Regulatory job stressors and their within-person relationships with ego depletion: The roles of state anxiety, self-control effort, and job autonomy

AbstractOur research aimed at disentangling the underlying processes of the adverse relationship between regulatory job stressors and ego depletion. Specifically, we analyzed whether state anxiety and self-control effort would mediate the within-person relationships of time pressure, planning and decision-making, and emotional dissonance with ego depletion. In addition, we also tested potential attenuating effects of situational job autonomy on the adverse effects of regulatory job stressors on state anxiety, self-control effort, and ego depletion. Based on an experience sampling design, we gathered a sample of 97 eldercare workers who provided data on 721 experience-sampling occasions. Multilevel moderated serial mediation analyses revealed that time pressure and emotional dissonance, but not planning and decision-making, exerted significant serial indirect effects on ego depletion via state anxiety and self-control effort. Finally, we found conditional serial indirect effects of all three regulatory job stressors on ego depletion as a function of job autonomy. Theoretical implications for scholarly understanding of coping with regulatory job stressors are discussed

How Work Intensification Relates to Organization-Level Safety Performance: The Mediating Roles of Safety Climate, Safety Motivation, and Safety Knowledge

Recent changes in the world of work have led to increased job demands with subsequent effects on occupational safety. Although work intensification has been linked to detrimental safety behavior and more accidents, there is so far no sufficient explanation for this relationship. This paper investigates the mediating roles of safety climate, safety motivation, and safety knowledge in the relationships of work intensification with components of safety performance at an organizational level. Safety engineers and managers from 122 Austrian high-accident companies participated in a cross-sectional survey. In line with our hypotheses, work intensification negatively related to both components of safety performance: safety compliance and safety participation. The results of a serial multiple mediation analysis further revealed safety climate and safety motivation to be serial mediators of the relationship between work intensification and safety performance. Unexpectedly, safety knowledge and safety climate only serially mediated the relationship between work intensification and safety compliance, but not the relationship between work intensification and safety participation. This study provides evidence for the detrimental effect of work intensification on safety performance across organizations. Additionally, this study offers an explanation as to how work intensification affects safety performance, enabling practitioners to protect their occupational safety procedures and policies from work intensification

Corporate Governance for Sustainability

The current model of corporate governance needs reform. There is mounting evidence that the practices of shareholder primacy drive company directors and executives to adopt the same short time horizon as financial markets. Pressure to meet the demands of the financial markets drives stock buybacks, excessive dividends and a failure to invest in productive capabilities. The result is a ‘tragedy of the horizon’, with corporations and their shareholders failing to consider environmental, social or even their own, long-term, economic sustainability. With less than a decade left to address the threat of climate change, and with consensus emerging that businesses need to be held accountable for their contribution, it is time to act and reform corporate governance in the EU. The statement puts forward specific recommendations to clarify the obligations of company boards and directors and make corporate governance practice significantly more sustainable and focused on the long term

Impact of COVID-19 on cardiovascular testing in the United States versus the rest of the world

Objectives: This study sought to quantify and compare the decline in volumes of cardiovascular procedures between the United States and non-US institutions during the early phase of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the care of many non-COVID-19 illnesses. Reductions in diagnostic cardiovascular testing around the world have led to concerns over the implications of reduced testing for cardiovascular disease (CVD) morbidity and mortality. Methods: Data were submitted to the INCAPS-COVID (International Atomic Energy Agency Non-Invasive Cardiology Protocols Study of COVID-19), a multinational registry comprising 909 institutions in 108 countries (including 155 facilities in 40 U.S. states), assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on volumes of diagnostic cardiovascular procedures. Data were obtained for April 2020 and compared with volumes of baseline procedures from March 2019. We compared laboratory characteristics, practices, and procedure volumes between U.S. and non-U.S. facilities and between U.S. geographic regions and identified factors associated with volume reduction in the United States. Results: Reductions in the volumes of procedures in the United States were similar to those in non-U.S. facilities (68% vs. 63%, respectively; p = 0.237), although U.S. facilities reported greater reductions in invasive coronary angiography (69% vs. 53%, respectively; p < 0.001). Significantly more U.S. facilities reported increased use of telehealth and patient screening measures than non-U.S. facilities, such as temperature checks, symptom screenings, and COVID-19 testing. Reductions in volumes of procedures differed between U.S. regions, with larger declines observed in the Northeast (76%) and Midwest (74%) than in the South (62%) and West (44%). Prevalence of COVID-19, staff redeployments, outpatient centers, and urban centers were associated with greater reductions in volume in U.S. facilities in a multivariable analysis. Conclusions: We observed marked reductions in U.S. cardiovascular testing in the early phase of the pandemic and significant variability between U.S. regions. The association between reductions of volumes and COVID-19 prevalence in the United States highlighted the need for proactive efforts to maintain access to cardiovascular testing in areas most affected by outbreaks of COVID-19 infection

