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Organizational Health Psychology: A Compilation Of Open Access Research For Future Industrial-Organizational Psychologists, Caitlin Lapine

Open Touro Created

2025

Organizational Health Psychology: A Compilation of Open Access Research for Future Industrial-Organizational Psychologists is a text designed for industrial organizational psychology graduate students and organizational practitioners working to make the workplace better for all employees. This open educational resource provides important scholarly journal articles that describe current findings in the occupational health space, including research conducted on the COVID-19 pandemic’s influence on current work.

Every Voice Has Its Bright And Dark Sides: Understanding Observers’ Reactions To Coworkers’ Voice Behaviors, Szu-Han Lin, Shereen Fatimah, Emily C. Poulton, Cony M. Ho, D. Lance Ferris, Russell E. Johnson

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The majority of research on voice has focused on how employee voice influences voicers and targets of voice (e.g. supervisors and organizations). We advance theory on voice by examining how third-party observers react to expressions of voice behavior by coworkers. Drawing from affective events theory (AET), we examine the potential benefits and detriments of coworker voice behaviours. Results from an experience sampling study and an experiment revealed that coworker voice was associated with an increase in third-party observers' inspiration, prompting third-party observers to engage in their own voice behaviours. Although coworker voice did not have a significant main effect on …

An Agent-Based Modeling Framework For Evaluating The Linkage Between Disaster Facility Damage And Mental Health, Emily S. Reeves

Theses and Dissertations

This research establishes a novel agent-based modeling framework to establish the linkage between disaster-induced facility damage and mental health outcomes and the evaluation of treatment methods within the civilian and USAF mental health spheres. The study models the degradation and recovery of agent mental health using simulated data and evaluates the efficacy of three distinct treatment approaches through statistical methods. The methodology integrate agent-based modeling with resilient engineering concepts to simulate mental health resilience curves based on vulnerability, exposure, and facility damage. Agents’ mental health indices were tracked through phases of degradation, stagnation, and recovery based on the three treatments …

An Analysis Of Supervisor Job Satisfaction During Telework In The Covid-19 Pandemic, Corey L. Rucker

Theses and Dissertations

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly reshaped workplace practices, accelerating the adoption of telework. This study examines the job satisfaction of supervisors in telework environments, focusing on qualitative analysis of survey responses from 41 supervisors in the Department of Defense (DoD). Through thematic analysis, the research identifies key factors influencing supervisor satisfaction. These themes include flexibility, communication challenges, resource gaps, and the unique stressors of managing remote teams. Findings reveal that while telework offers benefits such as improved work-life balance and productivity, it also presents challenges like reduced team cohesion, blurred work-home boundaries, and difficulties in performance management. Grounded in Herzberg’s Two-Factor …

Job Demands And Resources: A Look At The Vha Workforce To Support Dod Goals, Anthony J. Rivera

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the relationships between job demands, job resources, burnout, turnover intention, and workplace attitudes among employees of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) through the lens of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model. The findings reveal both expected and novel insights. Consistent with prior research, the study confirms that excessive job demands, without enough resources to balance then, lead to burnout. This, in turn, increases turnover intention and negatively affects how employees view leadership and the work environment. A significant discovery, however, challenges conventional assumptions: favorable job demands were positively correlated with turnover intention, suggesting that employees in favorable roles …

Mediating And Moderating Effects Of Job Satisfaction, Organizational Commitment, Perceptions Of External Markets, And Work-Life Balance On Employee Retention, Naya J. Gillespie

Theses and Dissertations

Employee retention remains a critical challenge for organizations across industries, particularly in environments with high turnover rates and competitive external job markets. This thesis examines the correlations between organizational commitment, job satisfaction, work-life balance, and perceptions of external job markets to uncover their collective and individual impacts on employee retention. Using quantitative research design, data was collected through an online survey of 240 participants across various hierarchical levels. Key findings indicate that organizational commitment and job satisfaction significantly influence retention, with job satisfaction also serving as a mediator between organizational commitment and turnover intentions. Work-life balance plays a direct role …

Stop The Brain Drain: A Higher Education Collaborative Autoethnographic Change Study Using A Soft Systems Approach, Danny Darden, Angela Nunez, Stella Shen, Rob E. Carpenter, Ginger Vaughn, Tim Murphy

