Cognitive cultural intelligence and life satisfaction of migrant workers: the roles of career engagement and social injustice

This paper examines the mediating effect of career engagement on the relationship between cognitive cultural intelligence (CQ) and life satisfaction among international migrant workers in Australia. It also examines the moderating effect of perceived social injustice on the cognitive CQ–career engagement relationship, as well as on the indirect cognitive CQ–life satisfaction relationship via career engagement. Using survey data from four hundred and sixty-two migrant workers in Australia, it was found that cognitive CQ was positively related to life satisfaction and that career engagement mediated this relationship. Social injustice moderated the impact of cognitive CQ on career engagement such that the impact was stronger among those perceiving a higher rather than a lower level of social injustice. Furthermore, the indirect effect of cognitive CQ on life satisfaction via career engagement was also stronger for those perceiving higher social injustice. These findings provide new insights regarding the antecedents of life satisfaction as well as reveal a vocationally relevant mechanism underlying the relationship between cognitive CQ and life satisfaction. The results inform potential practical strategies to enhance the career progression and life satisfaction of international migrant workers.

Teachers' work hours, work-family conflict and health: the mediating effects of perceived control and organisational support

Teachers are among those working longer hours more than ever before. the implications of these long hours on teachers' health, through work-family conflict, control over hours worked and organisational support were investigated. 120 teachers, of whom 91 (59.3% female) reported
working in excess of 37 1/2 hours in the week prior, participated in the study. Long hours, work-family conflict, control and organisational support, explained 69% of the variance in health. There was no direct effect of long worked hours on health however long hours did have a direct impact on work-family conflict, organisational support, and control and, through
these, teachers' health. Work-family conflict exerted a direct negative impact on health. These findings are discussed in individual and organisational tenns.

The mediating role of competitive advantage in the relationship between organisational capabilities and retail performance

This paper investigates the relationships between market, learning and brand orientation with competitive advantage and organisational performance in the context of the UK retail industry. The results indicate that competitive advantage contributes to strategic effectiveness and mediates the relationship between learning and brand orientation and strategic effectiveness. No significant relationship was found in relation to financial performance. Moreover, market orientation was not found to have a significant direct effect on competitive advantage or indirect affect on performance.

Perceived neighborhood environment and park use as mediators of the effect of area socio-economic status on walking behaviors

Background: Access to local parks can affect walking levels. Neighborhood environment and park use may influence relationships between neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) and walking.

Methods: Self-report data on perceived park features, neighborhood environment, park use, neighborhood walking and sociodemographics
were obtained from a sample of Australian adults, living in high/low SES areas. Surveys were mailed to 250 randomly selected households within 500m of 12 matched parks. Mediating effects of perceived environment attributes and park use on relationships between area-SES and walking were examined.

Results: Mean frequency of local park use was higher for high-SES residents (4.36 vs 3.16 times/wk, P < .01), who also reported higher levels of park safety, maintenance, attractiveness, opportunities for socialization, and neighborhood crime safety, aesthetics, and traffic safety. Safety and opportunity for socialization were independently positively related to monthly frequency of visits to a local park which, in turn, was positively associated with walking for recreation and total walking. Residents of higher SES areas reported an average 22% (95% CI: 5%, 37%) more weekly minutes of recreational walking than their low SES counterparts.

Conclusion: Residents of high-SES areas live in environments that promote park use, which positively contributes to their weekly amounts of overall and recreational walking.

It's the economy : the effect of macroeconomic variables of the rate of suicide

Background. There are a large number of factors mediating suicide. Many studies have searched for a direct causal relationship between economic hardship and suicide, however, findings have been varied.

Method. Suicide data was obtained from the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the period between January 1968 and August 2002. These were correlated with a suite of macroeconomic data including housing loan interest rates, unemployment rates, days lost to industrial disputes, Consumer Price Index, gross domestic product, and the Consumer Sentiment Index.

