Linking authentic leadership and management capability to public hospital performance: the role of work engagement

Conservation of resources perspective on authentic leadership and employee well-being: The influence of job stress and emotional intelligence

BACKGROUND

Health care industries must consider their sustainable development, and employee well-being is a crucial environmental, social, and governance indicator that should be prioritized. During events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, information transparency is a concern for health care workers. Authentic leaders can build trust by openly sharing their thoughts and feelings. Understanding how authentic leadership affects employee well-being through job stress and how emotional intelligence reduces job stress is essential for health care workers.

PURPOSES

This study investigated the effect of authentic leadership on employee well-being and considered the mediating role of job stress and moderating role of emotional intelligence in this effect.

METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

A time-lagged survey of 452 full-time health care workers (comprising nurses, allied health professionals, and administrative workers) from a general hospital in Taiwan was conducted.

FINDINGS

Authentic leadership was positively associated with employee well-being, and job stress mediated the effects of authentic leadership on employee well-being. Among the employees who perceived leadership to be authentic, those with higher emotional intelligence felt less job stress.

CONCLUSION

From the perspective of conservation of resources theory, authentic leadership was identified as a crucial factor influencing how health care workers reduce job stress and improve their well-being. Emotional intelligence was identified as essential in enhancing the effects of authentic leadership on reducing the job stress of health care workers.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Organizations should promote authentic interactions between leaders and followers and provide training for developing authentic leadership. They should also provide training to improve their employees' emotional intelligence.

Linking public leadership with project management effectiveness: Mediating role of goal clarity and moderating role of top management support

Objective

Grounding on social learning theory (SLT), this study examines the effect of public leadership on project management effectiveness (PME). Further, this study examines the mediating role of goal clarity and moderating role of top management support.

Methodology

Hierarchical linear regressions were used to investigate the relationships. PROCESS Hayes (2003) Model 7 was used for the moderation and mediation analysis. The data was collected from 322 Pakistani public sector developmental project employees.

Findings

The results show that public leadership positively affects goal clarity (β = 0.049, p < 0.001) and project management effectiveness (0.032, p < 0.001). In addition, goal clarity mediates the association between public leadership and project management effectiveness (0.36, p < 0.001). Furthermore, the strength of the mediated relationship between public leadership and project management effectiveness (via goal clarity) depends on top management support. The indirect effect of public leadership on project management effectiveness is high when top management support is high (compared to low).

Conclusion

The role of public leadership contributes significantly to the project's success. The project leader recognises, enlists, and promotes the organisation's core competencies, identifies, corrects, and controls key rigidities, places a high value on goal clarity, and continually lines up procedures with the project's overarching goals.

Implications

Public leadership is crucial in project management effectiveness, especially in the public sector, where projects often involve multiple stakeholders, limited resources, and complex regulatory requirements. Effective public leadership ensures that projects are aligned with the organization's mission and goals and carried out efficiently, on time, and within budget.

Circular economy of medical waste: novel intelligent medical waste management framework based on extension linear Diophantine fuzzy FDOSM and neural network approach

Environmental pollution has been a major concern for researchers and policymakers. A number of studies have been conducted to enquire the causes of environmental pollution which suggested numerous policies and techniques as remedial measures. One such major source of environmental pollution, as reported by previous studies, has been the garbage resulting from disposed hospital wastes. The recent outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted into mass generation of medical waste which seems to have further deteriorated the issue of environmental pollution. This necessitates active attention from both the researchers and policymakers for effective management of medical waste to prevent the harm to environment and human health. The issue of medical waste management is more important for countries lacking sophisticated medical infrastructure. Accordingly, the purpose of this study is to propose a novel application for identification and classification of 10 hospitals in Iraq which generated more medical waste during the COVID-19 pandemic than others in order to address the issue more effectively. We used the Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) method to this end. We integrated MCDM with other techniques including the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), linear Diophantine fuzzy set decision by opinion score method (LDFN-FDOSM), and Artificial Neural Network (ANN) analysis to generate more robust results. We classified medical waste into five categories, i.e., general waste, sharp waste, pharmaceutical waste, infectious waste, and pathological waste. We consulted 313 experts to help in identifying the best and the worst medical waste management technique within the perspectives of circular economy using the neural network approach. The findings revealed that incineration technique, microwave technique, pyrolysis technique, autoclave chemical technique, vaporized hydrogen peroxide, dry heat, ozone, and ultraviolet light were the most effective methods to dispose of medical waste during the pandemic. Additionally, ozone was identified as the most suitable technique among all to serve the purpose of circular economy of medical waste. We conclude by discussing the practical implications to guide governments and policy makers to benefit from the circular economy of medical waste to turn pollutant hospitals into sustainable ones.

