Benjamin E. Baran

Organizing Ambiguity: A Grounded Theory of Leadership and Sensemaking Within Dangerous Contexts

Leaders in high-reliability organizational contexts such as firefighting, emergency medicine, and law enforcement often face the challenge of making sense of environments that are dangerous, highly ambiguous, and rapidly changing. Most leadership research, however, has focused on more stable conditions. This study analyzed 100 reports of “near-miss” situations in which firefighters narrowly escaped injury or death, drawing upon sensemaking and high-reliability organizational theories to provide a grounded theory of leadership processes within extreme events. Themes related to direction setting, knowledge, talk, role acting, role modeling, trust, situational awareness, and agility were key categories. Further abstraction of the data revealed the higher-order categories of framing, heedful interrelating, and adjusting as key characteristics of the overall social process of leadership within dangerous contexts, labeled organizing ambiguity. These findings highlight leadership as a collective sensemaking process in which ambiguity is reduced and resilience promoted in the face of danger via interaction among and between leaders and followers.

After-action reviews: A venue for the promotion of safety climate

This study investigated the role of after-action reviews on perceptions of safety climate at the group and organizational levels. Moderated and mediated regression analyses of data from 67 firefighting crews suggest that after-action review frequency positively influenced both levels of safety climate. Safety-oriented group norms fully mediated the relationship between after-action review frequency and group-level safety climate. Fire-station busyness moderated the relationship between after-action review frequency and organizational-level safety climate, such that the relationship was non-existent for highly busy stations. These findings suggest that after-action reviews constitute a specific venue through which managers can promote safety climate in high-risk environments.

Euthanasia-related strain and coping strategies in animal shelter employees

OBJECTIVE To identify and evaluate coping strategies advocated by experienced animal shelter workers who directly engaged in euthanizing animals. DESIGN Cross-sectional study. SAMPLE POPULATION Animal shelters across the United States in which euthanasia was conducted (5 to 100 employees/shelter). PROCEDURES With the assistance of experts associated with the Humane Society of the United States, the authors identified 88 animal shelters throughout the United States in which animal euthanasia was actively conducted and for which contact information regarding the shelter director was available. Staff at 62 animal shelters agreed to participate in the survey. Survey packets were mailed to the 62 shelter directors, who then distributed them to employees. The survey included questions regarding respondent age, level of education, and role and asked those directly involved in the euthanasia of animals to provide advice on strategies for new euthanasia technicians to deal with the related stress. Employees completed the survey and returned it by mail. Content analysis techniques were used to summarize survey responses. RESULTS Coping strategies suggested by 242 euthanasia technicians were summarized into 26 distinct coping recommendations in 8 categories: competence or skills strategies, euthanasia behavioral strategies, cognitive or self-talk strategies, emotional regulation strategies, separation strategies, get-help strategies, seek long-term solution strategies, and withdrawal strategies. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE Euthanizing animals is a major stressor for many animal shelter workers. Information regarding the coping strategies identified in this study may be useful for training new euthanasia technicians.

Shouldering a silent burden: The toll of dirty tasks

Dirty work involves tasks that are stigmatized owing to characteristics that the public finds disgusting, degrading, or objectionable. Conservation of resources theory suggests such experiences should induce strain and decreased work satisfaction; social identity theory suggests such work should lead to strong psychological investment in the work, among other outcomes. Integrating these two perspectives, this study hypothesizes and presents quantitative evidence from 499 animal-shelter workers, demonstrating how dirty-work engagement relates to higher levels of strain, job involvement, and reluctance to discuss work while negatively influencing work satisfaction. Additionally, this study takes a unique perspective on dirty work by focusing on dirty tasks within a dirty-work occupation. The data suggest meaningful differences between the outcomes of dirty-task frequency and dirty-task psychological salience, providing additional insight into the complexity of stigmatized occupations and ways in which future research and theory benefit as a result.

