Demographic differences in sport performers' experiences of organizational stressors

Organizational stressors are particularly prevalent across sport performers’ experiences and can influence their performance, health, and well-being. Research has been conducted to identify which organizational stressors are encountered by sport performers, but little is known about how these experiences vary from athlete to athlete. The purpose of this study was to examine if the frequency, intensity, and duration of the organizational stressors that sport performers encounter vary as a function of gender, sport type, and performance level. Participants (n = 1277) completed the Organizational Stressor Indicator for Sport Performers (OSI-SP; Arnold et al., 2013), and the resultant data were analyzed using multivariate analyses of covariance. The findings show that demographic differences are apparent in the dimensions of the goals and development, logistics and operations, team and culture, coaching, and selection organizational stressors that sport performers encounter. More specifically, significant differences were found between males and females, between team and individual-based performers, and between performers competing at national or international, regional or university, and county or club levels. These findings have important implications for theory and research on organizational stress, and for the development of stress management interventions with sport performers

Safety climate and increased risk: the role of deadlines in design work

Although much research indicates positive safety climate is associated with reduced safety risk, we argue this association is not universal and may even be reversed in some contexts. Specifically, we argue that positive safety climate can be associated with increased safety risk when there is pressure to prioritize production over safety and where workers have some detachment from the consequences of their actions, such as found in engineering design work. We used two indicators of safety risk: use of heuristics at the individual level and design complexity at the design team level. Using experience sampling data (N = 165, 42 design teams, k = 5752 observations), we found design engineers’ perceptions of team positive safety climate were associated with less use of heuristics when engineers were not working to deadlines, but more use of heuristics when engineers were working to deadlines. Independent ratings were obtained of 31 teams’ designs of offshore oil and gas platforms (N = 121). For teams that worked infrequently to deadlines, positive team safety climate was associated with less design complexity. For teams that worked frequently to deadlines, positive team safety climate was associated with more design complexity

Variability in the use of mobile ICTs by homeworkers and its consequences for boundary management and social isolation

We examine how the use of mobile information and communication technologies (ICTs) among self-employed homeworkers affects their experience of work, focusing particularly on where work is carried out, how the work/non-work boundary is managed, and people's experiences of social and professional isolation. Positively, their use enhanced people's sense of spatio-temporal freedom by allowing them to leave the home without compromising their work availability. This also helped reduce people's feelings of social isolation. More negatively, their use enhanced people's sense of 'perpetual contact', creating a sense that work was difficult to escape from. However, the extent to which mobile ICTs were used, and the extent to which their impact on people's experiences of work were understood, were found to vary significantly, highlighting the agency that users have with regard to technology use. The findings are framed by combining Nippert-Eng's boundary work theory, with an 'emergent process' perspective on socio-technical relations

Lost in transition: transition from design to construction: losses in knowledge and tools for their minimisation

This report presents the findings of a six month research project – ‘Lost in Transition’. The research was carried out by a multidisciplinary team at Loughborough University and was aimed at identifying knowledge management issues that can lead to loss of knowledge. Construction projects go through series of phases during which several activities are performed by multiple stakeholders. This requires information and knowledge supplementary to the competences of project teams. This involves knowledge management (KM) processes to adequately capture, document, store, share, use, refine and reuse the knowledge from one phase to another and from project to project. However, due to certain KM issues, knowledge is lost as the project progresses from phase to phase. Several factors contribute to this phenomenon thus the investigation of this research

An experience sampling study of organizational stress processes and future playing time in professional sport

This study examined the relationships between daily cognitive appraisals of organizational events, affective responses, and coping. In addition, a 5-year longitudinal relationship between coping and performance outcomes at the senior professional level was assessed. Using an experience sampling method, professional academy rugby union players (N = 39, Mage = 17.23 years, SD = 0.87) completed daily diary measures of appraisals, affective responses, and coping over 5 weeks of training. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that daily cognitive appraisals were related to daily affective responses and coping functions enacted by behaviours, after accounting for a series of within (e.g., time, day, week) and between-person (e.g., personality, key decision-makers) differences. Zero-inflated negative binomial regression revealed that coping related to eliciting support was associated with minutes played at the senior professional level five years later. This study extends theoretical knowledge of the within- and between-person relationships that explain organizational stress experiences. The findings suggest that some coping functions enacted by behaviours may be early indicators of future performance outcomes in professional sport

