Psychological Safety as an Enduring Resource Amid Constraints

Objectives

While psychological safety is recognized as valuable in healthcare, its relationship to resource constraints is not well understood. We investigate whether psychological safety mitigates the negative impact of resource constraints on employees.

Methods

Leveraging longitudinal survey data collected from healthcare workers before and during the COVID-19 crisis (N = 27,240), we examine how baseline psychological safety relates to employee burnout and intent to stay over time, and then investigate this relationship relative to resource constraints (i.e., the inadequacy of staffing and tools).

Results

Using hierarchical linear models, we find that psychological safety has enduring protective benefits for healthcare workers during periods of stress, and that these benefits mitigate the negative consequences of resource constraints for burnout and turnover intent over time.

Conclusion

These findings extend the empirical basis for psychological safety and suggest that investments in building psychological safety can foster employee resilience and organizational commitment, even when resources are strained.

Significance of organizational health features during the COVID-19 pandemic for the well-being of Lithuanian healthcare workers

Summary

During various emergencies, especially pandemics, there is a heavy burden on healthcare workers and pharmacists. Organizational support plays a significant role in protecting their mental health. Though the study aimed analyze the subjectively perceived difficulties and challenges of healthcare workers related to organizing work in the context of a pandemic.

Methods

Twenty seven subjects (20 women, 7 men) participated in the qualitative research 30–45 min. Duration semi-structured interviews were performed, and thematic data analysis was applied.

Results

During the first wave of the COVD-19 pandemic, research participants experienced an avalanche of change in all significant areas of life: experienced general overall uncertainty, confusion in working order, and intense changes in work functions, responsibilities, and workload. These changes reduced the scope for control and predictability, there was a lack of structure and clarity. The avalanche of change caused by the COVID-19 pandemic provoked a strong and controversial emotional response. The contradiction was revealed between helplessness, disruption, loss of control experienced by staff and the internal and external pressure to adapt as quickly as possible to the functions of caregivers. The threats posed by the pandemic reinforced the need for active and engaged leadership and highlighted the key features of an employee supporting organization.

Conclusion

Surviving the avalanche of change caused by the pandemic, healthcare workers and pharmacists emphasized the importance of management decisions about managing patient and employee health threats, clear work organization, active and inclusive leadership, change planning, and organizational concern for employee sustainability and emotional well-being. Regular, systematic, clear and understandable, timely, open and sincere, uncontroversial, and consistent communication of administration provides security for employees and can contribute to better physical and psychological well-being of employees.

The Relationship between Psychological Safety and Management Team Effectiveness: The Mediating Role of Behavioral Integration

This study explores whether there is an indirect effect of psychological safety on team effectiveness in management teams, operating through the mediating variable of behavioral integration. Whilst there exists a fair amount of research on the relationship between psychological safety and team effectiveness, few have looked at potential mechanisms that can explain this association in management teams. We propose behavioral integration to be a potential mediator. Data are collected from 1150 leaders in 160 Norwegian management teams, answering a questionnaire measuring team functioning and effectiveness. Team size ranged from 3 to 19 members. Our results show a significant indirect effect of psychological safety on management team effectiveness, mediated by behavioral integration. Thus, the more team members perceive the climate as safe in terms of speaking their mind without the fear of repercussions, the more they partake in mutual collaboration, information sharing and experience ownership in the decisions being made. This is associated with management teams performing better. We also found a positive relationship between psychological safety and behavioral integration, and-in line with previous studies-that psychological safety and behavioral integration both were positively related to team effectiveness. This study adds to the existing team research literature by expanding our knowledge about the importance of psychological safety and the way it influences management team performance at all levels throughout the organizational hierarchy.

Safe Among the Unsafe: Psychological Safety Climate Strength Matters for Team Performance

Team psychological safety, as a shared perception, is persistently found to be important for team performance. However, team members may not necessarily agree on the level of safety within the team. What happens when team members have dispersed perceptions of team psychological safety? Through a survey-based study involving 1,149 members of 160 management teams, we found that, not only is the level of team psychological safety positively related to team performance, but also that sharedness among team members (team psychological safety climate strength) moderates this relationship. The more team members agree on the level of team psychological safety, the stronger the effect of team psychological safety on team performance. Further, having at least one member who perceives the team as psychologically safe may lift team performance in a team of low psychological safety. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of looking beyond average levels of team psychological safety for building high-performing teams.

