Submit to IJERPH Review for IJERPH Propose a Special Issue

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Impact of Work Environment on Occupational Health and Productivity

Special Issue Editors
Special Issue Information
Keywords
Published Papers

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Occupational Safety and Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (22 March 2023) | Viewed by 14750

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Kjell Ivar Øvergård

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Health, Social and Welfare Studies, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, University of South-Eastern Norway (USN), 3184 Borre, Norway
Interests: psychosocial work environment; occupational health; turnover intention; productivity; health promotion; applied statistics; selection; modelling of human work behavior

Dr. Tone Langjordet Johnsen

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

Department of Health, Social and Welfare Studies, Faculty of Health and Social Sciences, University of South-Eastern Norway (USN), 3184 Borre, Norway
Interests: occupational health; health promotion; epidemiology and risk factors for sick leave; interventions for sick leave prevention; workplace inclusion; stress and coping

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue focuses on the impact of both physical- and psychosocial work environment on occupational health and productivity. A key determinant of employees’ health and work output is the work environment—whether it is the physical work environment (e.g., temperature, noise, chemical exposure), the ergonomics of work (e.g., structure and layout of workspaces, ergonomic work design, lighting) or the psychosocial work environment (e.g., leadership, organizational climate). The work environment can have both negative/pathogenic (e.g., sickness absence, turnover, stress, burnout, health complaints, injuries) and positive/salutogenic effects (e.g., higher productivity, organizational citizenship behavior, work engagement, work satisfaction, well-being). These individual-level outcomes also aggregate to affect organizational and societal output in the form of altered productivity and socioeconomic costs. Hence, both positive and negative effects of the work environment on employees and organizations need to be described and modelled by science. Of particular interest are empirical studies utilizing work environment data from employees and organizations. Also of interest are studies detailing practical applications that may help organizations and employees make effective changes to their work environment to foster well-being and productivity.

Prof. Dr. Kjell Øvergård
Dr. Tone Langjordet Johnsen
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

work environment
productivity
occupational health
work engagement
burnout
turnover
productivity
counter-productive work behaviors
organizational citizenship behaviors
sickness absence
workplace inclusion
social support
bullying

Published Papers (5 papers)

Download All Papers

Order results

Result details

Show export options Show export options

Select all

Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

21 pages, 844 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Impact of Interactive Control in Budget Management on Innovation Performance of Enterprises: From the Perspective of Manager Role Stress

by Xiangfei Zeng, Ning Zhang, Lianghua Chen and Wenpei Zhang

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(3), 2190; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20032190 - 25 Jan 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2523

Abstract

This study aimed to study the influence of the interactive budget on enterprise innovation performance from the perspective of managerial psychology, and to examine the mediating effect of managers’ stress and the moderating effect of environmental turbulence in this influence. The study collected 228 managers’ data in the Yangtze River Delta region of China through online questionnaires; the structural equation model is constructed by IBM SPSS Amos 24.0, and the data is analyzed by Mplus 7.4 and IBM SPSS 23.0. The results showed that: (1) an interactive budget positively affects enterprise innovation performance; (2) the role stress of managers plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between an interactive budget and enterprise innovation performance; (3) environmental turbulence positively moderates the relationship between the interactive budget and enterprise innovation performance; and (4) the positive effect of the interactive budget on enterprise innovation performance is more significant in enterprises with a high proportion of female managers, and the negative effect on the role stress of managers is more significant in high-tech enterprises. In theory, the results enrich the research on the impact of an interactive budget on individual managers’ psychology, and further reveals the “black box” of the impact of an interactive budget on enterprise innovation performance; in practice, the results make enterprises attach importance to the influence of control environments on the psychological health of managers, and provides a reference for enterprises to use control methods rationally to promote innovation in budget management. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Work Environment on Occupational Health and Productivity)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

14 pages, 958 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Effect of Servant Leadership on Work Resilience: Evidence from the Hospitality Industry during the COVID-19 Period

by Zhenyao Cai, Yimin Mao, Ting Gong, Ying Xin and Jiayun Lou

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(2), 1322; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20021322 - 11 Jan 2023

Cited by 7 | Viewed by 3054

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is a tremendous crisis for public health, which also has a profound impact on business and social activities because many countries restrict travel and social gatherings to avoid the spread of COVID-19. Workers suffer from mental health problems including depression and anxiety due to the uncertain work environment. Hence, psychological resilience, a positive psychological response to these challenges, is essential to the success of employees and companies. Drawing on the conservation of resources theory (COR), this paper investigates how the leadership style (i.e., servant leadership) enhances the work resilience of hospitality employees through two time-lagged empirical studies. Specifically, study 1 demonstrates a positive relationship between servant leadership and employees’ work resilience. Study 2 replicates study 1’s result and further demonstrates that emotional exhaustion mediates the relationship between servant leadership and employees’ work resilience. Furthermore, study 2 finds a significant moderating effect of job complexity. The findings of this paper provide empirical evidence for practitioners to manage employees’ resilience and psychological resources. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Work Environment on Occupational Health and Productivity)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

