What difference does it make?
A laboratory experiment on the effectiveness of health-oriented leadership working on-site compared to the digital working context
Publication date
2023-05-31
Document type
Forschungsartikel
Author
Klebe, Laura
Organisational unit
Publisher
BioMed Central
Series or journal
BMC public health
ISSN
Periodical volume
23
Article ID
1035
Peer-reviewed
✅
Part of the university bibliography
✅
Language
English
Keyword
Leadership
Health-oriented leadership
Digitization
Working from home
Communication
Abstract
Background: Health-oriented leadership (HoL) represents an important workplace resource for employees. However, as opportunities to work from home increase, the question arises, whether leadership is more or less effective in digital working contexts compared to working on-site.
Methods: The current research investigates, whether the effectiveness of health-oriented leadership in terms of staff care is influenced by the working context. In a laboratory experiment with a 2 (no staff care vs. staff care) x 2 (working on-site vs. digital) mixed design (N = 60), a moderating effect of the working context on the relationship between staff care and employees’ mental exhaustion, heart rate, heart rate variability, engagement and job satisfaction was tested.
Results: Results uncovered positive effects of staff care on employees’ mental exhaustion and work-related attitudes in both conditions (d = 1.09–1.91). As expected, the results indicate that the effects on employees’ engagement (d = 0.65) and job satisfaction (d = 0.72) are weaker when working digital.
Conclusion: Findings show that the effectiveness of staff care might differ between working on-site and working digital. In order to maintain the effectiveness of staff care, leaders and employees should keep regular face-to-face contact also when mainly working from home. The study ties in with research on digital leadership and leadership effectiveness, and contributes to the deeper understanding of situational contingencies of health-specific leadership during the process of digitization.
Methods: The current research investigates, whether the effectiveness of health-oriented leadership in terms of staff care is influenced by the working context. In a laboratory experiment with a 2 (no staff care vs. staff care) x 2 (working on-site vs. digital) mixed design (N = 60), a moderating effect of the working context on the relationship between staff care and employees’ mental exhaustion, heart rate, heart rate variability, engagement and job satisfaction was tested.
Results: Results uncovered positive effects of staff care on employees’ mental exhaustion and work-related attitudes in both conditions (d = 1.09–1.91). As expected, the results indicate that the effects on employees’ engagement (d = 0.65) and job satisfaction (d = 0.72) are weaker when working digital.
Conclusion: Findings show that the effectiveness of staff care might differ between working on-site and working digital. In order to maintain the effectiveness of staff care, leaders and employees should keep regular face-to-face contact also when mainly working from home. The study ties in with research on digital leadership and leadership effectiveness, and contributes to the deeper understanding of situational contingencies of health-specific leadership during the process of digitization.
Description
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Version
Published version
Access right on openHSU
Metadata only access
Open Access Funding
Springer Nature (DEAL)