A Resource Model of Team Resilience Capacity and Learning

A team’s capacity to bounce back from adversities or setbacks (i.e., team resilience capacity) is increasingly valuable in today’s complex business environment. To enhance our understanding of the antecedents and consequences of team resilience capacity, we develop and empirically test a resource-based model that delineates critical team inputs and outputs of resilience capacity. Drawing from conservation of resources theory, we propose that voice climate is a critical resource that builds team resilience capacity by encouraging intrateam communication and that leader learning goal orientation (LGO) amplifies this relationship by orienting team discourse toward understanding and growing from challenges. In turn, we propose that team resilience capacity is positively related to team learning behaviors, as teams with a higher resilience capacity are well-positioned to invest their resources into learning activities, and that team information elaboration amplifies this relationship by facilitating resource exchange. Results of a time-lagged, multisource field study involving 48 teams from five Canadian technology start-ups supported this moderated-mediated model. Specifically, voice climate was positively related to team resilience capacity, with leader LGO amplifying this effect. Further, team resilience capacity was positively related to team learning behaviors, with information elaboration amplifying this effect. Altogether, we advance theory and practice on team resilience by offering empirical support on what builds team resilience capacity (voice climate) and what teams with a high resilience capacity do (learning), along with the conditions under which these relationships are enhanced (higher leader LGO and team information elaboration).

Mindfulness-based programmes to reduce stress and enhance well-being at work: a realist review

OBJECTIVES

To understand how and why workplace mindfulness-based programmes (MBPs) work or do not work.

DESIGN

A realist review.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA FOR SELECTION

We considered any studies (experimental quasi-experimental, observational, qualitative and mixed-methods studies) of workplace MBPs as long as they provided data to explain our programme theories. All MBP formats and delivery modes were included.

ANALYSIS

Consistent with realist review methodology, we systematically screened and analysed data to explain how and why workplace MBPs work or do not work. These explanations were consolidated into a programme theory augmented by theories from organisational literature, such as conservation of resources theory.

RESULTS

Findings from 75 primary studies suggest that workplace MBPs enable participants (including healthcare professionals) to deal more skillfully with stressful events and improve their well-being. The mechanisms involved can be grouped around awareness/self-regulation, acceptance/compassion, feeling permitted to take care of self, sense of growth and promise of goal attainment. In order for professionals to invest in an MBP and benefit from it, it is important that they feel safe to engage with self-care at work and share emotional difficulties among peers. It is also important that employees are able to link the programme and its activities to existing goals and practices. Concerns of being non-productive, of not getting work done or of being exposed in front of colleagues can result in strategic use of brief mindfulness exercises, non-adherence or drop-out.

CONCLUSIONS

Simply offering an MBP to (healthcare) professionals in order to reduce stress and enhance well-being does not suffice. A supportive environment must exist in order for the programme's benefits to be reaped.

PROSPERO REGISTRATION NUMBER

CRD42018086280.

Shared Leadership, Unshared Burdens: How Shared Leadership Structure Schema Lowers Individual Enjoyment Without Increasing Performance

Despite the growing popularity of shared leadership, there is little research on how beliefs about the benefits of shared leadership—a shared leadership structure schema (LSS)—affect individual outcomes. We address this by integrating adaptive leadership and conservation of resources theories. We apply adaptive leadership theory to hypothesize that a shared LSS leads individuals to support shared leadership by interacting more frequently and taking on interpersonal responsibility, especially when low peer engagement signals a leadership void that shared LSS members try to fill. However, adaptive leadership theory does not discuss how the tendencies motivated by shared LSS impacts members’ outcome. Therefore, we apply conservation of resources theory to hypothesize that taking on interpersonal responsibility makes frequent interactions more stressful, thereby harming individual enjoyment. Further, the demands of interpersonal responsibility reduce members’ ability to process the information acquired in interactions, which negates interaction frequency’s usual performance benefits. Together, these theories suggest that, especially when peer engagement is low, shared LSS has a negative indirect effect on enjoyment and an attenuating effect on performance through interaction frequency due to shared LSS members taking on interpersonal responsibility. We test our model using five waves of multisource data on student consulting teams. Our results extend understanding of shared LSS’s consequences to the individual level and highlight potential costs of supporting shared leadership.

To Get Vaccinated or Not? Psychological Safety as a Catalyst for the Alignment Between Individual Beliefs and Behavior

While many studies have investigated the consequences of psychological safety for behavior, there is little theorizing on the mechanisms that account for these effects. Since psychological safety makes individuals feel safe to express their true self, we argue that it should act as a catalyst for alignment between individual beliefs and behavior. Drawing on the reasoned action model, we postulate that psychological safety interacts with individuals’ attitudes and perceived norms in predicting intention and behavior. We tested our model with physicians’ influenza vaccination behavior. We surveyed 208 physicians from a Swiss hospital before and after the vaccination phase. Results show that the effect of attitude, but not perceived norm, on intention to get vaccinated was moderated by perceived psychological safety in the physicians’ team: High psychological safety strengthened the effect of physicians’ attitude on their intention, which in turn predicted actual vaccination behavior. We provide first evidence that high psychological safety may render individuals more comfortable to act in accordance with their attitudes. Depending on whether attitudes are in line with organizational goals, increasing psychological safety could facilitate positive or negative consequences. This more differentiated understanding of psychological safety can fruitfully inform both future research and organizational practice.

