Predicting the diagnostic performance of individuals and organisations. Predicting the diagnostic performance of individuals and organisations. This project aims to address diagnostic error in advanced technology systems, by providing a mechanism to assess and improve individual diagnosticians’ performance. Organisations that rely on their employees’ diagnostic skills rarely assess them once the operators become qualified, so there is no basis for interventions that might prevent diagnostic erro ....Predicting the diagnostic performance of individuals and organisations. Predicting the diagnostic performance of individuals and organisations. This project aims to address diagnostic error in advanced technology systems, by providing a mechanism to assess and improve individual diagnosticians’ performance. Organisations that rely on their employees’ diagnostic skills rarely assess them once the operators become qualified, so there is no basis for interventions that might prevent diagnostic errors affecting thousands. This research tests a new method of assessing diagnostic skills based on how skilled operators respond to cues. This project will test how employees’ diagnostic skills change and whether this change corresponds to measures of organisational performance. This research is expected to provide organisations with a tool to pre-empt diagnostic errors that could minimise costs to the economy.Read moreRead less
Development of psychological capital in emergency service organisations. The project addresses the research priorities ‘Promoting good health and well being for all Australians’ and Safeguarding Australia. The project will identify ways in which the performance and wellbeing of volunteer and paid members of emergency service organisations can be enhanced, potentially diminishing the likelihood of depression, aggression, and other detrimental effects. The findings will also contribute to the qual ....Development of psychological capital in emergency service organisations. The project addresses the research priorities ‘Promoting good health and well being for all Australians’ and Safeguarding Australia. The project will identify ways in which the performance and wellbeing of volunteer and paid members of emergency service organisations can be enhanced, potentially diminishing the likelihood of depression, aggression, and other detrimental effects. The findings will also contribute to the quality of training provided to leaders in emergency services. Theoretically, the project will advance understanding of the mechanisms that underpin the psychological capital construct, placing Australian researchers at the forefront of this important emerging field of inquiry.Read moreRead less
State, organisational, and team interventions to build psychosocial safety climate using the Australian Workplace Barometer and the StressCafe. The project is inspired by the nationally agreed target of 40% reduction in workplace injuries by 2012. Informed by leading indicators assessed through the Australian Workplace Barometer, this research will build evidence-based interventions at both a state, organisation, and team level to reduce risks and psychological injury. This project is promoting ....State, organisational, and team interventions to build psychosocial safety climate using the Australian Workplace Barometer and the StressCafe. The project is inspired by the nationally agreed target of 40% reduction in workplace injuries by 2012. Informed by leading indicators assessed through the Australian Workplace Barometer, this research will build evidence-based interventions at both a state, organisation, and team level to reduce risks and psychological injury. This project is promoting good health and well being, Preventative healthcare, and Strengthening Australia's social and economic fabric. An innovative platform will be built, the StressCafe´, for the translation of research into policy and practice, through better access by stakeholders to information and discoverable data.Read moreRead less
Licensing negotiation: How credits, credentials, and context generate behavioural latitude. Women need to negotiate in order to secure economic resources, but their efforts to negotiate violate gender stereotypes and evoke backlash. This project integrates the negotiation, gender stereotypes, and psychological licensing literatures to understand how employees’ behavioural histories, and the behavioural histories of their employers, give employees psychological license to violate stereotyped expe ....Licensing negotiation: How credits, credentials, and context generate behavioural latitude. Women need to negotiate in order to secure economic resources, but their efforts to negotiate violate gender stereotypes and evoke backlash. This project integrates the negotiation, gender stereotypes, and psychological licensing literatures to understand how employees’ behavioural histories, and the behavioural histories of their employers, give employees psychological license to violate stereotyped expectations. This project combines laboratory and field methods to identify situations in which both men and women can negotiate economic outcomes without putting their organisational relationships at risk. The project’s findings will help employees to decide when and where to negotiate, and enable managers to design workplaces that sustain gender equity.Read moreRead less
The 'long arm of the job': Improving parents' jobs and child development. This project aims to identify the priority job stressors that impact working families' wellbeing and child development, and to generate innovative job-based strategies to reduce work-family conflicts for working parents. Conflicts between work and family are common in Australia, reported by one in three parents. These affect productivity, family relationships and ultimately, child development. Evidence reveals that employe ....The 'long arm of the job': Improving parents' jobs and child development. This project aims to identify the priority job stressors that impact working families' wellbeing and child development, and to generate innovative job-based strategies to reduce work-family conflicts for working parents. Conflicts between work and family are common in Australia, reported by one in three parents. These affect productivity, family relationships and ultimately, child development. Evidence reveals that employers have struggled to implement family-friendly practices despite recent national policy initiatives. Using national cohort data and industry partnerships, this project investigates solutions to this urgent national dilemma to benefit those most affected by parents' job stressors – working parents and their children.
