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Hierarchical bullying in public healthcare organizations is an entrenched negative behaviour that results in a range of adverse outcomes for staff, including diminished wellbeing. This study integrates social exchange and conservation of resources theories as a lens for formulating hypotheses and employs multilevel statistical modelling to examine whether team-level compassion moderates the impact of hierarchical bullying on wellbeing. Using multilevel statistical modelling, the study analysed cross-sectional data from 632 healthcare workers nested within 48 teams in a single public health district in Australia. The findings indicate that work teams with higher levels of team compassion can mitigate the negative effects of hierarchical bullying on employee wellbeing. The results imply that investing in developing compassion within teams is an effective strategy for mitigating some harmful effects of hierarchical bullying on employee outcomes.

At a time where there are ageing populations, global shortages of skilled labour, and migration pathways impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, retaining older workers presents as a vital strategic initiative for organizations globally. This study examines the role of Human Resource Practices (HRPs), which are oriented towards accommodating the needs of an ageing workforce in mitigating psychological distress and turnover intentions. The study collected self-reported survey data from 300 Australian employees over the age of 45, over two time points. Using structural equation modelling, the study analyzed the extent to which Older Worker-oriented Human Resources Practices (OW-HRPs) translate into employee psychological health and retention within organizations, through the mediation of ageism and work–life conflict. The results support our hypothesis that OW-HRPs are associated with lower ageism, better work–life balance; and in combination these reduce psychological distress and help retain older workers in the workforce. We conclude that OW-HRPs can foster work environments conducive to older worker wellbeing, supporting the retention of talent and maintaining effectiveness, in the face of substantial labour supply challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and an ageing population.

Health related quality of life (HRQoL) is rarely routinely measured in the clinical setting. In the absence of patient reported data, clinicians rely on proxy and informal estimates to support clinical decisions. This study compares clinician estimates (proxy) with patient reported HRQoL in patients with advanced heart failure and examines factors influencing discrepancies. Seventy-five patients with heart failure, (22 females, 53 males) completed the EQ-5D-5L questionnaire. Thirty-nine clinicians (11 medical, 23 nursing, 5 allied health) completed the proxy version (V1) producing 194 dyads. Correlation was assessed using Spearman’s rank tests, systematic bias was examined with Bland–Altman analyses. Inter-rater agreement at the domain level, was investigated using linear weighted Kappa statistics while factors influencing the IRG were explored using independent student t-tests, analysis of variance and regression. There was a moderate positive correlation between clinician HRQoL estimates and patient reported utility (r = 0.38; p

PurposeThis paper uses conservation of resources (COR) theory to examine antecedents of psychological capital (PsyCap). Past research shows that employees with high personal resources such as PsyCap also have high work performance. Hence, organizations need information about how to enhance PsyCap. This paper extends existing research by examining potential antecedents of PsyCap. A total of three potential antecedents are tested, including perceptions of individual-level cooperation between employees (i.e. teamwork), relationships between employees and their supervisors (i.e. supervisor–subordinate relationships) and a human resource (HR) practice (i.e. training opportunities).Design/methodology/approachStructural equation modeling (SEM) was used to compare the impact of organizational factors on US and Australian employees' PsyCap.FindingsThe results indicate a significant direct effect of leader–member exchange (LMX) onto PsyCap and a significant indirect effect between LMX and PsyCap through teamwork and through training opportunities for employees in Australia and the USA. Teamwork and training opportunities partially mediate the impact of LMX onto PsyCap for both Australian and US employees.Practical implicationsAustralian employees are likely to reduce their performance because of a perceived loss of personal resources and/or may even experience burnout and/or become a stress-related workers compensation statistic.Originality/valueThe findings suggest that employees in Australia perceived significantly lower levels of supportive resources to draw upon, including from their managers and peers. On applying COR theory, when comparing employees, it was observed that those who perceive fewer resources will be less equipped to produce resource gains. Taking into consideration that employees require the use of resources to maintain personal resources, Australian employees have fewer resources at their disposal to maintain their personal resources (i.e. PsyCap).

Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2019. This paper examines one type of negative work behaviour, work harassment, using two theoretical frameworks: Social Exchange Theory (SET) and Similarity-Attraction (SA). SET explains work harassment as a product of poor management practices, whereas using SA theory explains it as a result of the growing normalisation of high workloads. The study undertakes latent mean and path model comparison analysis using structural equation modelling of data from 189 nurses in the UK and 401 nurses in the USA. The findings indicate a good model fit showing a significant path from Leader Member Exchange (LMX) to work harassment, wellbeing and subsequent turnover intentions, with LMX fully mediating the path from LMX to wellbeing for UK nurses, but only partially mediating the same path for nurses in the USA. The findings suggest SET provides a better explanation for work harassment for UK nurses, whereas SA theory better explains the US nurse experience.