Uncertainty and Well-Being amongst Homeworkers in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study of University Staff

The COVID-19 pandemic heightened uncertainties in people’s lives—and was itself a source of fresh uncertainty. We report a study of homeworkers on whether such uncertainties, and particularly those related to their work environment, are associated with lower levels of well-being and whether this association is exacerbated by prior poor well-being. We focus on five uncertainties surrounding the pandemic and employment—the virus, the job quality, workload, logistics of work lives, and support from the employer. Our empirical tests show that uncertainties around the virus, employer support, and their job quality have the strongest negative associations with well-being. These are based on data collected over three time periods in the first year of the pandemic from a sample of university staff (academics and non-academics) and well-being is measured on two continua, anxiety–contentment and depression–enthusiasm. The effects of uncertainties around workload and logistics are less pronounced, but more apparent among employees with better (not poorer) past well-being, at various times of the recession. The study adds to our understanding of the pandemic and highlights the need to link uncertainty to mental health more than it has in the past.</p

The barriers and consequences of radical innovations: introduction to the issue

This article introduces the special issue on barriers and consequences of radical innovation (RI). Radical innovation, as distinct from more incremental forms of innovation, is increasingly important for organizations and national economies. However, firms face many challenges and barriers (both internal and external) which hinder their RI efforts, and result in significantly higher failure rates for RIs as compared with other forms of innovation. Individually and collectively, the twelve cross-disciplinary articles in this special issue provide a number of important contributions to the extant knowledge base. While most of the contributions focus on barriers, with a concomitant emphasis on enablers, some insights are also offered into the lesser examined area of consequences, particularly the unintended consequences of RI. The editorial concludes by summarizing key issues and presenting provocations for further research

The work-habits intervention model: A 12-month study to change work-email habits

We present a Work-habit Intervention Model (WhIM) to explain and predict how to change work-habits to be more effective. Habit change has primarily been researched within the health domain. The WhIM contributes a unique theoretical perspective by: (i) suggesting that work-habit change requires a two-stage process of exposure to regular rationalized plans and a stated intention to use these plans; and, (ii) defining effective work-habit change in terms of improvements to both goal attainment and well-being over time. Self-regulatory resources are included as potential moderators of habit change. This approach implies that work-habits (unlike health-habits) are seldom constitutionally ‘good’ or ‘bad’, which means that change requires a clear rationale in terms of improving goal attainment and well-being. The WhIM was evaluated in a 12-month wait-list intervention study designed to improve work-email habits for workers in a UK organization (N = 127 T1; N = 58 T3; N = 46 all data). Findings were that the two-stage process changed work-email habits for those with higher levels of self-efficacy, which predicted well-being in terms of reduced negative affect (via perceived goal attainment). We outline theoretical and practical implications and encourage future research to refine the WhIM across a range of other work contexts. Practitioner points: Workers need to regularly engage with rationalized plans of action and state their intention to use these, in order to change work-email habits. Organizations should consider training workers to enhance their self-efficacy prior to implementing a work-email habit change intervention. Providing regular feedback about the impact of work-email habit change on well-being and goal attainment is likely to make the change sustainable in the long-term

Satisfaction with one’s job and working at home in the Covid-19 pandemic: a two-wave study

As greater numbers of people have worked at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, workers, organisations and policy makers have begun considering the benefits of a sustained move towards homeworking, with workers' satisfaction with homeworking often cited as a key driver. But is satisfaction with homeworking that relevant to workers' overall job satisfaction? In this study, we examine whether job and homeworking satisfaction are predicted by different demands and resources, namely, those well established in the job design literature (workload, job autonomy and social support) for the former and those specific to the context of homeworking (loneliness, work–nonwork interference, work–nonwork interference and adequacy of homeworking environment) for the latter. We also explore whether homeworking satisfaction mediates the relationship between homeworking demands and resources and job satisfaction. Findings of a study of university workers during the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 753 in Phase 1, 471 in Phase 2) support our expectations about the domain-specific nature of the predictors of job and homeworking satisfaction, autonomy is positively related to job satisfaction, while loneliness, nonwork-to-work interference and inadequate homeworking environment are negatively related to homeworking satisfaction. Results also support the argument that satisfaction with homeworking mediates the relationship between homeworking factors and job satisfaction, reinforcing the value of differentiating the two concepts. </p