Evaluating organizational-level work stress interventions: Beyond traditional methods

Since the early 1990s, there has been a growing literature on organizational-level interventions for work-related stress, and associated calls for such interventions to be evaluated. At the same time, doubts have been expressed about the adequacy of traditional scientific research methods in applied psychology (the natural science paradigm) in providing an effective framework for such evaluations. This paper considers some of the philosophical and methodological issues raised by evaluation research in relation to organizational-level interventions for work-related stress. Four key issues are discussed: the concept of a study being “fit for purpose” in relation to research designs and the nature of acceptable evidence; the issue of control of research conditions in real-world studies; the need to evaluate process as well as outcome, including the interrelated nature of process and outcome; and the interpretation of imperfect evidence sets. The starting point of this paper is the reality of organizational life, which is complex and continually changing. Its main objective is not to offer an alternative to a scientific approach but to argue for a more broadly conceived and eclectic framework for evaluation that acknowledges the limitations of the traditional approach. It espouses an approach that is reflective of the reality of organizational life and in which the methods used for evaluating an intervention are fit for purpose. The paper concludes by offering an outline framework for this broader approach to the evaluation of interventions.     

Psychometric analysis of the UK Health and Safety Executive's Management Standards work-related stress Indicator Tool

Abstract

Numerous tools have been developed that attempt to measure work-related stress and working conditions, but few practical instruments in the literature have been found to have a reliable psychometric factor structure. In the UK, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) Management Standards (MS) Indicator Tool is increasingly used by organizations to monitor working conditions that can lead to stress. In Health and Safety Executive (2004), a factor analysis was conducted demonstrating the reliability of the scales. However, the authors acknowledged that direct reassessment of the same factor structure was impossible as the questionnaire was split into two separate modules for data collection. Furthermore, the tool is designed to enable comparisons between as well as within organizations to take place, yet reliability has only previously been tested at the individual level. The current study is the first to examine the factor structure of the HSE MS Indicator Tool using organizational-level data. Data collected from 39 UK organizations (N=26,382) was used to perform a first-order Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) on the original 35-item seven-factor measurement scale. The results showed an acceptable fit to the data for the instrument. A second-order CFA was also performed to test if the Indicator Tool contains a higher order uni-dimensional measure of work-related stress. These findings also revealed an acceptable fit to the data, suggesting that it may be possible to derive a single measure of work-related stress. Normative data comprising tables of percentiles from the organizational data are provided to enable employers to compare their organizational averages against national benchmarks.     

Interventions for musculoskeletal disorders in computer-intense office work: A framework for evaluation

Workplace interventions for work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are usually multifaceted. These interventions tend to deal with multiple work organizational and physical risk factors and have components occurring at different organizational levels. The organizations are often changing, with shifting initiatives and priorities. Evaluation of such interventions poses challenges in documentation of implementation, reduction in exposures, and assessment of improved health outcomes. We describe a means-outcomes framework for evaluating field interventions that includes strategies, activities, objectives and metrics for outcomes using quantitative and qualitative methods. We demonstrate application of the framework to our work with a large newspaper, which builds on existing laboratory, aetiological and best practice evidence to improve musculoskeletal health. The newspaper had adopted several organizational strategies aimed at improving financial performance, including restructuring into teams, a major set of moves/renovations and introduction of new software. Concomitant WMSD-related organizational strategies include an ergonomics policy, human resources activities, promotion of team work, changes in environment and equipment specifications and development of information systems. We have found the framework useful for focusing the purpose of data collection and ensuring coverage of important components. At the same time, it provides sufficient flexibility to respond to the changing process of implementation.     

