On the positive and negative effects of self-efficacy on performance: Reward as a moderator

Consecutive surgeries with complications: the impact of scheduling decisions

Purpose

The authors determine how the scheduling and sequencing of surgeries by surgeons impacts the rate of post-surgical complications and patient length-of-stay in the hospital.

Design/methodology/approach

Leveraging a dataset of 29,169 surgeries performed by 111 surgeons from a large hospital network in Ontario, Canada, the authors perform a matched case-control regression analysis. The empirical findings are contextualized by interviews with surgeons from the authors’ dataset.

Findings

Surgical complications and longer hospital stays are more likely to occur in technically complex surgeries that follow a similarly complex surgery. The increased complication risk and length-of-hospital-stay is not mitigated by scheduling greater slack time between surgeries nor is it isolated to a few problematic surgery types, surgeons, surgical team configurations or temporal factors such as the timing of surgery within an operating day.

Research limitations/implications

There are four major limitations: (1) the inability to access data that reveals the cognition behind the behavior of the task performer and then directly links this behavior to quality outcomes; (2) the authors’ definition of task complexity may be too simplistic; (3) the authors’ analysis is predicated on the fact that surgeons in the study are independent contractors with hospital privileges and are responsible for scheduling the patients they operate on rather than outsourcing this responsibility to a scheduler (i.e. either a software system or an administrative professional); (4) although the empirical strategy attempts to control for confounding factors and selection bias in the estimate of the treatment effects, the authors cannot rule out that an unobserved confounder may be driving the results.

Practical implications

The study demonstrates that the scheduling and sequencing of patients can affect service quality outcomes (i.e. post-surgical complications) and investigates the effect that two operational levers have on performance. In particular, the authors find that introducing additional slack time between surgeries does not reduce the odds of back-to-back complications. This result runs counter to the traditional operations management perspective, which suggests scheduling more slack time between tasks may prevent or mitigate issues as they arise. However, the authors do find evidence suggesting that the risk of back-to-back complications may be reduced when surgical pairings are less complex and when the method involved in performing consecutive surgeries varies. Thus, interspersing procedures of different complexity levels may help to prevent poor quality outcomes.

Originality/value

The authors empirically connect choices made in scheduling work that varies in task complexity and to patient-centric health outcomes. The results have implications for achieving high-quality outcomes in settings where professionals deliver a variety of technically complex services.

Mindset as a resilience resource and perceived wellness of first responders in a South African context

The global increase in frequency and intensity of disasters and emergency situations has a major disruptive effect on societies that is especially visible in Africa, where conflict, poverty, diseases and social unrest are some of the biggest factors contributing to societal vulnerability. Developing countries such as South Africa are vulnerable to the impact of disaster situations that strain the society’s ability to deal with these emergencies. First responders play an important function responding to disasters but are exposed to work-related stressors that could impact their performance. Several international studies make a link between wellness, performance and resilience and the use of resilience resources in the development and enhancement of wellness, indicating that resilience resources such as a resilient mindset are an indicator of good mental health and performance amongst first responders, despite being exposed to traumatic situations. However, very little research has been carried out on first responders in South Africa, making this study an important stepping stone towards gaining an understanding of the relationship between mindset as a resilience resource and perceived wellness of first responders in a South African context. Data were collected from 52 first responders using a structured questionnaire. The results indicate a statistically significant relationship between mindset and perceived wellness, with all the wellness factors indicating that the mindset of first responders plays a crucial role in their resilience and perception of wellness, necessitating additional research in this specialised field of disaster response.

Teachers Self-Efficacy and Employee Brand Based Equity: A Perspective of College Students

Teachers working in institutions like to affiliate themselves with their organizations taking into account their efficacy toward jobs along with encouraging students in studies. The main objective of the present study is to identify the teachers’ self-efficacy on collective self-efficacy, academic psychological capital, and students’ engagement which consequently affect brand-based equity. The population taken in this study is college students across China, deriving a sample size of 316. The sample has been selected on the basis of the convenience sampling technique. Smart PLS 3.3.5 software has been used in the present study to analyze data for structural equation modeling. The findings of the study had shown that teachers’ self-efficacy does not have any impact on employee-based brand equity, however, significantly affects collective self-efficacy, academic psychological capital, and student engagement. Further, strong and moderate mediations have also been confirmed in the study for collective self-efficacy, academic psychological capital, student engagement between the relationships between teachers self-efficacy and brand based equity, however, collective self-efficacy and academic psychological capital could not find any mediating significance. The results have identified the significant role of teachers’ self-efficacy for collective self-efficacy, academic psychological capital, and student engagement. These empirical findings suggest policy implications for the retention of students in colleges across China.

“Too Much” Self-Efficacy? Understanding the Curvilinear Consequences of Between-Person Self-Efficacy through a Moderated-Mediation Model of Perceived Proximity and Employee Effort

Building from a paradox frame, we argue that at the between-person level the relationship between self-efficacy and effort may be nonlinear. We bound our conceptual model with a focus on perceived proximity, reflecting employees’ perceptions of how close they feel to their organization and colleagues. We test our model in a lagged, multi-source field study, with matching employee survey data from 1502 employees, and archival effort, and performance, metrics collected several months later. The results from our analyses reveal a curvilinear association between self-efficacy and effort, which is moderated by perceived proximity. We also find that the relationship between self-efficacy and performance is mediated by effort for individuals with low self-efficacy (Low SEs), but not for individuals with moderate (Moderate SEs) or high self-efficacy (High SEs). Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Eminence of Leader Humility for Follower Creativity During COVID-19: The Role of Self-Efficacy and Proactive Personality

The purpose of this study is to understand how leader humility effectively stimulates follower creativity in the workplace during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) scenario. Relying on social cognitive and social information processing theories, this study investigates how leader humility cultivates follower self-efficacy and follower creativity. Furthermore, it explores an intervening mechanism of follower self-efficacy and examines a moderating role of leader proactive personality. The hypothesized model is empirically tested by collecting the data from 405 employees and 87 managers working in the banking sector of Pakistan. The results indicate that leader humility is positively related to follower self-efficacy and follower creativity, which improve the organization’s innovation climate and an environment for social sustainability. Follower self-efficacy is also significantly related to follower creativity. The mediation analysis shows that follower self-efficacy mediates the relationship between leader humility and follower creativity. Additionally, leader proactive personality moderates the relation between follower self-efficacy and follower creativity. This study highlights the importance of leader humility for creativity and extends the literature by explaining the role of self-efficacy. Furthermore, the findings may assist the policymakers in how a humble leader heightens employee creativity and social sustainability in COVID-19.

The effect of occupational self-efficacy on work performance through intrinsic work motivation

Purpose

Today, organizations work hard to improve the motivation of their employees and related knowledge, skills and abilities to enhance work performance. Among many other variables, self-efficacy proved to have an influential role in work performance. The main purpose of the current study is to investigate the role of occupational self-efficacy on work performance through intrinsic motivation by using a longitudinal analysis.

Design/methodology/approach

Participants were 76 employees from diverse organizations operating in an organized industrial region in Turkey. Participants filled in a weekly questionnaire during ten consecutive weeks.

Findings

Results of multilevel analyses confirmed our hypotheses by showing that occupational self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation have a significant influential role over work performance, and intrinsic motivation serve as a partial mediator in this relationship.

Originality/value

The study findings also reveal important information for organizational and managerial practices to improve employee motivation and performance.