Search Results (977)

Background: Work-related musculoskeletal disorders impose substantial global burdens. Although Pilates is a recognized biopsychosocial intervention, a quantitative synthesis evaluating its occupational efficacy remains limited. Objective: To compute the pooled effect sizes of workplace Pilates interventions on musculoskeletal pain intensity, functional disability, muscular endurance, and health-related quality of life (QoL). Methods: Twelve randomized controlled trials (14 reports) involving diverse occupational cohorts were analyzed. Data dependency was resolved via outcome aggregation. Random-effects models calculated pooled effect sizes (Hedges’ g), 95% confidence intervals (CI), and 95% prediction intervals (PI). Risk of bias was assessed using RoB 2. Results: The meta-analysis demonstrated a moderate, statistically significant reduction in functional disability (g = −0.660, 95% CI [−1.091, −0.229], p = 0.011). Conversely, pooled estimates for pain intensity (g = −0.461, p = 0.360), muscular endurance (g = 1.354, p = 0.223), and QoL (g = −0.146, p = 0.815) were non-significant. Substantial heterogeneity was observed (I²: 32.02–98.25%), and all prediction intervals crossed the null, indicating high uncertainty regarding future effects. Conclusions: Workplace Pilates consistently mitigates functional disability, but current evidence does not support significant pooled improvements in absolute pain, endurance, or QoL. This divergence between functional recovery and pain reduction aligns with biopsychosocial frameworks, suggesting improved work capacity despite variable pain relief. Given the high heterogeneity and wide prediction intervals, findings must be interpreted cautiously, highlighting the need for rigorously standardized trials. Full article

As artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly embedded in organizational processes, concerns about job replacement by AI have become increasingly widespread and gradually influenced work behaviors. However, existing research has not yet fully explained how job replacement anxiety affects job crafting. Drawing on conservation of resources theory, the study develops a moderated dual-path mediation model to examine the relationships between job replacement anxiety and approach and avoidance job crafting from a motivational perspective. Promotion focus and prevention focus are introduced to explain the underlying psychological transformation processes. The study further investigates the moderating role of AI literacy. The empirical analysis was based on three-wave matched survey data from 583 Chinese employees with a broadly balanced gender distribution. The results indicate that job replacement anxiety was indirectly and negatively associated with approach job crafting through lower promotion focus, while an opposing positive direct association resulted in a nonsignificant overall association. For avoidance job crafting, job replacement anxiety had a positive association through higher prevention focus. AI literacy buffered the effects of job replacement anxiety on both forms of regulatory focus and weakened the corresponding indirect effects. The findings suggest that job replacement anxiety is linked to employee job crafting through differentiated motivational pathways and identify AI literacy as an important boundary condition for explaining employees’ adaptation to AI-driven change. These findings advance job crafting research and AI anxiety research by focusing on the job replacement anxiety dimension and offer implications for employee adaptation during AI-driven organizational transformation. Full article

Digital human resource management (HRM) systems can expand employees’ access to information, development opportunities, and organisational services, but their employee-level implications remain insufficiently understood in manufacturing settings. This cross-sectional study examines whether perceived digital HRM accessibility is associated with organisational justice, psychological contract fulfilment, employee voice behaviour, and innovative work behaviour in Morocco’s automotive manufacturing sector. Survey data from 180 employees across five manufacturers were analysed using partial least squares structural equation modelling. Perceived accessibility was positively associated with organisational justice (β = 0.521, p < 0.001) and psychological contract fulfilment (β = 0.551, p < 0.001). Organisational justice was associated with voice (β = 0.339, p < 0.001), and psychological contract fulfilment was associated with innovative work behaviour (β = 0.439, p < 0.001). The specific indirect associations were β = 0.177 through justice and β = 0.242 through psychological contract fulfilment. For the justice–voice route, both the indirect and direct associations were statistically significant; for the psychological-contract–innovation route, only the indirect association was significant. The findings concern employee-level perceptions and behaviours; they do not establish objective digital inequality, causal effects, or supply-chain-level outcomes. Full article

