Safety implications of different forms of understaffing among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic.

AIM: The aim of this study was to investigate the processes through which personnel understaffing and expertise understaffing jointly shape near misses among nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic. BACKGROUND: Inadequate staffing is a chronic issue within the nursing profession, with the safety consequences of understaffing likely being exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. DESIGN: This study used a three-wave, time-separated survey design and collected data from 120 nurses in the United States working on the frontline of the pandemic in hospital settings. METHODS: Participants were recruited through convenience sampling in early April 2020. Eligible nurses completed three surveys across a 6-week period during the COVID-19 pandemic from mid-April to the end of May 2020. Study hypotheses were tested with path analyses. RESULTS/FINDINGS: Results reveal that personnel understaffing and expertise understaffing jointly shape near misses, which are known to precede and contribute to accidents and injuries, through different mechanisms. Specifically, personnel understaffing led to greater use of safety workarounds, which only induced near misses when cognitive failures were high. Further, higher levels of cognitive failures appeared to be the result of greater expertise understaffing. CONCLUSION: This study highlights the importance of addressing issues of understaffing, especially during times of crisis, to better promote nurse and patient safety. IMPACT: This study was the first to examine the distinct mechanisms by which two forms of understaffing impact safety outcomes in the form of near misses. Understanding these mechanisms can help leaders and policymakers make informed staffing decisions by considering the safety implications of understaffing issues.

Hear, hear! A review of accent discrimination at work.

Research on diversity in organizations has mostly focused on attributes that rely on visual cues (e.g., gender, race, age) and overlooked an important source of difference that relies on auditory cues - accents. However, workers with non-standard accents (i.e., non-native accents, regional accents) often experience discrimination and negative outcomes at work. We first review prior accent research suggesting that these negative effects can be explained by stereotypes/stigmatization or lower processing fluency. We then identify three emerging topic areas and suggest future research directions in each domain: intersectionality, organizational language policies and practices, and investigation of a greater range of accents and languages.

An updated meta-analysis of the interrater reliability of supervisory performance ratings.

Given the centrality of the job performance construct to organizational researchers, it is critical to understand the reliability of the most common way it is operationalized in the literature. To this end, we conducted an updated meta-analysis on the interrater reliability of supervisory ratings of job performance (k = 132 independent samples) using a new meta-analytic procedure (i.e., the Morris estimator), which includes both within- and between-study variance in the calculation of study weights. An important benefit of this approach is that it prevents large-sample studies from dominating the results. In this investigation, we also examined different factors that may affect interrater reliability, including job complexity, managerial level, rating purpose, performance measure, and rater perspective. We found a higher interrater reliability estimate (r = .65) compared to previous meta-analyses on the topic, and our results converged with an important, but often neglected, finding from a previous meta-analysis by Conway and Huffcutt (1997), such that interrater reliability varies meaningfully by job type (r = .57 for managerial positions vs. r = .68 for nonmanagerial positions). Given this finding, we advise against the use of an overall grand mean of interrater reliability. Instead, we recommend using job-specific or local reliabilities for making corrections for attenuation. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

The role of socioeconomic status in SAT-grade relationships and in college admissions decisions.

This article examines the role of socioeconomic status (SES) in the relationships among college admissions-test scores, secondary school grades, and subsequent academic performance. Scores on the SAT (a test widely used in the admissions process in the United States), secondary school grades, college grades, and SES measures from 143,606 students at 110 colleges and universities were examined, and results of these analyses were compared with results obtained using a 41-school data set including scores from the prior version of the SAT and using University of California data from prior research on the role of SES. In all the data sets, the SAT showed incremental validity over secondary school grades in predicting subsequent academic performance, and this incremental relationship was not substantially affected by controlling for SES. The SES of enrolled students was very similar to that of specific schools' applicant pools, which suggests that the barrier to college for low-SES students in the United States is a lower rate of entering the college admissions process, rather than exclusion on the part of colleges.

Granting Leadership to Asian Americans: the Activation of Ideal Leader and Ideal Follower Traits on Observers' Leadership Perceptions.

