Associations between heteronormative information, parental support and stress among same-sex mothers in Sweden-A web survey.

AIM: The aim was to investigate same-sex mothers' self-assessed experiences of forming a family, and the association between heteronormative information, parental support and parenting stress. DESIGN: A quantitative, cross-sectional study. METHODS: In a web survey conducted in Sweden in 2019, same-sex mothers (N = 146) with a child aged 1-3 years answered questions about their experiences of forming a family through assisted reproduction and questions about parenting stress. Descriptive statistics describes the process of forming a family. Pearson's correlation analyses and independent sample t tests were used to test hypotheses about heteronormative information, parental support and parenting stress. RESULTS: Same-sex mothers experienced going through assisted reproduction treatment as stressful, and parental groups as not being supportive. Heteronormative information correlated with both lower perceived parental support and higher perceived parenting stress. Non-birth mothers experienced less acknowledgement and support than birthmothers.

Quick and dirty or rapid and informative? Exploring a participatory method to facilitate implementation research and organizational change.

PURPOSE: The purpose is explore an approach to acquire, analyze and report data concerning an organizational change initiative that combines knowledge generation and knowledge use, and contrast that with a method where knowledge generation and use is separated. More specifically, the authors contrast a participatory group workshop with individual interviews analyzed with thematic analysis, focusing on information about the change process and its perceived practical relevance and usefulness. DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH: Participants were managers responsible for implementing a broad organizational change aiming to improve service quality (e.g. access and equity) and reduce costs in a mental health service organization in Sweden. Individual interviews were conducted at two points, six months apart (i1: n = 15; i2: n = 18). Between the interviews, a 3.5-h participatory group workshop was conducted, during which participants (n = 15) both generated and analyzed data through a structured process that mixed individual-, small- and whole-group activities. FINDINGS: Both approaches elicited substantive information about the content, purpose and process of change. While the content and purpose findings were similar across the two data sources, the interviews described how to lead a change process, whereas the workshop yielded concrete information about what to do. Benefits of interviews included personal insights about leading change while the workshop provided an opportunity for collective sense-making. ORIGINALITY/VALUE: When organizational stakeholders work through the change process through a participatory workshop, they may get on the same page, but require additional support to take action.

The Cross-Level Moderation Effect of Resource-Providing Leadership on the Demands-Work Ability Relationship.

Employees in female-dominated sectors are exposed to high workloads, emotional job demands, and role ambiguity, and often have insufficient resources to deal with these demands. This imbalance causes strain, threatening employees' work ability. The aim of this study was to examine whether resource-providing leadership at the workplace level buffers against the negative repercussions of these job demands on work ability. Employees (N = 2383) from 290 work groups across three countries (Germany, Finland, and Sweden) in female-dominated sectors were asked to complete questionnaires in this study. Employees rated their immediate supervisor's resource-providing leadership and also self-reported their work ability, role ambiguity, workload, and emotional demands. Multilevel modeling was performed to predict individual work ability with job demands as employee-level predictors, and leadership as a group-level predictor. Work ability was poor when employees reported high workloads, high role ambiguity, and high emotional demands. Resource-providing leadership at the group level had a positive impact on employees' work ability. We observed a cross-level interaction between emotional demands and resource-providing leadership. We conclude that resource-providing leadership buffers against the repercussions of emotional demands for the work ability of employees in female-dominated sectors; however, it is not influential in dealing with workload or role ambiguity.

What about the leader? Crossover of emotional exhaustion and work engagement from followers to leaders.

Although a growing body of research links leadership behavior to follower health, comparatively little is known about the health effects of being in the lead. This longitudinal study of 315 team members and 67 leaders examined the crossover of emotional exhaustion and work engagement from followers to leaders. Leader emotional self-efficacy was tested as a moderator in the crossover process. Multiple regression analyses revealed that followers' work engagement was positively related to leaders' work engagement eight months later, controlling for followers' tenure with the leader, leader gender, autonomy, workload, and work engagement at Time 1. Leaders' emotional self-efficacy did not moderate the crossover of work engagement. Followers' emotional exhaustion was not directly related to leaders' emotional exhaustion over time. We did find a significant interaction effect for follower emotional exhaustion and leader emotional self-efficacy. This study is the first to show that crossover of emotional exhaustion and work engagement can unfold over time from team members to leaders. Main theoretical implications lie in the finding that-in line with job demands-resources theory-followers' psychological states can pose a demand or resource for leaders, and influence their well-being. For practitioners, our results offer valuable insights regarding the design of organizational health interventions as well as leadership development measures. (PsycINFO Database Record

Social and emotional self-efficacy at work.

Research has shown that self-efficacy is often one of the most important personal resources in the work context. However, because this research has focused on cognitive and task-oriented self-efficacy, little is known about social and emotional dimensions of self-efficacy at work. The main aim of the present study was to investigate social and emotional self-efficacy dimensions at work and to compare them to a cognitive and task-oriented dimension. Scales to measure social and emotional self-efficacy at work were developed and validated and found to be well differentiated from the cognitive task-oriented occupational self-efficacy scale. Confirmatory factor analyses of data from 226 Swedish and 591 German employees resulted in four separate but correlated self-efficacy dimensions: (1) occupational; (2) social; (3) self-oriented emotional; and (4) other-oriented emotional. Social self-efficacy explained additional variance in team climate and emotional self-efficacy in emotional irritation and emotional exhaustion, over and above effects of occupational self-efficacy. Men reported higher occupational self-efficacy, whereas social and emotional self-efficacy revealed no clear gender differences. The scales have strong psychometric properties in both Swedish and German language versions. The positive association between social self-efficacy and team climate, and the negative relationships between self-oriented emotional self-efficacy and emotional irritation and emotional exhaustion may provide promising tools for practical applications in work settings such as team-building, staff development, recruitment or other training programs aiming for work place health promotion. The next step will be to study how social and emotional self-efficacy relate to leadership, well-being and health over time.