Personal decision-making processes for living related liver transplantation in children

Living related liver transplantation (LRLT) is a valuable transplant option for children with end-stage liver disease who face long waiting times on regular waiting lists. The subjection of a healthy adult to a potentially life-threatening operation can raise issues of freedom of choice, fear, and family conflict for the potential donors. We examined attitudes, fears, and influencing factors in the decision-making process for living liver donation for children in order to identify factors to improve support for living liver donors in the future. In a retrospective, questionnaire-based survey of 93 adults evaluated for living liver donation between 1997 and 2010, 47 of whom actually proceeded to donation, we asked about attitudes, motivation, fears, influencing factors, and well-being during the LRLT evaluation process and during the donation period. Answers were recorded on Likert scales and compared with Pearson's rho correlation and the Mann-Whitney U test as appropriate. Although there was a strong sense of a lack of alternatives among the donors, the majority of the donors felt free in their decision to donate. Donors who were asked to donate for a relative who was not their own child appeared at higher risk of lacking support and of feeling coerced. Family and social support and good and empathic information about the donation process were identified as key factors for donor well-being. In conclusion, potential living liver donors need to have adequate, sufficient, and empathic information, and they need to be provided a supportive framework, including family support, in order to promote their well-being. Care needs to be taken in identifying and counseling potential donors at risk of feeling coerced into donation.

Staying or leaving

Purpose

– The purpose of this paper is to combine social identity and social exchange theories into a model explaining turnover intentions.

Design/methodology/approach

– Questionnaires measuring the constructs of organizational identification, perceived organizational support, emotional exhaustion, and turnover intentions were completed by 195 employees.

Findings

– Results supported our hypotheses: social identification increased the perception of organizational support which in turn reduced emotional exhaustion which was finally related to turnover intentions. Furthermore, social identification moderated the relation between organizational support and turnover intentions.

Research limitations/implications

– The study design was cross-sectional and data were collected using self-report with no assessment of objective data.

Practical implications

– To reduce turnover, managers should focus on both support and employees’ identification with teams and organizations.

Originality/value

– This study combines two theoretical perspectives into an integrative framework and simultaneous moderated-mediation was used to test the model.

Leaders Enhance Group Members' Work Engagement and Reduce Their Burnout by Crafting Social Identity

Previous research has examined burnout and work engagement as a function of demands and resources at work. Yet we know little about the ways in which these are determined by people's social experience as a member of their workgroup as shaped, in particular, by leaders' management of shared identity. To address these issues, we propose a model in which leaders' identity entrepreneurship (the degree to which the leader promotes understanding of shared group identity) impacts on group performance through burnout and work engagement. We tested our model in a field study with 641 participants from the US working population who responded to their workgroup leader and indicated their health. Results indicated that when leaders acted as identity entrepreneurs, group members not only reported higher group performance but also experienced less burnout and were more engaged at work. Moreover, the relationship between identity entrepreneurship and group performance was mediated by an increase in work engagement and a reduction in burnout both of which in turn facilitated group performance. These findings suggest that what it means for health-protective leaders to be ‘transformational’ is being capable of facilitating the development of a special sense of ‘us' that they and group members share.

'I feel bad', 'We feel good'?--emotions as a driver for personal and organizational identity and organizational identification as a resource for serving unfriendly customers

The social identity approach is used to demonstrate how personal and organizational identity is affected by emotions at work and that organizational identification can function as a valuable resource in coping with stressors. We analysed data from an experiment with 96 call centre agents to investigate relationships between positive and negative emotions, identification and strain. Positive and negative emotions were induced by simulated customers who either behaved in a friendly or a rude way. Organizational identification was assessed with a questionnaire, and personal identity salience was measured using video data by counting how often agents said 'I' during conversations. Strain was measured through self-reports of emotional dissonance and by assessing immunoglobulin A (IgA) concentration in participants' saliva. Results showed that organizational identification was higher in conditions with positive emotions and was reduced by the induction of negative emotions. Moreover, organizational identification functioned as a buffer against stress: emotional dissonance generally was lower for participants with high organizational identification; IgA levels were negatively associated with organizational identification when agents communicated with unfriendly customers. Conversely, personal identity salience was induced by negative emotions and did not make a positive contribution to the coping process.

Die Bedeutung der Führungskräfte- Kategorisierung für Commitment, Arbeitszufriedenheit und Wohl- befinden unter Berücksichtigung der Geschlechterrollentheorie

Studien zur Bedeutung einer Kategorisierung von Führungskräften hinsichtlich eines Führungsideals und eines Gegen-Ideals weisen bislang ungeklärte Inkonsistenzen vor allem bzgl. der empirischen Relevanz eines Gegen-Ideals auf. Ziel der vorliegenden Studie ist es, hierfür mögliche Erklärungen zu finden. In einer Feldstudie (N = 184) können wir die Relevanz impliziter Führungstheorien für Arbeitszufriedenheit, Commitment und Wohlbefinden der Mitarbeiter sowie eine mediierende Wirkung von Leader-Member Exchange auf diese Beziehungen aufzeigen. Weiterhin untersuchten wir den Einfluss der Geschlechterrolle auf diese Mediation. Der Fit der Führungskraft mit den impliziten Führungstheorien der Mitarbeiter beeinflusst die Arbeitszufriedenheit von Frauen stärker als die von Männern, nicht aber deren Commitment und Wohlbefinden. Die Relevanz der Ergebnisse für Forschung und Praxis wird diskutiert.

Motivated information processing during intergroup competition

Group work in organizations usually involves the existence of more than one group, which can lead to intergroup competition either implicitly or based on explicit competitive incentives. In this paper, a model of task-related effort in multigroup settings is developed, relating findings on intergroup competition to current research on motivation and information processing in groups. Increased effort during intergroup competition is explained based on (a) the degree of deliberate and systematic information retrieval and processing, and (b) the degree of collective self-construal within the groups. Implications for using and dealing with intergroup competition in organizations are discussed.

A multilevel test of Allport’s contact conditions

This study tests the relative predictive power of Allport’s contact conditions in reducing intergroup bias with a multilevel model. In addition, it is argued that a fourth contact condition, cooperation, mediates the relationships between the first three contact conditions (authority support, equal status, goal interdependence) and intergroup bias, rather than being an independent predictor. A multilevel model with N = 266 individuals within k = 48 work groups in a larger mail order company shows that equal status and goal interdependence negatively predict intergroup bias, with goal interdependence as the stronger predictor. These effects are partially mediated by cooperation. However, while authority support is predictive of intergroup cooperation, no relationship with intergroup bias emerged. Theoretical and practical implications of the relative predictive power of contact conditions and the mediation by cooperation are discussed.

Diversity Beliefs as Moderator of the Contact–Prejudice Relationship

Research on intergroup contact has recently begun to examine how individual differences moderate the reduction of prejudice. We extend this work by examining the moderating role of diversity beliefs, i.e., the strength of individuals’ beliefs that society benefits from ethnic diversity. Results of a survey among 255 university students in the United States show that the relationship between contact and reduced prejudice is stronger for individuals holding less favorable diversity beliefs compared to those with more positive diversity beliefs. Likewise, the relationship between contact and perceived importance of contact is stronger for people with less favorable diversity beliefs. Together with previously reported moderator effects, these results suggest that contact especially benefits people who are the most predisposed to being prejudiced.