Results. A total of 51 845 males and 16 327 females committed suicide between these dates. There were significant associations between suicide rates and eleven macroeconomic indicators for both genders in at least one age range. Data was divided into male and female and five age ranges and pooled ages. Analyses were conducted on these 132 datasets resulting in 80 significant findings. The data was generally stronger for indices measuring economic performance than indices measuring consumers’ perceptions of the state of the economy. A striking difference between male and female trends was seen. Generally, male suicide rates increased with markers of economic adversity, while the opposite pattern was seen in females. There were significantly different patterns in age-stratified data, with for example higher housing loan interest rates having a positive association with suicide in younger people and a negative association in older age groups.

Conclusion. Macroeconomic trends are significantly associated with suicide. The patterns in males and females are very different, and there are further substantial age-related differences.

An examination of the mediating role of salt knowledge and beliefs on the relationship between socio-demographic factors and discretionary salt use: a cross-sectional study

Background Discretionary salt use varies according to socio-demographic factors. However, it is unknown whether salt knowledge and beliefs mediate this relationship. This study examined the direct and indirect effect of socio-demographic factors on salt knowledge and discretionary salt use in a sample of 530 Australian adults.

Methods An internet based cross-sectional survey was used to collect data for this study. Participants completed an online questionnaire which assessed their salt knowledge, beliefs and salt use behaviour. Mplus was used to conduct structural equation modelling to estimate direct and indirect effects.

Results The mean age of the participants was 49.2 years, and about a third had tertiary education. Discretionary salt use was inversely related to age (r=-0.11; p<0.05), and declarative salt knowledge (knowledge of factual information) scores (r = -0.17; p<0.01), but was positively correlated with misconceptions about salt (r = 0.09; p<0.05) and beliefs about the taste of salt (r = 0.51; p<0.001). Structural equation modelling showed age, education and gender were indirectly associated with the use of discretionary salt through three mediating pathways; declarative salt knowledge, misconceptions about salt and salt taste beliefs.

Conclusions Inequalities observed between socio-demographic groups in their use of discretionary salt use can potentially be reduced through targeted salt knowledge and awareness campaigns.

The mediating role of work climate perceptions in the relationship between personality and performance

Although past research has demonstrated a link between personality and job performance, potential enabling factors of this relationship have yet to be explored comprehensively. We hypothesized that perceptions of work climate, specifically relationship dimensions—cohesion, supervisor support, and job involvement—might be the mechanism through which the relationship between personality and job performance can be explained. Two hundred and thirty Australian employees completed an online survey measuring personality, relationship dimensions of work climate (job involvement, coworker cohesion, and supervisor support) and job performance. Results revealed that the relationship dimensions of work climate fully mediated the relationship between agreeableness and job performance, and extraversion and job performance, while the relationship between neuroticism and job performance was partially mediated by relationship dimensions of work climate. Supervisor support primarily accounted for this mediated effect for the neuroticism–job performance relationship, whereas for extraversion only job involvement explained significant unique variance. Our findings suggest that the relationship of agreeableness, extraversion, and neuroticism with job performance is indirect, and perceptions of the work environment itself play a role in this relationship. This implies that organizations should consider the work environment, in addition to personality during selection procedures. Future research should examine whether different levels of work environment dimensions, foster greater job performance in employees.

The impact of socially responsible human resource management on employees' organizational citizenship behaviour: the mediating role of organizational identification

Based on insights from social exchange and social identity theories, this paper examines the influence of three dimensions of socially responsible human resource management (SR-HRM), namely legal compliance HRM, employee-oriented HRM and general CSR facilitation HRM, on employees' organizational citizenship behaviour (OCB). Structural equation modelling of dyadic data collected from Chinese employees and their direct supervisors in three phases revealed that whilst organizational identification fully mediated the relationship between employee-oriented HRM and employee OCB, general CSR facilitation HRM had a direct effect on employee OCB. In contrast, legal compliance HRM neither influenced employee OCB directly, nor indirectly through organizational identification. The findings highlight the important but complex role played by SR-HRM in eliciting positive employee work outcomes, and contribute to our knowledge of the mechanisms underlying this relationship.