Understanding the Relationship between Situational Strength and Burnout: A Multi-Sample Analysis

Many studies have examined the effect of situational strength (clarity, consistency, constraints, and consequences) on organisational behaviour, but little has been investigated about its health effects. This study aimed to analyse the relationship between situational strength and burnout. Specifically, we examined whether situational strength characteristics may be associated with burnout, whether these characteristics are risk (or protective) factors for burnout, and whether a strong situation is related to higher levels of burnout. Examining three samples from different occupations, it was found that clarity and consistency are negatively associated with burnout, being protective factors, while constraints are positively associated with burnout, being risk factors. These results are consistent across the samples. In addition to the direct effects, interaction effects between clarity and consistency in the office employee’s sample (two-way interaction), between constraints and consequences in the samples of office employees and teachers (two-way interaction), and among clarity, consistency, and constraints in the salespeople’s sample (three-way interaction) were also significant, explaining from 20% to 33% of the variance of burnout. We concluded that situational strength is associated not only with behaviour but also with health. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Tourism on the Azores and the Liberalization of the Air Space

Until 2015, air transportation in the Autonomous Region of the Azores faced a strong situation of monopoly as only two airlines where operating on domestic routes between the mainland, Lisbon and Porto, and the archipelago. From a consumer's point of view, there were only two main differences regarding airfares, the so called “resident fare,” which was only for passengers that had their main living address on one of the nine islands and the “normal fare.” With other words, each and every passenger that lived on the Azores had access to special reduced rates. This positive point, on one side, had its negative aspect on the other side, as it affected national tourism, excluding all residents on the Portuguese mainland and/or Madeira from having access to these fares. With the liberalization of air space and the arrival of low cost airlines, such as Ryanair and EasyJet, the situation changed.

The Role of Leader’s Humility in Facilitating Frontline Employees’ Deep Acting and Turnover: The Moderating Role of Perceived Customer-Oriented Climate

Many cultures recognize humility as an important human virtue. However, there is scant research on a possible relationship between leader’s humility and employees’ emotional labor. The current study, based on strong-situation hypothesis, posits that within the service industry, leader’s humility could determine and facilitate employee’ deep acting and turnover. Moreover, the mediating effect of deep acting is moderated by employees’ perceptions of the organization’s customer-oriented climate. The study is based on self-reported and archival data of 157 frontline employees at a hospital in China. The results generally support the hypotheses. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are also discussed.

Distress morale e cure futili: indagine conoscitiva sulla percezione degli studenti infermieri

Gli operatori sanitari, nell’esercizio professionale quotidiano, si avvalgono di un insieme di regole deontologiche che giustificano la moralità e irreprensibilità dell’atto assistenziale di cui sono garanti. Tuttavia l’iper-specializzazione del sapere e lo sviluppo di nuove tecnologie sottopongono costantemente i professionisti della salute all’impossibilità di conciliare sempre ciò che “è possibile fare” con ciò che “è doveroso” ed “eticamente lecito” fare per il paziente, condizione che potenzialmente genera nell’operatore distress morale. Gli infermieri che sperimentano Moral distress vivono una situazione di forte disagio, poiché riconoscono il comportamento da intraprendere più adeguato alla situazione clinica ma, per svariati motivi, non possono metterlo in pratica trovandosi quindi ad agire in modo contrario ai propri valori professionali. Le ricerche sul distress morale sono state condotte prevalentemente su infermieri. Nel presente studio sono state esaminate le situazioni che provocano conflitto morale nel vissuto degli studenti infermieri, in relazione a tutte quelle situazioni d’assistenza che si collocano al limite di una medicina etica e coscienziosa in termini di proporzionalità dei mezzi impiegati e di gravosità o beneficità dei trattamenti per il paziente. È stato svolto uno studio fenomenologico con interviste scritte semi-strutturate su un campione propositivo di studenti infermieri di una università romana. I testi delle interviste sono stati analizzati con il metodo Giorgi. I risultati hanno evidenziato che il Moral distress si manifesta nel vissuto esperienziale dello studente che è già in grado di delineare situazioni spiacevoli, cause, effetti e, in limitati casi, possibili strategie per rispondere al disagio vissuto nei setting clinici.During the professional practice of every day, caregivers use a set of ethical rules that warrant morality and irreproachability of welfare deed they are guarantors to. Nevertheless, hyperspecialization of knowledge and the development of new technologies, steadily submit professionals of wealth to inability to reconcile many times what “it is possible to do” to what “it is right to do” and “ethically correct” for patients, and that’s what potentially creates moral distress to the caregiver. Nurses who experience this moral distress, live a strong situation of discomfort, because they recognize the right behavior to have in a certain clinic situation but, due to several reasons, they can’t execute as they should, and they are incline to practice against their professional values. The most of surveys about moral distress are all conducted on nurses. This analysis inquires all situations that produce moral conflict in lived of nursing students, related to all those situations that lie on the border between an ethic and conscientious Medicine, about the proportionality in the use of means used and burdensomeness or beneficence of treatments for patients. It was carried out a phenomenological study by written semi-structured interviews on a purposeful sample of nursing students of a roman Campus. The texts of the interviews were analyzed with Giorgi’s method. The results showed that moral distress occurs in experiential lived of a student who is already able to outline unpleasant situations, causes, effects, and in few cases, possible strategies to respond to the distress experienced in clinical settings.

