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Wittmers A, Maier GW. Leaders' mental health in times of crisis: work intensification, emotional demands and the moderating role of organizational support and self-efficacy. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1122881. [PMID: 37205088 PMCID: PMC10186101 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1122881] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/13/2022] [Accepted: 04/10/2023] [Indexed: 05/21/2023] Open
Abstract
This article focuses on leaders' specific demands in times of crisis and the role of personal and organizational resources regarding mental health. The COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased levels of responsibilities, particularly among leaders. To deepen the understanding about the resulting consequences in terms of leaders' demands and resources, we conducted a mixed methods study with a sample of 60 leaders from lower and middle management. We hypothesized leaders' work intensification and emotional demands to be related with higher irritation and exhaustion. Consistent with the Job Demands-Resources model and the Conservation of Resources theory, we examined organizational instrumental support and occupational self-efficacy as possible moderators and assumed a buffering effect on mental illness. Our quantitative results indicated organizational instrumental support as a moderator for the relation of work intensification and mental illness. In terms of self-efficacy and work intensification, the results contradicted our expectations. For emotional demands, only the main effects could be found. In the qualitative part of our study, we found evidence for the importance of work intensification, emotional demands and organizational instrumental support in the leaders' everyday experience and gained a deeper understanding of the constructs' nature by means of examples. The integration of our quantitative and qualitative results has important and concrete implications for organizations how to support leaders in times of crisis and accelerated changes at work. This further underlines the necessity to consider leaders as an important target group of occupational health measures.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anja Wittmers
- Federal Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, Dortmund, Germany
- *Correspondence: Anja Wittmers,
| | - Günter W. Maier
- Department of Psychology, Bielefeld University, Bielefeld, Germany
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Chen H, Eyoun K. Do mindfulness and perceived organizational support work? Fear of COVID-19 on restaurant frontline employees' job insecurity and emotional exhaustion. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT 2021; 94:102850. [PMID: 34785844 PMCID: PMC8586797 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2020.102850] [Citation(s) in RCA: 95] [Impact Index Per Article: 31.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/26/2020] [Revised: 12/15/2020] [Accepted: 12/21/2020] [Indexed: 05/04/2023]
Abstract
The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak has impacted the restaurant industry tremendously. Building on the Conservation of Resources Theory, the current study investigates the relationships among U.S. restaurant frontline employees' fear of COVID-19, job insecurity, and emotional exhaustion. The study also examines the moderating role of employee mindfulness and perceived organizational support. SPSS PROCESS macro was used for hypotheses testing. Results suggested that restaurant frontline employees' fear of COVID-19 was positively associated with both job insecurity and emotional exhaustion. Fear of COVID-19 had an indirect effect on restaurant frontline employees' emotional exhaustion via job insecurity. Employee mindfulness buffered the positive relationship between fear of COVID-19 and job insecurity. Perceived organizational support was found to intensify the positive relationship between job insecurity and frontline employees' emotional exhaustion. The research provided useful human resource management practices for U.S. restaurant businesses amid crises such as COVID-19.
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Affiliation(s)
- Han Chen
- The Lester E. Kabacoff School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Administration, University of New Orleans, Kirschman Hall 462C, 2000 Lakeshore Drive, New Orleans, LA 70148, USA
| | - Khalid Eyoun
- Department of Business Administration/Hospitality Management Program, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, The Hashemite University, P.O. Box 330127, Zarqa 13133, Jordan
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The link between fear about COVID-19 and insomnia: mediated by economic concerns and psychological distress, moderated by mindfulness. JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 2021. [PMCID: PMC7900663 DOI: 10.1017/jmo.2021.3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/30/2022]
Abstract
This paper adds to extant research by examining the relationship between employees’ fear of coronavirus disease 2019 and their suffering from insomnia. It specifically proposes mediating roles of employees' economic concerns and psychological distress and a moderating role of mindfulness in this process. The research hypotheses are tested with survey data collected through two studies among Pakistani-based professionals: 316 in study 1 and 421 in study 2. The results pinpoint a salient risk for employees who experience fear during a pandemic crisis, in that the associated economic and psychological hardships make the situation worse by undermining their sleep quality, which eventually could diminish the quality of their lives even further. It also reveals how organizations can mitigate this risk if employees can leverage pertinent personal resources, such as mindfulness.
