Revisiting the Effect of Emotional Labor: A Multi-Level Investigation in Front-Line Service Teams.

The main purpose of this study is to consider individuals in teams and to reexamine how emotional labor affects the performance of front-line service team and team members through emotional exhaustion. Multi-source data collection and a time-lagged research design was adopted to collect data from matched team members and customers nested in 82 front-line service teams in a large electronics provider based in China. The findings show that surface acting increases emotional exhaustion which reduces customer loyalty at the team level and individual task performance at the individual level, supporting a full mediation model. While, deep acting is not associated with emotional exhaustion, it is positively linked with team member's task performance. This study provides evidence for the nested nature of emotional labor and exhaustion in teams.

A Trait-State Model of Trust Propensity: Evidence From Two Career Transitions.

Trust propensity is typically conceptualized as a stable, trait-like, exogenous variable. Drawing on the social investment principle of personality change, we argue that trust propensity has situationally specific components and is likely to be less stable during periods of career transition. Using a latent curve-latent state-trait model, we present evidence that suggests that trust propensity has stable (trait) and unstable (state) components during career transition periods and that it has the potential to change over time. Our results are replicated across two, transitional workplace populations during a process of (re)socialization into an organization. In our second study, we also expand our focus to examine correlates of trust propensity and demonstrate the relationship between state and trait trust propensity and cognitive depletion. Our paper significantly extends knowledge of the nature of trust propensity and raises questions about the stability of this construct, one of the core tenets of trust theory.

Doctor, how can we help you? Qualitative interview study to identify key interventions to target burnout in hospital doctors.

OBJECTIVE: To identify priority interventions for the prevention and reduction of work stress and burnout in hospital doctors through analysis of (1) doctors' experiences of work stress and burnout and (2) their preferences with respect to interventions. DESIGN: Qualitative design using semistructured interviews analysed with deductive thematic analysis. SETTING: Hospitals in Ireland. PARTICIPANTS: 32 hospital doctors (16 practising consultants and 16 doctors in training) from a range of specialties, career stages, hospital types and locations. RESULTS: Practical, system-focused interventions were found to be most needed. Challenges with basic entitlements, that is, accessing statutory leave, knowing in advance when leave can be taken and being adequately covered when on leave were identified as requiring urgent attention. Other priority interventions identified were the integration of psychological support in the everyday working environment, time and training for clinical line managers to perform key management activities such as debriefing and education interventions which highlight work stress risks and care pathways, teach self-care and train doctors in how to support one another. CONCLUSIONS: Hospital doctors are feeling the effects of greater demand and fewer resources. What they most urgently need is adequate staffing levels, access to statutory leave and adequate cover when on leave. Doctors do not receive the support they need from their clinical line managers, who lack the skills and time to excel as people managers. Organisations should focus on developing clinical management skills across the system. The culture of medicine needs to change from stigmatisation and competitiveness to compassion and collaboration. Organisations, medical schools and professional bodies can steer this change through education.

Work engagement as a key driver of quality of care: a study with midwives.

PURPOSE: Against a backdrop of increased work intensification within maternity hospitals, the purpose of this paper is to examine the role of work engagement in the quality of care delivered to patients and in general health of the midwives delivering care, as reported by midwives and nurses. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Quantitative questionnaires consisting of standardised measures were distributed to midwives in two large maternity hospitals. These questionnaires assessed levels of work engagement, supervisor and colleague support, general health and quality of care. FINDINGS: Structural equation modelling analysis revealed a best-fit model that demonstrated work engagement to be a significant partial mediator between organisational and supervisor support and quality of care, and as a significant predictor of self-reported general health. Together, supervisor support, social support and organisational resources, mediated by work engagement, explained 38 per cent of the variance in quality of care at the unit level and 23 per cent of variance in general health among midwives (chi2(67) = 113; p < 0.01, CFI = 0.961, RMSEA = 0.06). RESEARCH LIMITATIONS/IMPLICATIONS: The study is limited in that it uses self-report measures of quality of care and lacks objective indicators of patient outcomes. The cross-sectional design also does not allow for causal inferences to be drawn from the data. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: This study provides evidence for the links between individual levels of work engagement and both health and self-reports of unit level quality of care. The results support the importance of health services organisations and managers deploying organisational resources to foster employee work engagement. The results also highlight the significant role of the immediate nurse manager and suggest training and development for such roles is a valuable investment. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: These results are the first to link work engagement and performance in health care contexts and point to the value of work engagement for both unit performance and for individual employee well-being in health organisations.

Exploration of the facilitators of and barriers to work engagement in nursing.

BACKGROUND: Engagement is couched as the opposite to burnout and while there have been numerous studies that have supported the relationship between organizational antecedents and employee engagement, nurse engagement is still inadequately understood. Recent papers in the nursing literature have called for more research on this construct to be conducted with nurses so that nurse leaders can be better informed about the impact of engagement on outcomes for the organization. AIM: To explore nurses' experiences of their work environments and to reveal factors in the workplace that may facilitate or act as barriers to nurse engagement. METHODS AND PARTICIPANTS: A qualitative methodology was employed with the data from focus groups with a total of 20 nurses working in both general and psychiatric nursing. RESULTS: Facilitators of and barriers to engagement center around six areas of organizational life, namely; workload, control, reward, fairness, community and values. CONCLUSION: Interventions aimed at fostering engagement are called for and through future research in the area of engagement, it is believed that nurses will gain more positive experiences from their work and subsequently a greater sense of well-being.