The integration of Artificial Intelligence is transforming luxury hospitality, forcing hotels to balance advanced technology with human-centered management to sustain service excellence. Yet how Human-Centered Leadership shapes Sustained Service Performance through employees’ AI readiness and engagement remains largely unexamined. This study develops and tests an integrated framework addressing that gap. Survey data were collected from 500 employees of four- and five-star luxury hotels in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Lebanon, and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Human-Centered Leadership was positively associated with both Sustained Service Performance and AI readiness. AI readiness predicted employee engagement, which in turn predicted Sustained Service Performance. AI readiness and employee engagement sequentially mediated the link between Human-Centered Leadership and Sustained Service Performance (β = 0.160, p < 0.001). Digital Organizational Support significantly strengthened the Human-Centered Leadership–AI readiness relationship (β = 0.137, p = 0.004). The study advances hospitality leadership research by establishing Human-Centered Leadership as a driver of Sustained Service Performance in AI-enabled settings, and by revealing the sequential psychological mechanism, AI readiness followed by engagement, through which it operates. The findings help luxury hotel managers combine Human-Centered Leadership with digital support to sustain service excellence during AI-driven transformation. Full article

As automated technology advances rapidly, human employees’ fear of being replaced (i.e., technology-induced job insecurity) has become a widespread stress in today’s workplace. It is crucial for organizations to recognize this new technological challenge and address its impact appropriately. Therefore, to systematically understand its impacts and explore potential buffering factors, the present research conducts a systematic review and meta-analysis of 96 studies (N = 43,104 individuals). Drawing on the tripartite response model, we classify their outcome variables into three broad categories encompassing nine subgroups. Furthermore, integrating stress appraisal theory and threat-rigidity theory, we examine two critical moderators reflecting specific coping capability against technological threats. Our findings indicate that technology-induced job insecurity is systematically associated with employees’ cognition, affection, and behavior. Notably, the moderation analysis highlights distinct boundary conditions under which these associations vary across different outcomes, emphasizing the complexity of these effects. Specifically, low threat proximity—providing a crucial time buffer before the actual threat happens—is associated with weaker negative attitudes toward the organization, and lower withdrawal and resistance behaviors. Individuals’ high learning ability—reflecting strong adaptive flexibility—is associated with weaker negative appraisals of the job itself and more sustained proactive behaviors. In summary, the present research contributes to a systematic understanding of how technology-induced job insecurity is related to human psychology and behaviors at work, thereby offering valuable insights to inspire future research and management practice. Full article

Digital transformation has reshaped work processes across the tourism industry, increasing the need to understand how employees perceive organizational digital systems and how these perceptions are associated with workplace behaviors. This study examined the relationships among perceived digital system support (PDSS), psychological empowerment, and voice behavior among tourism employees from an organizational behavior perspective grounded in the Technology Acceptance Model. Data were collected through an online survey of employees working in travel agencies, airlines, hotels, and foodservice organizations in South Korea, and 314 valid responses were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The results indicated that PDSS was positively associated with psychological empowerment, and psychological empowerment was positively associated with voice behavior. By contrast, the direct relationship between PDSS and voice behavior was not statistically significant, whereas the indirect association via psychological empowerment was significant, indicating a pattern consistent with full mediation. These findings suggest that employees’ positive perceptions of organizational digital systems show an indirect association with constructive voice behavior via psychological empowerment, particularly competence, self-determination, and impact. The study extends the application of the Technology Acceptance Model from technology acceptance to employee organizational behavior in digital work environments and highlights the importance of fostering psychologically empowering workplaces during digital transformation. Full article

Employee experience management (EXM) is a strategic and systematic approach through which organisations design, coordinate, and continuously improve the structural conditions, organisational mechanisms, and interactions in the workplace. These interactions shape the experiences lived by employees throughout their professional trajectory. Based on organisational psychology, human resource management (HRM), organisational behaviour, human-centred design, and technological studies, EXM seeks to understand how employees perceive, interpret, and attribute meaning to their interactions with organisational environments. Employee experience (EX) thus emerges from the dynamic interaction between structural conditions, organisational mechanisms, and the psychological interpretation that employees make of their experiences in the workplace, influencing well-being, engagement, performance, and organisational sustainability. Full article