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Schumacher D, Schreurs B, De Cuyper N, Grosemans I. The ups and downs of felt job insecurity and job performance: The moderating role of informational justice. WORK AND STRESS 2020. [DOI: 10.1080/02678373.2020.1832607] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/23/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Désirée Schumacher
- Maastricht University School of Business and Economics, Department of Organization and Strategy Maastricht, Netherlands
| | - Bert Schreurs
- Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Faculty of Social Sciences & Solvay Business School, Business Department Elsene, Belgium
| | - Nele De Cuyper
- KU Leuven, Occupational & Organisational Psychology and Professional Learning Leuven, Belgium
| | - Ilke Grosemans
- KU Leuven, Occupational & Organisational Psychology and Professional Learning Leuven, Belgium
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Abstract
When individuals experience empathy , they often seek to bolster others’ well-being. But what do empathizers want others to feel? Though psychologists have studied empathy and prosociality for decades, this question has yet to be clearly addressed. This is because virtually all existing research focuses on cases in which improving others’ well-being also comprises heightening their positive affect or decreasing their negative affect and helping them reach their own emotional goals. In this review, I argue that real-life empathic goals encompass a broader range—including sometimes worsening targets’ affect or contravening their wishes in order to improve their well-being—that can be productively integrated into the framework of interpersonal emotion regulation (IER). I review the empathic IER spectrum in a number of contexts, including close relationships, professional caregiving, and group-based emotions. Integrating empathy and IER provides a synthetic and generative way to ask new questions about how social emotions produce prosocial actions.
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Affiliation(s)
- Jamil Zaki
- Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA
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The relationship between workplace incivility and depersonalization towards co-workers: Roles of job-related anxiety, gender, and education. JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT & ORGANIZATION 2019. [DOI: 10.1017/jmo.2019.76] [Citation(s) in RCA: 13] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/07/2022]
Abstract
AbstractThis study contributes to management scholarship by unpacking the relationship between employees' exposure to workplace incivility and their exhibition of depersonalization towards co-workers, according to the mediating effect of job-related anxiety and the moderating effects of gender and education. Time-lagged data from employees in Pakistani organizations show that an important reason workplace incivility enhances depersonalization towards co-workers is that employees feel anxious about their jobs. This mediating role of job-related anxiety is particularly salient among male and higher-educated employees, possibly because they suffer from resource losses in the form of dignity threats when they are treated with disrespect. For organizations, this study accordingly pinpoints a key mechanism by which disrespectful workplace treatment can escalate into depersonalization towards co-workers (enhanced job-related feelings of anxiety), as well as how the strength of this mechanism might depend on individual factors.
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Freedman G, Burgoon EM, Ferrell JD, Pennebaker JW, Beer JS. When Saying Sorry May Not Help: The Impact of Apologies on Social Rejections. Front Psychol 2017; 8:1375. [PMID: 28848484 PMCID: PMC5554531 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01375] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/28/2017] [Accepted: 07/28/2017] [Indexed: 12/04/2022] Open
Abstract
If you have to socially reject someone, will it help to apologize? Social rejection is a painful emotional experience for targets, yet research has been silent on recommendations for rejectors. Across three sets of studies, apologies increased hurt feelings and the need to express forgiveness but did not increase feelings of forgiveness. The investigation of hurt feelings arising from a social rejection is challenging because previous research has shown that participants are reluctant to admit they felt hurt by the rejection. The present research addressed the self-report issue in two ways. First, participants rated how much social rejections would hurt someone’s feelings as a function of whether an apology was included across various social rejection scenarios (Studies 1a–e). Second, aggressive behavior was measured in response to face-to-face social rejections that were manipulated to include or exclude apologies (Studies 2a–c). More specifically, Studies 1a–e (N = 1096) found that although individuals sometimes use apologies in social rejections, social rejections with apologies are associated with higher levels of explicit hurt feelings. Studies 2a–c (N = 355) manipulated the presence of an apology in face-to-face social rejections and found that social rejections with apologies cause more aggressive behavior. As in previous research, participants are reluctant to admit to feeling hurt. Finally, Study 3 (N = 426) found that in response to social rejections with apologies, individuals feel more compelled to express forgiveness despite not actually feeling more forgiveness. Implications for the role of language in social rejections are discussed.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gili Freedman
- Dartmouth College, HanoverNH, United States.,Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, AustinTX, United States
| | - Erin M Burgoon
- Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, AustinTX, United States