Despite demonstrating high levels of academic and professional competence, Asians are underrepresented in leadership roles in North America. The limited research on this topic has found that Asian Americans are perceived by others as poorer leaders than White Americans due to perceptions that Asians lack the ideal traits of a Western leader (i.e., agentic) relative to White Americans. However, we contend that, in addition to poorly activating ideal leader traits, Asian Americans may strongly activate ideal follower traits (e.g., industrious and reliable), and being seen as a good follower may pigeonhole Asian Americans in non-managerial roles. Across 4 studies, our findings generally supported our arguments regarding the activation of ideal follower traits and lack of activation of ideal leader traits for Asian American workers. However, compared to their majority group counterparts, we found some unexpected evidence for a more favorable view of Asian Americans as leaders, which was primarily driven by the greater activation of ideal follower traits (i.e., industry and good citizen) among Asian American workers. Yet, we uncover an important boundary condition in that these "good follower" advantages did not accrue when observers experienced threat-revealing how the benefits of so-called positive stereotypes of Asian American workers are context dependent. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10869-022-09794-3.

Unbalanced, Unfair, Unhappy, or Unable? Theoretical Integration of Multiple Processes Underlying the Leader Mistreatment-Employee CWB Relationship with Meta-Analytic Methods.

Although a litany of theoretical accounts exists to explain why mistreated employees engage in counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs), little is known about whether these mechanisms are complementary or mutually exclusive, or the effect of context on their explanatory strength. To address these gaps, this meta-analytic investigation tests four theoretically-derived mechanisms simultaneously to explain the robust relationship between leader mistreatment and employee CWB: (1) a social exchange perspective, which argues that mistreated employees engage in negative reciprocal behaviors to counterbalance experienced mistreatment; (2) a justice perspective, whereby mistreated employees experience moral outrage and engage in retributive behaviors against the organization and its members; (3) a stressor-emotion perspective, which suggests that mistreated employees engage in CWBs to cope with their negative affect; and (4) a self-regulatory perspective, which proposes that mistreated employees are simply unable to inhibit undesirable behaviors. Moreover, we also examine whether the above model holds across cultures that vary on power distance. Our meta-analytic structural equation model demonstrated that all but the justice mechanism significantly mediated the relationship between leader mistreatment and employee CWBs, with negative affect emerging as the strongest explanatory mechanism in both high and low power distance cultures. Given these surprising results, as the stressor-emotion perspective is less frequently invoked in the literature, this paper highlights not only the importance of investigating multiple mechanisms together when examining the leader mistreatment-employee CWB relationship, but also the need to develop more nuanced theorizing about these mechanisms, particularly for negative affect.

Work as replenishment or responsibility? Moderating effects of occupational calling on the within-person relationship between COVID-19 news consumption and work engagement.

As the result of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), individuals have been inundated with constant negative news related to the pandemic. However, limited research examines how such news consumption impacts employees' work lives, including their ability to remain engaged with their work. Integrating conservation of resources theory and insights from the media psychology literature with research on occupational calling, we propose that weekly COVID-related news consumption heightens employees' anxiety levels, thereby frustrating their ability to remain engaged with work and that this process is differentially moderated by different facets of occupational calling. Specifically, we postulate that those who are called to their work primarily because it gives them personal meaning and purpose (i.e., higher in purposeful work) will remain more engaged with work in the face of the anxiety that arises from consuming COVID-related news, as their work may facilitate resource replenishment for these individuals. Conversely, we postulate that those who are drawn to their work primarily because it allows them to help others (i.e., higher in prosocial orientation) will experience the opposite effect, such that their inability to help others during the pandemic will strengthen the negative effect of anxiety on work engagement. Results from an 8-week weekly diary study with a sample of 281 Canadian employees during the pandemic provided support for our hypotheses. Implications are discussed for maintaining employee work engagement during the pandemic era, and beyond. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Depending on your own kindness: The moderating role of self-compassion on the within-person consequences of work loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has transformed the way we work, with many employees working under isolating and difficult conditions. However, research on the antecedents, consequences, and buffers of work loneliness is scarce. Integrating research on need for belonging, regulatory loop models of loneliness, and self-compassion, the current study addresses this critical issue by developing and testing a conceptual model that highlights how COVID-related stressors frustrate employees' need for belonging (i.e., telecommuting frequency, job insecurity, and a lack of COVID-related informational justice), negatively impacting worker well-being (i.e., depression) and helping behaviors [i.e., organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)] through work loneliness. Furthermore, we examine the buffering role of self-compassion in this process. Results from a weekly diary study of U.S. employees conducted over 2 months during the initial stage of the pandemic provide support for the mediating role of work loneliness in relations between all three proposed antecedents and both outcomes. In addition, self-compassion mitigated the positive within-person relationship between work loneliness and employee depression, indicating that more self-compassionate employees were better able to cope with their feelings of work loneliness. Although self-compassion also moderated the within-person relationship between work loneliness and OCB, this interaction was different in form from our prediction. Implications for enhancing employee well-being and helping behaviors during and beyond the pandemic are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Subordinate poor performance as a stressor on leader well-being: The mediating role of abusive supervision and the moderating role of motives for abuse.