This article examines the impact of psychosocial safety climate (PSC) levels and strength on the job stress and psychological distress of emergency services workers within street level bureaucracies (SLBs). The reason for the research is because the nature of their work and organizational context pre-disposes them to elevated level of psychological distress, and places them at a higher risk of subsequent debilitating physical and mental diseases, which is a cost borne by employees, their families, friends, SLBs, and taxpayers. Survey data was obtained from 274 emergency services workers (including police, and paramedics), nested within 43 workgroups, in Australia. Multilevel regression indicated that lower levels of PSC were associated with higher levels of job stress and psychological distress. Also, PSC strength had a partial moderating effect. The findings justify governments intervening legislatively to ensure SLBs’ take responsibility for ensuring a supportive PSC to mitigates the impact of exposure to workplace trauma.

The growth of e-commerce in China can be regarded as a significant factor in the increase in occupational stress and the voluntary turnover of courier drivers. This paper aims to investigate selected occupational stress factors behind the turnover intentions of Chinese courier drivers. Using data from 229 couriers employed at the largest delivery companies in China, this study applies structural equation modelling to investigate not only the direct relationships between job-stress factors and turnover intentions but also the extent to which workload indirectly mediates turnover intentions among couriers. The results indicate that a combination of high workload with social stressors leads to turnover intentions. In particular, it was found that workload completely mediated the relationship between both the independent variables and the intention to leave the industry, suggesting that when workloads are high, the net effect of negative work experiences with regard to verbal aggression and ambiguous customer expectations increases the likelihood of an intention to leave the industry. Although restricted to China, this is one of the first studies investigating the effects of courier drivers’ job stressors which highlights the importance of delivery companies working with staff to mitigate job stressors to reduce turnover intention.

IMPACT: Policing is stressful, and this stress is amplified as a result of chronic under-resourcing and escalating red tape. Frontline managers of police play a crucial role in mitigating police stress, and improving their wellbeing. The research in this article highlights that police managers also shape the turnover intentions of officers. The implication is that policing organizations need to support their managers and leaders to develop qualities that advance the wellbeing of their staff, in order to address workplace stress and turnover. This article examines the impact of leadership on the behaviour of one type of street level bureaucrat (SLB): police officers’ wellbeing and turnover intentions. The findings address a gap in understanding how authentic leadership practices affect SLBs who undertake emotional labour. The methods involved analysing 220 surveys from Italian police officers using structural equation modelling. The findings show moderate-to-low mean scores for authentic leadership and police officers’ relationship with their supervisor, and that these variables were significant in explaining wellbeing and turnover intention outcomes. The implication of the research is that continual subjection to poor levels of leadership and management support will erode wellbeing, placing police officers are at a higher risk of negative mental health outcomes over time.

© Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2019. The compassion of healthcare workers towards patients is widely recognized, but research suggests a dearth of compassion among co-workers. Indeed, workplace bullying and negative employee outcomes are over-represented in the healthcare sector (including burnout and substantial staff turnover). In this paper, we discuss the cultivation of compassion for healthcare workers, using the lens of positive organizational scholarship. Our concern is not only with the individual level compassion (i.e. between employees), we also consider how compassion can be cultivated systemically across healthcare institutions at the organizational level. More specifically, we present a proposed Noticing, Empathising, Assessing and Responding Mechanisms Model of Organizational Compassion as a tool for consciously cultivating workplace compassion in healthcare organizations.

This article compares the role of management on the effectiveness of social networks for police officers and implications for engagement using survey data from 575 police officers in the USA and 193 police officers in Australia. Analysis included capturing frequencies, correlations, ANOVAs, structural equation modelling (SEM) for quantitative data, and thematic analysis of the qualitative data. The findings show that 5% of police officer in the USA sample and 12% of police officer in Australian sample had no support for problem-solving; police officers in the USA had bigger social networks; the reasons given for not identifying their line manager as part of their social support included ‘the unapproachability of managers’ and ‘poor managers/bullying’ and SEM showed a significant relationship between perceived organizational support (from management), social networks, and employee engagement. The findings have implications for internal security (employee well-being and productivity) and external security (public safety).

