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1 – 10 of 17W. Randy Evans, Deborah M. Mullen and Lisa Burke-Smalley
The appalling abuse healthcare workers have endured from patients is long documented in the popular press and social media. Less explored in the healthcare management literature…
Abstract
Purpose
The appalling abuse healthcare workers have endured from patients is long documented in the popular press and social media. Less explored in the healthcare management literature is workplace abuse that professional nurses experience from their coworkers.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use text-based first-hand accounts from nurses posting on Reddit (N = 75) to better understand the types and context of abusive acts endured by their coworkers in the contemporary healthcare setting. Each account is content analyzed using two raters, and thematic analysis is utilized to summarize findings.
Findings
Findings indicate that nurse workplace abuse frequently targets new entrants to a work unit (e.g. recent grads), typically is ongoing, takes verbal and nonverbal forms, mainly stems from coworkers (i.e. lateral mistreatment), and frequently takes place in front of other coworkers, mainly in hospital settings.
Practical implications
By applying the lens of mindfulness, healthcare organizations can transform these harmful interactions within the nursing profession. The authors offer administrators and frontline workers practical implications for mitigating workplace abuse, including reshaping the culture, bystander interventions and explicit leadership support.
Originality/value
First-hand accounts from nurses in the frontlines of healthcare provide a rich voice that reveals the reality of ongoing verbal and nonverbal peer abuse in hospitals and healthcare settings.
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Deborah M. Mullen, Kathleen Wheatley and Nai Lamb
This case investigation used firsthand statements, reports, testimony and regulatory records. While widely publicized in the popular press, this case is based on primary…
Abstract
Research methodology
This case investigation used firsthand statements, reports, testimony and regulatory records. While widely publicized in the popular press, this case is based on primary documents. On their website, many documents were obtained from Wells Fargo’s Corporate newsroom, such as the internal audit report shared with shareholders and press releases. Most other sources were from US regulatory websites (.gov) or congressional testimony. In a few places, quotes and comments came from reliable journalistic sites that cite their sources and follow a journalist’s code of ethics and conduct, ensuring that the reported remarks and data were verified.
Case overview/synopsis
Since 2016, Wells Fargo Bank has faced multiple customer mistreatment investigations and resultant fines. Public outcry and distrust resulted from Wells Fargo employees creating hidden accounts and enrolling people in bank services without their knowledge to meet desired levels of sustained shareholder growth. Over the past five years, Wells Fargo has been fined and returned to customers and stockholders over $3bn. Wells Fargo executives spent the first year of the scandal citing improper behavior by employees. Leadership did not take responsibility for setting the organizational goals, which led to employee misbehavior. Even after admitting some culpability in creating the extreme sales culture, executives and the Board of Directors tried to distance themselves from blame for the unethical behavior. They cited the organizations’ decentralized structure as a reason the board was not quicker in seeing and correcting the negative behaviors of these ‘bad apple’ employees. Wells Fargo faced multiple concurrent scandals, such as upselling services to retirees, inappropriately repossessing service members’ vehicles, adding insurance and extra fees to mortgages and other accounts and engaging in securities fraud. As time has passed, the early versions of a handful of “bad apples” seem to be only a part of the overall “poison tree.”The dilemma, in this case, is who is responsible for the misbehavior and the inappropriate sales of products and services (often without the customer’s knowledge)? Is strategic growth year-over-year with no allowances for environmental and economic factors a realistic and reasonable goal for corporations? This case is appropriate for undergraduates and graduate students in finance, human resources, management, accounting and investments.
Complexity academic level
An active case-based learning pedagogical approach is suggested. The materials include a short podcast, video and other materials to allow the faculty to assign pre-class work or to use in the classroom before a case discussion.
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Deborah McPhee, Al-Karim Samnani and Francine Schlosser
Workplace injury and death of young persons are important concerns. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the mediating role of safety behaviours underpinning the relationship…
Abstract
Purpose
Workplace injury and death of young persons are important concerns. The purpose of this paper is to focus on the mediating role of safety behaviours underpinning the relationship between perceived safety climate (PSC) and injuries, and the moderating roles of safety-specific transformational leadership (SSTL), general transformational leadership (GTL) and training in influencing the mediation, for young workers.
Design/methodology/approach
An exploratory, online questionnaire was completed by 367 university students employed in various industries. Data were analysed using moderated mediation.
Findings
Safety behaviours mediated the relationship between PSC and injuries. SSTL moderated the relationship between PSC and safety behaviours, but GTL did not. Training did not positively moderate the relationship between safety behaviour and injuries, yet may still inform us on the training by referent others since safety behaviour mediated the relationship between PSC and injuries when SSTL, GTL and training were high.
