level of each individual participant is reduced. Moreover we observe an increase in the ability to concentrate and in productivity.     

Macht und Führung

The article highlights the relation between leadership and power in organizations. Paradoxes and dilemmas related to the power endowment of the leadership role are analyzed from a systems-theory perspective. The article closes with recommendations for the shaping of the supervisor role.     

Nah der Wissenschaft und fern der Führung in einer Fach‑/Expertenlaufbahn?

In order to motivate and retain technical employees, representatives of strategic career management face the challenge of establishing alternative career paths in addition to the common leadership/management career. Surveying a sample of 629 doctorate holders from the STEM fields, we differentiated between five career paths within and beyond structured career models. Structured career ladders were predominantly present in major enterprises. Female participants less frequently reported to be part of a structured career path. Entering a leadership/management career seems to occur at a later stage compared to other paths. Generally, advancement on a leadership/management path was related to stronger increases in incentives than climbing up the technical/expert or project management ladders. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find members of a technical/expert career to work closer to basic research and their initial qualification than their colleagues on other career paths. Members of leadership/management paths reported to have significantly more leadership responsibility than those working on alternative paths.     

Unterrichtsqualität an einer besonderen Schule: Videobasierte Evaluation eines Oberstufen-Internats für leistungsstarke und hoch motivierte Schülerinnen und Schüler

Based on theoretical constructs and empirical work on quality of instruction, this contribution reports on the evaluation of a upper secondary boarding school for highly motivated and high-achieving students. The evaluation of instructional processes is based on high-inference video ratings of aspects of instructional quality. Additionally, aspects of cognitively activating teaching that are supposed to tap the full capabilities of the students are assessed as a higher standard for upper secondary teaching. Interviews with the teaching staff show a high level of acceptance of this approach to instruction as a means to cater to the needs of the high-achieving. As expected, comparing the teaching assessments with a reference sample of TIMSS and TIMSS-R videos shows a good quality of teaching in the areas of classroom management and individual learning support. For the different aspects of cognitive activation there are some lessons at a high level, while for some aspects the variation within the school is rather large.     

Willentliches Vergessen – Voraussetzung für Flexibilität und Veränderungsfähigkeit in einer sich permanent verändernden Welt

Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO) - Dieser Beitrag im Journal Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. stellt dar, wie willentliches...     

Nicht nur Gesundheit! Zusammenhänge zwischen psychischen Belastungen und Mitarbeiterbindung

Aim: Psychological risk assessments at work serve to identify psychological risk factors and their relation to health and well-being outcomes. Objective of the present study is to investigate which work characteristics predict commitment and turnover intentions of employees.Design: Based on the guidelines of the GDA (Joint German Occupational Safety and Health Strategy), a questionnaire was developed that captures psychological risk factors at work. Additionally, people were asked to indicate their commitment and their turnover intentions. Based on the guidelines of the Joint German Occupational Safety and Health Strategy we assessed four domains of psychological job demands (job content, work organization, social relationships and environmental demands) as well as affective commitment and turnover intention in a sample of 453 full-time employees. Using hierarchical regression analyses, we tested the predictive power of the psychological demands for the different indicators of employee retention.Results: Work content and social relationships were found to be significant predictors for commitment and turnover intentions, whereas work organisation and work context did not predict the outcomes. A detailed analysis of the single risk factors identified autonomy as the strongest predictor for both commitment and turnover intentions.Limitations: The single predictors are not independent and the cross sectional design does not allow for causality interpretations.Practical implications: Based on the assessment of critical psychological risk factors, it is possible to take individual and structural measures to promote commitment and to reduce turnover intentions.     

Digitalisierung der Arbeit: Konsequenzen für Führung und Zusammenarbeit

In this paper, we focus on the characteristics and requirements of digital leadership and cooperation when teams are working on complex and dynamic project tasks, and cooperation is mediated by modern information and communication technology. Based on current research results we discuss the question, whether the thesis can be supported that leadership of complex digital teamwork can only be successful if leadership functions are delegated to the team and personal leadership is complemented by structural leadership. Despite many ambiguous research results regarding the effects of digital leadership current findings seem to support that more shared leadership in self-managing project teams seems to be helpful for team performance.     

Wo lernen Kinder mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf besser? Ein Vergleich schulischer Kompetenzen zwischen Regel- und Förderschulen in der Primarstufe

Promoted by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, there is a trend towards the inclusive education of students with special educational needs (SEN) in regular classrooms. The present study addresses the question if achievement differences emerge between SEN students who attend a regular primary school and those who attend a school for special education. Based on data from the IQB-Ländervergleich Primarstufe 2011, a national assessment in German primary schools, the achievement of SEN students in regular schools (n?=?658) was compared to the achievement of students in special schools (n?=?413). Propensity score matching was applied to control for differences in achievement related characteristics between the two groups. After matching, SEN students in inclusive educational settings showed significantly higher test scores in German reading and listening comprehension as well as in mathematics than comparable SEN students in special schools. The effects were more pronounced for students with a special need of learning support than for students with speech and language-related special education support. Possible explanations for the higher achievement of SEN students in regular schools and for differential effects with regard to type of SEN are discussed.     

