Science of the Total Environment 518–519 (2015) 345–351

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Science of the Total Environment journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Short Communication

Reducing psychosocial risks through supervisors' development: A contribution for a brief version of the “Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool” Stefano Toderi a,⁎, Andrea Gaggia a, Cristian Balducci b, Guido Sarchielli a a b

Department of Psychology, University of Bologna, Viale Berti Pichat, 5-40127 Bologna, Italy Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna, Via dei Bersaglieri, 6/c-40125 Bologna, Italy

H I G H L I G H T S • • • • •

Psychosocial risks can cause serious mental and physical ill health at work. Supervisors' behaviour development is an innovative preventing strategy. The SMCIT questionnaire evaluates such kind of preventive behaviours. The length and lack of validity of the SMCIT limit its applicability. We validated a brief version focusing on a subgroup of critical preventive behaviours.

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 16 December 2014 Received in revised form 18 February 2015 Accepted 22 February 2015 Available online 12 March 2015 Editor: E. Capri Keywords: Work Related Stress Supervisors' behaviour Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool Psychometrics properties Affective well-being Team climate

a b s t r a c t With the recent changes in the world of work psychosocial risks are increasingly prevalent, causing work stress and physical and mental illnesses, which have a tremendous impact on public health and social participation. Supervisors' behaviour development was proposed as an innovative intervention that can reduce psychosocial risks. The “Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool” is one of the most important questionnaires that assess managers' preventive behaviour. However, its psychometric properties have never been evaluated and the length of the questionnaire (66 items) limits its practical applicability. The aim of this study was to contribute to the development of the questionnaire by providing psychometric evidence on a brief version of the tool focusing on the “Managing and Communicating existing and future Work” cluster of behaviours, which has been found to be the crucial one in terms of stress prevention. A questionnaire was administered to 178 employees of two Italian public organizations (a municipality and a hospital), measuring the supervisors' “Managing and Communicating existing and future Work” competency, and the affective well-being and work team effectiveness. The results showed excellent psychometric properties of the supervisors' behaviour scale and confirmed the expected relationships with criterion outcomes (affective well-being and team effectiveness). Overall, the factorial structure and dimensionality, the construct validity and reliability, and the concurrent validity of the tool were strongly supported by this study. We concluded that the brief version of the scale is a valid and reliable measure that can be easily used in practice and that can contribute to the development of research and practice on this topic. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Abbreviations: MCW, Managing and Communicating Existing and Future Work; P, Participative; PS, Problem Solving; PWM, Proactive Work Management; SMCIT, Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool; TCI, Team Climate Inventory; WRS, Work Related Stress. ⁎ Corresponding author at: viale Berti Pichat, 5-40127 Bologna, Italy. E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Toderi).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2015.02.082 0048-9697/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The major changes that characterized the world of work over the last 15 to 20 years, mainly due to businesses policies to cut costs and increase productivity also by work intensification and pressures, have accentuated work-related stress (WRS) issues. This is a dramatically prevalent phenomenon in modern workplaces (Quick et al., 2013). In 2005 it was the second most reported work-related health problem in EU 27, affecting 22% of workers (Eurofound, 2006); the latest European Working Conditions Survey (Eurofound, 2012) confirms

