John Rodwell

Psychosocial Antecedents and Consequences of Workplace Aggression for Hospital Nurses

PURPOSE To test a full model of the antecedents to and consequences of various forms of workplace aggression, considering psychosocial factors, for hospital nursing staff. DESIGN Cross-sectional survey design. METHODS Two hundred and seven nurses and midwives working across wards within a medium to large Australian hospital completed the survey. The survey response rate was 26.9%. FINDINGS High frequencies of nurses reported exposure to workplace bullying and internal and external emotional abuse violence types. In terms of antecedents, bullying was linked to high negative affectivity (NA), as well as low supervisor support and coworker support. Internal emotional abuse was associated with low levels of these support variables, as well as high outside work support and low job control. External threat of assault was related to high job demands and NA. In terms of consequences, bullying and verbal sexual harassment were linked to increased psychological distress levels. Bullying and internal emotional abuse were related to lowered organizational commitment. Changes in job satisfaction were not found for any of the workplace aggression types. NA was a significant covariate for all analyses examining consequences of aggression. CONCLUSIONS Different combinations of work conditions (job demands-resources) and individual levels of NA predicted certain types of aggression. Further, nurse perceptions of psychological distress and organizational commitment were affected by exposure to several types of aggression, even after controlling for NA as a potential perceptual bias. This study therefore extends previous research on workplace bullying as a stressor to other types of workplace aggression for nurses. CLINICAL RELEVANCE The findings highlight factors that are important in considering effective prevention and intervention of workplace aggression among nursing staff, particularly those working in hospital settings.

Oppression and exposure as differentiating predictors of types of workplace violence for nurses

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To extend a model of the antecedents of workplace bullying to apply to a wider range of types of workplace aggression, including bullying and several types of violence, among nurses. BACKGROUND Research that has focused on workplace bullying has found that the Demand-Control-Support model, negative affectivity and certain demographic factors play important roles as antecedents of bullying. DESIGN A cross-sectional design. METHODS A validated questionnaire was sent to the work addresses of all nursing and midwifery staff in a medium-to-large hospital in Australia. A total of 273 nurses and midwives returned their completed questionnaires. Ordinal regressions were conducted to assess the antecedents of workplace aggression across bullying and violence. RESULTS Aspects of the Demand-Control-Support model and job tenure significantly predicted particular forms of violence, while negative affectivity and work schedule were significant for bullying. CONCLUSIONS The patterns of the results suggest key mechanisms that characterise certain forms of violence and distinguish between bullying and types of violence across the range of workplace aggression. In particular, oppression and exposure appear to differentiate types of workplace violence. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE The study suggests ways in which nursing and hospital managers may act to reduce the likelihood of certain forms of aggression, particularly violence, from occurring.

Psychological consequences of bullying for hospital and aged care nurses

AIM This study examines the psychological consequences of workplace bullying by negative affectivity (NA) and demographics for hospital and aged care nurses. INTRODUCTION/BACKGROUND Nurses are particularly vulnerable to workplace bullying, with suggestions that oppressed group behaviours may play a role. Bullying is a potent stressor that can negatively impact psychological well-being, which, with NA and demographics, may be important in understanding the consequences of nurse bullying. Such factors are yet to be examined together across different nursing contexts. METHODS A cross-sectional survey was conducted across hospital and aged care nurses working within a medium to large Australian healthcare organization in October 2009. The sample comprised 233 (29.1%) hospital and 208 (43.8%) aged care nurses. Analyses of covariance were used to evaluate the data. RESULTS For hospital nurses, psychological distress was noted as an impact of bullying, while depression was the impact for aged care nurses. Full-time aged care nurses reporting bullying had higher psychological distress scores, compared with part-time workers in the same area. NA was a significant covariate across both outcomes in both contexts. DISCUSSION/CONCLUSION This study demonstrates that bullying has detrimental consequences for the mental health of nurses in both hospital and aged care contexts. The results support the suggestion that nurses are an oppressed group at high risk of bullying, confirm the intrinsic nature of NA to the bullying process, and highlight the importance of employment type for aged care nurses. Given the shortage of nurses, managers need to give higher priority to addressing workplace bullying and implementing zero tolerance policies.

