Perceptions of high involvement work practices and burnout: investigating the mediating role of procedural justice and role overload and the moderating role of colleague support

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of employees’ perceptions of high involvement work practices (HIWPs) on burnout (emotional exhaustion and depersonalisation) via the mediating role of role overload and procedural justice. Further, perceived colleague support was hypothesised to moderate the effects of role overload and procedural justice on these outcomes.

Design/Methodology
The study was conducted on a random sample of unionised registered nurses (RNs) working in the Canadian public health care sector, stratified by mission and size of the institution to ensure representativeness. Of the 6546 nurses solicited, 2174 returned a completed questionnaire, resulting in a response rate of 33.2%. To test our hypotheses we conducted structural equation modelling (SEM) in Mplus version 6.0 (Muthen and Muthen, 1998 – 2010) with Maximum Likelihood (ML) estimation.

Results
The results showed that procedural justice and role overload fully mediated the influence of HIWPs on burnout. Moreover, colleague support moderated the effects of procedural justice and role overload on emotional exhaustion but not depersonalisation.

Limitations
The study used a cross-sectional research design and is conducted among one occupational group (i.e. nurses).

Research/Practical Implications
The findings question the dark side of HRM in the health care context. They also contribute to the lack of theoretical and empirical work dedicated to understanding the ‘black box’ problem (Castanheira and Chambel, 2010).

Originality/Value
The study employs a well-known theoretical perspective from the occupational health psychology literature to the HR field in order to contribute to the lack of theorising in the HR-well-being link.

Punishment, youth justice and cultural contingency: Towards a balanced approach

Reflecting developments in the broader penological realm, accounts have been advanced over the last number of decades about a ‘punitive turn’ in the youth justice systems of Western democracies. Against the background of this work, this project seeks to identify convergent and divergent trends in the youth justice systems of England, the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland as well as the rationalities and discourses animating these. The results lend support to research emphasising the continued salience of national, regional and local factors on penal outcomes but also suggest the need to steer an analytical path somewhere between nomothetic (convergent) and idiographic (divergent) accounts.

Ageing, Justice, and Resource Allocation

Around the world the population is ageing in ways that pose new challenges for health care providers. To date these have mostly been formulated in terms of challenges created by increasing costs, and the focus has been squarely on life prolonging treatments. However, this focus ignores the ways in which many older people require life enhancing treatments to counteract the effects of physical and mental decline. This paper argues that in doing so it misses important aspects of what justice requires when it comes to older people.

Experiencing Youth Justice and Penality

Much of the recent literature on youth justice has focused on administrative aspects of the system and the socio-political contexts that have led to the ‘production’ of the youthful offender as a subject and locus of intervention. This has largely been driven by the extent to which youth justice has been crafted as a distinct penal sphere, evident in its unyoking from universal children’s services (Muncie and Goldson, 2013) and the establishment of separate agencies to administer and govern this ‘system’ (Souhami, 2014). Driven by policy hyperactivity and a plethora of legislation expanding the reach of the system, for much of the 1990s and 2000s increasing numbers of young people were brought under its gaze.

Particular attention has been paid to the impact of neo-liberal governance on the discourses, rationales and philosophies underpinning contemporary youth justice policy and practice. Writing specifically in the English and Welsh context, several authors have identified that the resulting ‘system’ embodies multiple, contradictory and competing discourses (Muncie, 2006; Fergusson, 2007; Gray, 2013). Within this ‘melting pot’ Fergusson (2007) notes the disjuncture between policy rhetoric, implementation and lived experience and Phoenix (2015) argues that systems-based analyses, much in favour amongst academics, foreclose a wider consideration of questions of what ‘justice’ actually means.

Recent attention towards the perspectives of practitioners working in this sphere has pointed to greater nuances than broader penal narratives suggest (see: Field, 2007; Briggs, 2013; Gray, 2013; Kelly and Armitage, 2015). Yet similar attention has not been given to experiences of youth justice (for an exception see – Phoenix and Kelly, 2013). However, it is precisely young people’s experiences, which would add significantly to current knowledge and potentially bridge the gap between discussions about penal philosophies, how youth justice policies are framed, how they are enacted and how they are experienced.

