A qualitative meta-analysis of trust in supervisor-subordinate relationships

Purpose: – Interpersonal trust is often considered as the “glue” that binds supervisors together with their subordinates, and creates a positive organisational climate. The purpose of this paper is to investigate factors affecting subordinates’ trust to their supervisor, and the consequences of such a trusting relationship. Design/methodology/approach: – The authors conducted a qualitative meta-analysis of the trust literature between 1995 and 2011, to identify 73 articles and review 37 theoretical propositions, 139 significant model parameters and 58 further empirical findings. Findings: – Four distinct clusters of trust antecedents are found: supervisor attributes; subordinate attributes; interpersonal processes and organisational characteristics. Similarly, the authors identify three categories of trust consequences: subordinates’ work behaviour; subordinates’ attitude towards the supervisor; and organisational level effects. Research limitations/implications: – The authors find a bias towards studying supervisor attributes and interpersonal processes, yet a dearth of attention on subordinate attributes and organisational characteristics. Similarly, the conceptual attention on trust between supervisors and subordinates has been limited, with empirical work reporting predominantly significant findings. Social exchange has dominated as the theoretical perspective, and cross-section as the main research approach. In order to advance this important field more heterogeneity is needed, utilising a range of different theoretical schools and employing different methodologies. Originality/value: – This seems to be the first qualitative meta-analysis explicitly directed to understanding trust between supervisors and subordinates. The authors contribute to the field of trust by revealing current gaps in the literature and highlighting potential areas of future research

Violência psicológica no trabalho

VIII Congresso Iberoamericano de Avaliação/Evaluación psicológica - XV Conferência Internacional Avaliação Psicológica : formas e contextos, Lisboa, 2011De acordo com Organização Internacional do Trabalho (2004, in Graça, 2004), a violência no local do trabalho, a par do stress, álcool, tabaco, HIV/Sida, constitui um dos cinco riscos emergentes para a saúde e segurança dos trabalhadores em todo o mundo. No entanto, o conceito de violência no trabalho, em especial o de violência psicológica, tem sido associado a diferentes designações (ex., assédio moral, vitimização no trabalho, mobbing, bullying), nem sempre consensuais na sua operacionalização e respectiva avaliação (Hirigoyen, 2002; Araújo, 2010), com implicações relevantes, por exemplo, ao nível dos estudos de prevalência. Para além disso, existe um desconhecimento da forma como a violência psicológica se expressa em diferentes grupos profissionais, como é o caso particular dos assistentes sociais. Os assistentes sociais são um dos grupos profissionais que mais estão em risco no que se refere à violência psicológica. O presente trabalho, apresenta: i) uma reflexão conceptual e ii) um estudo, a decorrer junto de assistentes sociais em Portugal e Israel que tem o objectivo particular de caracterizar a prevalência e a distribuição de violência exercida neste grupo profissional em serviços municipais, e analisar factores organizacionais e individuais que conduzem à violência psicológica. Serão discutidas implicações para a avaliação do fenómeno da violência psicológica no trabalho

Attitudes of Israeli youth towards social activism: Between altruism and violence

The study examines attitudes of Israeli youth towards three types of social activism: Aggressive (violent and illegal) protest, conventional political participation, and altruistic orientation. Social activism is considered here to consist of a range of possible activities, from violent and illegal protest activities, to altruistic behavior. All have in common two features—caring about a social issue, and willingness to sacrifice (time, effort, money, or jail-time) in order to achieve the social-goal. Israeli politics have been characterized as “The Politics of Provocation” (Wolfsfeld, 1988). Unruly, violent and illegal protest has become a norm for the last two decades. The study is a secondary analysis of a “political socialization of adolescents” survey of Israeli adolescents carried in summer 1998. Comparing aggressive participation attitudes to other forms of activism has immense implications for social policy and the future of democracy. The theoretical questions dealt with the nature of social activism, the practical dealt with determinants of different forms of activism. The results indicate that social activism attitudes exist as a multidimensional construct rather than an unidimensional factor. Overall, gender effects, and the influence of socialization agents were found to be the most influential in affecting youth\u27s attitudes towards social activism, while personal beliefs about the political system, personal efficacy, and levels of engagement in social activism had rather a minor effect, contrary to expectation. Furthermore, embeddedness in a reference group for the most part had a moderating or reversing rather than intensifying effect, when interacting with the attitudes of significant others. All those findings indicate the need for further research into the crossroads of political and moral socialization, social activism, and personal and social development. Judged in the Israeli context, the current study indicates a process of shift in the Israeli moral/political culture. A sense of idealism, social responsibility and interest in social activism, that hopefully will survive the following years of exposure to the social and political systems as they are being handled today by previous, more cynical generations