Interventions for musculoskeletal disorders in computer-intense office work: a framework for evaluation

Workplace interventions for work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are usually multifaceted. These interventions tend to deal with multiple work organizational and physical risk factors and have components occurring at different organizational levels. The organizations are often changing, with shifting initiatives and priorities. Evaluation of such interventions poses challenges in documentation of implementation, reduction in exposures, and assessment of improved health outcomes. We describe a means-outcomes framework for evaluating field interventions that includes strategies, activities, objectives and metrics for outcomes using quantitative and qualitative methods. We demonstrate application of the framework to our work with a large newspaper, which builds on existing laboratory, aetiological and best practice evidence to improve musculoskeletal health. The newspaper had adopted several organizational strategies aimed at improving financial performance, including restructuring into teams, a major set of moves/renovations and introduction of new software. Concomitant WMSD-related organizational strategies include an ergonomics policy, human resources activities, promotion of team work, changes in environment and equipment specifications and development of information systems. We have found the framework useful for focusing the purpose of data collection and ensuring coverage of important components. At the same time, it provides sufficient flexibility to respond to the changing process of implementation.     

Organizational interventions: A research-based framework for the evaluation of both process and effects

Abstract

Organizational interventions are often recommended when organizations want to improve employee psychological health and well-being. Research, however, has revealed inconsistent results and reviewers have called for research on why interventions either bring about desired change or fail to do so. Answering the “how” and “why” of intervention outcomes requires a close examination of the elements that hinder or facilitate desired outcomes, thus moving beyond evaluation of only the overall effects. In this paper, we present an evaluation framework based on recent intervention research and process-oriented organization theory. The framework offers suggestions for which elements to include when evaluating organizational interventions. Within the framework, elements crucial to intervention evaluation are grouped into four overarching categories that we argue are crucial to evaluation over the five phases of an intervention programme. These categories are: the organizational “actors”; the mental models of those actors; the context of the intervention; and intervention design and process. Evaluation during the process as well as of the overall effects, as recommended by this framework, should throw light on what works for whom, why, how and under which circumstances.     

A review of the effectiveness of empowering leadership

Based on a review of empirical literature on empowering leadership, given incongruent and mixed results, the current work suggests reconsidering the effectiveness of empowering leadership. We propose a framework for examining the effectiveness of empowering leadership that considers: 1) feasibility of non-linear main effects of empowering leadership on work-related outcomes, 2) possibility of reverse causation between empowering leadership and work-related outcomes, 3) potential contradictory mediating mechanisms through which empowering leadership influences work-related outcomes, 4) consideration of boundary conditions which could alter the relationships between empowering leadership and work-related outcomes, and 5) consideration of levels-of-analysis and multilevel issues in empowering leadership. Our framework considers the multifaceted nature of empowering leadership and offers a guiding tool for advancing future research in this area.     

手段导向、知识获取与新企业创业能力的实证研究

创业能力对于新企业创造和维持竞争优势具有重要意义,相关研究受到创业领域学者们的广泛关注。然而创业能力的实证研究主要集中于创业者个体层面创业能力的前因和结果分析,组织层面的创业能力的实证研究尚处于探索阶段,仍有待运用有效的理论揭示新企业如何构建组织层面创业能力的内在机理和路径。作为新兴的创业理论,手段导向理论有助于面临高不确定性的新企业在创业过程中持续进行迭代式学习,而组织学习理论认为,知识获取作为组织学习的核心环节有助于组织创业能力的构建。因此,手段导向可能通过知识获取提升新企业创业能力。然而,少有学者关注此方面研究。 运用手段导向理论和组织学习理论,深入剖析手段导向各维度对创业能力的积极影响,检验知识获取在手段导向与创业能力关系间的中介作用。采取大样本问卷调查,收集215家中国新企业数据,并运用多元线性回归分析和因子分析等方法进行实证检验。 研究结果表明,手段导向的4个维度均对创业能力具有积极影响,试验、可承受损失和先前承诺3个维度通过知识获取提升新企业创业能力,但是知识获取在柔性与新企业创业能力关系间的中介作用不显著。 研究结论对于丰富和拓展组织层面创业能力相关研究和推动手段导向理论的发展具有重要意义,为新企业如何在高不确定性和强资源约束下构建组织创业能力提供必要的理论指导。     