This chapter provides an overview of recent developments in the field of youth justice and penality in the United Kingdom. The chapter argues that a theoretical focus on macro-level trends (Hannah-Moffat and Lynch, 2012), alongside a narrowly defined research agenda, have largely excluded young people’s experiences of justice and punishment from contemporary analysis. Drawing on young people experiences of different aspects of youth justice in Northern Ireland and beyond, the chapter illuminates what a close understanding of lived experience can add to knowledge. In particular it demonstrates that the effects of interventions can be different to their aims and intentions; and that re-instating the youth experience can add support to calls for greater attention to wider issues of social justice.

The Elasticity of Rehabilitation

This paper contributes to a debate on what constitutes rehabilitation. Current criminal justice practice tends to focus on lowering recidivism by utilising strategies geared towards cognitive behavioural modification and educational/vocational skill development. The paper focuses on the perspectives of custodial educators in a Juvenile Justice Centre in Northern Ireland. Their definition of rehabilitation is less concerned about lowering recidivism and instead focuses more on meeting the needs of the young people entering custody, more so than preparing them for their return to the community. Education staff present a model of rehabilitation that is fundamentally about improving the lives of young people. Despite expecting young people to return to custody Education staff contend that young people’s lives improved because they were exposed to a welcoming, caring and pro‐social environment which has helped the young people transform inttody.

Experiencing Youth Justice: Process, Meaning and Legitimacy

Reform of the youth justice system, including the wide incorporation of restorative justice approaches, was a central component of the Criminal Justice Review (2000). Following the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Assembly, the Youth Justice Review (2011) made a series of recommendations for further reforms. These included proposals for the introduction of a statutory time limit in youth cases to tackle avoidable delay. Strengthening legitimacy and advancing rights-based approaches are key themes underpinning the recommendations of Youth Justice Review (2011). Young people’s views of justice within the system are critical to our understanding of how such aims can be achieved. This presentation is based on findings from a longitudinal qualitative study exploring young people’s experiences of transitions into and from custody in the Juvenile Justice Centre. Using a life-history approach young people’s experiences of justice at various stages of the criminal justice process and in the wider context of their lives is explored. Key issues such as social contexts, legitimacy and perceptions of fairness are highlighted and the implications of this for system reform are critically examined.

Notes from Some Small Countries: A Study of the 'New Punitiveness' in Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand

In recent years there has been a remarkable surge of interest in the concept of punitiveness in theoretical criminology. Accounts serve to emphasise rupture over continuity, drawing attention to the increased focus on managerialism, risk and expressive penal policies in countries such as England and the US. Criticisms of these accounts have drawn attention to the weak empirical base for such assertions and the continued relevance of local cultural, historical and political conditions in mediating the effect of more punitive trends. In light of the relative neglect of smaller jurisdictions in this literature it was decided to locate these debates in three small common law jurisdictions, namely, Ireland, Scotland and New Zealand over the period 1976-2006 with a view to assessing the empirical evidence for penal change. This was done using a broader definition of punitiveness than normally employed incorporating indices relating to the ‘front end’ (eg police powers) as well as the ‘back end’ (eg prison and probation) of the criminal justice system. Data were collected on the three case studies using a multi-method approach involving examination of extensive quantitative data, interviews with key criminal justice stakeholders and documentary analysis. The data provide some support for the ‘new punitiveness’ thesis in these countries through a pattern of increased legislative activity aimed at controlling violent and sexual offenders and significant increases in the lengths of sentences imposed. However, analysis of qualitative data and a larger number of variables reveals distinctly different patterns of punitiveness over the thirty year period in the three countries. It is argued that the study holds important lessons for comparative criminology into the ‘new punitiveness’. There is a need for qualitative as well as quantitative data; for multiple rather than singular indices across a wide range of areas (juvenile justice, prison conditions, etc); and for ‘front end’ as well as ‘back end’ indices.

