The relevance of shared experiences : a multi-level study of collective efficacy as a moderator of job control in the stressor-strain relationship

Karasek's Job Demand-Control model proposes that control mitigates the positive effects of work stressors on employee strain. Evidence to date remains mixed and, although a number of individual-level moderators have been examined, the role of broader, contextual, group factors has been largely overlooked. In this study, the extent to which control buffered or exacerbated the effects of demands on strain at the individual level was hypothesized to be influenced by perceptions of collective efficacy at the group level. Data from 544 employees in Australian organizations, nested within 23 workgroups, revealed significant three-way cross-level interactions among demands, control and collective efficacy on anxiety and job satisfaction. When the group perceived high levels of collective efficacy, high control buffered the negative consequences of high demands on anxiety and satisfaction. Conversely, when the group perceived low levels of collective efficacy, high control exacerbated the negative consequences of high demands on anxiety, but not satisfaction. In addition, a stress-exacerbating effect for high demands on anxiety and satisfaction was found when there was a mismatch between collective efficacy and control (i.e. combined high collective efficacy and low control). These results provide support for the notion that the stressor-strain relationship is moderated by both individual- and group-level factors.

The moderating effects of job control and selection, optimization, and compensation strategies on the age-work ability relationship

Work ability describes employees' capability to carry out their work with respect to physical and psychological job demands. This study investigated direct and interactive effects of age, job control, and the use of successful aging strategies called selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) in predicting work ability. We assessed SOC strategies and job control by using employee self-reports, and we measured employees' work ability using supervisor ratings. Data collected from 173 health-care employees showed that job control was positively associated with work ability. Additionally, we found a three-way interaction effect of age, job control, and use of SOC strategies on work ability. Specifically, the negative relationship between age and work ability was weakest for employees with high job control and high use of SOC strategies. These results suggest that the use of successful aging strategies and enhanced control at work are conducive to maintaining the work ability of aging employees. We discuss theoretical and practical implications regarding the beneficial role of the use of SOC strategies utilized by older employees and enhanced contextual resources at work for aging employees.

Focus on opportunities as a boundary condition of the relationship between job control and work engagement: A multi-sample, multi-method study

The concept of focus on opportunities describes how many new goals, options, and possibilities employees believe to have in their personal future at work. In this multi-sample, multi-method study, the authors investigated relationships between focus on opportunities and general and daily work engagement and the moderating role of focus on opportunities on between- and within-person relationships between job control and work engagement. Based on a social cognitive theory framework on the motivating potential of a future temporal focus, it was hypothesized that focus on opportunities is positively related to work engagement. Further, consistent with the notion of compensatory resources, it was expected that job control is not related to work engagement among employees with a high focus on opportunities, whereas job control, as an external resource of the work environment, is positively related to work engagement among employees with a low focus on opportunities. Both a cross-sectional survey study (N=174) and a daily diary study (N=64) supported the hypotheses. The study contributes to research on the job demands-resources model as it emphasizes the role of focus on opportunities as a motivational factor in the relationship between job control and work engagement.

The Association of Distress and Sleeping Problems With Physicians' Intentions To Change Profession: The Moderating Effect of Job Control

The present study examined whether job control moderated the association between stress indicators (distress and sleeping problems) and intentions to change profession among 2,650 Finnish physicians. Ordinal logistic regression analysis was applied. The authors found that high levels of distress and sleeping problems were associated with higher levels of intentions to change profession, whereas high job control was associated with lower levels of intentions to change profession even after adjusting for the effects of gender, age, and employment sector. In addition, high job control was able to mitigate the positive association that distress and sleeping problems had with intentions to change profession. Our findings highlight the importance of offering more job control to physicians to prevent unnecessary physician turnover.

The effects of job demands and low job control on work-family conflict: The role of fairness in decision making and management

The present study examined whether Perceptions of organizational fairness (the procedural and interactional components) were able to diminish the negative effects of high job demands and low job control on the balance between work and family. The study participants were 713 women working in long-term care for elderly people in Finland. The results showed that high job demands, low job control, and unfair decision making were associated with high levels of time-based work interference with family (WIF). Perceptions of organizational fairness were found to partially mediate the association between Job control and WIF In addition, fair treatment and management protected against WIF when demands were low but were unable to bluffer against the negative effects of high job demands. (C) 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Differential Associations of Job Control Components With Mortality: A Cohort Study, 1986-2005