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that the quality of the work environment has significantly worsened in Europe in the last 15–20 years, with a general increase in work intensity and a decline in the level of personal control one has over one's own work. For example, 62% of European workers state that they have to work to tight deadlines for at least a quarter of the time and 59% state that they have to work at high speed. These factors, and other similar ones, are known as psychosocial risks of the working environment (where “psychosocial” denotes the interface between social and psychological factors), referring to aspects of work design and the organisation and management of work that may lead to WRS (Eurofound and EU-OSHA, 2014). According to the “Framework Agreement on Work-Related Stress” (signed between the European social partners in October 2004), WRS can be defined as a state, “which is accompanied by physical, psychological or social complaints or dysfunctions and which results from individuals feeling unable to bridge a gap with the requirements or expectations placed on them … prolonged exposure to it may reduce effectiveness at work and may cause ill health”. Indeed, WRS has been associated, for example, with metabolic syndrome, the development of cardiovascular diseases and the pathogenesis of essential hypertension (Jarczok et al., 2013). Practical approaches aimed to tackle WRS (e.g., Cousins et al., 2004; Malchaire et al., 2008; Satzer, 2009) generally propose a psychosocial risk reduction through a control cycle process, where, briefly, a risk evaluation phase precedes and drives the phase of intervention and risk reduction/elimination. Research and practice on the evaluation phase have received a lot of attention and different methods of assessment have been developed (e.g. interview, checklists, observation, etc.; Panari et al., 2012), including theoretically based questionnaires (e.g. Karasek, 1985; Siegrist et al., 2004; Edwards et al., 2008; Mucci et al., 2015). On the contrary, interventions received much less attention until a few years ago and this issue is still in need of improvement (LaMontagne et al., 2007). Interventions can be broadly divided into individual-level and organisation-level (Cox et al., 2010). The former (e.g. counselling, therapy, etc.) focus on how individual workers behave and cope with the environment and act on the outcomes of WRS (also called “strain”) and include secondary or tertiary prevention strategies. The latter (e.g. organisational structure change, work re-design) are directed to large groups of workers and aim to eliminate or reduce the causes of WRS (also called “stressors”), by changing the organisational and psychosocial environment and providing a more preventing strategy (primary prevention). These kinds of intervention have thus been widely recommended (Kompier et al., 2000). However, Cox et al. (2010) pointed out that available interventions often fail to achieve the desired results and it is therefore necessary to focus on truly innovative approaches to reduce workers' WRS. Leadership development was proposed as one of such innovative approaches (Kelloway and Barling, 2010). Similarly, a recent joint report of Eurofound and EU-OSHA (2014) on WRS interventions stated that “… there is growing awareness that positive leadership and manager behaviours are central to the management of the psychosocial risks” (p. 75). In fact, in an extensive review of the available literature, Gilbreath (2004) showed that supervisors have an impact on employee worklife in different ways and can be a major influence on their psychosocial working environment and well-being. Supervisors can transmit their level of stress and poor affective well-being to employees simply by interacting with them, through a crossover contagion process (Skakon et al., 2010). However, they can also have a direct and indirect impact on employees' attitude and well-being through their behaviours and leadership style. Supervisors' behaviours (e.g. support, consideration, and acting with integrity) have been found to influence a large variety of outcomes, such as employees' psychiatric disturbance (e.g. Gilbreath and Benson, 2004), job satisfaction (e.g. Prottas, 2008), psychophysiological

outcomes (e.g. Wager et al., 2003), burnout (e.g. Yagil, 2006) and job neglect (i.e. giving less effort, taking more frequent and longer breaks, etc.; Karimi et al., 2014). Research on leadership styles (i.e. sets of behaviours that leaders employ to influence the behaviours of subordinates) mainly focused on transformational, transactional and laissez faire leadership (Bass and Riggio, 2006). Transformational leadership style was consistently associated with low stress and high well-being among subordinates, whilst mixed results were found for the other styles (Skakon et al., 2010). As far as indirect effects are concerned, supervisors can influence employees' well-being by determining their psychosocial work environment and impacting on the presence/absence of psychosocial hazards (Gilbreath, 2004). In fact, given their role and position supervisors organize and manage the employees' work (e.g. planning and monitoring employees' workload, delegating job assignments, assigning autonomy) and influence job characteristics (e.g. role, autonomy, demands). Thus, supervisors, more or less consciously, largely determine the psychosocial work environment and employees' well-being, which suggests that they should monitor and improve their own behaviours (Gilbreath, 2004). Interventions aimed to develop leadership and manager behaviours are, then, considered primary interventions, that can impact both employee perceptions of the work environment (psychosocial intervention) and objective work conditions (socio-technical intervention, Kelloway and Barling, 2010). Given the importance of these interventions, Skakon et al. (2010) noted that a main limit is the large variety of questionnaires used to assess individuals' perception of stress and leadership and recommended the use of a standard set of measures. The present study aims to contribute to this issue by providing an evaluation of the psychometric properties of a dimension of the Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool (SMCIT; Yarker et al., 2008), one of the most important questionnaires that can be used on this issue, as we discuss below. The psychometric properties (dimensionality, construct validity and reliability, concurrent validity) of the tool have never been evaluated and this evaluation represents a fundamental step towards the application of the instrument. With this in mind, supervisors' behaviours will be studied in relation to their effect on quality of life and human well-being on the one hand, and on the working environment (anthroposphere) on the other. 1.1. The Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool The SMCIT is a questionnaire developed by Yarker et al. (2007, 2008) for the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE), aimed at measuring positive and negative supervisors' behaviours in order to aid managers in assessing and improving their WRS management competencies. We chose to address the validation of this questionnaire for different reasons. First, questionnaires drawn from a-priori models of leadership may fail to fully capture the specific behaviours relevant for work and well-being management; interventions aimed to reduce stress should benefit from questionnaires specifically developed for the well-being and WRS issue (Yarker et al., 2007). Second, only two questionnaires have this characteristic (Yarker et al., 2008): the SMCIT and the Supervisor Practices Instrument (Gilbreath and Benson, 2004; Gilbreath, 2008). Third, the SMCIT was suggested as an intervention instrument inside the HSE Management Standard method, one of the most advanced in Europe for WRS prevention (Iavicoli et al., 2009). Indeed, the SMCIT is theoretically linked to the psychosocial hazards identified by the HSE method (i.e. demands, control, social support, role, change and relationship) and interventions could be more strictly linked to the evaluation phase. Fourth, the questionnaire was proposed to be used in a learning and development intervention, divided into two phases: a) an upward feedback report provided to managers, showing the manager how their behaviour was perceived by subordinates and

