Sharon Glazer

The enigma of social support and occupational stress: source congruence and gender role effects.

Research on the potential ameliorating effects of social support on occupational stress produces weak, inconsistent, and even contradictory results. This study of 117 employees, mostly from a southern U.S. hospital supply company, examined potential moderators that were theorized might reduce the confusion: source congruence (congruence between sources of the stressor and of social support) and gender role. Congruence between the sources of stressors and of social support appeared to make little difference in determining the moderating or buffering effect of social support on the relationship between stressors and strain. Gender role, however, may moderate the relationship between social support and individual stains such that more feminine people react more strongly and positively to social support than more masculine people do.

Individualism-collectivism as Descriptive Norms Development of a Subjective Norm Approach to Culture Measurement

The development and validation of a new instrument for measuring the descriptive norms related to individualism-collectivism (IC) is presented. IC is conceptualized as a group- specific unidimensional cultural construct with four defining attributes (Triandis, 1995). Three studies are reported showing the dimensionality and validities at individual and cultural levels across samples from 11 cultures. The new instrument has good statistical properties with iden- tical structures at the individual and cultural level, good reliabilities at the individual level, adequate agreement within cultures, and demonstrates first signs of convergent and discriminant validity. Correlations at the cultural level also indicate that the measure has the potential to add to research by integrating previously untapped attributes of IC. Finally, normative IC explains variance in self-reported behavior over and above self-referenced IC. Implications and opportunities for norm-oriented research and scale refinement are discussed.

Similarities and Differences in Human Values between Nurses in Four Countries

Data on human values were collected from 1410 nurses from Hungary, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Multivariate analysis of covariance, using the mean rating of all 57 individual values, sex, marital status, and age as the covariates, showed significant differences between countries on the 10 value types. However, the variance accounted for by country on each of these values was small. A plot of the adjusted mean scores of each country on each value type, as well as Spearman rho correlations between countries on the 10 value types show that nurses tend to have similar value type profiles across countries. Because years of experience in nursing do not seem to affect these correlations, we presume that nursing attracts people with personal values that are more similar to each other than different across countries, much like the homogenization process that takes place in organizations.

Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other: Problems With Working Fixed and Rotating Shifts

This study examined the relationship between shift patterns and role stressors and strains, as well as the extent to which situational variables and individual variables mediate the relationship between shift patterns and strains. Using survey data from 397 Israeli nurses, the author found that nurses working fixed day (vs. rotating) shifts reported less strains, but more stressors. Individual and situational variables mediated the relationship between shift pattern and both affective commitment and intention to leave, respectively. Younger age and higher role ambiguity might account for fully rotating shift nurses’ reports of intention to leave, and being an older, full-time employee with little role conflict and ambiguity might explain why fixed day (vs. rotating) shift nurses report greater affective commitment.

Global Virtual Teams: A Cure for – or a Cause of – Stress

Global virtual teams (GVTs), also known as transnational or distributed teams, are increasingly common as organizations strive to maintain a global presence, find top and diverse talent, and cope with economic constraints. Despite increasing adoption of GVTs, there is a dearth of research addressing whether GVTs are an effective coping strategy for dealing with the world economic crisis and if there are unintended negative consequences on employee well-being as a result of their use. Thus, a focal question guiding the development of this chapter is whether or not GVTs are a sustainable solution for organizations? In this chapter we present a generic framework depicting the cycle by which macroeconomic demands impose changes on organizations structures, which trickle down to the level of the individual who has to cope with the demands the new structure has imposed. We discuss GVTs as an intervention (or cure) for organizations’ dealing with the current world economic crisis and how this organizational intervention inevitably becomes the context (or cause) for the kinds of stressors or demands employees face.

Implications of Behavioral and Neuroscience Research for Cross-Cultural Training

Glazer, Blok, Mrazek, and Mathis first review the literature on priming of cultural syndromes as a gateway to targeting brain mechanisms underlying cultural differences. Most of this research, they point out, involves the priming of individualism or collectivism. They criticize this work as being too narrow, and ignoring the fact that most intercultural interactions involve relationships. They propose using the relational models of Fiske and colleagues as more representative of the reality of these relationships. They present data that show that these models can be successfully primed. They then suggest specific brain areas that would be activated when each model is primed. The implications of behavioral and neuroscience findings for research and training in the areas of intercultural relations are discussed.

Culture, Organizations, and Work

The SpringerBriefs Series in Culture, Organizations, and Work publishes fully developed conceptual pieces that focus on current state-of-the-art topics and research on the interface between culture, organizations and work. The series aims to expand upon key concepts, theories, or ideas that require more development than a typical journal article permits, but still do not require a full-length book. We encourage authors to disentangle issues that have created confusion or have had little attention in research and application. Submissions should forward issues in work and organizations from an international, multinational, cross-cultural, intercultural, and/or cultural perspectives. Published papers should also provide guidance for applying research findings in practice. Topics should focus on all kinds of cultures, organizations, and work situations. The level of analysis is open and we also encourage cross-level conceptual pieces. Papers may include some empirical evidence, but it is not a forum for preparing a longer journal type manuscript. Importantly, this series aims to publish papers from around the globe and support views of culture, organizations, and work from different cultural lenses. We strive to make the series accessible and relevant to practitioners and academic scholars, including graduate students, who wish to dive deeper into topics that are currently not represented sufficiently in other publications.