Student Posters

Knowledge loss is a common challenge within IHEs—highly educated and skilled individuals leave—often taking the knowledge to do their job well with them. Turnover in IHEs is currently at an all-time high. There is a strong correlation between knowledge management practices and organizational performance. This paper (in progress) explores this phenomenon using collaborative institutional ethnography, enabling a critical analysis of how power dynamics and uncertainty shape both individual experiences and broader workplace social structures. Participants include six IHE employees (in various IHE roles) from three separate universities in the eastern region of Texas. We aim to uncover the internal experiences …

The Power Of Disconnecting: The Moderating Effect Of Decompression On Safety Culture And Organizational Commitment In Nurses, Mackenzie Zimmerman

Industrial-Organizational Psychology Dissertations

This dissertation examines the role of decompression in moderating and mediating the relationship between safety culture and affective organizational commitment among nurses in a pediatric healthcare organization. Data from 908 nurses were analyzed to test two primary hypotheses. The first hypothesis proposed that safety culture would positively predict organizational commitment, and the results supported this, showing that stronger safety cultures were associated with greater organizational commitment (b = 0.55, p < .001). The second hypothesis suggested that decompression would moderate the relationship between safety culture and organizational commitment. However, decompression did not significantly moderate this relationship across the overall sample (b = 0.03, p = .258). Post hoc mediation analysis, however, revealed that decompression acted as a significant mediator (b = 0.071, p = .05), highlighting that decompression enhances the effect of safety culture on organizational commitment. These findings underscore the importance of fostering a strong safety culture and implementing decompression strategies, such as mindfulness practices and structured breaks, to improve nurse well-being and retention. Implications for healthcare organizations aiming to enhance workforce resilience and commitment are discussed, alongside suggestions for future research exploring departmental variations in decompression's effectiveness.

Podcasting Towards Togetherness: Utilizing Podcasts To Improve Departmental Camaraderie And Well-Being, Michael Petrauskis, Colleen Gutman, Rosemarie Fernandez

Journal of Wellness

Introduction: Physician burnout is on the rise, and this is of particular concern in emergency medicine. Burnout is associated with medical errors, adverse events, poor professionalism, and litigation. A sense of community can build engagement and mitigate workplace stressors on well-being. Emergency physicians may have trouble connecting due to the nature of shift-work and various practice settings. Communication technology, and particularly podcasting, has the potential to help overcome these barriers and positively impact relatedness and well-being.

Approach: We developed an inward-facing podcast, “The ER Break Room” within the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Florida. Through the …

Are Positive And Negative Leader Humor Two Different Coins? A Meta-Analysis, Xiaohong Xu, Richard Hayes, Lixin Jiang, William P. Jimenez

Psychology Faculty Publications

Scholars disagree on the distinction between positive and negative leader humor, which may hinder the integration and advancement of the leader humor literature. Thus, we meta-analyzed the correlation between positive and negative leader humor, as well as their shared nomological networks (k = 161; follower N = 45,759; leader N = 7,820). Our meta-analysis indicates that (1) there is a very small but significant correlation between positive and negative leader humor (ρ = -.07); (2) positive and negative leader humor have differential relationships with most antecedents (e.g., positive affectivity) and outcomes (e.g., innovation and citizenship behavior); (3) positive affect …

Exploring The Dynamics Of Volitional Personality Change: A Psychoeducational Intervention Study With Young Adults Transitioning To The Workforce, Erica Baranski, Ramona L. Martinez, Zihan Liu, Kevin Hoff

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

College graduates transitioning to the workforce completed a 13-week, light, psychoeducation intervention designed to increase volitional personality change motivation via weekly email newsletters. Contrary to expectations, the intervention did not significantly enhance overall change motivation or consistently inspire desired trait change goals following the study period or after 6 or 10 months. However, participants in the intervention group did report increased desire to change emotional stability at specific points during the study. These findings underscore the limitations of this particular psychoeducational intervention approach and help to fill in the boundary conditions of when and how personality change is possible. Additionally, …

It's Just A Game! Effects Of Fantasy In A Storified Test On Applicant Reactions, Marie L. Ohlms, Klaus G. Melchers, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