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allowing comparison between self/others scores; and b) a workshop for managers, aimed: to explore the importance of manager behaviour; to increase awareness of their own behaviour; and to help them to improve their behaviour. There is evidence of the efficacy of such an intervention (CIPD, 2009) and Eurofound and EU-OSHA (2014) presented this approach and the SMCIT as good practice for the development of positive leadership and manager behaviours, thus stimulating its diffusion and application. The SMCIT was developed on the basis of two research phases. In the first phase (Yarker et al., 2007) a qualitative study was conducted on 216 employees (166 line managers and 54 HR professionals) identifying 4764 behaviours. Using content analysis they were coded into 19 competencies associated with the effective management of WRS. Furthermore, associations between the competencies and each of the six Management Standards were established. In the second phase (Yarker et al., 2008) the need was recognised to reduce the number of behavioural competencies in order to make the framework more usable in practice and to develop a questionnaire aimed to measure supervisors' behaviour. This goal was obtained in different steps and using both qualitative and quantitative procedures. A qualitative analysis of phase 1 data allowed the identification of 152 specific observable behaviours, transformed into a preliminary questionnaire. This was administered to 292 employees in an on-line survey and data analysis led to a 112-item version, administered successively to 656 workers of 22 organisations. Exploratory factor analysis revealed a four-factor solution of the questionnaire and items with problematic factor loadings were deleted. The remaining 66 items were further explored in two workshops of stress experts (n = 38), naming each factor and identifying subclusters. Associations between the four competencies and each of the six Management Standards were also established. This represents the final framework and version of the SMCIT questionnaire, summarized in Table 1. The development of the SMCIT was thus characterized by a progressive reduction of its complexity and number of items, with the aim of facilitating its validity and practical use. However, considering the importance that the questionnaire is assuming (as discussed above) three main limits still seem to be present, reducing the applicability of the SMCIT. First, its factorial structure has never been evaluated and the only data available are referred to the 66-item version obtained by a statistical reduction of the previous one (i.e. employees filled in the 112-item version only). Furthermore, the dimensionality of the questionnaire (i.e. the presence of sub-clusters) was only inferred in the workshops of stress experts and never empirically evaluated. Second, data on the reliability of the scales and how the scales correlate with other relevant variables are not available until now. Third, the SMCIT still contains a high number of items, making it difficult to use for interventions and research (especially if measurement of other variables is added). In fact, a high number of items is time consuming and represents a cost for the organisation. Furthermore, these kinds of intervention (i.e., supervisors' evaluation) usually involve a relatively low number of participants, making difficult any psychometric evaluations.

