Chapter Introduction

This chapter discusses the need for understanding what works for whom in which circumstances from a research and a policy perspective. It reviews state-of-the-art of evidence base on what works for whom in which circumstances, that is which tools and methods may work in which contexts. Organizational interventions often employ a participatory approach, where employees and managers through ongoing negotiations and discussions decide on the process and the content of the intervention. The demands for understanding how to design, implement and evaluate organizational interventions have arisen both from research and from policy. K. Nabe-Nielsen and R. Randall argued that interventions should be tailored to the organizational context and to the individuals within the organizations. The national policies all recommend that senior managers are involved in promoting the project, and in the management standards emphasize the role line managers have in the daily running of organizational interventions. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book

Chapter Epilogue

This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book highlights that an important guiding principle when developing organizational interventions is to ensure that there's a close fit between the intervention and the context in which the intervention is undertaken. It presents work from some of the world's leading researchers in the field of organizational intervention research. The book also highlights the lack of research attention given to the specific needs of small-medium sized organizations. It argues that the gaps between research, practice, and policy should be closed and that this could happen through evaluating organizational interventions using realist evaluation. The book identifies four factors that were critical to the achievement of positive intervention outcomes. These included participatory decision-making and the co-creation of knowledge, multi-level management support, strong alignment between the intervention and the context, and institutionalizing interventions

The sources of stress experienced by professional Australian footballers

Previous studies looking at the sources of stress in sport have generally overlooked the unique experiences of professional athletes participating in team sports. This paper describes the results of a qualitative study aimed at identifying the sources of stress experienced by a cross-section of professional Australian footballers. Players from two Australian Football League clubs took part in the study involving in-depth, one-to-one interviews and focus group discussions. The results revealed that players identified sources of stress that went beyond those associated with the competitive event (such as poor performances) and included a lack of feedback, difficulty balancing football and study commitments, and job insecurity. The influence of both competition and non-competition sources of stress parallels previous research involving non-professional athletes and indicates that the entire sporting experience needs to be taken into account when developing stress management strategies.<br /

Police stress : the role of psychological contract and perceptions of fairness

Purpose &ndash; The overall purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which breaches in psychological contracts and perceptions of organizational fairness account for variations in job stress experienced by operational police officers (as measured by psychological distress and employee performance), after controlling for the variance associated with more established job stressors (i.e. job demands, job control and social support). Design/methodology/approach &ndash; This study is based on data collected through a self-report survey involving operational members of a large Australian police force (n=582). Findings &ndash; Results of hierarchical multiple regression analyses indicate that vast majority of explained variance in psychological distress and extra-role performance is attributed to the additive effects of demand, control, and support. Furthermore, only one of the social exchange dimensions (interpersonal fairness) is predictive of either target variable. Research limitations/implications &ndash; The limitations that need to be taken into account are the cross-sectional nature of the study design and the focus on a single police service. Practical implications &ndash; Despite the generally weak support for the social exchange variables, there are signs that dimensions of justice (particularly interpersonal justice) should be included in future police-stress investigations. The results also suggest that job characteristics such as job demand, job control and social support should be taken into account when developing strategies to prevent and/or reduce chronic job stress in policing services. Originality/value &ndash; This is one of the first studies to examine the relationships between psychological contract breach, perceptions of fairness and police stress.<br /

Predictors of the strain experienced by professional Australian footballers

The purpose of this model was to examine whether both the generic dimensions of the Job stress model (JSM) and job-specific stressors would be predictive of the strain experienced by professional Australian footballers. A football-specific stressor scale questionnaire was distributed and football specific stressors and their impact were identified.<br /

Organizational change in the public sector: augmenting the demand control model to predict employee outcomes under New Public Management

This study identifies the environmental and personal characteristics that predict employee outcomes within an Australian public sector organization that had, under New Public Management (NPM), implemented a variety of practices traditionally found in the private sector. These are more results-oriented, and their adoption can be accompanied by increased strain for employees. The current investigation was guided by two complementary theories, the Demand Control Support (DCS) model and Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, and sought to examine the benefits of building on the DCS to include both situation-specific stressors and internal coping resources. Survey responses from 1,155 employees were analysed. The hierarchical regression analyses indicated that both external and employee-centred variables made significant contributions to variations in psychological health, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment. The external resources, work based support and, to a lesser extent, job control, predicted relatively large proportions of the variance in the target variables. The situation-specific stressors, particularly those involving harmful management practices (e.g., insufficient time to do job as well as you would like, lack of recognition for good work), made significant contributions to the outcome measures and generally supported the process of augmenting the generic components of the DCS with more situation-specific variables. In terms of internal resources, problem and emotion-based coping improved the capacity of the model to predict psychological health. The results suggest that the impact of NPM can be ameliorated by incorporating the dimensions of the augmented DCS and coping resources into the change programme. <br /

A clarification of the ERI model : the importance of personality

The present study aimed to investigate the role of personality in the etfort-reward imbalance model along with the construct validity of overcommitment in relation to Type A behaviour. The study sample consisted of 898 operational law enforcement persolllel from a large Australian police service. Factor analysis revealed that the overcommitment construct was psychologically related to, but distinct from, the Type A dimensions achievement striving, impatience-irritability and hostility despite the hypothesised interrelatedness of the measures. Multiple regression analyses including tests for curvilinear effects revealed that the Type A dimensions made a significant improvement to the prediction of employee wellbeing and job satisfaction, The results of the study provide theoretical implications in terms of the augmentation of the effort-reward imbalance model.<br /

Improving employee outcomes in the public sector

Purpose &ndash; The purpose of this paper is to examine the efficacy of the demand-control-support model, augmented with employee perceptions of organisational justice and degree of met expectations. Design/methodology/approach &ndash; Data were collected from 128 public sector employees working in a large state police force operating under many of the elements of new public management. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted using four indicators of occupational strain: employee wellbeing, job satisfaction, organisational commitment and intent to quit. Findings &ndash; The results of this study suggest that the demand-control-support model has great utility in identifying those aspects of the work environment associated with employee strain. Job control and social support at work in particular were the most consistent predictors. In contrast, the expectation and justice variables failed to make significant contributions to the model in all but one analysis providing no support for the &ldquo;injustice as stressor&rdquo; perspective. Research limitations/implications &ndash; Although a cross-sectional design was utilized, these results highlight the value of applying the parsimonious demand-control-support model to a wider set of outcomes, especially in a public sector environment. Practical implications &ndash; The results emphasize the importance of the relatively neglected &ldquo;softer&rdquo; work characteristics support and control. In order to combat the ill-effects of organisational reforms and prompt a shift towards the public value approach, managers operating under elements of new public management should ensure that adequate social support at work is available and that employee control is commensurate with their demands. Originality/value &ndash; This study examined an augmented demand-control-support model and identified that whilst perceptions of justice can influence employee attitudes and wellbeing, the demand, control, and support variables remain the most influential factors with regard to public sector employee attitudes and wellbeing.<br /