A Participatory Interior Design Approach for a Restorative Work Environment: A Research-Intervention

Exposure to environmental stressors has physical and psychological consequences. A demanding physical environment involves the allocation of additional attentional resources and an increase in psycho-physical stress. This study illustrates the process of a research-intervention aimed at designing a workplace, using a participatory design approach, and considering the beneficial effect of restorative environments in reducing stressful elements and improving well-being at work. Stressful situations occur daily, compromising proper functioning while causing the occurrence of physiological and/or psychological disorders. To be able to safeguard their psycho-physical well-being, people normally adopt coping strategies, i.e., remedies that allow them to cope and manage situations that generate stress. One of these strategies is the exposure to natural environments, which promotes recovery and sustains psycho-physical well-being. The restorative properties of natural environments have been scientifically proven. However, even built spaces can be thought of as restorative environments, in particular when certain conditions are granted. An applied science, known as biophilic design, provides useful indications from this perspective. This project involved 57 employees of the Italian site of an international non-governmental organization, in the transition from a site no longer adequate to a new site requiring renovation. In a first phase, a survey was conducted, to verify the perceived quality of the current workplace and to detect the unmet workers’ needs, and to assess some other important psychological constructs connected with perception of restorativeness and well-being. In a second phase, the findings emerged from the survey was analyzed in depth through a participatory interior design process, together with an interdisciplinary team of architects, technicians of the organization and environmental psychology researchers. The team, together with some representatives of employees, worked together through possible scenarios, adopting a biophilic design approach, to design the new workplace. At the end, the same survey of the first phase was conducted, to detect differences in perceived quality in the new workplace compared to the previous one

The role of felt accountability and culture in the relationships between creative behavior and its antecedents

In questi periodi di rapido mutamento delle organizzazioni e dei mercati sono necessari processi di cambiamento e innovazione di successo, in grado di garantire la sopravvivenza, l'efficacia e la competitivit\ue0 dell'organizzazione. In questo scenario questa ricerca parte dalla Self-determination theory per analizzare il ruolo dell'accountability e della cultura sulle relazioni tra Creative Behavior e i suoi antecedenti: Psychological Capital, Perceived Organizational Support for Creativity e il Psychological Empowerment.In today\u2019s rapidly changing business environment, ongoing and successful change and innovation are necessary for organizational survival, effectiveness, and competitive advantage. In this kind of scenario our research start from Self-determination Theory for analyze the role of Felt Accountability and culture on the relationships between Creative Behavior and some of its antecedents: Psychological Capital, Perceived Organizational Support for Creativity, and Psychological Empowerment

Space systems resilience optimisation under epistemic uncertainty

This paper introduces the concept of Resilience Engineering in the context of space systems design and a model of Global System Reliability and Robustness that accounts for epistemic uncertainty and imprecision. In particular, Dempster-Shafer Theory of evidence is used to model uncertainty in both system and environmental parameters. A resilience model is developed to account for the transition from functional to degraded states, and back, during the operational life and the dependency of these transitions on system level design choices and uncertainties. The resilience model is embedded in a network representation of a complex space system. This network representation, called Evidence Network Model (ENM), allows for a fast quantification of the global robustness and reliability of system. A computational optimisation algorithm is then proposed to derive design solutions that provide an optimal compromise between resilience and performance. The result is a set of design solutions that maximise the probability of a system to recover functionalities in the case of a complete or partial failure and at the same time maximises the belief in the desired target value of the performance index

Environmental Psychology and Participatory Interior Design: a case study

The aim of the present research is the design of a workplace with an approach that reduces stressful elements and improves the restorative qualities of the environment itself through a participatory approach. The concept of restorative environment is linked to the notion of environmental stress. Stressful situations affect people working life, compromising proper functioning while causing the occurrence of physiological and/or psychological disorders. To be able to safeguard their psycho-physical wellbeing, employees learn coping strategies to face stress. One of these strategies is the exposure to natural environments which promotes recovery and sustains psycho-physical wellbeing. The restorative properties of natural environments have been proven scientifically. However, even built spaces can be thought of as restorative environments, in particular following the indications of an applied science known as biophilic design. This project, which is still ongoing, involved Amnesty International Italy employees (57 people) in the transition from a site no longer adequate for the needs of the organization to a new site to be renovated. In a first phase, a survey was conducted to assess the perceived quality of the current working environment to detect the unmet needs of the people who work there. What emerged from the survey was subsequently deepened through three focus groups. Afterwards a participatory interior design process started, including volunteers among the employees, architect and internal technicians supported by the researchers of the University of Verona. The team worked together through possible scenarios adopting biophilic design, designing the workplace for the new Amnesty International headquarters

The Influence of Job Insecurity on Task and Contextual Performance: The Mediational Role of Overall Job Attitude