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This difficulty was also noted by Gilbreath and Benson (2004), that were not able to factor analyse their data about the 63-item “Supervisor Practices Instrument” questionnaire because of the small sample size (N = 167). Indeed, after almost one decade from its development to the best of our knowledge no research about SMCIT has been published till now. The only exception is represented by Lewis et al. (2010). This study, though, used qualitative data derived from phase 1 as described above (Yarker et al., 2007). 1.2. Aim of the study Given these limits, the aim of this study is to contribute to the development of the questionnaire in two ways: a) by focusing on the most important competency of the questionnaire (“Managing and Communicating Existing and Future Work”, MCW) and its three sub-clusters (Proactive Work Management, PWM — 9 items; Problem Solving, PS — 4 items; Participative, P — 9 items), providing a brief 9-item version of the tool; and b) by studying its psychometric properties with an indepth evaluation of its factorial structure and dimensionality, construct validity and reliability, and concurrent validity. From a scientific point of view this will add knowledge on the hypothesized (but never studied) 3-factor structure of the competency and the relationships with criterion variables (which too was never studied). In this respect we will focus on two criteria: affective wellbeing and team climate. The former represents a typical indicator of employees' health and a poor well-being is considered a symptom of WRS (Warr, 1994). The latter is an index of effectiveness of the work groups and represents a possible positive outcome of supervisors' behaviour (Dackert et al., 2004). We chose to consider team climate because it was noted that interventions aimed to reduce WRS are also expected to improve productivity, providing organisations with a positive incentive to adopt management practices (Bond et al., 2006). Coherently, Toderi and Balducci (in press) found that a good psychosocial work environment is linked to higher learning and performance among employees. From a practical point of view the availability of a brief version of the focused tool will allow the use of the scale in a cheaper way and with the possibility to insert other relevant research variables (e.g. the 35-item HSE Indicator Tool aimed to measure psychosocial hazards) that could reinforce the practical utility of the instrument. In this way, we retain that a brief and valid version of the questionnaire could stimulate the research on supervisors' behaviour and its effect on psychosocial hazards and employees' well-being within the WRS issue. It was decided to use only the MCW scale because of the contingent necessity to use a questionnaire with a limited number of items. This scale was chosen because, compared to the others, it is the one most strictly connected to the work content and its organisation. Furthermore, Lewis et al. (2010) found that two of its sub-clusters (i.e. PWM and P) are among the first three most important managerial competencies for WRS prevention. Finally, the MCW competency is theoretically

Table 1 Structure of the SMCIT, number of items and relation with the Management Standards. Factor Name

Sub-clusters

No. of items

Management Standard

Respectful and responsible: managing emotions and having integrity

Integrity Managing emotions Considerate approach Proactive Work Management Problem solving Participative Managing conflict Use of organisational resources Taking responsibility for resolving issues Personally accessible Sociable Empathetic engagement

5 6 6 9 4 9 5 3 4 4 3 8

Demands, relationships Relationships Control, support, relationships Demands, support, role Demands, support Demands, control Relationships Support Relationships Support Relationships Control, support, relationships

Managing and Communicating Existing and Future Work

Reasoning/managing difficult situations

Managing the individual within the team

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linked to all the Management Standards except relationships (that deal with bullying situations), whereas the other competencies are linked almost exclusively to relational psychosocial factors (i.e. support and relationships, see Table 1). Thus, the MCW competency was judged in previous studies as the most important and was linked with most of the psychosocial hazards. 2. Method 2.1. Participants Data were collected using a convenience sample in two Italian public organisations – a hospital and a municipality – in the context of an upward feedback activity, which was part of a broader occupational stress prevention program. In the hospital all 182 nurses and other healthcare assistants employed in 9 wards were invited to voluntarily participate in the activity (no exclusion criteria were applied); 107 participants (59%) filled in and returned the structured, self-administered questionnaire. In the municipality a total of 71 public servants (out of 114 invited, 62% participation rate) employed in 12 offices voluntarily participated in the activity and returned the self-administered questionnaire. The final sample thus consisted of 178 employees (41% municipality and 59% hospital). The mean organisational tenure was 11.5 years (SD = 8.7, range 1–38 years). Data about age, gender and the like were not gathered as a guarantee of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the contextual activity (i.e., superiors' evaluation). Because participants are employed in different wards and offices, their specific tasks and potential stressors are variegated and not homogeneous. Generally speaking, the main tasks of nurses and healthcare assistants are related to patient management and their main stressors are time pressure, lack of role clarity, low involvement in decisionmaking, shift-work and episodes of verbal and physical violence (e.g. Bennett et al., 2001; Guglielmetti et al., 2014). Research on the psychosocial risks of public servants (that mainly deal with administrative tasks) is almost lacking, but the European survey on working conditions shows some trends in public administration (Eurofound, 2014). The majority of workers' skills correspond well with their duties but many of them are at risk of frustration and low motivation because the job does not challenge them to their full potential. Furthermore, even if well-being scores and health problems are close to the EU28 workers as a whole, the levels of absenteeism are much higher. Finally, these workers reported restructuring and the introduction of new technologies more frequently than the EU 28. 2.2. Scale development and measures 2.2.1. Managing and Communicating Existing and Future Work As a first step, original items specifying the MCW competency were developed in Italian through a back-translation procedure. After that, to have a more suitable instrument for research and practice purposes (i.e., a shorter and structurally consistent scale), the first and the fourth authors carried out an items reduction by adopting the criterion that the three dimensions should all have the same number of items. Because the PS dimension has four items, this number was initially chosen. For each dimension the description provided by Yarker et al. (2008) was taken into account and in the light of this the four most representative items were selected. The factor loadings obtained by Yarker et al. (2008) were also initially considered but priority was given to the semantic content of the items. It was then checked if the core area of each of the three dimensions was covered by the content of the selected items and this condition was always met. Finally, to reduce the number of items to the minimum, it was checked if only three items could cover the core area of each dimension. This was the case and, for each dimension, the item considered redundant was deleted.