Explaining Prolonged Silences in Transitional Justice: The Disappeared in Cyprus and Spain

The article examines why some postconflict societies defer the recovery of those who forcibly disappeared as a result of political violence, even after a fully fledged democratic regime is consolidated. The prolonged silences in Cyprus and Spain contradict the experience of other countries such as Bosnia, Guatemala, and South Africa, where truth recovery for disappeared or missing persons was a central element of the transition to peace and democracy. Exhumations of mass graves containing the victims from the two periods of violence in Cyprus (1963–1974) and the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) was delayed up until the early 2000s. Cyprus and Spain are well suited to explain both prolonged silences in transitional justice and the puzzling decision to become belated truth seekers. The article shows that in negotiated transitions, a subtle elite agreement links the non-instrumental use of the past with the imminent needs for political stability and nascent democratization. As time passes, selective silence becomes an entrenched feature of the political discourse and democratic institutions, acquiring a hegemonic status and prolonging the silencing of violence.

Climate Change Mitigation and Intergenerational Justice

Existing climate change mitigation policies are particularly concerned with the reconciliation of two seemingly conflicting aims: environmental protection and economic efficiency. The normative principles underlying these policies meanwhile focus on two central ideas: fair burden-sharing and agents' responsibility. However, both existing policy instruments and their supporting philosophical principles are highly problematic in terms of intergenerational justice and truly effective climate change mitigation. Three competing conceptions for allocating and distributing the burdens of climate change mitigation (cap-and-trade schemes, carbon emission taxes, and personal ecological space quotas) and their compatibility with principles of intra- and intergenerational justice are analysed and evaluated. None of the proposed instruments is able to satisfy the demands of effective mitigation and egalitarian justice on its own, which suggests that existing proposals for the distribution of emission rights and climate change-related costs need to be supported by a thicker account of intergenerational justice.

Effectiveness of Criminal Justice Liaison and Diversion Services for Offenders With Mental Disorders: A Review

Objective: The authors evaluated and synthesised the best-available evidence relating to the effectiveness of CJLD service models with respect to changes in mental health status and/or criminal recidivism.Methods: Research examining the effectiveness of CJLD services when compared to traditional Criminal Justice System (CJS) responses was reviewed and systematically appraised according to Campbell/Cochrane guidelines. Key outcomes included a reduction in offending and post-intervention changes in mental health. Results: Comprehensive searches of published and unpublished literature identified 6571 studies which varied considerably in terms of their methodological approach and overall quality. Ten studies met the inclusion criteria. The synthesised findings indicated that, when compared to traditional CJS outcomes, CJLD services appeared to be effective in terms of identifying MDOs and impacting positively on criminal justice and mental health outcomes.Conclusions: Although the evidence may be deemed to be moderate in terms of methodological rigour, overall, the findings suggest that CJLD services can be beneficial. The effectiveness of services depends upon the model of service delivery, the availability of community services and the engagement of MDOs.The successful implementation of CJLD services requires a clearer recognition of the importance of system of care principles.

Young people, crime and justice in Northern Ireland

Many children and young people in conflict with the law in Northern Ireland have experienced living in poverty, truancy or exclusion from school, limited educational attainment, neglect or abuse within their families, placement in alternative care, drug or alcohol misuse, physical and mental ill-health. However, their lives are also affected by the legacy and particular circumstances of a society in transition from conflict. In addition to historical under-investment in services for children and their families, this includes discriminatory policing alongside informal regulation by ‘paramilitaries’ or members of ‘the community’ and community-based restorative justice schemes as an alternative way of dealing with low-level crime and ‘anti-social’ behaviour.

Following a Criminal Justice Review, the 2002 Justice (Northern Ireland) Act affirmed that the principal aim of the youth justice system is to protect the public by preventing offending by children’. Youth justice initiatives therefore encompass a range of responses: early intervention to prevent offending and the application of civil Anti-Social Behaviour Orders, diversionary measures (including community-based restorative justice schemes), non-custodial disposals for those found guilty of offences, and custodial sentences. While ‘policy transfer’ prevailed during periods of ‘direct rule’ from Westminster, the punitive responses to ‘sub-criminal’ and ‘anti-social’ behaviour introduced by the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act in England and Wales were resisted or not implemented in the same way in Northern Ireland.

This Chapter will critically analyse the debates informing recent developments, noting key issues raised by the 2011 review of youth justice initiated as a priority following the devolution of justice and policing to the Northern Ireland Assembly. It will focus on promotion and protection of the rights of children and young people in conflict with the law.