New Directions in Catholic Historical Research: Saints in Social Work

For over half a century now, the profession of social work has ignored calls to develop critical infrastructures for strengthening and expanding historical research in schools of social work. Since World War II, for example, doctoral dissertations involving significant historical research in schools of social work have become virtually extinct. The vanishing of these dissertations represents a simultaneous vanishing of social work's capacity to detect historical figures who are indigenous to and yet have remained undetected in social work history. As a result, and unintentionally, social work scholars have been seemingly unable to detect Louise de Marillac as the patron saint of social workers or Ellen Gates Starr as a popular folk saint among social workers in Catholic religious orders. The study includes the rare, post-mortem photograph of Ellen Gates Starr, dressed in the full habit of a Catholic Benedictine nun.     

The contribution of role satisfaction,meaning in life and work–home conflict to explaining well-being among working grandparents

Background and objectives: The study aimed to examine the relationship of satisfaction with occupied roles as well as the sense of meaning in life and experience of work–home conflict to well-being among working grandparents in Israel.

Design and methods: The research sample consisted of 316 employed grandparents aged 50–80 (153 grandfathers and 163 grandmothers), who were employed in various types of organizations. Data were collected using structured questionnaires. Structural equation modeling was used for data analysis.

Results: The research findings indicate that the sense of meaning in life mediated the relationship between role satisfaction and the two types of work–home conflict. A significant relationship was found between “work interferes with family” conflict and negative affect. Higher personal resources were associated with higher meaning in life. Gender was not related to the experience of work–home conflict or to any of the outcome variables.

Conclusions: The centrality of meaning in life in the model that explains the experience of work–home conflict and its outcomes among working grandparents, derives from its mediating role in the relationship between the experience of role satisfaction and both types of role conflict, as well as from its direct impact on positive and negative affect.     

The influence of future time perspective on work engagement and job performance: the role of job crafting

This two-wave study aimed to examine future time perspective (FTP) as an antecedent of job crafting, and in turn job crafting as a mediator in associations between FTP and work outcomes. Based on the lifespan socio-emotional selectivity theory, we expected that open-ended and limited FTP would evoke different forms of job crafting, which in turn would be associated with changes in work engagement and job performance. In line with our expectations, we found that employees whose open-ended FTP increased over a 1-year time period also crafted more job resources and challenging job demands such that their job provided them with more opportunities for knowledge acquisition, which in turn resulted in increased levels of work engagement and job performance. However, contrary to our expectations, employees whose limited FTP increased over the 1-year time period did not proactively reduce their hindering job demands. Hence, although crafting fewer hindering job demands was directly related to decreased levels of work outcomes as expected, we found no indirect effect of changes in limited FTP on changes in work engagement and performance via changes in this job crafting behaviour. These findings have important implications for the literature on job crafting and FTP.     

The longitudinal impact of a job crafting intervention

This study examined the impact of a job crafting intervention based on job demands-resources (JD-R) theory. We hypothesized that the intervention would influence participants’ job crafting behaviours, as well as their job demands, job resources, and personal resources. In addition, we hypothesized a positive impact of the intervention on work engagement and self-rated job performance. The study used a quasi-experimental design with a control group. Teachers (N = 75) participated in the job crafting intervention on three occasions with 9 weeks in-between the first and second measurement, and 1 year in-between the second and third measurement. Results showed that the intervention had a significant impact on participants’ job crafting behaviours, both at time 2 and time 3. In addition, the results showed a significant increase of performance feedback, opportunities for professional development, self-efficacy, and job performance 1 year after the job crafting intervention. Participants’ levels of job demands, resilience, and work engagement did not change. We discuss the implications of these findings for JD-R theory and practice.     

Daily within-person effects of job autonomy and work engagement on innovative behaviour: The cross-level moderating role of creative self-efficacy

Adopting a dynamic within-person perspective on employee innovation, the present study investigates the role of situational job autonomy and momentary work engagement as day-level correlates of innovative behaviour. Anticipating individual differences in the strength of these intraindividual associations, we propose dispositional creative self-efficacy (CSE) to serve as a cross-level moderating influence amplifying the day-specific predictive power of autonomy and work engagement for innovative behaviour. Hierarchical linear modelling analyses of the nested data from 123 employees surveyed over 5 consecutive work days suggest that both autonomy and work engagement positively predict self-reported innovative behaviour on a daily basis. Whereas the engagement–innovation link emerges as homogenous across persons, results indicate that the daily within-person effect of autonomy on innovative behaviour varies significantly as a function of CSE such that it is greater for individuals who hold higher rather than lower CSE beliefs. Implications for future research, limitations, and practical implications are discussed.     

Building and sustaining work engagement – a participatory action intervention to increase work engagement in nursing staff

This study evaluated whether a participatory action research intervention with nursing staff on acute care older people National Health Service wards in the United Kingdom was effective for increasing work engagement. Mediation analyses between job resources (social support, influence in decision-making), job demands, work-related needs (autonomy, competence, relatedness), and work engagement explored the presumed psychological mechanisms underlying the intervention. A non-randomized, matched control group, pretest, post-test design involved three intervention and five control wards. A significant decrease in relatedness, and a borderline significant decrease in competence, was observed in the intervention group compared to the control group, with no effect on work engagement (N = 45). Work-related needs mediated between resources and work engagement, supporting the job demands-resources model and self-determination theory as an underlying explanatory theory. Intervention implementation was difficult, highlighting the need for participant and organizational readiness for change, and strong management support. This is the first known study to apply participatory techniques to increase work engagement in nursing staff and explore the underlying explanatory psychological mechanisms, offering a novel means of taking work engagement research forward. Crucially, it highlights the challenges involved in intervention research and the importance of including evaluations of intervention implementation alongside statistical evaluations to avoid erroneous conclusions.     

Divergent effects of detachment from work: a day-level study on employee creativity

Detachment from work during non-work time is generally related to a decrease in work-related strain. However, it might also hamper employees’ generation of new and useful ideas about work by completely shutting off work-related thoughts and/or feelings outside of work. In this day-level study, we used a within-person design to investigate the role of cognitive and emotional detachment from work during non-work time in relation to equivalent types of job demands and job resources, in the prediction of employee creativity. Cognitive detachment from work refers to mentally disconnecting from work and no longer thinking about job-related issues, whereas emotional detachment from work refers to affectively disconnecting from work and no longer experiencing job-related emotions. Survey data were gathered over the course of eight consecutive days from 151 health care employees. Multi-level analyses revealed that: (1) cognitive detachment was positively related to creativity, irrespective of the level of cognitive job demands and resources; (2) high emotional job demands in combination with either low levels of emotional detachment or high levels of emotional job resources were positively related to creativity. This day-level study provides insight into the relation between detachment from work and creativity from a process perspective, by showing specific conditions under which different types of detachment from work benefit employee creativity.     

Éléments de réflexion pour la mise en œuvre d’une démarche de prévention des risques psychosociaux au travail en France

Preventing social risks at work is an international concern. It has been demonstrated that the work in its all dimensions such as, organizational, technical, technological and relational, involves a multiplicity of constraints. They participate to the degradation of work health and to the organizational performance through to the complex and various mechanisms. The aim of this paper is to explain how a methodological consensus linking the European legislation, national agreements, scientifically theories and tools, and actual work has been gradually introducing in France. Based on theoretical and methodological considerations and on a Return Of Experience (ROE) we demonstrate the necessity to adopt an integrated approach to prevent social risks that focusing more on the work determinants than on individuals’ issues.