Trust, performance and level of happiness of healthcare employees in the presence of authentic leadership

BACKGROUND

Authentic leadership (AL) is an interesting topic in the organizational behavior literature that has attracted the attention of researchers since the last decade.

OBJECTIVES

This research examines the employee-centered aspect among AL, trust, happiness at work and individual performance through a sequential mediating approach.

METHOD

Data was collected from 435 healthcare professionals working in various hospitals in Pakistan. AL-independent variables were measured and the trust mediating variables were assessed through a questionnaire. The level of happiness at work and IP-dependent variables were measured through a survey.

RESULTS

The results revealed a significant and positive effect of AL on the individual performance that is connected both directly and indirectly through mediating effects of trust and happiness at work. Furthermore, the results showed that AL created a trustworthy atmosphere among the workers that enhanced employee's happiness at work and, subsequently, improved their job performance and motivation.

CONCLUSION

This research delivers new and important results as, one the one hand, it depends on the sequential mediating effects of constructs whereas, on the other hand, it integrates four important variables in one model. Theoretical and practical implications along with future recommendations were presented for organizational management.

Do high-commitment work systems engage employees? Mediating role of psychological capital

Purpose

Although managers and academicians have recognised the importance of high-commitment work systems (HCWS), work engagement and psychological capital (PsyCap) in service firms, many questions remain unanswered. This study aims to fill the gaps in the area of work engagement by considering the relationships among HCWS, PsyCap and work engagement. In this cross-sectional study, the author drew on the social exchange theory to analyse these relationships.

Design/methodology/approach

Cross-sectional data from 309 employees from India’s services sector was collected to investigate HCWS and work engagement associations. The data were analysed by structural equation modelling.

Findings

The study findings integrate the existing literature on human resource (HR) systems and positive psychology by identifying the critical role of PsyCap in passing the positive effects of HCWS to engage employees in their work. Further, it supports the assumption that PsyCap is formed primarily based on organisational practices, thereby addressing the paucity of research that examined the antecedents of PsyCap.

Practical implications

Owing to study findings, service firms are encouraged to carry out human resource development intervention(s) to make their employees psychologically capable. Since PsyCap is a state-like construct, it can be developed among individuals. Thus, managers can develop their employees’ PsyCap through various training interventions.

Originality/value

The mediating role of PsyCap in the HCWS and work engagement in India’s service industries settings was tested. The present study’s findings contribute to the theory of strategic human resource management by explaining how HCWS can help employees engage better in their work.

AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP AND NURSES' MOTIVATION TO ENGAGE IN LEADERSHIP ROLES: THE MEDIATING EFFECTS OF NURSE WORK ENVIRONMENT AND LEADERSHIP SELF-EFFICACY

BACKGROUND

Leadership styles of a nurse manager have a profound influence on staff nurses' motivation to engage in formal nursing leadership roles; however, the mechanism underlying this pattern of influence remains unknown.

AIM

To assess the direct and indirect effect of nurse managers' authentic leadership on staff nurses' motivation to engage in formal leadership roles, through the intermediary role of nurse work environment and leadership self-efficacy.

METHODS

This cross-sectional study involved 1534 nurses from 24 acute care hospitals in the Sultanate of Oman.

FINDINGS

Nurse managers' authentic leadership was associated with staff nurses' motivation to engage in formal leadership roles. Nurse practice environment and leadership self-efficacy mediated partially the association between authentic leadership and motivation to engage in formal leadership roles.

CONCLUSION

Results of this study underscore the value of authentic leadership in creating a healthy work environment and fostering nurses' leadership self-efficacy, resulting in greater motivation to engage in nursing leadership roles.

IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT

Organizational strategies to attract nurses to undertake leadership roles should include measures to bolster authentic leadership behaviours in nurse managers through theory-driven leadership development programmes or interventions, continuing education, effective succession planning, and creating a supportive work environment.