Research limitations/implications
A student sample was utilised, but was appropriate in this context as it is representative of the type of workers being studied. Longitudinal data with larger diverse data sets should be incorporated.
Practical implications
Business owners must utilise both forms of leadership to promote a safe workplace. HR and H&S professionals must continue to encourage this promotion.
Social implications
Safety training and leadership are important for policy makers and regulators to reduce workplace injuries for youth workers.
Originality/value
This study is the first to test youth H&S using moderated mediation. Safety specific and general forms of leadership and training are important predictors.
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Bruce D. Keillor, G. Tomas M. Hult and Deborah Owens
A number of obstacles, many originating from political/government sources, adversely affect individual firms involved in operations outside of their domestic market. The purpose…
Abstract
A number of obstacles, many originating from political/government sources, adversely affect individual firms involved in operations outside of their domestic market. The purpose of this study was to investigate the role in which market access, existence of government policies, and market imperfections impact both the importance firms attach to, and the formalization of, political activities designed to reduce or eliminate such threats. The findings indicate, when faced with government/political threats, firms attach high levels of importance to political behaviors and this, in turn, is associated with formalized political activities on the part of the firm.
Situated within the conversation of the global push for teacher quality and for professional learning that positively shapes teaching practice in order to improve student…
Abstract
Purpose
Situated within the conversation of the global push for teacher quality and for professional learning that positively shapes teaching practice in order to improve student learning, the purpose of this paper is concerned with transformational learning that actively shifts cognition, emotion, and capacity (Drago-Severson, 2009).
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is set against the backdrop of one independent, well-resourced Australian school during its professional learning intervention. It draws together findings from a narrative study that examined the lived experiences of 14 educators. The educators interviewed for this study included the researcher (also an educator at the school), two teachers, and 11 school leaders at middle and executive levels.
Findings
While the study set out to explore how educators’ experiences of professional learning (trans)form their senses of professional identity, it found that it is not just professional learning, but epiphanic life experiences that shape professional selves and practices. Learning is highly individualized, not one-size-fits-all. It is that which taps into who educators see and feel they are that has the most impact on beliefs, thoughts, behaviors, and practices.
Originality/value
This study suggests that transformational professional learning can occur in a wide range of life arenas. It recommends that the definition of professional learning be broadened, that teachers and schools think more expansively and flexibly about what it is that transforms educators, and about who drives and chooses this learning. Schools and systems can work from their own contexts to design and slowly iterate models of professional learning, from the bottom up and the middle out.
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Deborah E. Rupp and E. Layne Paddock
Purpose – We outline a theoretical model of the emergence of justice climate in groups, teams, and organizations, and in doing so integrate multiple justice perspectives (e.g.…
Abstract
Purpose – We outline a theoretical model of the emergence of justice climate in groups, teams, and organizations, and in doing so integrate multiple justice perspectives (e.g., affective events, fairness heuristic, deonance, justice integration, multifoci justice, overall justice).
Approach – In this theoretical paper, we propose that justice climate is spawned at the level of the event; individuals experience discrete events and then use their emotional reactions related to these events as information in forming fairness judgments. Cognitive processes explicated in justice integration theory, fairness heuristic theory, and fairness theory also play a role. Over time, these judgments about various perpetrators – which may include the evaluation of outcomes, procedures, information, and interpersonal treatment – are aggregated to form individual-level, stable judgments regarding the fairness of exchange partners with whom employees interact (e.g., supervisors, coworkers, and customers). Through socialization and social-information processing, and influenced by organizational structure and social networks, these individual multifoci justice perceptions merge to form multifoci justice climate, which over time lead to the formation of shared cognitions of overall justice climate.
Value – The chapter proposes a temporal model of how discrete events at the individual level merge to form individuals’ multifoci justice perceptions, shared multifoci justice climate, and ultimately overall justice climate. The chapter offers multiple propositions and concludes with recommendations for empirically testing the model.
Sadegül Akbaba-Altun, PhD, EdD, is currently an associate professor of Educational Administration at Baskent University, Faculty of Education in Turkey. Dr. Akbaba-Altun's…
Abstract
Sadegül Akbaba-Altun, PhD, EdD, is currently an associate professor of Educational Administration at Baskent University, Faculty of Education in Turkey. Dr. Akbaba-Altun's educational background includes a BSc in Guidance and Counseling and an MSc in Educational Administration and Supervision, both from METU; a PhD in Institute of Social Sciences with an emphasis on Educational Administration and Supervision from Ankara University; and an EdD in Curriculum and Instruction with the emphasis on Elementary Education from the University of Cincinnati. Her research areas include Chaos Theory, Leadership, Integrating Computer Technologies Into Education, and Supervision.