Job stress and job performance controversy: an empirical assessment

This study examined the relationship between job stress and employees' performance and withdrawal behavior among nurses (N = 440) in two hospitals in a metropolitan Canadian city on the east coast. Job stressors assessed included role ambiguity, role overload, role conflict, and resource inadequacy. Employees' performance was operationalized in terms of job performance, motivation, and patient care skill. Withdrawal behaviors assessed were absenteeism, tardiness, and anticipated turnover. Multiple regressions, curvilinear correlation coefficients, and canonical correlations were computed to test the nature of the relationship between stressors and the criterion variables of the study. In general, data were more supportive of the negative linear relationship between stress and performance than for positive linear or curvilinear relationship. However, the stressor role ambiguity did exhibit a monotonic nonlinear relationship with a number of criterion variables. Employees' professional and organizational commitment were proposed to moderate the stress-performance relationship. However, the data only partially supported the role of the moderators.     

Linking perceived market competition threat to moral disengagement: The roles of fear of failure and moral relativism

Current Psychology - Drawing on moral disengagement theory, this study examined the interplay of perceived market competition threat, fear of failure, moral relativism, and moral disengagement....     

Determination of Weights for Health Related Quality of Life Indicators among Kidney Patients: A Fuzzy Decision Making Method

Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) is one of the significant current discussions in the health fraternity. It encompasses multidimensional indicators and serves the purpose of evaluating health quality among patients. Patients’ perceptions of the impact of disease and treatment and the indicators such as physical, psychological, social function and well being are normally investigated. However there is no clear suggestion of which indicators contributed more than others. The arbitrary nature of HRQoL paves the way for fuzzy theory in evaluation of indicators. This paper describes the application of a fuzzy decision making method in ranking indicators of HRQoL among kidney patients. Four experts in health fraternity were selected as decision makers to elicit information regarding health related status of chronic kidney disease patients over eight HRQoL indicators. The decision makers were required to rate the regularity of experiencing health-related problems in linguistic judgment among the patients. The five linguistics variables were used as input data to a modified version of Fuzzy Simple Additive Weight decision making model. The modified six-step method was possible to tap the extent of decision makers’ opinions on the severity of HRQoL experienced by the patients. It is shown that the indicator of role-physical recorded the lowest problematic level while the indicator of mental health recorded the highest problematic level experienced by the patients. The ranking signifies the impact of the indicators to health quality specifically the chronic kidney disease patients.     

Work and nonwork experiences of employees on fixed and rotating shifts: An empirical assessment

The present study investigated the relationship between shift time and use of leisure time, nonwork satisfaction, and mental and physical health among rank-and-file workers (N = 383) in a manufacturing organization and between shift time and use of leisure time, mental and physical health, and three dimensions of work performance (job performance, job motivation, and patients' care) among nurses (N = 440) in two hospitals. Results are generally supportive of the hypothesis that employees on fixed shift time (high routine oriented) are better off than employees on rotating shift time (low routine oriented) in terms of criterion variables of the present study. Six demographic and background variables—age, marital status, place of socialization (rural vs urban), seniority, cultural background (French vs English speaking), and respondent's sex—are measured and their association with the above relationships analyzed. Results are discussed in light of the previous empirical evidence on shift work.     

Minimal Complete Propositional Natural Deduction Systems

For each truth-functionally complete set of connectives, we construct a sound and complete natural deduction system containing no axioms and the smallest possible number of inference rules, namely one.     

A skill test for farm women: curd making

A test was developed to measure farm women's skills in making good quality curd (yoghurt). Curd making is classified as skilled because more than 10 sequential steps must be performed. Using the procedure for measuring psychomotor variables, the authors listed all the steps recommended to perform the skill in a systematic and sequential order so that each step was clearly identifiable, observable, and mutually exclusive of the other steps. These steps became observation points for measuring the competence of the women in terms of accuracy. The list was referred to 27 experts who assigned separate scores to each step on the basis of its relative importance and operational difficulty. The mean scores for these dimensions were calculated separately, after which they were pooled to get the final assigned score for each step. The coefficients of reliability and validity were found to be .94 and .96, respectively.     

Islamic mission and call: The case of the International Islamic University,Islamabad

The following paper begins with an outline of the motives for da^cwah as presented by the du^cat themselves, followed by a discussion of the significance of mission in Pakistan. The International Islamic University and its da'wah wing is documented in detail, with a focus on its ideological foundations and its objectives. The main part of the paper is devoted to how the Da^cwah Academy tries to conduct its programmes among different target groups, especially students, and how it acts at the international level using workshops and various media.     

Characterizing visual behaviour in a lineup task

Eye tracking was used to monitor participants' visual behaviour while viewing lineups in order to determine whether gaze behaviour predicted decision accuracy. Participants viewed taped crimes followed by simultaneous lineups. Participants (N = 34) viewed 4 target‐present and 4 target‐absent lineups. Decision time, number of fixations and duration of fixations differed for selections vs. non‐selections. Correct and incorrect selections differed only in terms of comparison‐type behaviour involving the selected face. Correct and incorrect non‐selections could be distinguished by decision time, number of fixations and duration of fixations on the target or most‐attended face and comparisons. Implications of visual behaviour for judgment strategy (relative vs. absolute) are discussed. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.