Inconsistent evidence of the hypothesized favorable effects of high job control on health may have resulted from a failure to treat job control as a multifactor concept. The authors studied whether the 2 components of job control, decision authority and skill discretion, were differentially associated with cause-specific mortality in 13,510 Finnish forest company employees with no history of severe illness. Surveys on work characteristics were carried out in 1986 and 1996, and the respondents were followed up until the end of 2005 by use of the Statistics Finland National Death Registry. During a mean follow-up of 15.5 years, 981 participants died. In the analyses adjusted for confounders, employees with high and intermediate levels of skill discretion had a lower all-cause mortality risk than those with low skill discretion, with hazard ratios of 0.84 (95% confidence interval (CI): 0.69, 1.02) and 0.81 (95% CI: 0.69, 0.96), respectively. In contrast, high decision authority was associated with elevated risks of all-cause, cardiovascular, and alcohol-related mortality, with hazard ratios of 1.28 (95% CI: 1.06, 1.54), 1.49 (95% CI: 1.11, 2.02), and 2.03 (95% CI: 1.03, 4.00), respectively. The results suggest that job control is not an unequivocal concept in relation to mortality; decision authority and skill discretion show different and to some extent opposite associations.

The prospective effects of workplace violence on physicians' job satisfaction and turnover intentions: the buffering effect of job control

Background: Health care professionals, including physicians, are at high risk of encountering workplace violence. At the same time physician turnover is an increasing problem that threatens the functioning of the health care sector worldwide. The present study examined the prospective associations of work-related physical violence and bullying with physicians’ turnover intentions and job satisfaction. In addition, we tested whether job control would modify these associations.

Methods: The present study was a 4-year longitudinal survey study, with data gathered in 2006 and 2010.The present sample included 1515 (61% women) Finnish physicians aged 25–63 years at baseline. Analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were conducted while adjusting for gender, age, baseline levels, specialisation status, and employment sector.

Results: The results of covariance analyses showed that physical violence led to increased physician turnover intentions and that both bullying and physical violence led to reduced physician job satisfaction even after adjustments. We also found that opportunities for job control were able to alleviate the increase in turnover intentions resulting from bullying.

Conclusions: Our results suggest that workplace violence is an extensive problem in the health care sector and may lead to increased turnover and job dissatisfaction. Thus, health care organisations should approach this problem through different means, for example, by giving health care employees more opportunities to control their own work.

Higher effort-reward imbalance and lower job control predict exit from the labour market at the age of 61 years or younger: Evidence from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing

Background: We examined whether higher effort-reward imbalance (ERI) and lower job control are associated with exit from the labour market. 

Methods: There were 1263 participants aged 50-74 years from the English Longitudinal Study on Ageing with data on working status and work-related psychosocial factors at baseline (wave 2; 2004-2005), and working status at follow-up (wave 5; 2010-2011). Psychosocial factors at work were assessed using a short validated version of ERI and job control. An allostatic load index was formed using 13 biological parameters. Depressive symptoms were measured using the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale. Exit from the labour market was defined as not working in the labour market when 61 years old or younger in 2010-2011. 

Results: Higher ERI OR=1.62 (95% CI 1.01 to 2.61, p=0.048) predicted exit from the labour market independent of age, sex, education, occupational class, allostatic load and depression. Job control OR=0.60 (95% CI 0.42 to 0.85, p=0.004) was associated with exit from the labour market independent of age, sex, education, occupation and depression. The association of higher effort OR=1.32 (95% CI 1.01 to 1.73, p=0.045) with exit from the labour market was independent of age, sex and depression but attenuated to non-significance when additionally controlling for socioeconomic measures. Reward was not related to exit from the labour market. 

Conclusions: Stressful work conditions can be a risk for exiting the labour market before the age of 61 years. Neither socioeconomic position nor allostatic load and depressive symptoms seem to explain this association.

A longitudinal analysis of changes in job control and mental health

Deteriorating job control has been previously shown to predict poor mental health. The impact of improvement in job control on mental health is less well understood, yet it is of policy significance. We used fixed-effects longitudinal regression models to analyze 10 annual waves of data from a large Australian panel survey (2001-2010) to test within-person associations between change in self-reported job control and corresponding change in mental health as measured by the Mental Component Summary score of Short Form 36. We found evidence of a graded relationship; with each quintile increase in job control experienced by an individual, the person's mental health increased. The biggest improvement was a 1.55-point increase in mental health (95% confidence interval: 1.25, 1.84) for people moving from the lowest (worst) quintile of job control to the highest. Separate analyses of each of the component subscales of job control-decision authority and skill discretion-showed results consistent with those of the main analysis; both were significantly associated with mental health in the same direction, with a stronger association for decision authority. We conclude that as people's level of job control increased, so did their mental health, supporting the value of targeting improvements in job control through policy and practice interventions.