© 2017, © 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper uses Social Exchange Theory as a lens for comparing the impact of management support upon police perceptions of discretionary power and employee engagement, across three countries. A survey-based, self-report process collected data from 193 police officers in Australia, 588 from the USA, and 249 from Malta. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data. The findings suggest a significantly different management support context across the three countries, as well as significantly different perceptions of discretionary power. Across the three countries, police perceived relatively poor satisfaction with organizational management support and only some engagement levels. However, USA police perceived significantly more discretionary power than the other country samples. These findings provide greater clarity about the link between management support, discretionary power and engagement for the police officers. Since employee engagement likely affects policing outcomes, the findings suggest that poor management support of police officers could negatively affect the provided service. Potential strategies to enhance police engagement include (a) training police managers about how to manage so as to promote greater engagement, and (b) modifying police managers’ performance indicators in line with achieving better police engagement.

© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media B.V. This research examines the impact of lecturer-student exchange (student-LMX) on engagement, course satisfaction, achievement, and intention to leave university prematurely for 363 students in one Australian university. Survey and grade point average (GPA) data were collected from domestic undergraduate first- and second-year students and analysed using structural equation modelling. The results indicated that student’s levels of engagement and course satisfaction fully mediated the relationship between student-LMX and intention to leave university, when demographic and socio-economic factors were controlled for. In an era when low student engagement and attrition is often attributed to individual demographic factors, and lecturers are under increasing threat of being replaced by technology, this research offers compelling evidence regarding the role of lecturer-student relationships in enhancing tertiary student outcomes.

© 2019 Institute of Public Administration Australia This paper is guided by Conservation of Resources theory and aims to investigate the impact of personal and organisational support on the quality of clinical care given to aged care residents in for-profit (FP) and not-for-profit (NFP) facilities. Broadly, the paper addresses challenges faced by governments in designing contract specifications that ensure quality outcomes from aged care providers. The argument is that the present accreditation standards that are used to assess the status of aged care providers are too narrow to capture the complexity in delivering social services. Data were collected from 442 aged care workers from aged care facilities in NSW, QLD and WA. The results show that carer support (personal and organisational support) explained half of the variance in quality of clinical care in NFP facilities, and a third of the variance in FP facilities. In particular, the findings suggest support for carers is important for carer retention, and ultimately the clinical care of residents. The findings provide supporting evidence to widen the required contract specifications for aged care provider accreditation to include organisational and personal support for carers.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate examiner reactions to doctorate of business administration (DBA) theses at an Australian university applying Perry’s structured approach to thesis presentation, which had its origin in the marketing discipline, but is now widely applied to other business disciplines. Design/methodology/approach This paper examines 49 DBA examiner reports relating to 19 DBA theses using the structured Perry approach, with emphasis paid to comments relating to thesis structure and presentation. Only those theses that acknowledged Perry or demonstrated Perry-like characteristics were interrogated. Findings The use of Perry’s structured approach can lead to DBA theses that place excessive emphasis on description rather than practical outcomes, as should occur with a professional doctorate, and also fosters excessive repetition and scaffolding that unduly interferes with the candidate’s “story telling”. Many examiners found theses using Perry’s structured approach problematic, particularly with respect to a lack of integration with the literature and reflection on the findings in relation to previous studies. Research limitations/implications The use of Perry’s structured approach potentially acts as a further barrier to DBA theses, and other professional doctorates by extension, sufficiently differentiating themselves from PhDs. This has implications for the examination of such theses, which are sometimes viewed as lower-quality PhDs instead of professional doctorates. Originality/value Applying a traditional PhD thesis structure, such as the model advocated by Perry with its use of five chapters, to DBA theses potentially exacerbates existing professional doctorate “image” issues, thereby leading to ambiguity for examiners and the candidates themselves.

This symposium comprises four papers which expand our knowledge of the impacts of leadership on positive behaviors, emotions, and resilience for public servants, and public service delivery more ge...

© 2017, Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. This paper used Social Exchange Theory (SET), Positive Organizational Behavior (POB) and Cooper’s (Safety Science, 36(2), 111–136, 2000) frameworks to operationalize a comprehensive model of safety culture, and tests whether one SET factor (supervisor-employee relationships) and one POB factor (psychological capital) predict accreditation and safety culture in a causal chain. Surveys from 1125 Italian doctors were analyzed using Structural Equation Modeling. Supervisor-employee relationships and psychological capital accounted for two-fifths of the accreditation culture, and, in turn, explained more than half of the safety culture. Hence, effective workplace relationships between management and doctors provide a trusting foundation to develop safe practices for better healthcare.