20 pages, 1388 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Matter of Health? A 24-Week Daily and Weekly Diary Study on Workplace Bullying Perpetrators’ Psychological and Physical Health

by Gülüm Özer, Yannick Griep and Jordi Escartín

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(1), 479; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010479 - 28 Dec 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2469

Abstract

Workplace bullying (WB) studies focusing on perpetrators are increasing. Many processes, events, circumstances and individual states are being studied to understand and inhibit what causes some employees to become perpetrators. Using a 24-week diary design and drawing on the Conservation of Resources Theory, we investigated how sleep, physical activity (PA), and being bullied predicted perpetration on a within-level. On a between-level, we controlled for a supervisory position, psychological distress and mental illnesses over 38 employees from Spain and Turkey. Their average age was 38.84 years (SD = 11.75). They were from diverse sectors (15.8% in manufacturing, 15.8% in education, 13.2% in wholesale and retail trade, 13.2% in information and communication, 7.9% in health, 7.9% in other services and 26.3% from other sectors) with diverse professions such as finance manager, psychologist, graphic designer, academic, human resources professional, forensic doctor, IT and Administration head, municipality admin executive, waiter, and sales executives. Data collection was conducted over 24 consecutive work weeks, where only 31 participants were involved in perpetration (final observations = 720). We analyzed the data using multilevel structural equation modeling decomposed into within-and-between-person variance parts. The results indicated that on a within-level, PA as steps taken during the work week and being bullied positively predicted perpetration the same week, while sleep quality did not. By connecting sleep, physical exercise and WB literature, we draw attention to the health condition of perpetrators. Organizations should actively inhibit workplace bullying and be mindful of employees’ physical activities at work or commuting to work. Managers should also be attentive to physical fatigue that employees may feel due to their responsibilities in their private lives and allow employees to rest and recuperate to inhibit negative behaviors at work. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Work Environment on Occupational Health and Productivity)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

24 pages, 884 KiB

Open AccessArticle

The Relationship between Psychological Safety and Management Team Effectiveness: The Mediating Role of Behavioral Integration

by Emil Viduranga Mogård, Ole Bendik Rørstad and Henning Bang

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2023, 20(1), 406; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20010406 - 27 Dec 2022

Viewed by 3853

Abstract

This study explores whether there is an indirect effect of psychological safety on team effectiveness in management teams, operating through the mediating variable of behavioral integration. Whilst there exists a fair amount of research on the relationship between psychological safety and team effectiveness, few have looked at potential mechanisms that can explain this association in management teams. We propose behavioral integration to be a potential mediator. Data are collected from 1150 leaders in 160 Norwegian management teams, answering a questionnaire measuring team functioning and effectiveness. Team size ranged from 3 to 19 members. Our results show a significant indirect effect of psychological safety on management team effectiveness, mediated by behavioral integration. Thus, the more team members perceive the climate as safe in terms of speaking their mind without the fear of repercussions, the more they partake in mutual collaboration, information sharing and experience ownership in the decisions being made. This is associated with management teams performing better. We also found a positive relationship between psychological safety and behavioral integration, and—in line with previous studies—that psychological safety and behavioral integration both were positively related to team effectiveness. This study adds to the existing team research literature by expanding our knowledge about the importance of psychological safety and the way it influences management team performance at all levels throughout the organizational hierarchy. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Work Environment on Occupational Health and Productivity)

► Show Figures

Figure 1

31 pages, 1173 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Criteria and Guidelines for Human-Centered Work Design in a Digitally Transformed World of Work: Findings from a Formal Consensus Process

by Patricia Tegtmeier, Corinna Weber, Sabine Sommer, Anita Tisch and Sascha Wischniewski

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(23), 15506; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192315506 - 23 Nov 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1965

Abstract

With the increasing digital transformation, work tasks are changing—in some cases, significantly. Our study addresses the question of whether the established criteria for work design are still sufficient or if they should get updated and additional criteria become necessary in the context of digitalization. In a multistage consensus process involving interdisciplinary groups of experts, we have identified specific criteria for the humane design of work in a world increasingly permeated by digitalized work tools. Starting with an expert workshop using a combined nominal group/focus group technique, followed by a real-time Delphi study, a content analysis and a five-stage peer comment process, we detected 13 criteria and 38 design guidelines for human-centered work in digital transformation. Mapping these with established criteria, it became apparent that some established criteria have experienced a new dynamic because of the digital transformation. For other criteria, a need for digitization-sensitive design is discernible. In addition, criteria have emerged whose necessity is rooted in the digital transformation. A diffusion and stronger interconnection of the various levels of the work system in connection with the digital transformation of work is apparent. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Impact of Work Environment on Occupational Health and Productivity)

► Show Figures

Journal Menu

Journal Browser

Impact of Work Environment on Occupational Health and Productivity

Share This Special Issue

Special Issue Editors

Special Issue Information

Keywords

Published Papers (5 papers)

Research

Further Information

Guidelines

MDPI Initiatives

Follow MDPI