Organizational-level interventions to reduce occupational stressors

Abstract

Occupational stress research continues to grow, and is increasingly being used to inform national policy on worker health and well-being. Most models of occupational stress emphasize notions of person-environment fit. Two approaches for intervention to minimize adverse consequences of occupational stress follow from such models. One emphasizes the strengthening and enhancement of indwiduals and their resources, the other emphasizes the reduction ofcommon workplace-based sources ofoccupational stress. This paper reviews 10 organizational-level interventions to reduce stress at work which have been examined in various field studies. These interventions were generally found to have positive effects, and, given the limited success of individual-level interventions in addressing occupational sources of stress, should be encouraged.     

基于创业视角的组织变革与市场过程研究

在组织变革研究的文献中,适应观和生态观一直是占主导地位的两类研究视角,本文在回顾这两大学派观点的基础上提出一种新的研究范式——基于创业的视角。研究发现,行动领先的企业高管通过主动搜寻来进行机会识别,并通过双重联结过程实施创业型行动,而企业的行为又会更新其他市场参与者的信念体系从而达到推动市场过程的目的。本文最后在动态竞争研究的框架下进一步分析了企业与环境共同演化的过程。     

Organizational-level interventions to reduce occupational stressors

Occupational stress research continues to grow, and is increasingly being used to inform national policy on worker health and well-being. Most models of occupational stress emphasize notions of person-environment fit. Two approaches for intervention to minimize adverse consequences of occupational stress follow from such models. One emphasizes the strengthening and enhancement of indwiduals and their resources, the other emphasizes the reduction ofcommon workplace-based sources ofoccupational stress. This paper reviews 10 organizational-level interventions to reduce stress at work which have been examined in various field studies. These interventions were generally found to have positive effects, and, given the limited success of individual-level interventions in addressing occupational sources of stress, should be encouraged.     

'Management Standards' and work-related stress in the UK: policy background and science

In the late 1990s, the Health and Safety Commission, as the lead authority in the UK responsible for Health and Safety at Work, conducted an extensive consultation exercise to elicit views about how work-related stress should be tackled. The Commission subsequently decided that regulation was not justified and opted for an approach with four strands. One of these was to work with stakeholders to develop clear, agreed standards of good management practice. This paper describes and discusses the rationale behind a standards-based approach that is essentially based on a method of controlling hazards. The Management Standards approach uses a taxonomy of six stressors that has evolved out of extensive research carried out on behalf of the UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and in conjunction with stakeholders, and a three-phase risk assessment methodology. Further developmental work on the standards (which are to be subjected to public consultation) and associated measurement tools is described in a companion paper in this issue of Work & Stress (Cousins, Mackay, Clarke, Kelly, Kelly, & McCaig, 2004). The emphasis is on prevention towards reducing stress in the UK working population. We review current thinking on models of work stress, consider evidence linking workplace psychosocial factors and various health and organizational outcomes, and examine the effectiveness of organizational interventions. We argue that the literature supports an approach that aims to move organizational states (represented by the current situation) to more desirable ones (represented by the six Management Standards), and that this is an effective 'population' based approach to tackling workplace stress and promoting individual and organizational health.     

‘Management Standards’ and work-related stress in the UK: policy background and science

In the late 1990s, the Health and Safety Commission, as the lead authority in the UK responsible for Health and Safety at Work, conducted an extensive consultation exercise to elicit views about how work-related stress should be tackled. The Commission subsequently decided that regulation was not justified and opted for an approach with four strands. One of these was to work with stakeholders to develop clear, agreed standards of good management practice. This paper describes and discusses the rationale behind a standards-based approach that is essentially based on a method of controlling hazards. The Management Standards approach uses a taxonomy of six stressors that has evolved out of extensive research carried out on behalf of the UK's Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and in conjunction with stakeholders, and a three-phase risk assessment methodology. Further developmental work on the standards (which are to be subjected to public consultation) and associated measurement tools is described in a companion paper in this issue of Work & Stress (Cousins, Mackay, Clarke, Kelly, Kelly, & McCaig, ). The emphasis is on prevention towards reducing stress in the UK working population. We review current thinking on models of work stress, consider evidence linking workplace psychosocial factors and various health and organizational outcomes, and examine the effectiveness of organizational interventions. We argue that the literature supports an approach that aims to move organizational states (represented by the current situation) to more desirable ones (represented by the six Management Standards), and that this is an effective ‘population’ based approach to tackling workplace stress and promoting individual and organizational health.     

