Marit Christensen

Communication as a Strategic Tool in Change Processes

The aim of the study was to develop, test, and partly validate a set of organizational communication factors for use in an organizational-change setting. Based on literature reviews and pilot interviews, a survey study was conducted using three samples. First, the testing involved construct validation through exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Second, the sample was divided into three groups: employees who experienced change, those who had recently had finished a change process, and those who had not experienced any change processes. The communication factors were then examined as predictors of employee assessment of communication in these three groups, respectively. The results of the study indicated eight robust dimensions included in five categories: social contact, central leadership, information, influence, and barriers to improvement. The results of the factor analyses indicated satisfactory reliability and construct validity of the communication factors, and the confirmatory factor analysis revealed a satisfactory model fit.

The presentation and preliminary validation of KIWEST using a large sample of Norwegian university staff

Aims: The aim of the present paper is to present and validate a Knowledge-Intensive Work Environment Survey Target (KIWEST), a questionnaire developed for assessing the psychosocial factors among people in knowledge-intensive work environments. Methods: The construct validity and reliability of the measurement model where tested on a representative sample of 3066 academic and administrative staff working at one of the largest universities in Norway. Results: Confirmatory factor analysis provided initial support for the convergent validity and internal consistency of the 30 construct KIWEST measurement model. However, discriminant validity tests indicated that some of the constructs might overlap to some degree. Conclusion: Overall, the KIWEST measure showed promising psychometric properties as a psychosocial work environment measure.

Building engagement and healthy organisations : Validation of the Nordic Questionnaire on Positive Organisational Psychology (N-POP). The Third Report from the Nordic Project

The main aim of the project was to investigate the predictors of positive work-related states and attitudes, e.g. work engagement, meaning at work and personal growth, and healthy organisations. A ...

Academic work engagement, resources and productivity: empirical evidence with policy implications

ABSTRACT This paper analyzes the impact of job resources on academic productivity measured by publication and credit points in 53 departments in one large Norwegian university. The theoretical framework is the so-called conservation of resources theory. The resources data came from the so-called ARK Intervention Program. The results showed that engagement and administrative and technical support for research and teaching stimulated research publications but had adverse effects on credit points from teaching, thus also contributing to the research-teaching nexus debate. To avoid adverse trade-offs between research and teaching, and to gain further positive effects on research productivity, targeted means and reward structures seem important.

Positive Factors at Work : The First Report of the Nordic Project

Positive psychology investigates the positive aspects of human life. Positive psychologists contend that it is difficult to understand the factors that create health, balance and meaningful lives through studying sickness, dissatisfaction and suffering. Accordingly, positive psychology represents a turn for a more positive approach to psychology. The ideas of positive psychology are also applicable within the sphere of work and organisational psychology. It is a central contention of this report that positive psychology may provide interesting answers to some of the challenges that are confronting the Nordic welfare states in the years ahead. The aim of this report is to give a theoretical and methodological overview of existing Nordic research about positive factors at work. The report contains a series of operationalised concepts that measure positive factors at work. These measures of positive factors at work are brought together in a theoretical model that the authors of this report will use as a starting point for further research into positive psychology at work in a Nordic context. This research has been funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers.

Healthy Universities. The development and implementation of a holistic health promotion intervention programme especially adapted for staff working in the higher educational sector: the ARK study

Underpinned by the Healthy Universities settings concept, this paper presents a holistic intervention approach, called ARK, to improve the health and well-being of academic staff. ARK (a Norwegian acronym for work environment and climate study) has been conducted in 18 universities and university colleges in Norway. The survey has collected information on employees’ perceptions of the psychosocial work environment, well-being, and health from over 15,000 respondents. Further, it has provided valuable information and experiences on organizational development processes on how to successfully implement a health-promoting intervention programme. The aim of this paper is to present the ARK project and provide suggestions on how to conduct a health-promoting intervention programme in a university setting based on the experience and knowledge acquired from ARK. This understanding can inform and inspire the planning of future Health Promoting University initiatives to meet the distinctive needs of its employees.

Coworkership and Prolific Behaviors in Modern Work Life

There is a consensus in most organizations that in order to develop a healthy and productive work environment, you have to arrange for a good job design that promotes engagement and positive health and have a competent, good leader. This creates a good basis for a sound and sustainable environment. But a good working environment is not something you get, but something you actively take part in creating through your own efforts and in relation to your managers and colleagues. The collective effort from both the organization and the coworkers is essential for a healthy and productive organization. The coworkers’ individual role in organizational development is often somewhat overlooked; however, in this chapter, we argue that coworkers individually play an active and important part in creating a sustainable work place.

Healthy Individuals in Healthy Organizations: The Happy Productive Worker Hypothesis

The individual is the primary constituent of and the driving force behind an organization. Sickness, health-related issues, presenteeism, and sickness absenteeism could become a threat for the organization in terms of increased costs and production loss (Boles, Pelletier, & Lynch, 2004; Burton et al., 2005). On this basis, occupational health has focused on the negative aspects of working life (Christensen et al., 2012; Halbesleben & Buckley, 2004; Wright & Cropanzano, 2004). Over time, this negative focus has been more important than the focus on health promotion and the positive factors in the working life. This is not necessarily always appropriate since workers who do well both mentally and physically also appear to be more healthy and productive (Fisher, 2003). Based on this, we will take a closer look at which factors are preventive and which are promotional for the workers experience of the psychosocial working environment, as well as at the connection between positive factors in the working life and productivity.

What Is Health from an Occupational Health Perspective

In understanding and explaining what the phenomenon of occupational health revolves around, we have to take a closer look at the concept of health, as well as asking the question: what is health? Answering this question is almost impossible because health is a highly complicated, complex, and context-dependent concept. Most of us agree that this concept is much more than simply the absence of illness, yet health is also dependent on culture and experience since health is something that changes throughout the entire life course. If it is so difficult to define health, then we could be asking what is the point of writing this chapter? The aim is to help the readers to be attentive to the complexity of the concept of health so that it can be used to reflect on various issues in terms of the challenges facing occupational health.

Work Engagement and Job Crafting

In order for employees to feel good, have good health and be productive, a constructive psychosocial working environment is important. (Bakker & Demerouti, 2014; Christensen, 2008; Christensen, Aronsson, Clausen, Hakanen, & Vivoll Straume, 2012). Good leadership, a well-designed job, and working conditions that promotes work engagement and good performance, is important in achieving this. Organizations usually initiate top-down governed interventions to increase motivation, to decrease sickness absenteeism, and to increase performance. However, they do not always get the expected results (Aust, Rugulies, Finken, & Jensen, 2010). Many organizations also find that the bottom-up-processes of engagement and performance, driven by the employees themselves, combined with equivalent processes driven by the management, to be more useful. One kind of bottom-up processes is job crafting, where the employees themselves form the job in such a way that it is perceived as more engaging. Leadership can stimulate job crafting by promoting the right work conditions for their employees. Job crafting can be understood as a type of proactive behavior where the employees themselves takes the initiative to change the level of demands and resources to make their job more meaningful, engaging, and satisfying. In this chapter, we will first explain what work engagement is, as well as the theoretical background. Second, we will examine the concept of job crafting. Finally, we will give some tips on how one can work with job crafting in practice.