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Emotions and Employee Turnover: New Methods for Complex Dynamic Systems. This project aims to vastly improve the data-analytic capabilities of social and health researchers, while increasing knowledge about emotion dynamics and their link to employee turnover. By drawing on and advancing methods from ecology and applied physics, this project plans to investigate the role that individual emotions play in employee turnover with new quantitative methods for characterising and testing causality in c ....Emotions and Employee Turnover: New Methods for Complex Dynamic Systems. This project aims to vastly improve the data-analytic capabilities of social and health researchers, while increasing knowledge about emotion dynamics and their link to employee turnover. By drawing on and advancing methods from ecology and applied physics, this project plans to investigate the role that individual emotions play in employee turnover with new quantitative methods for characterising and testing causality in complex dynamic systems. The expected outcomes include an improved capacity for researchers, managers, and policy makers to understand complex organisational, economic, and health systems. This will provide immediate societal benefits by informing the development and deployment of targeted interventions in such systems.Read moreRead less
Designing Human Resource Practices that Promote the Retention of Volunteers. This project aims to examine the effects of human resources practices on the attraction and retention of high-quality volunteers. Volunteers provide essential health and educational services to the Australian population, which makes it important for non-profit organisations to develop effective human resource practices that attract and retain the best people. However, non-profit organisations often struggle to attract a ....Designing Human Resource Practices that Promote the Retention of Volunteers. This project aims to examine the effects of human resources practices on the attraction and retention of high-quality volunteers. Volunteers provide essential health and educational services to the Australian population, which makes it important for non-profit organisations to develop effective human resource practices that attract and retain the best people. However, non-profit organisations often struggle to attract and retain a sufficient number of volunteers. This project will examine the effects of three human resource practices on the thriving and organisational attachment of volunteers using theories of motivation and retention. This knowledge is intended to help governments and non-profit organisations improve on policies and procedures to manage Australia’s volunteer workforce sustainably.Read moreRead less
A multi-level approach to the management of demands and resources to minimise the risk of psychosocial injury in the workplace. This project aims to identify ways supervisors can effectively manage workplace stress experienced by team members. Expected outcomes include better management of workplace stress and reduction in the number of employees suffering from the stress-induced ill-health, thereby reducing workers' compensation claims for stress and lowering costs.
Two parts truth, one part lies: Microethical judgments in negotiation. In advancing their economic goals, negotiators may choose to follow a more or less ethical path. Although a less ethical path might advance economic goals, it incurs reputational and relational costs both for negotiators and their organisations. Whether negotiators choose the more or less ethical path is determined by their moral intent: the relative weight that they place on fairness and justice, or on maximising their econo ....Two parts truth, one part lies: Microethical judgments in negotiation. In advancing their economic goals, negotiators may choose to follow a more or less ethical path. Although a less ethical path might advance economic goals, it incurs reputational and relational costs both for negotiators and their organisations. Whether negotiators choose the more or less ethical path is determined by their moral intent: the relative weight that they place on fairness and justice, or on maximising their economic outcomes. Using an interactionist approach to ethical decision-making, this research investigates how three kinds of variables – individual cognition, social perception, social context – combine to affect moral intent and steer negotiators to more or less ethical negotiation strategies.Read moreRead less
To step-in or to stand-by: Third party responses to abusive supervision. Abusive supervision is costly in Australian organisations. Little is known about the experiences of third parties who are not direct targets of abuse. Indeed, a large percentage of supervisor abuse that is witnessed goes unreported. Using a multi-method approach, this project develops and tests a model that explains third party responses to supervisor abuse. In addition to advancing theory, an evidence-based intervention (i ....To step-in or to stand-by: Third party responses to abusive supervision. Abusive supervision is costly in Australian organisations. Little is known about the experiences of third parties who are not direct targets of abuse. Indeed, a large percentage of supervisor abuse that is witnessed goes unreported. Using a multi-method approach, this project develops and tests a model that explains third party responses to supervisor abuse. In addition to advancing theory, an evidence-based intervention (including an action tool kit) is developed to empower third parties to combat supervisor abuse by engaging in constructive action. Overall, research outcomes will aim to provide actionable insights into what organisations can do to encourage their employees to take a proactive stance against abusive supervision.Read moreRead less