| | - Jason D Ferrell
- Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, AustinTX, United States
| | - James W Pennebaker
- Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, AustinTX, United States
| | - Jennifer S Beer
- Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin, AustinTX, United States
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Richter M, König CJ. Explaining individuals' justification of layoffs. JOURNAL OF APPLIED SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 2017. [DOI: 10.1111/jasp.12442] [Citation(s) in RCA: 6] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/28/2022]
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Freedman G, Williams KD, Beer JS. Softening the Blow of Social Exclusion: The Responsive Theory of Social Exclusion. Front Psychol 2016; 7:1570. [PMID: 27777566 PMCID: PMC5056179 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01570] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/05/2016] [Accepted: 09/26/2016] [Indexed: 11/17/2022] Open
Abstract
Social exclusion is an interactive process between multiple people, yet previous research has focused almost solely on the negative impacts on targets. What advice is there for people on the other side (i.e., sources) who want to minimize its negative impact and preserve their own reputation? To provide an impetus for research on the interactive nature of exclusion, we propose the Responsive Theory of Social Exclusion. Our theory postulates that targets and sources’ needs are better maintained if sources use clear, explicit verbal communication. We propose that sources have three options: explicit rejection (clearly stating no), ostracism (ignoring), and ambiguous rejection (being unclear). Drawing on psychology, sociology, communications, and business research, we propose that when sources use explicit rejection, targets’ feelings will be less hurt, their needs will be better protected, and sources will experience less backlash and emotional toil than if sources use ambiguous rejection or ostracism. Finally, we propose how the language of rejections may impact both parties.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gili Freedman
- Department of Film & Media Studies, Dartmouth College Hanover, NH, USA
| | | | - Jennifer S Beer
- Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX, USA
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Żołnierczyk-Zreda D, Sanderson M, Bedyńska S. Mindfulness-based stress reduction for managers: a randomized controlled study: Table 1. Occup Med (Lond) 2016; 66:630-635. [DOI: 10.1093/occmed/kqw091] [Citation(s) in RCA: 15] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
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Schumacher D, Schreurs B, Van Emmerik H, De Witte H. Explaining the Relation Between Job Insecurity and Employee Outcomes During Organizational Change: A Multiple Group Comparison. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 2015. [DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21687] [Citation(s) in RCA: 38] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.2] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/09/2022]
Affiliation(s)
| | - Bert Schreurs
- Maastricht University School of Business and Economics; the Netherlands
| | - Hetty Van Emmerik
- Maastricht University School of Business and Economics; the Netherlands
| | - Hans De Witte
- KU Leuven, Belgium, the Research Group Work, Organizational and Personnel Psychology (WOPP), and the North-West University of South Africa (Vanderbijlpark Campus)
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Principal self-efficacy: relations with burnout, job satisfaction and motivation to quit. SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION 2012. [DOI: 10.1007/s11218-012-9183-5] [Citation(s) in RCA: 57] [Impact Index Per Article: 4.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/28/2022]
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Schreurs BHJ, Hetty van Emmerik IJ, Günter H, Germeys F. A weekly diary study on the buffering role of social support in the relationship between job insecurity and employee performance. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT 2012. [DOI: 10.1002/hrm.21465] [Citation(s) in RCA: 108] [Impact Index Per Article: 9.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/05/2022]
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Alarcon GM. A meta-analysis of burnout with job demands, resources, and attitudes. JOURNAL OF VOCATIONAL BEHAVIOR 2011. [DOI: 10.1016/j.jvb.2011.03.007] [Citation(s) in RCA: 304] [Impact Index Per Article: 23.4] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/18/2022]
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Abstract
The current downsizing literature has neglected the cognitions and behaviors of layoff agents. In this article, layoff agents are defined as employees who assist in the implementation of layoffs in their employing organizations. The article develops a theoretical framework that focuses on the cognitions and perceptions of those individuals. This framework suggests that layoff agents have the potential to experience cognitive dissonance as a result of their layoff agency activities, and under some conditions they will seek to reduce that dissonance by altering their perceptions of organizational downsizing. The framework specifies variables that moderate the relationship between layoff agency and cognitive dissonance and also variables that moderate the relationship between layoff agency—induced cognitive dissonance and agent perceptions of organizational downsizing. The moderating effects of these variables are captured in a set of propositions suitable for testing in future empirical research on the psychology of layoff agents.
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Affiliation(s)
- Thomas Parker
- Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, tparker1@ siu.edu
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