There is increasing attention to storification of assessments (i.e., embedding a storyline into a non-storified assessment) in research and practice and to gamified and game-based assessment in general. However, there is a surprising lack of agreement and of recommendations regarding what level of fantasy of the storyline one should choose for the storification from the perspective of applicant reactions. A distinction is typically made between fantasy (e.g., fighting aliens) and realistic (e.g., workday simulations) storylines, with both choices having their advantages and disadvantages. In this study, a sample of 195 participants was shown either a storified realistic test, a storified …

A Head-To-Head Comparison Of Situational Judgment Tests And Assessment Centers For Measuring And Predicting The Same Performance Dimensions, Iman Shakeri, Filip Lievens

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

To date, a limited set of studies have compared the criterion-related validity of low-fidelity (SJT) versus high-fidelity (AC) simulations for predicting job performance. Unfortunately, these studies validated these simulations through the overall assessment rating (OAR) instead of on the basis of specific dimensions. Given SJTs and ACs were compared that measured different dimensions, our understanding of the relative and comparative validity of these assessment approaches in measuring the same set of dimensions is still limited. Therefore, this study aims to conduct a head-to-head comparison of the criterion-related validity of the AC and the SJT (and their incremental validity) while keeping …

The Elephant (And Donkey) In The Room: The Effects Of Political Ideology On Diversity Training Effectiveness, Luke P. Kayga

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent years, the prevalence of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) trainings in organizations has grown significantly (Wang et al., 2024). DEI trainings are typically designed with the purpose of educating organizational members on DEI-related content and promoting feelings of inclusion in the workplace (Devine & Ash, 2022). Much like many other types of organizational training efforts, the effectiveness of DEI trainings is contingent on a variety of input factors. One such factor that has been extensively covered in the broader training literature but relatively understudied in DEI training research is trainee characteristics. Since DEI trainings are values-based, ethically prescriptive …

Proximity In Pixels: The Moderating Roles Of Structural And Psychological Distance On Behavioral Leadership Effectiveness, Ethan J. Ray

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

With a sharp increase in virtual working arrangements in recent years, there is a distinct need to reevaluate what constitutes effective leadership at a distance. Although research on virtual leadership exists, it has often lacked a focus on specific leader behaviors and the psychological intricacies unique to virtual work settings. The present study examines followers' perceived effectiveness of two enduring leadership behavior categories: task-oriented and relationship-oriented. Utilizing dyadic distance theory, the study tested whether perceived effectiveness of these behaviors is contingent not only on the tangible effects of virtual work, referred to as structural distance, but also on the intangible …

Synchronizing Work And Teaching Practices With The Spatial Dna Of Distributed Work And Learning, Manju Aishwarya Adikesavan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Phygitality, the seamless and synergistic integration of physical and digital realms, is an indispensable and irrevocable part of contemporary office-based work. Phygitality facilitates spatially and temporally distributed or multi-local working where employees work from diverse locations such as their home, office, and third places at any time of day or night. It also makes nonterritorial working at temporary workspaces accessed on a session-by-session basis possible.

This dissertation examines how phygital, multi-local, and nonterritorial working reshape individual and group work behaviors, organizational spatial practices, work-centric settings, non-work-centric settings, neighborhoods, cities, and regions. The Spatial DNA of Distributed Work encapsulates a conceptual …

Leadership Coaching And The “Mad Major”, Ray Forbes

All Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Interested in gaining some valuable lessons for leaders and leadership coaches to add to your repertoire? Want to further express your curiosity and explore the opportunity to learn more about leadership and leadership coaching from a very unusual, non-academic and very iconoclastic source? If so, this article may be for you. This commentary is essentially the abbreviated story of a single-minded, highly dedicated leader’s lifelong quest to bring needed change to a very large narrow-minded bureaucratic organization. It will briefly explore the strategy-infused approach of one of the most controversial and little known figures in modern military history. This individual …

Reshaping Resilience Mental Health Challenges In Post-Pandemic Students And Workforce Readiness, Ryan Potts, Tarandeep Kaur Arora, Susan Miller, Julia Ann Boyd Dr.

