Faculty Publications 2018-2019

The production of scholarly research continues to be one of the primary missions of the ILR School. During a typical academic year, ILR faculty members published or had accepted for publication over 25 books, edited volumes, and monographs, 170 articles and chapters in edited volumes, numerous book reviews. In addition, a large number of manuscripts were submitted for publication, presented at professional association meetings, or circulated in working paper form. Our faculty\u27s research continues to find its way into the very best industrial relations, social science and statistics journal

Testing the Nursing Worklife Model in Canada and Australia: A multi-group comparison study

© 2014 Elsevier Ltd. Study aim: To test a model derived from the Nursing Worklife Model linking elements of supportive practice environments to nurses' turnover intentions and behaviours in Canada and Australia. Background: With the worldwide shortage of nurses, retaining nurses within fiscally challenged health care systems is critical to sustaining the future of the nursing workforce and ultimately safe patient care. The Nursing Worklife Model describes a pattern of relationships amongst environmental factors that support nursing practice and link to nurse turnover. This model has been tested in north American settings but not in other countries. Methods: A secondary analysis of data collected in two cross-sectional studies in Canadian and Australian hospitals ( N= 4816) was conducted to test our theoretical model. Multigroup structural equation modelling techniques were used to determine the validity of our model in both countries and to identify differences between countries. Results: The hypothesized model relationships were supported in both countries with few differences between groups. Components of supportive professional practice work environments, particularly resources, were significantly linked to nurses' turnover intentions and active search for new jobs. Leadership played a critical role in shaping the pattern of relationships to other components of supportive practice environments and ultimately turnover behaviours. Conclusion: The Nursing Worklife Model was shown to be valid in both countries, suggesting that management efforts to ensure that features of supportive practice environments are in place to promote the retention of valuable nursing resources

Killer Apps: Developing Novel Applications That Enhance Team Coordination, Communication, and Effectiveness

As part of the Lorentz workshop, “Interdisciplinary Insights into Group and Team Dynamics,” held in Leiden, Netherlands, this article describes how Geeks and Groupies (computer and social scientists) may benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration toward the development of killer apps in team contexts that are meaningful and challenging for both. First, we discuss interaction processes during team meetings as a research topic for both Groupies and Geeks. Second, we highlight teamwork in health care settings as an interdisciplinary research challenge. Third, we discuss how an automated solution for optimal team design could benefit team effectiveness and feed into team-based interventions. Fourth, we discuss team collaboration in massive open online courses as a challenge for both Geeks and Groupies. We argue for the necessary integration of social and computational research insights and approaches. In the hope of inspiring future interdisciplinary collaborations, we develop criteria for evaluating killer apps—including the four proposed here—and discuss future research challenges and opportunities that potentially derive from these developments

Biomechanics

Biomechanics is a vast discipline within the field of Biomedical Engineering. It explores the underlying mechanics of how biological and physiological systems move. It encompasses important clinical applications to address questions related to medicine using engineering mechanics principles. Biomechanics includes interdisciplinary concepts from engineers, physicians, therapists, biologists, physicists, and mathematicians. Through their collaborative efforts, biomechanics research is ever changing and expanding, explaining new mechanisms and principles for dynamic human systems. Biomechanics is used to describe how the human body moves, walks, and breathes, in addition to how it responds to injury and rehabilitation. Advanced biomechanical modeling methods, such as inverse dynamics, finite element analysis, and musculoskeletal modeling are used to simulate and investigate human situations in regard to movement and injury. Biomechanical technologies are progressing to answer contemporary medical questions. The future of biomechanics is dependent on interdisciplinary research efforts and the education of tomorrow’s scientists

Leadership styles and safety behaviours with safety climate as a mediator among oil and gas workers

Existing submissions from industry practitioners and researchers suggest a high rate of occupational accidents, injuries and fatalities occasioned by poor safety and health management systems, and attendant safety-related behaviours in the Nigerian oil and gas industry. In an attempt to improve employees’ safety behaviours, this study investigated the relationship between leadership styles, safety climate and safety behaviours in the Nigerian O & G industry. Specifically, this study examines the influence of authentic leadership, inclusive leadership, safety climate on components of safety behaviours namely, safety compliance, safety participation and risky behaviour. Via a cross-sectional design and quantitative approach, the study was conducted among 319 systematically selected O & G workers in Rivers State, Nigeria. The PLS-SEM tool (SmartPLS 3.0) was used in analyzing the data collected from the respondents. The findings of the study indicated that the direct relationships between authentic and inclusive leadership styles with safety climate were positively significant. Also, the study found direct significantly positive relationships between safety climate and safety compliance and safety participation. However, the relationship between safety climate and risky behaviour was negative. Similarly, safety climate mediated the relationship between the authentic and inclusive leadership styles with safety compliance and safety participation, but not with risky behaviour. Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the authentic leadership and inclusive leadership styles are critical to positively shaping the safety climate perceptions of O & G workers. Positively shaped safety climate perceptions should in-turn determine the positive safety behaviours of the workers. Consequently, theoretical and practical implications, in addition to recommendations for future research are holistically discussed

The relationship between transformational leadership, high performance work system, organizational climate, and patient safety in Saudi public hospitals

This study examined the determinants of patient safety in public hospitals in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, it aimed to investigate the effect of transformational leadership, high performance work system (HPWS), and effective reporting system on patient safety. This study also explored the mediating effect of organizational climate on the relationship between HPWS and patient safety. The motivation of this study was driven by lack of studies and inconsistent findings in the previous literature regarding the relationship between HPWS and patient safety. To achieve this purpose, this study integrated different theories such as Donabedian theory (SPO), HROT theory, and transformational leadership theory to study the interaction between process and outcomes. The study utilized a survey questionnaire which was distributed to a sample of 182 public hospitals at 20 health regions in Saudi Arabia. PLS-SEM technique was used to analyze the direct and indirect relationships between the variables in this study. Result of this study found that transformational leadership had positively significant effect on HPWS and effective reporting system. In addition, the result found that effective reporting system had significant effect on the frequency of occurrence of negative errors that may threaten patient safety. This study also revealed that the level of organizational climate mediated the relationship between HPWS and overall perception of patient safety. The findings of this study suggest that managers and policy makers should emphasize developing transformational leadership style and ensuring the use of HPWS as an important organizational strategy to improve patient safety. Finally, theoretical implications and recommendations for future research are highlighted and discussed