Sebastian Stegmann

Belastung, Beanspruchung und Stress im Lehrerberuf-Theorien und Modelle

Thema des vorliegenden Sammelbandes sind Belastungen und Beanspruchungen im Lehrerberuf. Welche besonderen Charakteristika den Beruf des Lehrers und den Arbeitsplatz Schule kennzeichnen, die schlieslich auch in einem mittel- und unmittelbaren Zusammenhang mit eben solchen Belastungen stehen, wurde bereits im einleitenden Beitrag von Rothland und Terhart (2007) skizziert. Wie lassen sich aber grundsatzlich berufliche „Belastungen“ jenseits einer alltagssprachlichen Begriffsverwendung wissenschaftlich bestimmen? Wie entstehen sie? Und wie unterscheiden sich bzw. in welchem Verhaltnis stehen Belastungen, Beanspruchungen und Stress? Auf diese Fragen versucht dieser Beitrag in einem ersten Schritt Antworten zu geben. Im Anschluss daran werden unterschiedliche Modelle vorgestellt, mit denen die Arbeit des Lehrers analysiert, verstanden und optimiert werden kann. Wir beginnen mit einem Rahmenmodell der Belastung und Beanspruchung (Rudow 1994). Anschliesend wird das trans- aktionale Stressmodell (Lazarus 1995) vorgestellt. Der Ansatzpunkt dieses Modells ist die individuelle Lehrerin bzw. der individuelle Lehrer und ihre Wahrnehmungen und Ressourcen. Das dritte Modell, das Job Characteristics Model von Hackman und Oldham (1980) bezieht sich vor allem auf die Wahrnehmung der Arbeitssituation an sich, wahrend das vierte Modell, die Handlungsregulationstheorie (Oesterreich 1981), sich den Anforderungen des Berufs und der Tatigkeit in moglichst objektiver Art und Weise nahert. In einem abschliesenden Teil werden wir Dimensionen vorstellen, die zum Vergleich dieser Modelle geeignet sind.

Reducing age stereotypes in software development

Age stereotypes can hinder communication and cooperation in software development.An intervention reduced stereotypes toward younger and older employees long-term.An awareness-based intervention reduced age stereotypes in Asia.An on-the job intervention can repeatedly reach employees without being mandatory.The study extends diversity literature to Asia and a new target age group. Negative age stereotypes about older employees are present across industries and they are particularly strong in technology-related jobs. They can hinder cooperation and team processes, which are of utmost importance in software development. This paper proposes and compares two interventions to reduce age stereotypes in software development. An awareness-based intervention was conducted on-the job, as a quasi-experiment with 56 participants. A cooperation-based workshop was conducted as a field experiment with 74 employees. Both types of interventions reduced bias in performance and innovation expectations favoring middle-aged over older employees. The reduction in biases held by developers was particularly strong. Only the cooperation-based intervention reduced bias toward both older and younger employees. This intervention led to a long-term (six months) reduction in bias, regarding developer performance expectations. The study extends the diversity training literature in establishing causal, long-term effects for age stereotype reduction in the field. Furthermore, it contributes to the literature by indicating that contact hypothesis can not only be applied to reduce age stereotypes toward older but also toward younger employees. The design enables practitioners to create on-the-job diversity interventions that employees are willing to attend, and, thus, to reach a majority of employees without interventions being mandatory.