Attitudes of Israeli youth towards social activism: Between altruism and violence

The study examines attitudes of Israeli youth towards three types of social activism: Aggressive (violent and illegal) protest, conventional political participation, and altruistic orientation. Social activism is considered here to consist of a range of possible activities, from violent and illegal protest activities, to altruistic behavior. All have in common two features—caring about a social issue, and willingness to sacrifice (time, effort, money, or jail-time) in order to achieve the social-goal. Israeli politics have been characterized as “The Politics of Provocation” (Wolfsfeld, 1988). Unruly, violent and illegal protest has become a norm for the last two decades. The study is a secondary analysis of a “political socialization of adolescents” survey of Israeli adolescents carried in summer 1998. Comparing aggressive participation attitudes to other forms of activism has immense implications for social policy and the future of democracy. The theoretical questions dealt with the nature of social activism, the practical dealt with determinants of different forms of activism. The results indicate that social activism attitudes exist as a multidimensional construct rather than an unidimensional factor. Overall, gender effects, and the influence of socialization agents were found to be the most influential in affecting youth\u27s attitudes towards social activism, while personal beliefs about the political system, personal efficacy, and levels of engagement in social activism had rather a minor effect, contrary to expectation. Furthermore, embeddedness in a reference group for the most part had a moderating or reversing rather than intensifying effect, when interacting with the attitudes of significant others. All those findings indicate the need for further research into the crossroads of political and moral socialization, social activism, and personal and social development. Judged in the Israeli context, the current study indicates a process of shift in the Israeli moral/political culture. A sense of idealism, social responsibility and interest in social activism, that hopefully will survive the following years of exposure to the social and political systems as they are being handled today by previous, more cynical generations

An Ecological Model for High-Risk Professional Decision-Making in Mental Health: International Perspectives

Mental health professionals are frequently presented with situations in which they must assess the risk that a client will cause harm to themselves or others. Troublingly, however, predictions of risk are remarkably inaccurate even when made by those who are highly skilled and highly trained. Consequently, many jurisdictions have moved to impose standardized decision-making tools aimed at improving outcomes. Using a decision-making ecology framework, this conceptual paper presents research on professional decision-making in situations of risk, using qualitative, survey, and experimental designs conducted in three countries. Results reveal that while risk assessment tools focus on client factors that contribute to the risk of harm to self or others, the nature of professional decision-making is far more complex. That is, the manner in which professionals interpret and describe features of the client and their situation, is influenced by the worker’s own personal and professional experiences, and the organizational and societal context in which they are located. Although part of the rationale of standardized approaches is to reduce complexity, our collective work demonstrates that the power of personal and social processes to shape decision-making often overwhelm the intention to simplify and standardize. Implications for policy and practice are discussed

The development and evolution of ethics review boards – Israel as a case study

Although well established in developed countries, Ethics review boards in the academia, and specifically for social and behavioral sciences (SBS) research, is a relatively new, and still a controversy inducing endeavor. This study explores the establishment and functioning of ERBs in Israeli academia, serving as a case study for the challenges and progress made in ensuring ethical research practices in non-medical related spheres. A purposeful sample of 46 participants was selected, comprising ERB current or past members and SBS researchers, who each interacted extensively with ERB’s evaluation processes. The participants came from all eight research universities of Israel, as well as seven large public and private academic colleges. Open, semi structured In-depth interviews were conducted in order to facilitate a critical reflective stance among the various participants, exploring their experiences, behaviors and the meanings they assign to ERB processes. Our research revealed two major themes. The first is the developmental trajectories in the construction processes of ERBs in Israel, comprised of the following stages: Initiation, expansion, opposition, and acceptance and assimilation. The second was a typology of participation throughout the ERBs’ construction process. Inspired by Merton’s strain theory, this typology includes conformists, ritualists, ideologists, control-freaks, and insurgents. The findings expose a unique perspective into the initiation, establishment, and development of ERBs, which can shed light on the role of ERBs in general, as well as point out how resistance to ERBs, as well as the different reasons for championing them, affected not only ERBs form and their legitimacy, but also their interaction with researchers