For example, Yarker et al. (2008) state that the first sub-dimension, Proactive Work Management, “monitors and reviews existing work, allowing future priorization and planning”. On this basis both authors selected the following four items: “Monitors my workload on an ongoing basis”, “When necessary, will stop additional work being passed on to me”, “Reviews processes to see if work can be improved”, “Prioritises future workloads”. Because the first item is implied by the second, it was retained redundant and finally deleted. Thus, this process resulted in a 9-item scale (with 3 items for each sub-dimension): PWM (i.e. “When necessary, will stop additional work being passed on to me”, “Reviews processes to see if work can be improved”, “Prioritises future workloads”); PS (i.e. “Follows up problems on my behalf”, “Deals with problems as soon as they arise”, “Is indecisive at decision-making” — reverse scored), and P (i.e. “Gives me the right level of job responsibility”, “Encourages participation from the whole team”, “Correctly judges when to consult employees and when to make a decision”). All employees responded on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). 2.2.2. Affective well-being An Italian version (Toderi et al., 2013) was used of the 12-item scale developed by Warr (1990a). The scale consists of a list of 12 moods (e.g. optimistic, cheerful, tense) and the respondents were asked to evaluate each one, indicating how often over the last month their job had made them feel in that way (1—never to 5—always). According to Warr (1990a) the instrument assesses four dimensions of job-related affective well-being: anxiety, depression, enthusiasm and contentment. Data about well-being were obtained from municipality employees only. 2.2.3. Team climate The Team Climate Inventory (TCI; Anderson and West, 1998) was used, as developed in a short version by Kivimäki and Elovainio (1999). We measured two out of the four dimensions of the questionnaire. Three items measured “Task orientation” (e.g. “The team critically appraise potential weaknesses in what it is doing in order to achieve the best possible outcome”), defined as commitment to high standards of performance (Kivimäki and Elovainio, 1999). Three items measured “Support for innovation” (e.g. “People in this team are always searching for fresh, new ways of looking at problems”), defined as the expectation, approval and practical support of attempts to introduce new and improved ways of doing things in the work environment (Kivimäki and Elovainio, 1999). All items used a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (completely disagree) to 5 (completely agree). Data about team climate were obtained from hospital employees only. 2.3. Analyses 2.3.1. Scale dimensionality To confirm the proposed factorial structure of the MCW (i.e. three sub-clusters) a confirmatory approach was used comparing two alternative measurement models: the hypothesized 3-factor (sub-cluster) model against a 1-factor model. Two CFAs were conducted using LISREL 8.8 (Jöreskog and Sörbom, 2006). The maximum likelihood method was used as the estimation procedure. To evaluate the hypothetical models, a mixture of recommended fit indices was used: a) the χ2 statistic; b) the Root of Mean Square Error Approximation (RMSEA); c) the Goodness of Fit Index (GFI); d) the Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI); the Comparative Fit Index (CFI). The χ2 statistic can be used to test the null hypothesis that the estimated variance–covariance matrix of indicators reproduces the observed variance–covariance matrix: a good fit is obtained when the χ2 statistic is non-significant. However, because the χ2 statistic is sensitive to sample size, it becomes