Drawing upon Stress-as-Offense-to-Self theory, we develop a moderated mediation model whereby subordinate poor performance and leader well-being is linked by abusive supervision and this mediated relationship is further moderated by leaders' motives for abuse. Specifically, we posit that higher performance promotion motives will attenuate, whereas higher injury motives will exacerbate the relationship between abusive supervision and leader emotional exhaustion, due to their differential implications for leaders' ability to see themselves in a positive light. In a pilot study, we first examined and found support for the theorized mediation chain in a multiwave field study of organizational leaders (N = 71). In Study 1, we conducted a multiwave and multisource field study of leader-follower dyads (N = 274), which supported our predictions that the indirect effect between subordinate poor performance and leader emotional exhaustion via abusive supervision was strengthened for leaders higher on injury motives. In Study 2, we undertook a 2-week daily diary study with leaders (N = 129) to hone in on the latter half of our model, focusing on within-person dynamics linking abusive supervision and leader well-being and the moderating role of leader motives for abuse. Although the within-person relationship between abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion was positive within a given day across leaders, the lagged within-person relationship between abusive supervision and emotional exhaustion unfolded differently for leaders higher versus lower on injury motives. Namely, abusive supervision had a lingering detrimental effect on leader emotional exhaustion among leaders higher on injury motives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

What to do and what works? Exploring how work groups cope with understaffing.

Complaints regarding understaffing are common in the workplace, and research has begun to document some of the potential ill effects that can result from understaffing conditions. Despite evidence that understaffing is a relatively prevalent and consequential stressor, research has yet to explore how work groups cope with this stressor and the efficacy of their coping strategies in mitigating poor group performance and burnout. The present study examines these questions by exploring both potential mediating and moderating coping effects using a sample of 96 work groups from four technology organizations. Results indicate that work groups react differently to manpower and expertise understaffing conditions, with leaders engaging in more initiating structure behaviors when faced with manpower understaffing and engaging in more consideration behaviors when faced with expertise understaffing. Further, leaders' use of consideration in the face of expertise understaffing was negatively associated with group burnout. We also uncovered evidence that leadership behaviors and work group actions (i.e., team-member exchange) moderate relationships between manpower understaffing and outcomes, though differently for group performance and burnout. Overall, this study helps to reframe work groups as active in their efforts to cope with understaffing and highlights that some coping strategies are more effective than others. Implications for theory and practice are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Disability disclosure and workplace accommodations among youth with disabilities.

Purpose: Many youths with disabilities find it challenging to disclose their medical condition and request workplace accommodations. Our objective was to explore when and how young people with disabilities disclose their condition and request workplace accommodations. Methods: We conducted 17 in-depth interviews (11 females, six males) with youth with disabilities aged 15-34 (mean age 26). We analyzed our data using an interpretive, qualitative, and thematic approach. Results: Our results showed the timing of when youth disclosed their disability to their employer depended on disability type and severity, comfort level, type of job, and industry. Youth's strategies and reasons for disclosure included advocating for their needs, being knowledgeable about workplace rights, and accommodation solutions. Facilitators for disclosure included job preparation, self-confidence, and self-advocacy skills, and having an inclusive work environment. Challenges to disability disclosure included the fear of stigma and discrimination, lack of employer's knowledge about disability and accommodations, negative past experiences of disclosing, and not disclosing on your own terms. Conclusions: Our findings highlight that youth encounter several challenges and barriers to disclosing their condition and requesting workplace accommodations. The timing and process for disclosing is complex and further work is needed to help support youth with disclosing their condition. Implications for rehabilitation Clinicians, educators, and employers should emphasize the importance of mentoring and leadership programs to give youth the confidence and self-advocacy skills needed to disclose and ask for accommodations in the workplace. Clinicians should advocate for the inclusion of youth with disabilities in the workforce and educate employers on the importance of doing so. Youth with disabilities need more opportunities for employment training and particularly how to disclose their disability and request workplace accommodations.