Posters-at-the-Capitol

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on mental health, especially on college students, who faced disruptions to their education and social environments. This study explores the mental health effects of the pandemic on students at Murray State University, focusing on changes in anxiety, depression, relationships, and academic performance. Using survey data collected from students in Occupational Safety and Health (OSH) and the Nursing Program, the study aims to understand the trends across pre-pandemic, during-pandemic, and post-pandemic periods. The findings show a significant increase in anxiety and depression during the pandemic, with effects lasting post-pandemic, alongside differences in how students …

A Monte Carlo Study Of The Efficacy Of The Mantel-Haenszel Method At Detecting Item Bias, Macy Daulton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The Mantel-Haenszel (MH) method is a statistical method used for differential item functioning analysis. Previous differential item functioning (DIF) research of the MH method focused on Type I error rates and statistical power. Not yet studied in the literature is whether excessive numbers of biased items may cause the MH method to fail to identify biased items. The proposed study employed a Monte Carlo design to determine the extent of bias in the match items necessary for the MH method to fail to identify a biased item. Results showed that the threshold was greater than was hypothesized, requiring nearly all …

Off The Clock But Still At Work: Investigating The Relationship Between Workplace Incivility And Behavioral Disengagement, Doug Brown

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This thesis investigated the relationship between workplace incivility and behavioral disengagement, using emotional appraisal as a mediating factor. Data was collected through a survey method via Prolific. Using the transactional model of stress, I hypothesized that experienced incivility will be positively associated with behavioral disengagement as a coping mechanism. Additionally, I hypothesized that emotional appraisal would mediate the relationship between experienced workplace incivility and behavioral disengagement. By using a mediation model to test these hypotheses I aim to increase the understanding of workplace incivility and its negative impacts on individuals and the workplace as a whole. Results of the study …

Examining Antecedents Of Diversity Initiative Fatigue: A Moderatedmediation Model, Anne Simpson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis investigates the relationships between bias awareness, motivation to respond without prejudice, racialized attitudes, and diversity initiative fatigue (DIF) among employees within an academic setting, specifically focusing on faculty and staff at Western Kentucky University. Data were collected through a survey-based approach to measure these constructs and assess their relationships. This study hypothesized that bias awareness negatively correlates with DIF and motivation to respond without prejudice mediating this relationship. Furthermore, the research examines how racialized attitudes moderate the relationship between bias awareness and motivation to respond without prejudice. By examining these relationships using a moderated mediation model, the study …

Expanding On The Relationship Between Incivility And Resource Depletion: Examining Race And Personal Tolerance For Mistreatment As Moderators, Aishwarya Kurmar

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Workplace incivility is ubiquitous, regularly impacting working adults. Through the framework of Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, I examined the relationship between workplace incivility and resource depletion using daily diary methodology. Workplace incivility negatively impacts employee outcomes at the organizational and individual level. As such, it was hypothesized that workplace incivility would have a positive correlation with increased resource depletion, measured as psychological fatigue. Under selective incivility theory, disenfranchised groups face increased instances of incivility. Following this theory, non-whites were hypothesized to experience a greater association between workplace incivility and resource depletion. Additionally, an individual’s personal tolerance of mistreatment for …

Social Comparison And Pressure: Examining The Roles Of Sex And Rank, Ashley East

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Faculty in academia face intense competition and growing expectations, often shaped by perceptions of others’ performance. During the COVID-19 pandemic, these dynamics were magnified, making social comparison a critical factor in understanding academic workplace pressures. The purpose of this study is to examine the changing work pressures and social comparison tendencies among academics during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is hypothesized that social comparison tendencies will be positively related to time pressure (H1a) and telepressure (H1b), with moderation by sex (H2a and H2b) and organizational rank (H3a and H3b). Using a panel survey of 197 tenure-track and tenured faculty members in …

The Association Between The Multidimensional Evaluation Of Attitudes Toward Security Recommendations And The Intention Of Following Those Recommendations, Miguel A. Toro-Jarrin, Pilar Pazos, Miguel A. Padilla

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

This study focused on the attitudes toward security recommendations as determinants of compliance with these recommendations in the workplace. It aimed to determine whether attitudes toward an overall concept (security recommendations in organizations) are associated with Information Security (IS) actions. We also examined the relationship between various dimensions of attitudes toward security recommendations and IS actions that follow these recommendations. We conducted a national survey of American workers. Six hundred and eighty-two responses were retained. We also collected demographic data to explore their moderating role in the relation between predictors and IS action-intention. The survey included four workplace scenarios and …

Flexing The Frame: Training Abstract, Concrete, And Ambidextrous Thinking To Improve Creativity Across Leadership Styles, Sampoorna Nandi

