Building economic development through psychosocial intervention. This project is the first study that reduces poverty and increases productivity in a post-conflict country by addressing the psychosocial problems that impede the capacity of a workforce to effectively learn and apply skills. Although conducted in Aceh, Indonesia, these findings may show how to reduce poverty in all countries affected by conflict.
Motivating Employee Proactivity by Redesigning the Work Context. Self-starting and innovative employees are increasingly important in today's decentralised organisations. The central question investigated in this project via a longitudinal research design is how organisations can facilitate this type of proactive behavior amongst employees. The project also investigates the nature of employee proactivity (e.g. how it differs from other behaviors), and its consequences for employee performance, i ....Motivating Employee Proactivity by Redesigning the Work Context. Self-starting and innovative employees are increasingly important in today's decentralised organisations. The central question investigated in this project via a longitudinal research design is how organisations can facilitate this type of proactive behavior amongst employees. The project also investigates the nature of employee proactivity (e.g. how it differs from other behaviors), and its consequences for employee performance, innovation, and mental health. The project is significant because it focuses on how to promote behaviors that have often been neglected in research.Read moreRead less
Development of an intervention to enhance rural and regional service delivery to human service clients. A proactive program managing organisational stress and isolation in rural community service organisations is urgently needed to reduce unplanned absences and costly staff turnover among professionals working in a difficult environment. The intervention program focuses on extremely high risk regional workers - professional staff having daily contact with potentially difficult clients (e.g., per ....Development of an intervention to enhance rural and regional service delivery to human service clients. A proactive program managing organisational stress and isolation in rural community service organisations is urgently needed to reduce unplanned absences and costly staff turnover among professionals working in a difficult environment. The intervention program focuses on extremely high risk regional workers - professional staff having daily contact with potentially difficult clients (e.g., persons suffering from neglect, abuse, drugs). Strategies at both organisational and individual levels will be aimed at preventing rather than merely reducing stress. An educational package will be developed, subjected to two cycles of process and outcome evaluation, and prepared for use in this and other regional/rural organisations.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE120101029
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$375,000.00
Summary
Responding to humanitarian emergencies: mass generosity as collective action. The world has witnessed a string of disasters that, at times, appear to have pushed the human capacity for generosity to its limits. This ground-breaking psychological research explores ways to help government and nongovernment agencies to build broader support in Australian society for efforts to respond to humanitarian emergencies.
An empirical evaluation of an innovative occupational stress intervention to improve the health and retention of high-risk employees. Occupational stress costs Australian organisations $105.5m, accounts for 6.5% of workplace injuries and 18.4 weeks absenteeism, per annum. This project introduces an occupational stress intervention in a State Government Department to improve the health and retention of employees who have experienced stress or who are a high risk for submitting a stress claim. The ....An empirical evaluation of an innovative occupational stress intervention to improve the health and retention of high-risk employees. Occupational stress costs Australian organisations $105.5m, accounts for 6.5% of workplace injuries and 18.4 weeks absenteeism, per annum. This project introduces an occupational stress intervention in a State Government Department to improve the health and retention of employees who have experienced stress or who are a high risk for submitting a stress claim. The intervention will reduce occupational stress costs by 40% and will be generalisable to other public and private organisations. The project will demonstrate how Australian employers can meet their legal and ethical obligations to protect employee's psychological health, with a view to ultimately reducing the occurrence and financial consequences of occupational stress claims.Read moreRead less
An international evaluation of work-family balance: Validation of the work-family balance measure and theoretical model. Work-family imbalance costs Australia $8 billion per annum, via staff absenteeism, turnover, and health costs. By employing two Australian and three international experts, this project will investigate the long-term process of work-family balance, identify effective employment policies, and produce a new balance measure for use by industry and government. This will lead to imp ....An international evaluation of work-family balance: Validation of the work-family balance measure and theoretical model. Work-family imbalance costs Australia $8 billion per annum, via staff absenteeism, turnover, and health costs. By employing two Australian and three international experts, this project will investigate the long-term process of work-family balance, identify effective employment policies, and produce a new balance measure for use by industry and government. This will lead to improved health, personal satisfaction and employment choices for working Australians, and hence higher productivity for industry. The research addresses the second national research priority: promoting and maintaining good health. The consequential contributions to knowledge will directly benefit Australia's regard within the global academic community.Read moreRead less
