What do we measure and how do we elicit it? The case for the use of repertory grid technique in multi-party psychological contract research

ABSTRACT

The psychological contract is a multi-faceted construct and, with the rise of gig work, increasingly the contract extends beyond the conventional employer-employee relationship to encompass multi-party exchanges. Against this backdrop, the question of what should be measured when assessing the contract and how it should be elicited remains a significant issue for scholars. We argue that the potential of psychological contract theory as an explanatory lens in understanding contemporary multi-party working relationships is constrained by two key limitations inherent in conventional measurement approaches. Firstly, such approaches have favoured singular rather than multiparty perspectives, and secondly, they have broadly accorded equal weight and significance to the content dimensions unearthed, despite the fact that they may differ markedly in how they are understood by each party to the employment relationship. In order to remedy these shortcomings, we make the case for adopting repertory grid technique as a methodological framework to address measurement limitations and to more rigorously assess the content of the complex multi-party psychological contract.     

Dialogical Temporal Chair Technique

ABSTRACT

The Dialogical Temporal Chair Technique (DTCT) is a method based on Hermans’s dialogical self theory combined with Gestalt and cognitive–behavioural therapeutic techniques. The Dialogical Temporal Chair Technique is a method of activating temporal voices. Three chairs symbolising the past, present and future are used to help subjects create a temporal dialogue. Participants are asked to take a specific I-position and to construct a temporal self-dialogue by changing chair (and hence I-position). The DTCT can be used to solve undefined problems or to explore new ways of thinking, but it may also be used to review important life decisions or enable integration of, or detachment from, ambivalent feelings and attitudes.     

The past thirty years of emotion research: appraisal and beyond

ABSTRACT

For this Special Issue, I highlight the past and present importance of appraisal theory as well as the challenges to its status as a total theory of emotions from the other functions of emotions: associative learning, self-regulation and social communication. This theoretical view applies both to emotion research in general and the specific fields of my interest in the emotions of moral judgment and intergroup processes. Methodologically, developments in analyses of large and more naturally occurring data sets will give an opportunity to square psychology’s structural models of discrete emotions with the more complicated reality that exists. Both for the field and for individual researchers picking up the study of emotions, my advice is to pay special attention to measures, their assumptions and their context.     

Exploring the experience of adhering to a prescribed pre-surgical exercise program for patients with advanced rectal cancer: A phenomenological study

ObjectivesThe aim of this study was to explore the lived experience of patients with advanced rectal cancer as they attempted to adhere to a prescribed, hospital-based pre-surgical exercise program.Design/MethodsTen patients took part in three semi-structured in-depth interviews prior to (week 0), midway (week 3), and at completion (week 6) of the exercise program. Data were analysed using a phenomenological approach.ResultsMain themes that were deemed important for remaining enrolled in the program included: (1) building camaraderie and peer support, (2) experiencing a sense of structure and control, and (3) feeling safe and encouraged. Patients also reported engaging in further exercise outside the program and feeling motivated to continue exercising in the future.ConclusionsThis study shows the potential to integrate exercise prior to surgery as it was viewed as acceptable and feasible by patients with advanced rectal cancer. Moreover, it provides much needed information into the possible mechanisms that underpin patient's continued participation in exercise programs during treatment for advanced rectal cancer. Prescribed, hospital-based program should be implemented to promote opportunities for exercise and provide on-going supportive care options for patients awaiting surgery.     

‘The essay method’ a qualitative method for studying therapeutic dialogues

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a qualitative research method for analysing therapeutic dialogues called ‘the essay method’. A central part of the method uses the format of the literary essay as a model. The method consists of a close monitoring of clinical material guided by an overall psychoanalytic/psychodynamic theoretical frame. It combines both clinical details and global patterns of clinical material and is especially fitted for studying relational qualities of psychotherapeutic dialogues. In this paper, the background for qualitative analysis in studying psychoanalytic material is discussed, and the procedures for using the method are demonstrated. A study of therapeutic competence in a group of student therapists is used as an example of the method in practice, demonstrating that the essay method may have potential for revising theory and establishing new concepts based on empirical findings. The essay method is compared with other qualitative methods, and it is argued that it is suitable for psychoanalytic research.     

METHODOLOGICAL INVENTION AS A CONSTRUCTIVE PROJECT: Exploring the Production of Ethical Knowledge through the Interaction of Discursive Logics

This article reflects one scholar's attempt to locate herself within emerging ethical methodologies given a specific concern with cross-cultural women's moral praxis. The field of comparative ethics's debt to past debates over methodology is considered through a typology of three waves of methodological invention. The article goes on to describe a specific research focus on U.S. Catholic and Iranian Shii women that initiated a search for a distinct method. This method of comparative ethics, which focuses on the production of ethical knowledge through the interaction of discursive logics of various moral agents, is described. The conclusion turns to how methodological invention can itself become a constructive project through the way it (1) locates the scholar in relation to her subject of study and (2) allows for isolation of tactics within specific moral discourses.     

Unobtrusive indicators of culture for organizations: a systematic review

ABSTRACT

We systematically reviewed the literature using unobtrusive measures to study organizational culture. To synthesize, theorize, and evaluate this research, we introduce the concept of an unobtrusive indicator of culture (UIC) for organizations. A UIC measures organizational culture through collecting data without engaging employees, and is conceptualized in terms of cultural artefacts. We identified thirty-five articles, containing 135 distinct UICs, drawn from 16 distinct data sources. UICs coalesced into two groups. First, textual UICs, with culture measured through language patterns in annual reports, employee online reviews, and emails. Second, UICs focusing on organizational practices, for instance, organizational policies or executive rewards. Over two-thirds (68%) of UICs measured values for integrity, results orientation, and clan cultures, and we conjecture that UICs may be most useful for studying aspects of culture sensitive to reporting biases, and benchmarking large samples of organizations. Forty-eight percent of UICs had good or promising construct validity: many were textual UICs, and those focusing on organizational practices were less established. UICs can potentially advance the study of organizational culture, yet must be developed and applied cautiously, with careful consideration of their advantages and limitations, and how they complement existing measurements and conceptualizations of culture.     

Urban cyclists’ perspectives on post-collision behaviour change: A qualitative study

This study explores whether urban cyclists change on-road cycling behaviour following a collision(s) with a motor vehicle, an area that has not been explored in quantitative and qualitative transportation research. Purposive sampling was employed and data was collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews with 9 males and 9 females from Toronto, Canada. An inductive realist thematic method was used to analyze the data. Overall, three main themes were drawn out: cycling reflexivity, cycling behavioural change and resistance to cycling behavioural change. Eliciting the theme of cycling reflexivity, these findings reveal that all post-collision cyclists actively contemplated behavioural change, and the adoption or resistance toward cycling behavioural change was influenced by intersectional internal and external dispositions emanating from pre-collision cycling behaviours. By adopting general modifications and or defensive cycling practices, in total, 12 cyclists described cycling behavioural change. In contrast, eliciting the resistance toward cycling behavioural change theme, 6 participants indicated that there were no observable modifications in post-collision cycling behaviour. Grounded in the locus of control theory and the health belief model, this study elucidates cycling behavioural change as a psychological and behavioural coping mechanism employed by this particular cohort of cyclists in an effort to mitigate future collisions with motor vehicles. These novel findings set the stage for future research into cyclists’ post-collision experiences grounded in psychological and or behavioural research paradigms.