Psychology Dissertations - Archive

This study examined whether training individuals in abstract, concrete, or ambidextrous construal-level thinking strategies enhances creative performance and whether the effectiveness of such training is moderated by leadership style within an aptitude-treatment interaction (ATI) framework. Drawing on Construal Level Theory (CLT), participants (N = 235 undergraduate students) were randomly assigned to one of four training conditions and completed a low-fidelity planning task designed to assess creativity across three dimensions: originality, quality, and elegance. Results indicated that ambidexterity training—designed to promote flexible shifting between abstract and concrete thinking—significantly improved performance across all creativity dimensions, outperforming concrete and control (but not …

Parsimony, Parallelism, And Presentation: The Impact Of Presentation On Evaluation, Peter Mclemore

Psychology Theses - Archive

In professional and academic settings, support for creative ideas often hinges on how effectively those ideas are communicated in writing. This study examined how two sentence-level rhetorical features—parsimony and parallelism—influence the evaluation, support, and recall of written proposals featuring creative restaurant concepts. Using a 2×2 within-subjects design, 211 undergraduates reviewed proposals manipulated to vary in parsimony (high vs. low) and parallelism (high vs. low). Participants rated each proposal on quality, originality, elegance, support, and completed a recall task. Contrary to expectations, proposals with low parsimony and low parallelism received the highest evaluations across all three creative indicators (i.e., quality, originality, …

The Moderating Role Of Personality In The Relationship Between Cognitive Ability And Counterproductive Work Behaviors, Sarah Jacobsen

Theses and Dissertations

Counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs) are negative behaviors that detract from an organization’s goals and cause harm to the organization and to those involved. The current study investigated cognitive ability and personality as predictors of CWB and explored a moderating role of personality on the cognitive ability-CWB relationship. The results found no significant relationships for cognitive ability and personality with self-reported CWBs. Additionally, personality did not moderate the cognitive ability-CWB relationship. An exploratory analysis revealed significant relationships between personality and supervisor-rated CWBs, but no significant relationship for cognitive ability nor significant cognitive ability-personality interactions were found. The current study challenged previous …

Exploring Factors Influencing Posttraumatic Growth Among Nurses: A Path Analysis, Shinhi Han, Hee Sun Kang, Koun Eum, Kathleen Karsten, Faith Armstrong

Publications and Research

Introduction: Persistent exposure to the COVID-19 pandemic has subjected frontline nurses to heightened levels of collective traumatic syndromes, including stress, burnout, and emotional distress. Resilience and self-compassion may serve as protective factors in mitigating stress and burnout stemming from the pandemic. Moreover, these factors may contribute to posttraumatic growth (PTG), which has been recognized as a potential outcome for nurses caring for patients. This study aimed to investigate the factors contributing to PTG among registered nurses, with perceived stress, burnout, resilience, and self-compassion.

Methods: This cross-sectional observational survey used convenience sampling with 228 registered nurses from New York. Data were …

Alert During What? Beyond The "Big O" To A Culturally-Cognizant, Process View Of Entrepreneurial Alertness, Robert J. Pidduck, Daniel R. Clark

Management Faculty Publications

Entrepreneurial alertness is a psychological aptitude generally associated with aspects of nascent venturing, centered on individuals' environmental observations, the association of resources, and idea evaluation. A decade following the Tang et al. (2012) consensus construct and scale, critiques remain questioning its utility and unique value to the major conversations in entrepreneurship. Proponents put great emphasis on entrepreneurial alertness's proven association with opportunity recognition and entrepreneurial actions. Yet, critics suggest it might be an unnecessary step offering little more than a positive association with opportunity recognition in a highly generalized and static way. The purpose of this paper is to address …

Individual Entrepreneurial Orientation: Scale Development And Validation, Daniel R. Clark, Jeffrey G. Covin, Robert J. Pidduck

Management Faculty Publications

Recent research introduced and laid the foundation for a new individual-level entrepreneurial orientation conceptualization (Ind.EO) within the entrepreneurial orientation family of constructs. Building directly from this work, this article theoretically defines a measurement model for the construct and develops and validates a scale. We define and measure disposition-based behavior constructs for autonomy, competitiveness, innovativeness, proactiveness, and risk-taking, thus providing psychometrically validated tools that support research in the burgeoning Ind.EO domain. Scale items are generated deductively from our definitions, and then tested through four data collections with academics, the lay population, entrepreneurs, and business managers. Strong validation data across these multiple …