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difficult to achieve satisfactory model fits as the sample size increases. As a result, researchers have proposed a number of indexes of practical fit (Bagozzi and Yi, 2012). The RMSEA gives the average amount of misfit for a model per degree of freedom. Values smaller than .07 indicate acceptable fit (Hu and Bentler, 1999). The GFI is a measure of the relative amount of variance accounted for by the model. Values greater than .90 indicate acceptable fit (Hu and Bentler, 1999). The NNFI is recommended as an index that takes account of parsimony of the estimated parameters (Medsker et al., 1994). Values greater than .95 indicate acceptable fit (Hu and Bentler, 1999). The CFI is recommended as the best approximation of the population value for a single model. Values greater than .95 indicate acceptable fit (Hu and Bentler, 1999). Finally, to evaluate the two competing models against each other, the χ2difference test was used. A non-significant value of this statistic suggests that the overall fit of two models is comparable (Kline, 2011). The principle of parsimony then suggests that the model with the highest degree of freedom (the most parsimonious model) is the better choice (Nachtigall et al., 2003). 2.3.2. Construct reliability and validity An additional reliability and validity analysis was conducted to evaluate whether the MCW items were measured in keeping with the study's intention. Reliability was verified by calculating the Composite Reliability (CR) index, which is generally considered a better estimator of scale reliability compared to Cronbach's alpha (Peterson and Kim, 2013). When a scale's CR is greater than .70, as suggested by Hair et al. (2006), sufficient construct reliability is obtained. Validity was verified by using the Average Variance Extracted (AVE) index. The AVE provides a measure of the amount of variance explained by the construct in relation to the variance due to error; it is widely used as an indicator of convergent validity. Following researchers' recommendations (Hair et al., 2006), AVE values greater than .50 indicate good convergent validity. 2.3.3. Concurrent validity In order to evaluate the concurrent validity of the MCW, we assessed the relationship with the two outcome measures (TCI and well-being) by using correlation analyses. We expected the MCW dimensions to be positively associated with TCI scales and well-being's positive facets (enthusiasm and contentment). Conversely, we expected a negative association between MCW and negative dimensions of well-being (depression and anxiety). 3. Results Results of the Confirmatory Factor Analysis for the MCW are shown in Table 2. Although the NNFI and CFI indices indicated an acceptable fit, the one-factor model resulted in a χ2 estimate of 60.85 (N = 178; d.f. = 27; p b .001), suggesting only moderate fit. In addition, the RMSEA index lies above the cut-off value, indicating poor fit. Conversely the three-factor model, particularly the RMSEA, obtained acceptable fit indices and better fits the data (χ2 = 38.44; d.f. = 24; p = .045). The χ2difference test confirmed a significant improvement of fit (Δχ2 = 22.41; Δd.f. = 3; p = .003), making the three-factor model preferable and confirming the hypothesized structure of the MCW competency. Based on the results of CFA, a reliability and validity analysis of the three-factor model was conducted. As seen in Table 3, sufficient reliability was demonstrated: CR values (.78–.86) for the three dimensions are Table 2 Confirmatory factor analysis for the MCW (N = 178). Model

χ2

RMSEA

GFI

NNFI

CFI

One-factor Three-factor

60.85 38.44

.081 .054

.90 .94

.97 .99

.98 .99

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greater than the recommended threshold (greater than .70). Factor loadings were evaluated to ensure the validity of the construct and all values are greater than .60 (.65–.86). In addition, AVE (.55–.66) values confirm the convergent validity of the items, satisfying the threshold (greater than .50) suggested by Fornell and Larcker (1981). Thus, the measurement model's validity is appropriate. To test concurrent validity we investigated the association between MCW and two outcome variables, the latter gathered from two different groups. Table 4 shows the descriptives and correlations between all the dimensions of MCW, TCI and affective well-being constructs. Considering the four affective well-being dimensions, it can be seen that the levels of anxiety were negatively associated with Problem Solving (r = −.28; p b .05) and Participative behaviours (r = −.40; p b .001). In addition, the results showed a significant positive association between enthusiasm and Participative behaviours (r = .27; p b .05). No associations were found between MCW dimensions and depression or contentment. Considering the two TCI dimensions, it can be seen that the levels of perceived support for innovation were strongly and positively associated with PWM (r = .42; p b .001), PS (r = .49; p b .001) and P behaviours (r = .46; p b .001). Similarly, team task orientation was found to be positively associated with PS (r = .33; p b .01) and P behaviours (r = .38; p b .01). Overall, most of the outcome variables were associated with MCW dimensions in the expected way, corroborating the concurrent validity of the MCW.