Consequences of work group manpower and expertise understaffing: A multilevel approach.

Complaints of chronic understaffing in organizations have become common among workers as employers face increasing pressures to do more with less. Unfortunately, despite its prevalence, there is currently limited research in the literature regarding the nature of workplace understaffing and its consequences. Taking a multilevel approach, this study introduces a new multidimensional conceptualization of subjective work group understaffing, comprising of manpower and expertise understaffing, and examines both its performance and well-being consequences for individual workers (Study 1) and work groups (Study 2). Results show that the relationship between work group understaffing and individual and work group emotional exhaustion is mediated through quantitative workload and role ambiguity for both levels of analysis. Work group understaffing was also related to individual job performance, but not group performance, and this relationship was mediated by role ambiguity. Results were generally similar for the 2 dimensions of understaffing. Implications for theory and research and future research directions are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record

Societal individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance as cultural moderators of relationships between job resources and strain.

The job demands-resources model is a dominant theoretical framework that describes the influence of job demands and job resources on employee strain. Recent research has highlighted that the effects of job demands on strain vary across cultures, but similar work has not explored whether this is true for job resources. Given that societal characteristics can influence individuals' cognitive structures and, to a lesser extent, values in a culture, we address this gap in the literature and argue that individuals' strain in reaction to job resources may differ across cultures. Specifically, we theorize that the societal cultural dimensions of individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance shape individual-level job resource-strain relationships, as they dictate which types of resources (i.e., individual vs. group preference-oriented and uncertainty-reducing vs. not) are more likely to be valued, used, or effective in combating strain within a culture. Results revealed that societal individualism-collectivism and uncertainty avoidance independently moderated the relationships between certain job resources (i.e., job control, participation in decision making, and clear goals and performance feedback) and strain (i.e., job satisfaction and turnover intentions). This study expands our understanding of the cross-cultural specificity versus generalizability of the job demands-resources model.

Disentangling the relationship between gender and work-family conflict: An integration of theoretical perspectives using meta-analytic methods.

Implicit in many discussions of work-family issues is the idea that managing the work-family interface is more challenging for women than men. We address whether this intuition is supported by the empirical data via a meta-analysis of gender differences in work-family conflict (WFC) based on more than 350 independent samples (N > 250,000 workers). Challenging lay perceptions, our results demonstrate that men and women generally do not differ on their reports of WFC, though there were some modest moderating effects of dual-earner status, parental status, type of WFC (i.e., time-, strain-, vs. behavior-based), and when limiting samples to men and women who held the same job. To better understand the relationship between gender and WFC, we engaged in theory-testing of mediating mechanisms based on commonly invoked theoretical perspectives. We found evidence in support of the rational view, no support for the sensitization and male segmentation perspectives, and partial support for the asymmetrical domain permeability model. Finally, we build theory by seeking to identify omitted mediators that explain the relationship between gender and work-interference-with-family, given evidence that existing theoretically specified mechanisms are insufficient to explain this relationship. Overall, we find more evidence for similarity rather than difference in the degree of WFC experienced by men and women. (PsycINFO Database Record

Samples in applied psychology: over a decade of research in review.

This study examines sample characteristics of articles published in Journal of Applied Psychology (JAP) from 1995 to 2008. At the individual level, the overall median sample size over the period examined was approximately 173, which is generally adequate for detecting the average magnitude of effects of primary interest to researchers who publish in JAP. Samples using higher units of analyses (e.g., teams, departments/work units, and organizations) had lower median sample sizes (Mdn ≈ 65), yet were arguably robust given typical multilevel design choices of JAP authors despite the practical constraints of collecting data at higher units of analysis. A substantial proportion of studies used student samples (~40%); surprisingly, median sample sizes for student samples were smaller than working adult samples. Samples were more commonly occupationally homogeneous (~70%) than occupationally heterogeneous. U.S. and English-speaking participants made up the vast majority of samples, whereas Middle Eastern, African, and Latin American samples were largely unrepresented. On the basis of study results, recommendations are provided for authors, editors, and readers, which converge on 3 themes: (a) appropriateness and match between sample characteristics and research questions, (b) careful consideration of statistical power, and (c) the increased popularity of quantitative synthesis. Implications are discussed in terms of theory building, generalizability of research findings, and statistical power to detect effects.