Are we really better together? A bottom-up aggregation of communal orientation and its effect on interdependent decision-making

Though communal orientation impacts how people interact, and members’ interactions influence interdependent decision-making, communal orientation’s impact on interdependent decision-making has received little attention. We address this by applying interdependence theory to take a bottom-up approach across three studies. We find that individuals who are higher on communal orientation are less likely to use prohibitive voice. We also show that dyadic communal orientation harms interdependent decision performance by lowering the amount of prohibitive voice used. At the team level, we find that team communal orientation is negatively related to interdependent decision performance unless the team is also high on relationship orientation diversity, which has a positive effect on interdependent decision performance. Combined, these studies contribute to the communal orientation literature by extending it to an important context—interdependent decision-making—and helping it be more balanced by demonstrating communal orientation’s downside.

Psychological Safety in Ghana: Empirical Analyses of Antecedents and Consequences

This study examines psychological safety as a mediator in the relationship between Leader–Member Exchange (LMX) and voice behavior. Based on the conservation of resources theory, a moderated mediation framework was used to examine human capital investments, specifically employee education and tenure, as boundary conditions of this relationship. The research hypotheses were tested with a sample of 207 employee-supervisor dyads working in a time-lagged design. The study found that psychological safety is an intermediary mechanism through which LMX affects voice behavior. Employees’ level of education negatively moderates the relationship between LMX and psychological safety. Furthermore, the results suggest that organizational tenure accentuates the relationship between LMX and psychological safety, and strengthens the indirect effect of LMX on voice behavior. The theoretical contributions and managerial implications are discussed in addition to directions for future research.

Deconstructing Information Elaboration: The Critical Role of Framing and Initial Dialogue

Information elaboration is crucial for successfully responding to change, and teams inevitably frame changes to ground them. Yet, there is sparse knowledge around how framing affects information elaboration. In investigating the relationship that framing has with information elaboration, we show that framing starts a domino effect throughout the phases of information elaboration. Our experiment shows that opportunity framing motivates teams to engage with the change by asking questions about it, which increases the sharing and integrating of unique information, thereby improving decision performance. In contrast, threat framing is followed by avoiding the change through making status quo-directed statements and then discussing shared information, ultimately lowering decision performance. Our findings contribute to the information elaboration literature by helping explain differences in information elaboration’s effectiveness through uncovering interdependent behaviors. Next, we move information elaboration’s antecedents beyond static characteristics to include dynamic tactics.

From Planning to Performance: The Adaptation Process as a Determinant of Outcomes

Currently, teams require adaptation to deal with work demands successfully. However, research concerning team adaptation should necessarily involve a greater empirical effort in defining under which conditions teams prove more adaptable. This article seeks to contribute to the literature by linking plan formulation, plan execution, and team learning behaviors with team outcomes (i.e., team-adaptation perception and objective performance). Participants formed 142 teams, which were involved in structured-problem solving task (i.e. a simulated management competition). Conditional process analysis was used to test a double-mediated relationship. Results show that, although not all parts of the model are directly associated, there is an indirect link from plan formulation to team outcomes through plan execution and team learning behaviors. Our results support the idea of adaptation as a process, providing four ways in which organizations can elicit changes in teams: increasing plan execution, promoting team learning, improving team adaptive behaviors themselves, and building teams composed of members who demonstrate individual adaptability.

The dual nature of adaptive coordination in teams

Adaptive team coordination is a central topic in the team dynamics literature. Most team adaptation research to date addresses team responses to demands for flexibility triggered by dynamic external forces. Little explicit attention has been paid to demands for stability created by continued pressures on efficiency and control. To capture this dual nature of adaptive coordination, we propose to characterize adaptation triggers in terms of stability and flexibility demands and suggest four modes of adaptive coordination that enable teams to adequately balance these demands. Grounded in team as well as organizational literatures, we explicate the specific patterns of coordination mechanisms comprising each mode of coordination, termed experiential, exploitative, exploratory, and ambidextrous coordination. The new insights offered into team adaptive coordination can spur research that further integrates team and organizational perspectives on adaptation processes.

Learning From Mistakes: How Mistake Tolerance Positively Affects Organizational Learning and Performance

Organizational learning has been shown to affect performance. This study offers a fine-grained view regarding different types of learning opportunities. Specifically, opportunities to learn from mistakes are examined. Using three separate samples, we first establish statistically reliable and unidimensional measures of both organizational learning and mistake tolerance. Second, we empirically demonstrate the mediating role of organizational learning on the mistake tolerance–performance relationship. Our results offer findings that will generalize to other organizational contexts. We conclude with a dialogue suggesting prescriptive advice for managers and provide a discussion of how learning from mistakes can be an important catalyst in organizational change. Using specific items from our survey, we stress that managers need to make a conscious effort to communicate to employees the value in learning from mistakes as an important part of improving and changing existing organizational practices.