4. Discussion Psychosocial hazards have increased over the last 15 to 20 years (Eurofound, 2012) and data suggest that psychosocial working conditions in an economic recession period (such as the current one) tend to be significantly worse than prior to it (Houdmont et al., 2012). In order to tackle the resulting WRS both academic (Kelloway and Barling, 2010) and institutional (Eurofound and EU-OSHA, 2014) publications have suggested supervisors' behaviour development as a decisive psychosocial and socio-technical kind of intervention. Furthermore, this sort of intervention can be useful to improve the involvement of supervisors in the prevention of WRS, which constitutes an enabler factor for the effectiveness of WRS reduction (Mellor et al., 2011). In fact, it has been noted that supervisors are a key figure in different phases of WRS interventions directed to employees. Given their role, they can be considered the drivers of change (Nielsen and Abildgaard, 2013), they are often those responsible for progress by communicating and implementing intervention activities (Kompier et al., 2000) and their ability to correctly evaluate subordinates' level of stress was linked to employees' well-being (Giorgi et al., 2014). We aimed to contribute to the topic of supervisors' behaviour improvement by examining the questionnaire SMCIT, proposed by the UK HSE as an intervention instrument inside the Management Standard method; indeed, the length of the questionnaire and the lack of evidences on psychometric properties actually limit its applicability. The benefit associated with short, as well as valid and reliable, diagnostic tools are numerous (see, e.g., Stanton et al., 2002), among which the fact that it takes less time to complete, there are less missing data and there is a higher response rate. Furthermore, shorter measures of variables make it easier to include other measurements in the questionnaire (e.g. psychosocial hazards, stress symptoms), which permit a more comprehensive analysis of data. Thus, the development of a short version of a questionnaire is a common practice when possible, also to facilitate the adoption by organisations. For example, the psychosocial risk evaluation instrument of the UK HSE Management Standard method (the so-called Indicator Tool) has recently been reduced to a 25-item version (Edwards and Webster, 2012; Houdmont et al., 2013). With this in mind, we developed a short 9-item version of the “Managing and Communicating Existing and Future Work” competency, evaluating its psychometric properties.

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Table 3 Reliability and validity statistics for the three-factor model. Dimensions

Items

Mean

SD

Factor loading

Composite Reliability

AVE

PWM

When necessary, will stop additional work being passed to me Reviews processes to see if work can be improved Prioritises future workloads Follows up problems on my behalf Is indecisive at decision making Deals with problems as soon as they arise Gives me the right level of job responsibility Encourages participation from the whole team Correctly judges when to consult employees and when to make a decision

3.44 3.77 3.91 3.95 3.84 3.61 4.01 3.82 3.64

1.03 .98 .97 .98 1.18 1.11 .83 1.06 1.06

.65 .81 .82 .76 .81 .85 .67 .68 .86

.81

.59

.86

.66

.78

.55

PS

P

PWM = Proactive Work Management. PS = Problem Solving. P = Participative.

Results of this study strongly supported the hypothesized threefactor structure (i.e. Proactive Work Management, Problem Solving and Participative) of the competency, which better fits the data compared to a one-factor structure. It should be noted that the subclusters of the SMCIT were only theoretically inferred in two workshops involving stress experts, but were never empirically evaluated before. Thus, our result represents an original and important empirical confirmation of the hypothesized structure of the questionnaire, at least for the MCW competency. As far as the measurement validity is concerned, we obtained acceptable CR and AVE values, indicating that the 9-item scale measures the three sub-competencies in a valid and reliable way. It should be noted that data on the reliability (e.g. alpha of Cronbach) of the original 22-item version were not provided and this is the first study that brings support to the validity of the scale, allowing it to be used with confidence. At the same time, we found that all the sub-competencies are correlated to criterion variables, supporting the concurrent validity of the questionnaire. This is therefore the first study that empirically analysed the relationship between the MCW scale and criterion variables, supporting the concurrent validity. As far as well-being is concerned, it is noteworthy that the three supervisors' behaviours investigated have a higher (i.e. moderate) relationship with anxiety symptoms, whilst the relationship with depressive symptoms is relatively low in magnitude and non significant. This may be because all three sub-competencies exert their effect on workers' job demands, (see Table 1) and there is evidence (Warr, 1990b, 2007) that job demands are more implicated in anxiety, rather than depressive symptoms. On the contrary, depressive symptoms are more related to the dimension of control (specifically to the lack of control, Warr, 1990b, 2007) that is tapped by only one of the three sub competencies (i.e. the Participative). Of course this is only a hypothesis that deserves further attention in future research. With regard to team effectiveness, all the MCW dimensions were positively related to support for innovation; Problem Solving and