PurposeUsing social exchange theory (SET) and Cooper’s (2000) model, the purpose of this paper is to operationalise a comprehensive model of safety culture and tests whether SET factors (supervisor-employee relationships and engagement) predict safety culture in a causal chain.Design/methodology/approachThe model was tested using surveys from 648 healthcare staff in an Italian acute care hospital and analysed using structural equation modelling.FindingsSafety behaviours of clinical staff can be explained by the quality of the supervisor-employee relationship, their engagement, their feelings about safety and the quality of organisational support.Practical implicationsThe model provides a roadmap for strategically embedding effective safe behaviours. Management needs to improve healthcare staff’s workplace relationships to enhance engagement and to shape beliefs about safety practices.Originality/valueThe contribution of this paper is that it has empirically developed and tested a comprehensive model of safety culture that identifies a causal chain for healthcare managers to follow so as to embed an effective safety culture.

© 2018 CIPFA. Public value theory was used by the authors to investigate informal professional networks, perceived discretionary power, and the organizational culture that forms in physical asset management organizations. The results, from a structural equation model, indicated that informal professional networks are positively associated with higher discretionary power and a proactive asset maintenance organizational culture. In the absence of public managers promoting public value, professionals use their informal networks as a source of power to be proactive and contribute to asset reliability and public safety (public value).

Multiple institutional and stakeholder demands have led to different strategies in the measurement and disclosure of carbon‐related information. Although scholars acknowledge the prevalence of competing institutional logics as being a driver of different outcomes, existing research offers conflicting views on their implications, thus lacking clarity. In response, this paper proposes two frameworks (a) to clarify the institutional and stakeholder influences on carbon disclosure and (b) to depict four different types of carbon disclosure strategies to assess a company's “true” carbon position. We identify various concepts of institutional fields, organisations, and stakeholders that influence disclosure and combine the two critical concepts of logic centrality and stakeholder salience to categorise the multiple institutional and stakeholder pressures on carbon disclosure. Whereas the first framework proposes that institutional theory and stakeholder theory both provide, on different levels, a theoretical foundation to examine the influences on carbon disclosure, the second model categorises carbon disclosure outcomes in terms of logic centrality and stakeholder salience. Both frameworks advance the understanding of the interaction between firm‐level agency and field‐level pressures and synthesise the current literature to offer conceptual clarity regarding the varied implications and outcomes linked to carbon disclosure practices and strategies.

© 2016, © The Author(s) 2016. This study compared the impact of perceived organisational support from management upon bullying of soldiers and police officers and their work outcomes (wellbeing, affective commitment and turnover intentions). Data from self-report surveys from 99 army personnel and 193 police officers were analysed using SEM. The results indicate that significant paths between most variables and perceived organisational support explained 6% of bullying (comprising intimidation and personal attacks). Together, (a) perceived organisational support and bullying explained almost a third (28%) of psychological wellbeing, (b) perceived organisational support, bullying and psychological wellbeing explained over two-thirds (68%) of affective commitment, and (c) bullying and affective commitment explained over half (53%) of turnover intentions. Also, bullying partially mediated the relationship between perceived organisational support and affective commitment. There were no significant differences between the two cohorts, except for perceived organisational support from management. Implications include that soldiers and police officers are likely to experience better workplace performance if management support is improved. Both soldiers and police undertake emotionally difficult tasks at times, and without adequate support, the stress of their jobs is likely to negatively impact their wellbeing and commitment. Poor perceived management support is not sustainable in the long-term without negative employee consequences.

© 2017 CIPFA. One alleged consequence of new public management (NPM) methods and practices, bullying, is seriously under-researched. The authors examined the impact of workplace relationships on police officer bullying and job outcomes. The quality of supervisor relationships seemed to buffer officers’ perceptions of bullying and, hence, their job outcomes. The consequences of the present post-NPM management practices are problematic, with negative implications for police officers in forming effective workplace relationships, which then negatively impact job outcomes, thereby affecting the quality of services delivered to the public.

© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Discussions of support and intervention in undergraduate university education are dominated by discussion of attrition. This study quests more broadly in arguing that support and intervention for undergraduate students may also benefit from models of engagement and success as well as conventional risk and failure. Supporting this proposition is a study that involved multifactorial approaches based in a combination of aspects of social network theory and social ecology theory. Analysis was enacted through social network analysis of archival data sets derived from a single cohort of 4065 undergraduate students at a regional Australian university. The findings suggest that models of academic success are suited to examination of the broader issues of student agency and undergraduate university education. The success networks developed are uniquely student-centred and place-based and may serve as more nuanced models for university intervention and support structures and mechanisms.