Einzelkämpfer oder Teamplayer? Soziale Arbeitsbedingungen an Schulen

Eine Schule ist ein soziales Gebilde, ein Zusammenschluss mehrerer Personen — Lehrkrafte, Schuler, Schulleitung etc. Diese Personen sind uber eine komplexe Aufgabenteilung mit- und nebeneinander tatig. Lehrerinnen und Lehrer konnen zum Beispiel miteinander kooperieren, indem sie gemeinsam unterrichten oder indem sie Erfahrungen im Umgang mit schwierigen Klassen austauschen. Sie konnen Unterrichtsmaterialien austauschen oder gemeinsame Ressourcen nutzen. Sie konnen aber auch all dies gerade nicht tun und weitgehend alleine arbeiten. Sie konnen sich gegenseitig in Konferenzen nicht zu Wort kommen lassen, sie konnen sich hinsichtlich der richtigen Lehrphilosophie uneins sein und unter einer gemeinsamen Aufgabe etwas vollig anderes verstehen. Dies sind nur einige wenige Beispiele, die zeigen, wie Lehrkrafte eine besondere Form von Bedingung fur ihre Arbeit erschaffen: soziale Arbeitsbedingungen. Diese Bedingungen sind fur deutsche Schulen derzeit im Hinblick auf zwei Dinge besonders relevant: die Qualitat der Arbeit und die Belastung der Lehrkrafte. Aus anderen Praxisfeldern ist bekannt, dass soziale Arbeitsbedingungen die Effektivitat und Effizienz der Arbeit signifikant beeinflussen konnen — und zwar im negativen wie im positiven Sinn (z.B. Hackman, 1992; West, Brodbeck & Richter, 2004; West, Tjosvold & Smith, 2003).

The ideal and the counter-ideal follower – advancing implicit followership theories

Purpose Research on implicit followership theories – that is, individually held assumptions about how followers are and how they should be – is still in its infancy. The few existing approaches differ in what they define as the object of these theories. The authors consider the lack of two aspects in the existing literature: first, the authors consider it important to not only focus on effective but also on ideal followers – which allows investigating follower characteristics that go beyond just performance; and second, the authors demonstrate the importance of the study of characteristics which leaders explicitly see as undesirable for followers (i.e. counter-ideal follower prototypes). The purpose of this paper is to fill these gaps and to extend the literature by introducing the concept of implicit followership theories as assumptions of ideal followers. Design/methodology/approach The authors first present three studies conducted to develop a scale to measure ideal and counter-ideal follower prototypes, respectively. In a fourth study, the authors apply this scale and compare it to existing measures of implicit followership theories regarding their value for predicting leaders’ follower ratings. Findings Results show that the newly developed measure is reliable and valid, and comprises a useful tool for future research. Practical implications The scale can be used for leadership development programs. Originality/value The study is among the few that provide theory and evidence for the relevance of implicit followership theories and is the first to consider the ideal follower in this regard.

Age stereotypes in agile software development – an empirical study of performance expectations

Research on agile software development (ASD) has so far primarily focused on processes and tools. Recently, researchers have started to investigate the social dimensions of ASD. The authors contribute to this and examine the largely invisible psychological factor of age stereotypes as one important social dimension of ASD. Driven by demographic change, employees of different age groups will need to work closely together in ASD in the future. However, age stereotypes can hinder many aspects of communication, cooperation and coordination in these self-managed teams. The purpose of this paper is to identify and differentiate age stereotypes in ASD.,A quantitative survey at the individual level was conducted with 464 employees in two software development companies. The authors developed an age stereotype model for ASD and developed two scales to measure performance expectations (PEs) in ASD.,Employees in ASD show a bias in general PEs, favoring middle-aged employees over both younger and older employees. The perceived PE of a developer decreases over working life. Furthermore, the data show a complex interplay of age and job role in both the research participants and the group evaluated. Younger developers hold the strongest negative age stereotypes and older developers suffer most from stereotypes.,Management should enact formal or informal measures against stereotypes when an older or younger employee joins a team of members of other age groups, or when a new team is formed. In addition, the authors propose human resources to create permeable career paths.,The study extends the stereotype content model by adding additional age groups and including job role as a moderating variable. It identifies obstacles in daily employee interactions in agile development, and proposes ways of incorporating invisible psychological aspects in ASD-specific theories.