Interactions between personality and institutions in cooperative behaviour in humans

Laboratory attempts to identify relationships between personality and cooperative behaviour in humans have generated inconsistent results. This may partially stem from different practices in psychology and economics laboratories, with both hypothetical players and incentives typical only in the former. Another possible cause is insufficient consideration of the contexts within which social dilemmas occur. Real social dilemmas are often governed by institutions that change the payoff structure via rewards and punishments. However, such ‘strong situations’ will not necessarily suppress the effects of personality. On the contrary, they may affect some personalities differentially. Extraversion and neuroticism, reflecting variation in reward and punishment sensitivity, should predict modification of cooperative behaviour following changes to the payoff structure. We investigate interactions between personality and a punishment situation via two versions of a public goods game. We find that, even in a strong situation, personality matters and, moreover, it is related to strategic shifts in cooperation. Extraversion is associated with a shift from free-riding to cooperation in the presence of punishment, agreeableness is associated with initially higher contributions regardless of game, and, contrary to our predictions, neuroticism is associated with lower contributions regardless of game. Results should lead to new hypotheses that relate variation in biological functioning to individual differences in cooperative behaviour and that consider three-way interactions among personality, institutional context and sociocultural background.

Does HRM really matter? Strength of HRM systems from a managerial perspective

Mischel in 1973 proposed that the impact of situations on people’s interpretation of events depends on the strength of the situation itself. For example, strong situations lead all persons to construe the particular events the same way and induce uniform expectancies regarding the most appropriate response pattern. Conversely, individual differences can determine behaviour in a weak situation (one which is ambiguously structured), since people have no clear expectations about the behaviours most likely to be appropriate. In sum, situational strength deals with the extent to which a situation induces conformity – a strong situation – or is interpreted as ambiguous – a weak situation. Bowen and Ostroff (2004) brought these ideas to the HRM arena, proposing that in strong psychological situations people share interpretations of particular events, therefore behaving in a uniform and consistent way, and showing a similar orientation towards goals and desired standards of performance. In weak situations people rely on their inner states in order to behave, and therefore it is likely that they exhibit more differences in terms of what is acceptable and efficient organisational behaviour. The authors propose the concept of strong HRM systems, to define how powerful is the HRM System in communicating with employees. Based on interviews to 10 HRM senior managers, we delved into the attributes which make a HRM System (defined as an integrated set of HRM practices) strong (or weak). We compared these qualitative data with the theoretical propositions of Bowen and Ostroff, and offer some insights regarding each of the nine attributes put forward by the authors.