© 2016 Elsevier Ltd The issue of safety and longevity of engineering assets is of increasing importance because of their impact when disasters happen. This paper addresses a literature gap by examining the role of workplace relationships in employees' safety behaviour, and builds on the Resilience Engineering (RE) framework by examining some organisational culture factors affecting how employees behave. A Social Exchange framework is used to examine the impact of supervisor-employee relationships, employee commitment to safety practices, and the type of maintenance culture upon employees’ commitment to safety and safety outcomes. Survey data from 284 technical and engineering employees in engineering asset management organisations within Australia were analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). Effective employee relationships with management and a proactive maintenance culture were associated with employee commitment to safety culture and safety outcomes. The findings provide empirical support for embedding an effective organisational culture focused on a proactive maintenance approach, along with ensuring employees are committed to safety processes, to ensure safety outcomes and also asset longevity. One study contribution is that good safety outcomes do not develop in a vacuum; instead they are built on effective workplace relationships. Therefore, SET helps to explain the forming of effective safety culture.

© 2016 CIPFA. This paper investigates the quality of support for police officers in the USA and Malta to use as protection against stress. The authors found a significantly different organizational work context for police officers doing the same tasks. Police officers in both countries would benefit from upskilling in psychological capital and police managers require upskilling in management training as a means of increasing support for police to reduce the impact of stress.

© 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd Aim: The aim of this study was to examine the impacts of nurses’ psychological capital and managerial support, plus specific safety interventions (managerial safety priorities, safety training satisfaction), on nurses’ in-role safety performance. Background: Most hospitals in industrialized countries have adopted selective (often the least costly) aspects of safety, usually related to safety policies. However, patient safety remains a challenge in many countries. Research shows that training can be used to upskill employees in psychological capital, with statistically significant organizational and employee benefits, but this area is under-researched in nursing. Design: Data were collected using a survey-based, self-report strategy. The emerging patterns of data were then compared with the findings of previous research. Methods: Quantitative survey data were collected during 2014 from 242 nurses working in six Australian hospitals. Two models were tested and analysed using covariance-based Structural Equation Modelling. Results: Psychological capital and safety training satisfaction were important predictors of nurses’ in-role safety performance and as predictors of nurses’ perceptions of whether management implements what it espouses about safety (‘managerial safety priorities’). Managerial support accounted for just under a third of psychological capital and together, psychological capital and managerial support, plus satisfaction with safety training, were important to nurses’ perceptions of in-role safety performance. Conclusion: Organizations are likely to benefit from upskilling nurses and their managers to increase nurses’ psychological capital and managerial support, which then will enhance nurses’ satisfaction with training and in-role safety performance perceptions.

The AHRQ Safety Culture instrument is one of the most frequently applied, and industry-accessible, tools for interrogating hospitals’ safety culture worldwide. However, the validity and methods of analysis applied to the tool, in different cultural and different contexts, vary significantly. In this paper we explore the validity and the reliability of the AHRQ Safety Culture Instrument applied to the Italian healthcare sector. We draw from previous approaches of validity assessment and analysis of the tool to evaluate its potential to deliver causal analysis.

© 2014, © 2014 CIPFA. In the context of nurse shortages and budget constraints in hospitals, retaining skilled nurses is crucial. This paper investigates the impact of supervisor–nurse relationships on engagement, wellbeing, affective commitment and turnover intention for Italian private and public sector nurses. Private sector nurses in Italy were found to be more committed, engaged and had higher perceptions of wellbeing than public sector nurses. Based on these results, public managers need to do more to sustain the motivation of nurses in public sector hospitals.

This paper uses a range of theories to compare the use of internal networks for seeking the next innovative idea by two countries experiencing different examined the effect of variation in macroeconomic conditions to determine motivational differences between SME owners/managers in Australia and Italy. The paper used interviews from SME owner/managers from Italy and Australia. The findings confirm a small generational cohort impact across the two countries in affecting how SMEs owner/managers perceive information from their employees. However, the strongest predictor of whether information from employees was perceived as a potential innovation is the norms of the SME owner/manager, irrespective of the country. © 2014 Imperial College Press.

© Policy Press 2015. Creative industries development strategies have largely adopted a regionally embedded cluster platform to enhance the economic contribution of the sector. Such an isolated approach has done little to curb significant labour precarity and exploitation within the sector. Correspondingly, creative workers have sought to up-scale their networks, from local to global, to enhance their labour outcomes. This paper analyses the impact creative workers' up-scaled network arrangements on their labour outcomes. The research identifies significant policy implications concerning the support of up-scaled arrangements for economic segments that are vulnerable to labour precarity, such as the creative industries.