Leading from different psychological distances: A construal-level perspective on vision communication,goal setting,and follower motivation

How should leaders construct and communicate their messages to most effectively motivate their employees? We offer an integrative framework to address the diverging and complementary nature of two established approaches to employee motivation: Vision communication and goal setting. Specifically, while vision communication involves formulating relatively abstract, far-reaching, and timeless messages, effective goal setting involves formulating specific, challenging and time-constrained objectives. Building on construal level theory of psychological distance, we argue that the experience of construal fit between the attributes of a message and the attributes of the situation will enhance its motivational effectiveness. We present a framework that addresses when visions and goals achieve construal fit and explains why and how construal fit leads to increased follower motivation. We discuss different approaches to integrating visions and goals, propose directions for future research, and illustrate how the notion of construal fit may be used for explaining key organizational phenomena.     

Thank you!

The study focuses on the question of how HRD personnel employed in a large multinational company perceive learning at work. We are interested in how HR development staff describe learning at the individual, collective and organizational levels. The participants were Finnish and Chinese human resource professionals (n?=?17) who used an asynchronous web-based tool to study adult education. The empirical data consist of all the texts sent to a web-based discussion forum. The findings showed that the HRD practitioners' views of learning covered quite evenly all three levels of organizational learning. The practitioners paid special attention to practical learning taking place in connection with everyday work activities, to communication and collaborative learning and to the development of a learning organization. This reflects the multifaceted nature of learning at work and the necessity of using HRD to integrate individual- and organizational-level needs in order to enhance organizational learning. The participants frequently reported that they found this a demanding task that required a clear 'understanding of humans, people in the organizations and their learning'. If organizational learning is to meet its current challenges it should take note of messages like these from HRD practitioners, which emphasise the diversity of learning experiences. Promoting a shared understanding and especially awareness and recognition of the fundamental issues associated with learning at work is a possible first step.     

Strategic Appraisal of Environmental Risks: A Contrast Between the United Kingdom's Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change and its Committee on Radioactive Waste Management

In this article, we compare two high‐profile strategic policy reviews undertaken for the U.K. government on environmental risks: radioactive waste management and climate change. These reviews took very different forms, both in terms of analytic approach and deliberation strategy. The Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change was largely an exercise in expert modeling, building, within a cost‐benefit framework, an argument for immediate reductions in carbon emissions. The Committee on Radioactive Waste Management, on the other hand, followed a much more explicitly deliberative and participative process, using multicriteria decision analysis to bring together scientific evidence and stakeholder and public values. In this article, we ask why the two reviews were different, and whether the differences are justified. We conclude that the differences were mainly due to political context, rather than the underpinning science, and as a consequence that, while in our view “fit for purpose,” they would both have been stronger had they been less different. Stern's grappling with ethical issues could have been strengthened by a greater degree of public and stakeholder engagement, and the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management's handling of issues of uncertainty could have been strengthened by the explicitly probabilistic framework of Stern.     

Polynomial regression analysis and response surface methodology in leadership research

Congruence has served as an important research framework for many leadership research topics. Perhaps the most frequently used methodological/statistical approach for testing the congruence framework is polynomial regression analysis (PRA) with response surface methodology (RSM). As this approach was introduced to organizational sciences more than two decades ago, we can now identify the main issues with the use of this approach in leadership research. To systematically investigate these issues, we first review how PRA and RSM have been used in various leadership studies. We then review the levels-of-analysis and rater model assumptions prevalent in PRA in terms of multilevel techniques, choice of centering options, and issues of endogeneity. Finally, to better understand the inconsistencies and variabilities that exist in leadership research, we review the use of two main RSM features and summarize additional statistical techniques for assessment in this realm. Overall, we aim to promote the rigorousness of this methodology within the study of congruence in leadership research by enhancing its capability in theory testing and building.     