The Effects of a Changing World of Work on Daily Working Life

This book chapter explores how changes in work environments due to societal, economic, and technological change may affect day-level within-person processes of action regulation , cognitive appraisal , and motivation . First, short overviews of action regulation theory (e.g., Frese and Zapf 1994), cognitive appraisal theories (e.g., Lazarus and Folkman 1984), and self-determination theory (Ryan and Deci 2000) are given and results of empirical diary studies based on these theories are discussed. On the basis of these theories, a framework model is presented that integrates action regulation processes , cognitive appraisal processes , and motivation processes in daily working life by focusing on their effects on self-control effort and learning at work . Next, possible effects of changing work environments on day-level within-person processes are discussed on the basis of this framework model. It is argued that although some changes in work environments may have mainly adverse effects (e.g., work intensification ), many changes hold the potential for both adverse and beneficial effects (e.g., flexible working ). Based on the assumed potentially ambivalent consequences of changes in working conditions , implications for organizations and practitioners are discussed.(VLID)479215

Benefits of self-compassion for health, motivation, and performance in the work context.

The paper extends current research on “state-like” personal resources at work by exploring the mindfulness-related construct of self-compassion in an organizational context. The benefits of state and trait self-compassion on employee daily exhaustion, work engagement, and performance are explored, as well as the interaction effects with daily job demands (time pressure, social stressors), and job resources (job control and social support). Findings demonstrate the potential of self-compassion to help improving daily health, work engagement, and work performance when confronting daily job stressors and lack of job resources, and to boosts the positive effects of job control on daily work engagement. Taken together, findings suggest that self-compassion may have protective effects on employee health, motivation, and performance in daily working life. Interventions may, therefore, present an opportunity to intervene before serious health and performance consequences arise and that a combination of individual-level with organizational interventions (e.g., improvement of job control and job resources) may be the most effective

How do safety engineers improve their job performance? The roles of influence tactics, expert power, and management support

PurposeNon-technical skills are of increasing importance for safety engineers to perform their job. In theirposition as expert consultants, they work closely with managers. Thus, gaining management support isoftentimes crucial for safety engineers to successfully improve occupational health and safety. Drawing onorganizational support theory (OST), this study investigates how safety engineersnon-technical skills incommunication and persuasion (i.e. rational and hard influence tactics) are related with their managementsupport, and how management support is related with their individual task proficiency (ITP). The purpose ofthis paper is to examine the moderating role of safety engineersexpert power in this context.Design/methodology/approachUsing an online questionnaire, survey data were collected from 251 safetyengineers working in Austria.FindingsRational influence tactics are positively related to ITP via management support, whereas hardinfluence tactics are not. Safety engineersexpert power moderates the relationship between influencetactics and management support and, consequently ITP. High (vs low) expert status strengthens thepositive relationship of rational influence tactics on ITP via management support. For hard influencetactics, high (vs low) expert power buffered the negative relationship of upward appeal and pressure on ITPvia management support.Practical implicationsSafety engineers should rely on rational persuasion when cooperating withmanagement to obtain support and improve their own performance.Originality/valueThis study connects the effect of influence tactics in the context of safety engineerswork performance with OST. It demonstrates that safety engineersinfluence tactics are related to work roleperformance through management support and that these relationships are moderated by expert power.(VLID)465130

Vicious circles of procrastination? How workplace procrastination is related from one day to the next.

Purpose: The goal of the present paper is to investigate potential vicious circles of workplace procrastination. Previous research indicates that unfinished tasks have a detrimental effect on sleep quality and that sleep is related to procrastination. Thus, we assume that procrastination on a given workday might result in more unfinished tasks, impaired sleep quality, and subsequently higher risks for further procrastination on the following workday. Additionally, indirect effects via reduced self-efficacy and increased time pressure were tested as well. Design/Methodology: To investigate within-person processes, we conducted a two-week diary study with three measurement occasions per workday. Overall, a total of 549 day-level data sets from 89participants were analysed in multilevel analyses. Results: Contrary to our assumption, procrastination on a given workday was not directly related to procrastination on the following workday, neither were unfinished tasks related to sleep quality. However, as expected, procrastination predicted unfinished tasks, and sleep quality and time pressure (but not self-efficacy) predicted procrastination. Results further revealed a serial indirect effect: More procrastination on a given workday was significantly related to more procrastination on the following workday via more unfinished tasks and subsequently increased time pressure on the next workday. Limitations: Variance decomposition (similar to person-mean centering) affects the interpretation of the results.Research/Practical ImplicationsFuture research should investigate how the vicious circle of procrastination via more unfinished tasks and increased time pressure on the next workday can be interrupted. Originality/Value: Using a diary study design enabled us to investigate potential vicious circles of workplace procrastination