Der regulatorische Fokus als Führungsinstrument für eine bedürfnisorientierte und effektive Mitarbeiterkommunikation

Interaction with employees is essential for organizational leaders. If executives do not communicate well, important processes like giving feedback, setting goals or guiding change processes can nevertheless lead to resistance from subordinates when communication is received as more threatening than challenging. Conveying messages in ways that provoke challenge instead of threat appraisals can be achieved via employee-oriented communication, but this may require taking peoples’ differing motivational orientations into account. This is because motivational orientations partially determine what kind of information is motivating to us, which goals and strategies we prefer, and how we deal with changes. In this regard, Regulatory Focus Theory (Higgins 1997) compares the gain- and success-sensitive promoter with the loss- and failure-sensitive preventer. This article applies this theory to the organizational psychological context and outlines practical implications for managers. The goal of the piece is to provide managers a leadership tool that acknowledges the diversity of peoples’ motivational styles and by that revealing a need-oriented and more efficient way in communication with subordinates.     

Zwischen Staatsbedürftigkeit und Marktaffinität. Beeinflussen Wohneigentum und Erbschaften sozialpolitische Präferenzen?

Despite considerable inequalities, the long period of prosperity has led to an increase of wealth and assets in broad parts of the population. The article builds on the thesis that this “collective upgrading” is accompanied by a change of preferences concerning the role of the state and the market in matters of social security. On the basis of this assumption, we ask whether there is a relationship between home ownership and the receipt of a larger inheritance/gift on the one hand, and social policy preferences on the other hand. In order to answer this question, we analyze—based on the German Socio-Economic Panel—group-specific preferences of taking responsibility for financial security in old age in Germany in 2002 as well as their change between 1997 and 2002. Our results not only show that homeowners and homebuyers are more sceptical towards state solutions and more affine towards market solutions in 2002 than tenants, but also that in the course of time the former more strongly tend towards market solutions than the latter. The same is valid for the difference between heirs/donees and non-heirs/non-donees. Therefore, it can be concluded that the increase of wealth and the privatisation of retirement provision were an essential precondition for an increasing scepticism towards governmental redistribution ambitions.     

Ausgrenzung,Klassenzusammenhalt, Kooperation und Selbstbehauptung. Eine quasi-experimentelle Untersuchung der personal-sozialen Kompetenzen bei Schüler/-innen mit einer erlebnispädagogischen Intervention

With a classic quasi-experimental design (two measuring points, treatment and control group) the two questionnaires have been raised in the 2nd/3rd school week and after the first quarter with the constructs “class cohesion” and “exclusion” and “cooperation” and “self-assertion”. The treatment took place in the fourth week of beginning secundary classes (Switzerland). After the treatment the students showed significantly less exclusion ambitions and a better class cohesion than the control group. This finding should take into account the disturbing variables which must be meaningfully interpreted. And with respect to the sample the treatment group was – compared to the German standard – either socially more competent or biased.     

Gesundheits- und entwicklungsf?rderliches Führungsverhalten: Gendertypische Differenzen

There has been a growing interest in the past years, in analyzing the impact of leadership behavior on employees?? health and well-being. In the present study, we investigated the relationships between supervisors?? behavior and indicators of employees?? well-being among a sample of 685 female and 637 male employees. Employees assessed the leadership behavior of their direct supervisors using the recently developedGesundheits- und Entwicklungsf?rderliche FührungsverhaltensAnalyse (GEFA) and reported information on their well-being. Supervisors?? behavior was significantly related to all indicators of examined employees?? well-being. The underlying model of health- and development-promoting leadership behavior??with the dimensions: demanding leadership, development-oriented leadership, and support-oriented leadership??could be confirmed. Gender-differentiated analyses regarding the gender of the supervisors and of the employees, revealed differences in leadership behavior which were reflected in employees?? well-being. We discuss implications of these findings for research and practice.     

Klassenführung und Gruppendynamik in der Grundschule – Eine empirische Untersuchung zur Popularität und Trivialität von Klassenführung

Teacher surveys indicate continued intense discipline problems in elementary school classes. What can you do about it? As the teacher behavior has a strong relationship with active cooperation and misbehavior of students, a skillful group or classroom management of the teacher for an undisturbed instruction is important. However evidence suggests that some in the research literature as particularly relevant documented behaviors hardly appear in teachers’ subjective theories of reducing discipline problems. It is therefore presumed that the level of awareness regarding these insights is low in elementary schools and that it is difficult for teachers to recognize their extraordinary relevance solely by teaching practice. The present study tests this hypothesis on a sample of 101 elementary school teachers. The potentially far-reaching implications of the results are discussed.