Attracting and sustaining engaged science and mathematics teachers. Attracting and sustaining engaged science and mathematics teachers. This project will examine what attracts or deters potential, future and practising teachers of the sciences and mathematics, by focusing on current teachers, school and university students in Queensland. Promises of a technological revolution and rapid economic development will be hollow if students do not study sciences and mathematics, and there are too few qu ....Attracting and sustaining engaged science and mathematics teachers. Attracting and sustaining engaged science and mathematics teachers. This project will examine what attracts or deters potential, future and practising teachers of the sciences and mathematics, by focusing on current teachers, school and university students in Queensland. Promises of a technological revolution and rapid economic development will be hollow if students do not study sciences and mathematics, and there are too few qualified teachers. This project will identify where to intervene in the science and mathematics teacher supply pipeline, and policy levers to attract and sustain quality teachers. The project is expected to uncover what attracts or deters teachers of science and mathematics—disciplines essential to industry innovation, a skilled workforce and productivity growth.Read moreRead less
Peer Rejection and the Maladaptive Social Behaviour of Children and Adolescents. Research indicates that peer rejection has serious negative effects on child and adolescent victims. However, little research has addressed the likelihood that peer rejection also has negative consequences for others in the social environment, through its instigation of maladaptive social behaviours such as bullying and ethnic prejudice. Given the incidence of the latter behaviours in primary and secondary schools, ....Peer Rejection and the Maladaptive Social Behaviour of Children and Adolescents. Research indicates that peer rejection has serious negative effects on child and adolescent victims. However, little research has addressed the likelihood that peer rejection also has negative consequences for others in the social environment, through its instigation of maladaptive social behaviours such as bullying and ethnic prejudice. Given the incidence of the latter behaviours in primary and secondary schools, the aim of this project is to conduct a program of research to test an integrative model of the impact of peer rejection on the maladaptive social behaviours of children and adolescents, with a particular focus on ethnic prejudice and bullying.Read moreRead less
Pathways to work engagement, wellbeing and positive teaching among mid-career teachers: The role of personal and workplace resources. Teaching is a highly demanding, yet rewarding career for many. It is also a decidedly stressful occupation associated with high burnout. By following a large sample of teachers recruited ten years earlier into their mid-career, this project investigates the coping and motivational resources that keep them engaged, allowing them to thrive personally and professiona ....Pathways to work engagement, wellbeing and positive teaching among mid-career teachers: The role of personal and workplace resources. Teaching is a highly demanding, yet rewarding career for many. It is also a decidedly stressful occupation associated with high burnout. By following a large sample of teachers recruited ten years earlier into their mid-career, this project investigates the coping and motivational resources that keep them engaged, allowing them to thrive personally and professionally in different kinds of school environments, versus pathways that predict to burnout, ill-being and negative teaching behaviours. Selected subgroups who were most at risk and most positively engaged earlier in their career will be the focus of longitudinal case studies to uncover more nuanced processes promoting positive and negative pathways.Read moreRead less
Understanding employee-employer relationships during bridge employment: A psychological contract perspective. Bridge employment (paid employment after retirement from a career job) has several advantages for the individual (financial benefits, feeling of social connectedness, sense of accomplishment), employing organisations (access to experienced and skilled workers), and the government (lower burden on pension and benefits schemes). The proposed research will study the employee-employer relati ....Understanding employee-employer relationships during bridge employment: A psychological contract perspective. Bridge employment (paid employment after retirement from a career job) has several advantages for the individual (financial benefits, feeling of social connectedness, sense of accomplishment), employing organisations (access to experienced and skilled workers), and the government (lower burden on pension and benefits schemes). The proposed research will study the employee-employer relationship in bridge employment, with a focus on their perceptions of mutual obligationsin form of the psychological contract. An understanding of the psychological contract will make it more likely that the employment relationship fulfils the needs of the employees and employers and leads to a more successful bridge employment relationship.Read moreRead less