Work orientations, well-being and job content of self-employed and employed professionals

Drawing on psychology-derived theories and methods, a questionnaire survey compared principal kinds of work orientation, job content and mental well-being between self-employed and organisationally employed professional workers. Self-employment was found to be particularly associated with energised well-being in the form of job engagement. The presence in self-employment of greater challenge, such as an enhanced requirement for personal innovation, accounted statistically for self-employed professionals’ greater job engagement, and self-employed professionals more strongly valued personal challenge than did professionals employed in an organisation. However, no between-role differences occurred in respect of supportive job features such as having a comfortable workplace. Differences in well-being, job content and work orientations were found primarily in comparison between self-employees and organisational non-managers. The study emphasises the need to distinguish conceptually and empirically between different forms of work orientation, job content and well-being, and points to the value of incorporating psychological thinking in some sociological research

Job satisfaction trends during nurses' early career

BackgroundJob satisfaction is an important component of nurses' lives that can impact on patient safety, productivity and performance, quality of care, retention and turnover, commitment to the organisation and the profession. Little is known about job satisfaction in early career and how it varies for different groups of nurses. This paper investigates how the components of job satisfaction vary during early career in newly qualified UK nurses.MethodsNurses were sampled using a combined census and multi-stage approach (n = 3962). Data were collected by questionnaire at 6 months, 18 months and 3 years after qualification between 1998 and 2001. Scores were calculated for seven job satisfaction components and a single item that measured satisfaction with pay. Scores were compared longitudinally and between nursing speciality (general, children's, mental health) using a mixed model approach.ResultsNo single pattern across time emerged. Trends varied by branch and job satisfaction component. Rank order of job satisfaction components, from high to low scores, was very similar for adult and child branch nurses and different for mental health. Nurses were least satisfied with pay and most satisfied with relationships at 6 and 18 months and with resources (adult and child) and relationships (mental health) at 3 years. Trends were typically upwards for adult branch nurses, varied for children's nurses and downwards for mental health nurses.ConclusionThe impact of time on job satisfaction in early career is highly dependent on specialism. Different contexts, settings and organisational settings lead to varying experiences. Future research should focus on understanding the relationships between job characteristics and the components of job satisfaction rather than job satisfaction as a unitary construct. Research that further investigates the benefits of a formal one year preceptorship or probationary period is needed.<br/

Cryptic female choice in crickets and relatives (Orthoptera: Ensifera)

In his pioneering work on cryptic female choice , Eberhard identified a wide range of mechanisms that potentially allow multiply-mated females to bias paternity in favour of certain types of male following the start of copulation. The aim of this chapter is to review critically the empirical evidence for a range of these mechanisms of cryptic female choice in crickets and relatives (Orthoptera : Ensifera ), while taking into account coevolutionary interactions between the sexes. There is compelling evidence that female crickets control the duration of spermatophore attachment and/or the uptake of sperm to the sperm storage organ to bias paternity in favour of males expressing a variety of favourable traits, or in favour of non-kin males. There is also some evidence that females can bias paternity to favour males with certain traits by choosing to remain with them for repeated mating. For other potential mechanisms of cryptic female choice, such as differential allocation of resources to the production of eggs, there is currently insufficient evidence to distinguish male-induced effects from cryptic female choice (if, indeed, such a distinction can be made). The evidence that mechanisms of cryptic female choice have resulted in coevolutionary adaptations in males is strong: males have evolved a wide range of behaviours to facilitate ejaculate transfer by deterring the female from removing the ampulla of the spermatophore prematurely, for example. How such adaptations affect the form and intensity of cryptic female choice and whether or not they result in ongoing sexually antagonistic coevolution deserve further investigation