Innovation is an everyday imperative in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, yet the psychological conditions through which well-being is associated with innovative action remain insufficiently understood. This study investigates whether subjective vitality and creative self-efficacy constitute distinct psychological pathways—an energy-based and a belief-based mechanism, respectively—through which psychological well-being becomes associated with innovative work behavior, thereby providing a more differentiated examination of the assumption that psychologically healthy employees are more likely to behave innovatively. An online survey was administered to 463 ICT-sector employees in Türkiye, and partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used to test direct and indirect relationships with comprehensive assessment of measurement quality, predictive relevance, and effect sizes. Creative self-efficacy emerged as a meaningful indirect pathway linking psychological well-being to innovative work behavior, whereas subjective vitality, though strongly predicted by well-being, showed no significant relationship with innovative outcomes. These findings suggest that not all positive psychological states are equally innovation-relevant: among ICT employees, the indirect association between well-being and innovation was evident through employees’ confidence in their own creative capability rather than through feelings of psychological energy—a distinction with meaningful implications for both theory and practice in knowledge-intensive, digitally dynamic organizations. Full article

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of a ten-week yoga exercise program, implemented for probation employees, on psychological characteristics, cognitive distortions, communication skills, and intolerance of uncertainty. The Cognitive Distortion Scale, the Brief Symptom Inventory, the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale, and the Communication Skills Scale were administered to 71 volunteer employees. Thirty-three employees who indicated they would regularly participate in the yoga exercise program were assigned to the intervention group, and 38 employees were assigned to the control group. A quasi-experimental pretest–posttest control group design was employed. Statistical analyses were performed using the SPSS 24 software. The intervention group showed a significant adjusted posttest advantage in communication skills, although the time × group interaction was not significant. Psychological symptom scores showed favorable within-group reductions in anxiety, depression, and hostility in the intervention group; however, the adjusted group and time × group effects for overall symptoms were not significant. The total cognitive distortion scores showed a nonsignificant favorable trend. Conversely, intolerance of uncertainty increased significantly more in the intervention group than in the control group, indicating an unfavorable change. The yoga exercise regimen demonstrated limited and mixed effects in reducing anxiety, depression, and feelings of hostility within a group setting, and improving communication skills. The findings suggest that yoga can be integrated into institutional training and psychological support programs for employees. Full article

The increasing emphasis on sustainability in the energy sector has highlighted the importance of understanding the factors that promote employees’ pro-environmental behavior (PEB). Although green training (GT) is widely regarded as an effective organizational practice for encouraging PEB, the psychological mechanisms underlying this relationship remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on Social Learning Theory, this study proposes a dual-pathway framework through which GT is associated with employees’ PEB via perceived corporate environmental responsibility (CER) and environmental self-identity (ESI). Using purposively sampled, cross-sectional survey data from 1028 employees of a large Chinese energy company, the proposed framework was tested through structural equation modeling and bootstrap mediation analysis. The results indicate that perceived CER alone does not independently mediate the relationship between GT and PEB. However, perceived CER plays an important role by serving as a bridge through which employees internalize organizational environmental values into their ESI. Furthermore, ESI emerged as an independent and robust mediator, highlighting the central role of the identity-based pathway. This study contributes context-specific evidence from a large Chinese energy company, providing a deeper understanding of the psychological mechanisms linking GT and PEB and offering practical implications for organizations seeking to foster sustainability-oriented behaviors among employees. Full article

Background: Emergency medical service (EMS) personnel and volunteers are frequently exposed to traumatic events, placing them at elevated risk for psychological distress, including post-traumatic stress symptoms (PTSSs), depression, and dissociation. This study examined the relationships among PTSS, depression, and dissociation in Israeli EMS personnel, with a particular focus on whether dissociation mediates the association between depression and PTSS. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with 60 EMS personnel in Israel, including 7 paid employees, 37 volunteers, and 16 participants who did not report their employment status. PTSSs were assessed using the Impact of Event Scale-Revised (IES-R), depressive symptoms were measured with the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21), and dissociative experiences were evaluated using the Dissociative Experiences Scale-II (DES-II). Correlational analyses and mediation analyses were performed. Results: Significant positive correlations were found among PTSS, depression, and dissociation. However, mediation analysis indicated that dissociation did not significantly mediate the relationship between depression and PTSS. Conclusions: Although depression and dissociation were both strongly associated with PTSS, dissociation did not account for the association between depression and PTSS in this sample of EMS personnel. These findings suggest that other psychological mechanisms may underlie the relationship between depression and trauma-related symptoms in emergency responders. Further research is warranted to identify these mechanisms and to inform targeted interventions aimed at promoting the mental health and resilience of EMS personnel. Full article