Leading Group Meetings: Supervisors’ Actions, Employee Behaviors, and Upward Perceptions

This study focuses on a common-yet-understudied group process: supervisor-led group meetings at work. Specifically, the study explores the relationships among employees’ perceptions and reported behaviors with regard to such meetings. Respondents are 291 adults working in different organizations. Structural equation modeling of the data largely supports the hypothesized model. Employee perceptions of relationship quality with their supervisors (leader–member exchange) fully mediates the relationship between perceptions of supervisors’ fairness (interactional justice) in group meetings and perceived organizational support. Leader–member exchange also fully mediates the relationship between interactional justice perceptions and meeting citizenship behaviors—a new construct describing extra-role behaviors that support meeting processes—and between good meeting practices by the supervisors and meeting citizenship behaviors. Leader–member exchange partially mediates the relationship between good meeting practices and perceived organizational support. These findings highlight the importance both of supervisors’ behaviors within meetings that they lead and of the supervisor-led group meeting itself as a phenomenon worthy of future exploration.

Ambiguity and Freedom of Dissent in Post- Incident Discussion

The after-action review (AAR) is a discussion technique some high-reliability organizations employ to encourage learning via collective retrospection. AARs are an effective communication tool for promoting reliability if they are held regularly. One way to encourage frequent AARs is to increase participants’ satisfaction with these meetings. This study examined the impact of post-incident, pre-discussion ambiguity and freedom of dissent on participant satisfaction with AARs. Firefighters (N = 119) completed a survey on their most recent AAR. As predicted, the level of post-incident, pre-discussion ambiguity was negatively related to AAR satisfaction. Freedom of dissent, however, attenuated the negative influence of ambiguity on AAR satisfaction.

Routinized killing of animals: Going beyond dirty work and prestige to understand the well-being of slaughterhouse workers

Slaughterhouse workers face the reality of industrialized meat production on a daily basis, experiencing firsthand the routinized killing of animals. This occupation provides a window through which to view one key way in which animals and organizations intersect in modern society. Given its proximity to death and undesirable required tasks, working in a slaughterhouse is classified as ‘dirty work’. Current theorizing, however, does not address how the intentional killing of animals may impact workers beyond its inherent dirtiness and low prestige. In this study, we draw upon and extend dirty work theory to further understand the unique nature of work that involves the intentional killing of animals. Regression analyses of data from 10,605 Danish workers across 44 occupations suggest that slaughterhouse workers consistently experience lower physical and psychological well-being along with increased incidences of negative coping behavior. Our findings hold while statistically controlling for occupational prestige and overall dirtiness. Additionally, we compare the pattern of results with a comparable occupation that does not involve animal killing, suggesting specific outcomes associated with routinized killing of animals. Building upon extant research and considering our findings, we discuss the theoretical implications regarding dirty work and the intentional killing of animals in organizations.

Organizational Identification: A Context‐Specific Mitigating Resource of Work–Family Conflict

The tension between work and non‐work life remains a critical issue in contemporary careers. This study explores the role of organizational identification (OI) in reducing work–family conflict (WFC) within demanding and high‐stakes jobs in dynamic, uncertain and potentially dangerous contexts (e.g., firefighting). Survey data from 341 firefighters suggest that, congruent with conservation of resources theory and scarcity theory, OI may serve as a resource that mitigates WFC in these contexts. Additionally, the data suggest that the negative relationship between OI and WFC is stronger when trauma is low. For practice, this study provides important implications for employees in similar contexts concerning potential ways to mitigate WFC as well as recommendations concerning exposure to trauma.

Organizational Change: Perspectives From Human Resource Management

ABSTRACT How human resource management professionals view organizational change and their roles in it matters because those perceptions serve as a foundation for how they define their roles and as a boundary for what they might see as possible. Despite the importance of understanding these perspectives, few studies have explored human resources professionals’ views of organizational change and their roles in it. Data from 547 human resources professionals across a wide range of industries and organizational levels reveal the perception of top-leader involvement in 80 percent of successful changes. The data also suggest that human resources professionals hold numerous roles in change efforts, including those of ‘change agent’ and ‘consultant.’ Additionally, the data revealed that most human resource management professionals tended to view successful organizational change as primarily occurring in a top-down, hierarchical manner. A minority – yet potentially consequential – portion of the respondents viewed their role in organizational change as limited or not very important. We discuss these findings in light of relevant theoretical frameworks of organizational change, offering practical and scholarly implications.