Work characteristics and employee outcomes in local government

The overall objective of this study was to examine the work characteristics that make significant contributions to extra-role performance (as measured by the helping dimension of citizenship behaviour) and employee wellbeing (measured by job satisfaction and psychological health) in a local government. The work characteristics examined were based on the demand-control-support (DCS) model, augmented by organization-specific characteristics. The results indicate that characteristics described in the core DCS are just as relevant to extra-role performance as they are to more traditional indicators of job stress. Although the more situation-specific conditions were not predictive of citizenship behaviour, they made unique contributions to job satisfaction.

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.

The impact of the work conditions of allied health professionals on satisfaction, commitment and psychological distress

Background: Allied health professionals are integral to the effective delivery of hospital-based health care, yet little is known about the working conditions associated with the attitudinal and health outcomes of these employees. Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which the demand-control-support model, in combination with organizational justice variables, predicts the employee-level outcomes of allied health professionals. Methodology/Approach: Allied health professionals from an Australian health care organization were surveyed, with 113 (52.6%) participating. The survey included measures of job demands, job control, social support, organizational justice, satisfaction, commitment and psychological distress. Findings: Multiple regression analyses reveal that the additive demand-control-support model predicts the outcome variables of job satisfaction, organizational commitment and psychological distress, whereas the organizational justice variables predicted organizational commitment and psychological distress. Further, both work and nonwork sources of support, in addition to specific justice dimensions, were closely associated with employee-level outcomes. Practical Implications: When coupled with previous research involving social support and organizational justice, the findings from this study suggest that initiatives aimed at strengthening supervisor and nonwork support, while enhancing perceptions of organizational fairness, may offer useful avenues for increasing the levels of satisfaction, commitment and well-being experienced by allied health professionals.

The adoption of international best practices in a Western culture: East meets West

Contemporary organizations facing changing economic and strategic realities have considered many models of organizational performance, in particular those based on ‘actices’odels of best practice have emanated from the USA, some European countries and Japan; however, the question remains –ternational best practices be transferred to Australia or elsewhere? Since companies in Japan, in particular, have been seen as harbingers of these best practices, we compare the level of adoption in Japanese and non-Japanese companies in three Australian industries. Differences between Japanese and non-Japanese companies were more apparent in the automotive industry with only a few differences found for the information and tourism industries. The main differences between the two ownership categories were in areas of unionization and management–elations, that is, areas that may be influenced more by institutional arrangements than by cultural differences. Perhaps the most interesting finding from the comparative research...

What's Size Got to Do with It? Implications for Contemporary Management Practices in IT Companies

JOHN RODWELL IS A RESEARCH OFFICER AND doctoral scholar and Mark Shadur a Principal Research Fellow in the Australian Centre in Strategic Management at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. The study reported here explores differences between small and medium-sized companies across a range of human resource management, quality and general management practices, based on a survey of the Australian information technology industry. Small companies were less unionised, subcontracted less, had a more centralised structure and had higher levels of research and development. Medium-sized companies reported greater use ofjust-in-time (JIT), greater use of statistical process control (SPC), more successfulJlT systems and SPC systems. Despite the lower levels of quality system use and success, small companies were found to have a stronger espoused quality philosophy than the medium-sized companies. It is proposed that using non-unionised labour across a range ofjobs while maintaining a higher level of research and development and a quality philosophy allows small business to keep its flexibility while maintaining control, aiming for quality and focusing on the future.

Using job strain and organizational justice models to predict multiple forms of employee performance behaviours among Australian policing personnel

The overall purpose of this investigation was to examine the relationship between stress-related working conditions and three forms of employee performance behaviours: in-role behaviours, citizenship behaviours directed at other individuals and citizenship behaviours directed at the organization. The potentially stressful working conditions were based on the job strain model (incorporating job demands, job control and social support) as well as organizational justice theory. A sample of Australian-based police officers (n = 640) took part in this study and the data were collected via a mail-out survey. Multiple regression analyses were undertaken to assess both the strength and the nature of the relationships between the working conditions and employee performance and these analyses included tests for additive, interactional and curvilinear effects. The overall results indicated that a significant proportion of the explained variance in all three outcome measures was attributed to the additive effects of demand, control and support. The level of variance associated with the organizational justice dimensions was relatively small, although there were signs that specific dimensions of justice may provide unique insights into the relationship between job stressors and employee performance. The implications of these and other notable findings are discussed.

Improving employee outcomes in the public sector : the beneficial effects of social support at work and job control

Purpose – 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 – 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 – 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 “injustice as stressor...