Drawing on attribution theories, this study presents an integrated moderated serial mediation model to explain when and why customer mistreatment is associated with victimized employees’ contrasting “flight” and “fight” responses. Specifically, we propose that observed customer mistreatment serves as an individually perceived social cue that shapes how employees interpret and respond to their own mistreatment experiences. When similar mistreatment is rarely observed among colleagues, employees are more likely to see themselves as singled out, a perception accompanied by greater self-blame and, in turn, shame and psychological withdrawal. When such mistreatment is commonly observed, employees may instead hold customers responsible, which is linked to greater hostility and, in turn, retaliatory service sabotage. Using three-wave time-lagged data from 282 customer-service employees across various industries, we found support for the hypothesized moderating effects of observed customer mistreatment. The conditional serial indirect effect on psychological withdrawal through self-blame and shame was significant, whereas for service sabotage, the separate indirect effects through customer-directed blame and hostility were significant, but their serial indirect effect was not. These findings advance understanding of the boundary conditions and cognitive–affective processes that may underlie employees’ flight-or-fight reactions to customer mistreatment and offer implications for both theory and practice. Full article

Background: The American Psychological Association has recently acknowledged that generative artificial intelligence has the potential to cause considerable harm if not properly managed and supervised. The current tutorial situates psychologists, and social scientists, as uniquely positioned to take part in the development of these models given their ethical background, understanding of human behavior, and ability to conduct meaningful research. Method: In an effort to cause the least amount of harm during the training process, the current work proposes multi-agent generative artificial intelligence simulations as a way to build initial safeguards into deployable models using an accessible and real-life use case: detecting harmful language (e.g., profanity) in employee recognition messages. Results: We provide replicable R code on how to run simulations, which results in models with high levels of classification accuracy on simulated data (i.e., 97.5%). Conclusions: Finally, strengths, limitations, and future directions for research are discussed. Full article

Construction employees in extreme environments face demanding tasks, harsh natural conditions, spatial isolation, and safety-critical coordination. Drawing on the Job Demands-Resources model and the challenge-hindrance framework, this study examines how work stressors are associated with employee resilience in extreme-environment construction projects. Survey data were obtained from 235 project employees at high-altitude sites in western China. Regression-based conditional process analysis estimated direct, indirect, and moderated associations, while fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) examined the configurational patterns linked to high resilience. Challenge stressors were positively associated with resilience, whereas hindrance stressors were negatively associated with resilience. Psychological safety statistically accounted for part of both associations. Perceived digital safety support strengthened the positive challenge-stressor association with psychological safety and the negative hindrance–stressor association with psychological safety. The fsQCA analysis identified three near-threshold patterns associated with high resilience, but the overall solution consistency was 0.7966 and should be interpreted cautiously. The results suggest that project organizations should preserve manageable challenges, reduce avoidable hindrances, support psychologically safe communication, and ensure that digital safety systems provide practical assistance. These findings primarily concern technical and managerial project employees and do not establish causal effects or intervention efficacy. Full article

Background/Objectives: Healthcare staff, especially nurses, face high occupational stress, yet objective biological indicators that complement self-report are not well established. We examined whether metabolic, hormonal and physiological markers act as indicators of stress and relate to anxiety, depression and burnout in nurses and other healthcare workers. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study of 300 hospital employees (239 in healthcare, of whom 123 were nurses; 61 non-healthcare) at a Croatian university hospital; of 329 completed questionnaires, 300 (91.2%) met the inclusion criteria and were analysed. Fasting glucose, lipids, thyroid hormones, cortisol, heart rate and blood pressure were measured; psychological status was measured using the 42-item Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS-42), Maslach Burnout Inventory and Zung scale. Analyses used Mann–Whitney and Kruskal–Wallis tests, Spearman correlation, hierarchical logistic regression adjusted for age, sex, smoking and thyroid medication use, and receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. Results: Healthcare workers had more favourable glucose, total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol than the older non-healthcare group (all p ≤ 0.003); because the groups differed substantially in age, these unadjusted differences are descriptive only. Metabolic markers correlated only weakly with distress and burnout. Within healthcare workers, elevated stress was discriminated in univariable analysis by low high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (area under the curve (AUC) 0.72), raised triglycerides (AUC 0.67) and glucose (AUC 0.66); however, after adjustment for age, sex, smoking and thyroid medication use, none of the markers remained independently associated with elevated stress. Conclusions: In this relatively healthy hospital workforce, routinely available biological markers showed limited value as standalone indicators of occupational stress; they are exploratory rather than validated biomarkers, and require confirmation in larger, prospective, multicentre studies before they can complement—rather than replace—psychological screening in occupational-health practice. Full article