Home-Care Workers' Representations of Their Role and Competences: A Diaphanous Profession.

Because of the gradual aging of the population, hospital facilities for socio-sanitary care of the elderly are quite scarce relative to the very high number of elderly people present in the country. This has pushed a high number of families to privately hire home-care workers. The scientific literature gives a picture of the psycho-physical risks that this type of profession is exposed to; however, there is still a need for a more systemic reflection with regard to representations about their role and competences. The aim of the present study is to outline the representations of the role and the skills it requires from home-care workers' point of view. We reconstructed how home-care workers perceive and define the profession, and understand the necessary skills required from their point of view. Our results show that the professional profile of home-care workers still remains poorly defined and that professionals themselves struggle to find value and recognition, and to articulate what the skill set they develop is formed of.

The Living and Working Together Perspective on Creativity in Organizations.

Although creativity represents a cornerstone for organizations that want to keep up with competitors, customers, and the current socio-economic context, there is a dearth in the literature of systemic and comprehensive models focused on the complexity and addressing several dimensions and factors. In this context, we propose the perspective of "working and living together in organizations" to enrich the scientific dialogue with a proposition that aims to hold together different variables of interaction and relationship between different parts of the organization (Gozzoli, 2016a,b). In fact, according to our previous studies (Frascaroli et al., 2016; Gorli et al., 2016; Marta et al., 2016; Saita et al., 2016; Tamanza et al., 2016), a generative living and working together environment is itself directly linked to creativity and innovative processes. This is because in a generative living and working together environment relationality - that is, the possibility of exchange among workers mediated by the object of work - is enabled. With this study, we intend to provide a contribution to the creativity study field, applying our perspective to an extensive level of analysis. The model was tested using the Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling methodology with EQS-6.3. Our results found some interesting elements in support of the theory behind this study.

The Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS): A Contribution to the Italian Validation.

In the current globalized working context, professionals are asked to be able to implement specific competences. Cultural Intelligence is a construct referring to an individual's ability to function and manage effectively in culturally diverse settings and is conceived as an aggregate multidimensional construct. Purpose of this study was to examine the validity of score interpretations of the Italian version of the Cultural Intelligence Scale (CQS). CQS is aimed to measure individual ability to understand, act and manage effectively in culturally diverse settings. Participants were 755 professionals (females = 64.2%) from different organizational contexts, ranging from 20 to 63 years old (M = 40.4; SD = 10.29). Data were collected with the Italian translated version of the CQS. Results of confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) suggested good data-model fit. As proposed in the original version, CQS is composed of 20 items and four different theoretical dimensions (Metacognitive, Cognitive, Motivational, and Behavioral) that correlate with each other. This study could be considered a first contribution to fill the lack of self-report measure concerning cultural intelligence in the Italian context with a scale showing promising results.

Who Cares for Those Who Take Care? Risks and Resources of Work in Care Homes.

Over the years - due to the aging population, the process of corporatisation and a demand for a higher quality of services - professionals who work in Care Homes have been exposed to an increasing risk of physical and emotional malaise because of the number of challenges they've been asked to manage. Given these factors, there is a growing interest in the study and understanding of professions in geriatric care settings. In the literature there is a prevalence of quantitative studies offering an overview in terms of indicators - at the individual or group or organizational level - concerning the potential development of situations of professional malaise. Conversely, there is a lack of qualitative studies exploring the risk and protection factors. For this reason, in this study we decided to use a qualitative approach to explore "more up close" this kind of organizational context and to keep together the different levels in systemic terms in order to identify - according to professionals' perceptions - resource factors (in order to leverage these aspects) and fatigue factors (to identify them and treat them). Three Italian Care Homes were involved and the interview's sample was composed of 45 professionals - 15 nurses, 30 total Patient Care Assistants (PCAs) and Auxiliary Care Assistants (ACAs), of these, 17 males and 28 females, with an average age of 43 years (SD = 0.78) - selected using a sampling of maximum variability. From the analysis of the materials there seem to be four profiles of the professionals involved. Implications to ensure a functional human resource management are discussed for the purpose of promote the well-being of the various professionals, and, as a result, an increasing quality of service.