Participative supervisors' behaviours were also positively associated with the task orientation of the work group. Taken together these results show that supervisors' behaviours related to “Managing and Communicating Existing and Future Work” are not only linked to a better well-being of the employees, but also to a better work team effectiveness. Karimi et al. (2014) found that improving the supervision style might help to reduce job neglect of employees and the associated costs for organisations (e.g. productivity loss). Similarly, our results on team effectiveness provide organisations with a further positive incentive to develop supervisors' behaviour. The results obtained in this study, however, have to be considered along with the main limits of the research which need to be discussed. First, the reduction of items from 22 to 9 leads to the exclusion of some potentially important supervisors' behaviours, which are not measured. This could limit the utility of the scale and the possibility of improving all the supervisors' behaviours needed. However, we contend that the availability of a short version of the scale represents an important improvement to the issue for different motives. On the one hand it makes the analysis of supervisors' competencies easier and more economically convenient for organisations, stimulating this kind of practice as an ordinary Human Resources management procedure. On the other hand, it allows the use of other research variables in the questionnaire. In this way the scale can be easily inserted in common diagnostic surveys on WRS, allowing, for example, the study of the relationship between supervisors' behaviour and particular psychosocial risks or employees' outcomes and highlighting those managers that are really in need of improvement. For managers and supervisors, the full list of behaviours could be used in specific development workshops. In this sense we believe that the limit of not considering all the behaviours could be overcome, whereas the strengths of a short version are not easily achievable with the use of the full SMCIT. A second limit of the research is linked to the study of only one of the four competencies identified by the framework. Even if the MCW can be considered the most important in preventing WRS (Lewis et al., 2010) and is linked to most of the psychosocial hazards (Yarker et al., 2008)

Table 4 Descriptives and correlations between MCW, affective well-being and TCI dimensions.

1. Proactive work management 2. Problem solving 3. Participative 4. Anxiety 5. Depression 6. Enthusiasm 7. Contentment 8. Support for innovation 9. Task orientation

Mean

SD

1

3.65 3.72 3.77 2.32 1.85 3.05 3.20 3.03 3.42

.83 .92 .77 .82 .82 .87 .75 .82 .84

– .70⁎⁎⁎ .61⁎⁎⁎

⁎ Correlation is significant at the .05 level. ⁎⁎ Correlation is significant at the .01 level. ⁎⁎⁎ Correlation is significant at the .001 level.

−.17 −.04 .10 .03 .42⁎⁎⁎ .22

2 – .60⁎⁎⁎ −.28⁎ −.09 .07 .14 .49⁎⁎⁎ .33⁎⁎

3

– −.40⁎⁎⁎ −.16 .27⁎ .16 .46⁎⁎⁎ .38⁎⁎

4

5

6

7

8

9

– .62⁎⁎⁎ −.27⁎ −.36⁎⁎ – –

– −.25⁎ −.37⁎⁎ – –

– .55⁎⁎⁎ – –

– – –

– .69⁎⁎⁎



S. Toderi et al. / Science of the Total Environment 518–519 (2015) 345–351

the other competencies need to be analysed too, especially for their potential effects on relational psychosocial risks (i.e. support and relationships). Consequently, this study and its results should be considered as a first step toward the development of a full short version of the SMCIT. It should be noted that a hypothetical valid and reliable short 36-item version (i.e. 9 items for each competency) of the 66-item SMCIT could still permit the use of other relevant variables, allowing the evaluation of important research questions such as which competencies are more important for employees' well-being, the relationship between each competency and psychosocial risks, monitoring the effects of interventions conducted on supervisors, etc. In conclusion, we believe that the availability of a valid and short version of the questionnaire can contribute to the development of research on the supervisors' role in WRS prevention and to the enhancement of interventions and their evaluation.

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Reducing psychosocial risks through supervisors' development: a contribution for a brief version of the "Stress Management Competency Indicator Tool".

With the recent changes in the world of work psychosocial risks are increasingly prevalent, causing work stress and physical and mental illnesses, whi...
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