Emails From the Boss—Curse or Blessing? Relations Between Communication Channels, Leader Evaluation, and Employees’ Attitudes:

The present research investigates if and how a more digitally centered communication between supervisors and employees satisfies employees’ needs regarding the communication with their supervisors and influences employees’ attitudes toward the supervisor and the job. In a cross-sectional online study, 261 employees rated their supervisors’ actual and ideal use of different communication channels (i.e., telephone, face-to-face, email) regarding quality and quantity. Employees’ job satisfaction and their perceptions of their supervisors’ effectiveness and team identification were measured as dependent variables. Employees perceived face-to-face communication to be of higher quality than telephone and email communication, and they indicated a preference for more face-to-face communication with their supervisors than they actually had. Moreover, the perceived quality of communication, especially via face-to-face, was strongly and positively related to the dependent variables. These results provide insights into potential problems of increasing e-leadership in organizations. We conclude with recommendations to reduce these problems.

Age stereotypes in distributed software development: The impact of culture on age-related performance expectations

Abstract Context Due to demographic changes in most developed countries, distributed software development (DSD) teams might suffer new barriers above and beyond the well-known cultural and distance-based challenges. Remarkably, six out of the twelve most important barriers for DSD are related to typical problems induced by both cultural and age diversity. Age stereotypes can hinder communication, trust, knowledge exchange and coordination in software development. They have been studied based on individual level whereas context-related factors such as culture have been less in focus yet. Objective We examine the effects of national and organizational culture on age stereotypes. Therein we explore the conditions and processes that might increase age stereotypes. Method We conducted a quantitative study with 457 employees in two software development companies in China, Germany, Poland and Bulgaria. Results Results show a significant bias in performance expectations favoring middle-aged employees over younger and older employees across national cultures. Stereotypes toward older employees are more negative in Eastern Europe and China than in Germany, while stereotypes toward younger employees are more negative in Germany than in China and Eastern Europe. Lower average team age and lower contact frequency foster stereotypes in China and Eastern Europe. Negative stereotypes can be buffered by an organizational culture which values team achievement and trust over individual performance and control. Conclusions The study advances the literature by integrating value- and schema-based approaches when examining cultural influences, extending the stereotype content model and the situated dynamics framework. Moreover, it may help finding new solutions for human-related problems in DSD based on intangible barriers that hinder development processes. Companies that use DSD might consider reducing age stereotypes in China and Eastern Europe by intensively increasing contact to older workers, including age stereotype aspects into cultural training or by increasing values of team achievement within their organizational culture.

Measuring beliefs in the instrumentality of ethnic diversity: Development and validation of the Pro-Diversity Beliefs Scale (PDBS):

In general, diversity beliefs are beliefs about the instrumentality of diversity for the functioning of groups. Focusing on a societal level, recent social-psychological research addressed pro-diversity beliefs as individuals’ beliefs that diversity is beneficial for the progress of society. Despite the growing interest in societal pro-diversity beliefs, no systematically validated scale measuring pro-diversity beliefs is available to date. We addressed this shortcoming and studied the reliability and validity of the newly developed Pro-Diversity Beliefs Scale (PDBS) across four samples. Results indicate that the PDBS is reliable, adequately distinct from related and established scales, and valid in predicting external criteria such as outgroup attitudes or intergroup threat.

Age and the Rule of Promotion in Implicit Followership and Leadership Theories

Age discrimination in the workplace is a well-known and well-documented phenomenon. The origin of this type of discrimination, however, is still unclear. This paper aims at addressing this research...

Diversity, Social Identity und Diversitätsüberzeugungen

In diesem Kapitel wird die Diversitatsforschung aus der Perspektive der Theorie der sozialen Identitat dargestellt. Nach dieser Theorie kommt es in Interaktionen mit Mitgliedern anderer Gruppen, wie dies in heterogen zusammengesetzten Teams und Arbeitsgruppen der Fall ist, haufig zu Kategorisierungen und daraus resultierenden Konflikten. Gleichzeitig kann aber gerade die Heterogenitat eine Quelle besonders produktiver Zusammenarbeit durch die Integration unterschiedlicher Perspektiven sein. Als wichtigen Moderator, der erklaren kann, wann Diversitat eher positive und wann eher negative Effekte hat, fuhren wir den Begriff der Diversitatsuberzeugungen ein und fassen die empirische Befundlage hinsichtlich seiner moderierenden Rolle zusammen.