The dimensionality of self-rated employee performance : an integrated view

This study addresses the debate in the literature regarding the dimensionality of the job performance construct. The sample comprised 647 public servants from a state-based law enforcement organisation. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses delineate a four:factor structure, consisting of in-role behaviour, organisational citizenship behaviour directed towards (1) individuals or (2) the organisation, and a distinct latent variable deemed counter-productive work behaviour (CWB). The pattern of correlations among the four performance dimensions and between the performance dimensions and attitudes support the construct and discriminant validity of the four performance dimensions. Further, the .findings propose that CWB is a core, not discretionary, dimension of performance.<br /

Promoting health at work : the relevance of organizational justice

Research focusing on the relationship between organizational justice and health suggests that perceptions of fairness can make significant contributions to employee wellbeing. However studies examining the justice health relationship are only just emerging and there are several areas where further research is required, in particular, the uniqueness of the contributions made by justice and the extent to which the health effects can be explained by linear, non-linear and/or interactional models. The primary aim of the current study was to determine the main, curvilinear and interactive effects of job characteristics and organizational justice perceptions on psychological wellbeing and job satisfaction. Job characteristics were measured using the Demand-Control Support (DCS) model (Karasek &amp; Theorell, 1990), while Colquitt\u27s (2001) four justice dimensions (distributive, procedural, interpersonal and informational) were used to assess organizational justice. Hierarchical regression analyses found that in relation to psychological wellbeing, perceptions of justice did not add to the explanatory power of the DCS model. In contrast, organizational justice did account for unique variance in job satisfaction, the second measure of employee wellbeing. The results supported direct linear relationships between the psychosocial working conditions and the outcome measures. The implications of the results of this study, especially in terms of how working conditions should be managed in order to promote health, are discussed. Notably, the findings from the current study indicate that in addition to traditional job stressors, health promotion strategies should focus on perceptions of organizational justice and their relationships with health.<br /

Pacific Southwest United States Holocene Droughts and Pluvials Inferred From Sediment δ18O (calcite) and Grain Size Data (Lake Elsinore, California)

Records of past climate can inform us on the natural range and mechanisms of climate change. In the arid Pacific southwestern United States (PSW), which includes southern California, there exist a variety of Holocene records that can be used to infer past winter conditions (moisture and/or temperature). Holocene records of summer climate, however, are rare from the PSW. In the future, climate changes due to anthropogenic forcing are expected to increase the severity of drought in the already water stressed PSW. Hot droughts are of considerable concern as summer temperatures rise. As a result, understanding how summer conditions changed in the past is critical to understanding future predictions under varied climate forcings. Here, we present a c. 10.9 kcal BP δ18O(calcite) record from Lake Elsinore, California, interpreted to reflect δ18O(lake water) values as controlled by over-water evaporation from summer-to-early fall. Our results reveal three millennial scale intervals: (1) the highly evaporative Early Holocene (10.55–6.65 kcal BP), (2) the less evaporative Mid-Holocene (6.65–2.65 kcal BP); and (3) the evaporative Late Holocene (2.65–0.55 kcal BP). These results are coupled with an inferred winter precipitation runoff (sand content) record from Kirby et al. (2010). Using these data together, we estimate the duration and severity of centennial-scale Holocene droughts and pluvials (e.g., high δ18O(calcite) values plus low sand content = drought and vice versa). Furthermore, the coupled δ18O(calcite) and sand data provide a generalized Holocene lake level history. The most severe, long-lasting droughts (i.e., maximum summer-to-early fall evaporation and minimum winter precipitation runoff) occur in the Early Holocene. Fewer, less severe, and shorter duration droughts occurred during the Mid-Holocene as pluvials became more common. Droughts return with less severity and duration in the Late Holocene. Notably, the Little Ice Age is characterized as the wettest period during the Late Holocene

A step toward a common measure of organizational fairness

The paper examines dimensions of organizational justice construct in a public sector context, utilizing an organizational justice measure developed and validated by Colquitt (2001). The present study substantiates the existing claims about the independence of interactional justice and the division of interactional justice into interpersonal and informational justice. The present investigation also contributes to the justice literature by providing evidence of a new factor, which is called procedural voice justice to reflect the possible association with the concept of voice effect. Although voice has been examined extensively in the justice research as an antecedent of procedural justice, little is known about if and how voice might integrate into procedural justice construct. The study proposes that future justice research further investigate dimensionality of organisational justice and aspire to developing a common measure of the justice construct.<br /

Officer wellbeing, satisfaction and commitment : job conditions of Australian law enforcement personnel

Excessive job stress caused by unreasonably high employer demands, low control over one\u27s own work and limited support can have far-reaching effects for the individual, organisation and community. The present study sought to investigate the relationship between officer working conditions and their self-reported levels of wellbeing, satisfaction and commitment using a well-known job strss model, the demand-control-support (DCS) model. Using a large (N= 2085) sample of law enforcement personnel, findings indicated that social support from work sources was the best predictor, whilst job control and workload both had significant influences on levels of employee wellbeing, satisfaction and commitment. Additionally, non-linear relationships were found between workload and wellbeing and satisfaction, indicating that both high and low levels of workload can produce negative outcomes. The results have implications for job design and management training programs, particularly in reference to social support training and workload models.<br /

Current challenges of implementing anthropogenic land-use and land-cover change in models contributing to climate change assessments

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from European Geosciences Union (EGU) via the DOI in this record.Land-use and land-cover change (LULCC) represents one of the key drivers of global environmental change. However, the processes and drivers of anthropogenic land-use activity are still overly simplistically implemented in terrestrial biosphere models (TBMs). The published results of these models are used in major assessments of processes and impacts of global environmental change, such as the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Fully coupled models of climate, land use and biogeochemical cycles to explore land use-climate interactions across spatial scales are currently not available. Instead, information on land use is provided as exogenous data from the land-use change modules of integrated assessment models (IAMs) to TBMs. In this article, we discuss, based on literature review and illustrative analysis of empirical and modeled LULCC data, three major challenges of this current LULCC representation and their implications for land use-climate interaction studies: (I) provision of consistent, harmonized, land-use time series spanning from historical reconstructions to future projections while accounting for uncertainties associated with different land-use modeling approaches, (II) accounting for sub-grid processes and bidirectional changes (gross changes) across spatial scales, and (III) the allocation strategy of independent land-use data at the grid cell level in TBMs. We discuss the factors that hamper the development of improved land-use representation, which sufficiently accounts for uncertainties in the land-use modeling process. We propose that LULCC data-provider and user communities should engage in the joint development and evaluation of enhanced LULCC time series, which account for the diversity of LULCC modeling and increasingly include empirically based information about sub-grid processes and land-use transition trajectories, to improve the representation of land use in TBMs. Moreover, we suggest concentrating on the development of integrated modeling frameworks that may provide further understanding of possible land-climate-society feedbacks.The research in this paper has been supported by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme project LUC4C (Grant No. 603542), ERC grant GLOLAND (No. 311819) and BiodivERsA project TALE (No. 832.14.006) funded by the Dutch National Science Foundation (NWO). This research contributes to the Global Land Project (www.globallandproject.org). This is paper number 26 of the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research