Job insecurity, that is the perceived threat of losing the current job, has become an increasing concern for organizations in the last decade mainly due to uncertain economic conditions and global competition. In this study, we intend to examine in particular the mechanisms through which job insecurity affects work performance, a criterion of central interest to management scholars. Drawing on the compatibility principle in attitude theory, we proposed that overall job attitude (job satisfaction and affective commitment) predicts behavioural criteria in response to job insecurity. In particular, relying on social exchange theory and rational choice theory two predictions were compared: job insecurity can be an harmful stressor with negative strain reactions (behavioural withdrawal, low performance) or a challenge stressor that motivates employees to engage actively in actions coping with the threat (higher performance). A sample of 570 Italian employees were used to test the hypotheses derived from our framework. Results from structural equations provided support for the social exchange model, showing the negative influence of job insecurity (as hindrance stressor) on task and contextual performance, i.e., in-role and extra-role behaviours

Un’esplorazione del modello Job Demands-Resources nel settore non-profit italiano: i primi passi del percorso di validazione

Introduzione. La letteratura sul modello Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) è vastissima e copre moltissimi settori imprenditoriali. Nonostante ciò, gli studi che hanno provato a testare questo modello nel settore non-profit risultano pochissimi ed ancora meno in contesto italiano. Obiettivi. Il presente poster si propone di investigare le proprietà psicometriche delle scale create per l’ambito profit e adattate in questo lavoro per lo studio del modello JD-R nel settore non-profit italiano. In particolare tra le domande sono stati studiati costrutti quali ad esempio le domande cognitive ed emotive, technostress, conflitto lavoro-vita privata; tra le risorse l’autonomia, il significato del lavoro, i valori organizzativi, il supporto dei colleghi e del supervisore; come mediatori e variabili di esito la motivazione ed il job crafting, il turn over, l’esaurimento emotivo, il work engagement, la soddisfazione e la performance. Metodo. Abbiamo raccolto dati da survey su un campione di 742 impiegati in 13 organizzazioni no-profit in Italia. Il 67% dei partecipanti era di sesso femminile e il 41% lavorava per la propria organizzazione da meno di 5 anni. Risultati. Il modello di misurazione dei costrutti esaminati dimostra un buon adattamento ai dati (predittori: 2 (1758) = 3398, CFI = .92, RMSEA = .04; mediatori e outcomes: 2 (934) = 2734, CFI = .90, RMSEA = .08) e buone caratteristiche psicometriche, risultando anche invariante rispetto ad alcune variabili socio demografiche come il sesso. Limiti. I nostri risultati vanno interpretati alla luce di alcune limitazioni. I dati sono stati raccolti in uno studio cross-sectional, e i nostri risultati potrebbero non essere generalizzabili ad altre realtà no-profit. Aspetti innovativi. Il presente studio sembra rappresentare il primo tentativo, almeno in contesto italiano di taratura di strumenti di misura per l’analisi del modello JD-R nel settore non-profit ed in particolare in contesto italiano

"Delirium Day": A nationwide point prevalence study of delirium in older hospitalized patients using an easy standardized diagnostic tool

Background: To date, delirium prevalence in adult acute hospital populations has been estimated generally from pooled findings of single-center studies and/or among specific patient populations. Furthermore, the number of participants in these studies has not exceeded a few hundred. To overcome these limitations, we have determined, in a multicenter study, the prevalence of delirium over a single day among a large population of patients admitted to acute and rehabilitation hospital wards in Italy. Methods: This is a point prevalence study (called "Delirium Day") including 1867 older patients (aged 65 years or more) across 108 acute and 12 rehabilitation wards in Italian hospitals. Delirium was assessed on the same day in all patients using the 4AT, a validated and briefly administered tool which does not require training. We also collected data regarding motoric subtypes of delirium, functional and nutritional status, dementia, comorbidity, medications, feeding tubes, peripheral venous and urinary catheters, and physical restraints. Results: The mean sample age was 82.0 ± 7.5 years (58 % female). Overall, 429 patients (22.9 %) had delirium. Hypoactive was the commonest subtype (132/344 patients, 38.5 %), followed by mixed, hyperactive, and nonmotoric delirium. The prevalence was highest in Neurology (28.5 %) and Geriatrics (24.7 %), lowest in Rehabilitation (14.0 %), and intermediate in Orthopedic (20.6 %) and Internal Medicine wards (21.4 %). In a multivariable logistic regression, age (odds ratio [OR] 1.03, 95 % confidence interval [CI] 1.01-1.05), Activities of Daily Living dependence (OR 1.19, 95 % CI 1.12-1.27), dementia (OR 3.25, 95 % CI 2.41-4.38), malnutrition (OR 2.01, 95 % CI 1.29-3.14), and use of antipsychotics (OR 2.03, 95 % CI 1.45-2.82), feeding tubes (OR 2.51, 95 % CI 1.11-5.66), peripheral venous catheters (OR 1.41, 95 % CI 1.06-1.87), urinary catheters (OR 1.73, 95 % CI 1.30-2.29), and physical restraints (OR 1.84, 95 % CI 1.40-2.40) were associated with delirium. Admission to Neurology wards was also associated with delirium (OR 2.00, 95 % CI 1.29-3.14), while admission to other settings was not. Conclusions: Delirium occurred in more than one out of five patients in acute and rehabilitation hospital wards. Prevalence was highest in Neurology and lowest in Rehabilitation divisions. The "Delirium Day" project might become a useful method to assess delirium across hospital settings and a benchmarking platform for future surveys