Arbeits-, Organisations- und Wirtschaftspsychologie

This article in the journal "Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation." investigates whether the quantity and quality of communication between employees and their leaders are related to their leaders’ StaffCare. StaffCare, a key component of the Health-oriented Leadership concept, reflects leaders’ commitment to promoting health and their awareness of employees’ needs. Previous studies have mainly focused on several job demands and resources that may influence leaders’ StaffCare, while the role of communication between leaders and followers has received less attention. This study examines communication factors on a dyadic level. Study 1 was designed as a two-wave study with two measurement points two months apart. The online survey was conducted across various industries and companies in Germany. Hierarchical regression analyses of N = 320 employees show that frequency, communication barriers, and general informal communication are significant predictors of StaffCare. Study 2 was designed as a cross-sectional online survey conducted within an international pharmaceutical company in Germany. It examines informal communication, particularly SmallTalk and DeepTalk, as well as factors such as relationship tenure and stigma toward mental health, defined as negative attitudes and reactions towards psychological strain or illness. For this analysis, only non-leadership employees were considered (N = 199). Results confirm that both SmallTalk and DeepTalk have a significant influence on leaders’ StaffCare. Relationship tenure moderates the relationship, with long-term employees benefiting more from high-quality interactions. Perceived stigma toward mental health is negatively associated with StaffCare; however, the expected interaction effect with DeepTalk was not significant. This study extends the field of Health-oriented Leadership by identifying new antecedents of StaffCare. The findings underscore the importance of reducing workplace stigma toward mental health to create a health-supportive environment and suggest that leaders encourage both casual and in-depth conversations with employees. Additionally, leadership communication strategies should consider employees’ relationship tenure, as long-term employees gain more from these high-quality interactions.

The Special Issue on Health, Well-Being and Sustainability invites research that integrates behavioral, cultural, and systemic approaches to fostering sustainable lifestyles within work environments. This study focuses on the role of leadership in promoting employee health and healthy lifestyles, which are central dimensions of the validated Health-oriented Leadership framework. Although previous research has assumed that high levels of leader StaffCare lead to high levels of employee SelfCare and consequently to better health outcomes, inconsistent dyadic patterns have rarely been examined. In this study, we investigate dyadic relationship patterns between leaders’ StaffCare and employees’ SelfCare jointly creating a sustainable workplace health system in hybrid contexts. Using Latent Profile Analysis on a sample of N = 1104, we identify consistent and inconsistent patterns, their health and motivational outcomes after three months, as well as potential antecedents in terms of working conditions for profile membership. The consistent dyads showed expected results: high StaffCare and high SelfCare led to high health and motivation outcomes, while low StaffCare and low SelfCare resulted in the lowest outcomes. New findings emerged in inconsistent dyads. In the low leaders’ StaffCare and high employees’ SelfCare dyad (Bystanders & Health Proactives), leaders recognized risks but did not actively promote health measures. However, proactive employees who engage in SelfCare behaviorally compensate for insufficient leader support but at a motivational cost. In contrast, the high leaders’ StaffCare and low employees’ SelfCare dyad (Health Sacrificers) included leaders who supported employees’ health but neglected their own, resulting in lower health but higher motivation among employees. Job demands and resources partly predicted group membership and can offer practical implications for building work environments that foster employees’ well-being and health. The findings offer insights into inconsistent leadership behaviors and provide guidance for enhancing employee well-being, particularly in hybrid work environments.

Introduction: Previous longitudinal studies investigated loneliness in general populations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Less is known about workplace isolation among employees working from home (WFH). Based on job demands-resources and conservation-of-resources theories, this study aims to analyze workplace isolation of employees WFH in relation to their WFH intensity. Methods: This study examined the change in workplace isolation and WFH intensity over 5 measurement points of 512 employees using multilevel growth curve analysis (GCA), identified groups of participants with distinct trajectories of workplace isolation and WFH intensity using latent profile analysis (LPA), and investigated antecedents and consequences of profile membership. Results: GCA indicated an overall negative linear and quadratic relationship between time and workplace isolation, as well as interaction effects between time and WFH intensity on workplace isolation. LPA identified 3 groups: (1) high WFH intensity and low isolation, (2) low WFH intensity and high isolation, (3) high WFH intensity and high isolation. Subsequent analyses revealed that individuals in profile 1 had high levels of health-oriented self-leadership (SelfCare) and social support by colleagues, and low levels of communication difficulties, health-oriented employee-leadership (StaffCare) and extraversion. Regarding differences, highest commitment was identified among individuals displaying low WFH intensity (profile 2), whereas highest self-rated performance was prevalent among individuals experiencing low workplace isolation (profile 1). Discussion: Applying GCA and LPA in this line of research is novel and adds to the understanding of both between-and within-effects of workplace isolation and WFH intensity. Knowledge about relevant resources (e.g., SelfCare) and demands (e.g., communication difficulties) may inform organizational practices aimed at preventing isolation in remote and hybrid work settings.