'Management Standards' work-related stress in the UK: practical development

Research commissioned for the UK's Health & Safety Executive (HSE) supports the view that a preventative, risk-assessment based approach would be more effective than case-based methods in achieving a nationwide reduction in work-related stress. The background to this approach is described and discussed in a companion paper in this issue (Mackay, Cousins, Kelly, Lee, & McCaig, 2004). The present paper describes the development of HSE's new stress Management Standards—which offer organizations continuous improvement through a three-phase stress preventative process—and the development of a supporting 'Indicator Tool' (a two-phase questionnaire to assess employee perceptions of working conditions). The Management Standards comprise a series of 'states to be achieved', which are statements of good practice in six key stressor areas: demands, control, support, relationships, role and organizational change. For each stressor area there is also a 'platform statement' that outlines the main aims to be achieved by the organization. This statement may include a target percentage of employees finding that the organization meets the standard: this matter will be settled after the standards have been assessed in a public consultation campaign. To use the new process, an organization's state can first be assessed using the Indicator Tool; liaising with workers in focus groups enables a further exploration of issues raised; finally, there may be formulation of interventions and subsequent review. It is not intended that the standards will be legally enforceable. HSE's aim is that they and the associated methodology will enable organizations to effectively tackle work-related stress, and subsequently reduce both its incidence and prevalence.     

Ideal Values and Counter‐ideal Values as Two Distinct Forces: Exploring a Gap in Organizational Value Research

Motives and values at work have long been key topics of business and management studies. In a focused review of the literature on the nature of human values, this paper identifies a disconnect with the literature on human motivation, despite the otherwise inherent relatedness of the two fields. Specifically, extant theory and research have conceptualized values generally in terms of ideals, namely desired end‐states that individuals strive to approach. Although values, by this definition, express motivational concerns, theories of human motivation suggest that there are two forces to consider, i.e. approach and avoidance motivation. By applying this ‘two forces’ perspective to value research, this paper identifies a gap in the literature on values: namely, the idea that individuals are also influenced by counter‐ideal values, i.e. end‐states that they deliberately seek to avoid. The identification of this gap opens up new opportunities for value research in general and organizational value research in particular. To pave the way for future research, this paper critically discusses the few studies that have taken first steps in that direction and outlines research questions that may follow for issues such as employer branding and person–organization fit. This paper closes by providing suggestions on how to tackle the issue in organizational practice.     

ORGANIZATIONAL PERCEPTION MANAGEMENT

The phenomena of organizational perception management is hardly new. The efforts of organizational spokespersons to protect and manage positive images, identities, or reputations of their organizations can be found in historical accounts of the Roman Catholic Church, and the universities of ancient Greece. The same perception management problems that plagued these early organizations (e.g. threats of illegitimacy due to changes in social norms; face-saving following scandals or accidents), continue to confront organizations today. During the past thirty years, these types of issues have been studied by organizational scholars in attempts to understand how perception management tactics affect the views and support critical audiences’ (i.e. those audiences on which the organization depends for support). This paper provides an overview of this research and a framework defining the primary components of organizational perception management. This framework distinguishes organizational perception management from individual perception management in terms of its practical implementation and strategic nature.     

Organisationale Einflussfaktoren des Allianzerfolgs – Eine empirische Analyse auf Basis des „resource-based view“

Strategic alliances have become an essential part of business strategy and a central source of competitive advantage for almost any firm. Existing research has mainly focused on the isolated analysis of single alliances. This paper addresses the gap in the literature by analyzing organizational-level determinants of alliances success. Based on survey data from 302 firms, four organizational success factors of alliance management are identified and integrated in a structural model.