The health-oriented leadership (HoL) intervention is an innovative leadership and team development measure to promote workplace health. This article outlines the steps of the HoL intervention, the necessary organizational conditions, and the benefits for leaders and teams. The HoL intervention is based on the HoL concept, which distinguishes between health-oriented leadership (staff-care) and health-oriented self-leadership (self-care) and emphasizes four pathways through which leadership affects employee health. The HoL intervention is a structured procedure consisting of the eight steps: 1) coordination meeting with top management, 2) general information event for leaders of an organization, 3) preliminary conversation with interested leader, 4) kick-off workshop with the team and leader, 5) diagnosis of health-oriented leadership using the HoL instrument, 6) intensive coaching session with the leader, 7) workshop with the team and leader, and 8) follow-up with the leader. Previous implementations in various sectors revealed positive evaluation results.

The Job Demands-Resources (JDR) model provides a well-established framework for examining workplace antecedents and outcomes. This dissertation extends the JDR model by investigating how personal resources interact with work location in hybrid and remote settings. Four empirical studies explore whether remote work serves as a resource or a demand and how personal resources, both stable traits and daily states, moderate this relationship. Part A focuses on core self-evaluations (CSE) and remote work intensity among hybrid leaders (N = 370), showing that remote work can enhance health outcomes over time, particularly for those with lower personal resources. However, no effect on work-life balance was found. Part B comprises two diary studies (N = 63 and N = 98) on daily character strength application, demonstrating its benefits for performance and self-efficacy. These effects were stronger on office days, indicating a potential enhancement role of the office environment for state-like personal resources. Part C validates the German version of the “Thriving from Work” (TfW) questionnaire using item response theory (N = 567), establishing a reliable short form for future diary research. Part D uses this measure in a five-day diary study (N = 408), revealing that daily remote work is associated with higher daily thriving. Findings underscore the complex role of remote work within the JDR model: it can act as both a resource and a demand, depending on the individual’s personal resources and context. This dissertation advances the theoretical understanding of hybrid work and offers practical implications for supporting employee well-being and performance in flexible work environments.

This dissertation investigates the nexus of speech features and perceived transformational leadership through computational paralinguistic and phonetic approaches across three studies, bridging leadership theory and vocal. Study 1, an integrative review, leverages computational advancements to explore acoustic features like pitch, jitter, and formant dispersion beyond human perception. It synthesizes early research with modern tools like Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs), showing how lower pitch and features like speech pauses predict dominance and charisma (Cullen & Harte, 2018). This sets the stage for empirical analyses using machine learning to dissect vocal cues. Study 2 employs a computational paralinguistic approach, analyzing 122 speakers’ recordings by evaluated by 122 raters via the German Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ)—with OpenSMILE. Focusing on fundamental frequency, intensity, and voicing probability, it uses Sequential Minimal Optimization (SMO) regression in WEKA. Results highlight fundamental frequency’s predictive power for inspirational motivation (R²=0.31) and idealized influence (R²=0.45), with intensity driving individualized consideration (R²=0.35). This approach quantifies paralinguistic features’ impact, revealing their nuanced roles across leadership dimensions. Study 3 shifts to a phonetic approach, using Praat on the same dataset to extract fundamental frequency (F0), intensity, speech duration, and formants (F1-F5). SMO regression identifies speech duration as key for individualized consideration (R²=0.40) and F0 for inspirational motivation (R²=0.43). The implications amplify these findings: a wider F0 range and steeper slopes enhance dynamism and charisma; lower F1, F2 frequencies and narrower F3, F4 bandwidths boost authoritative resonance and clarity; longer duration and pauses, paired with slower rates, project control; and dynamic intensity modulation strengthens emotional impact. These phonetic insights complement Study 2’s paralinguistic focus, offering a dual-lens framework. The dissertation integrates explainable AI (XAI) to balance predictive accuracy with interpretability, linking computational paralinguistic features (e.g., voicing probability) and phonetic traits (e.g., formant bandwidths) to psychological constructs like enthusiasm and authority. The paralinguistic approach excels in broad feature extraction, while the phonetic method provides granular physiological insights, together advancing psychoacoustics and leadership studies. This synergy enables practical vocal optimization- varying pitch, modulating intensity, and pacing delivery- for authentic leadership projection in business contexts, demonstrating the power of computational and phonetic methodologies in decoding vocal influence.

This paper focuses on office worker’s application of character strengths in hybrid working contexts using two diary studies to identify: (1) strength application is effective for positive outcomes in fully remote contexts, and (2) whether the application of strengths differs remote vs. office days. First, we investigated the relationship between strength application and self-efficacy, performance, and strain with a fully remote sample of 63 participants. In a second study with a hybrid sample consisting of 92 participants, we replicated the effects of strength application on the outcomes and added daily work location as a moderator. We found that strength application at work was positively related to self-efficacy and performance in both studies, and also negatively related to job strain in the second study. The relationship between daily strength application and self-efficacy, as well as performance, was moderated by work location, indicating that employees benefit more from strength application in term of their self-efficacy when they worked at the office. We discuss the implications for workers and employers, potential benefits, and challenges of remote work practices.