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Medical social work is gradually developing in China, and children's hospitals greatly need medical social workers. However, different groups have different perceptions of medical social workers' roles. The role of nascent Chinese medical social workers in children's hospitals is unclear, which hinders the growth of this profession. Therefore, this study aimed to resolve role ambiguity by comprehensively exploring the specific roles of Chinese medical social workers in a children's hospital. A descriptive qualitative research design was adopted. Twenty-six participants, including medical social workers (n = 8), primary caregivers of children (n = 6), and medical staff (n = 12, including 6 doctors and 6 nurses), were recruited by purposive sampling at a tertiary-level children's hospital in China between October and November 2022. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were conducted to collect data. Three major themes with eleven roles were extracted through Colaizzi's 7-step method of phenomenological data analysis: (1) the role identified by all three groups: psychological supporter, resource linker, and consultant; (2) the role identified by healthcare professionals: coordinator, planner, assessor, advocate, organizer, promoter, and educator; and (3) the role identified by medical social workers themselves: manager. This qualitative study was the first to comprehensively describe the eleven roles assumed by Chinese pediatric medical social workers in the hospital and role ambiguity among different groups. The lack of medical background and practitioners, as well as lower social status, led to medical social workers' role ambiguity problems. Recommendations to strengthen policy support, cultivate a new medical social work culture, and increase the social understanding and recognition of medical social work to resolve role ambiguity are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research seeks to integrate traditional formal leadership structures and emerging shared leadership approaches to team leadership to examine how they jointly relate to innovative outcomes in teams. To reconcile contradictory theory and research that views formal leadership as both beneficial and detrimental to informal leadership, we take a contingency-based approach and hypothesize and find that a designated, nominal formal leader is positively related to shared leadership emergence when role ambiguity is high. Additionally, high role ambiguity enhances the indirect effect of designated formal leadership on team innovation via shared leadership. Alternatively, low ambiguity neutralizes the effect of designated formal leadership on shared leadership and the indirect effect on team innovation via shared leadership. These findings help to address conflicting perspectives regarding the linkage of formal leadership and shared leadership and their respective influence on team innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Children with advanced cancer are often not referred to palliative or hospice care before they die or are only referred close to the child's death. The goals of the current project were to learn about pediatric oncology team members' perspectives on palliative care, to collaborate with team members to modify and tailor three separate interdisciplinary team-based interventions regarding initiating palliative care, and to assess the feasibility of this collaborative approach.Methods: We used a modified version of experience-based codesign (EBCD) involving members of the pediatric palliative care team and three interdisciplinary pediatric oncology teams (Bone Marrow Transplant, Neuro-Oncology, and Solid Tumor) to review and tailor materials for three team-based interventions. Eleven pediatric oncology team members participated in four codesign sessions to discuss their experiences with initiating palliative care and to review the proposed intervention including patient case studies, techniques for managing uncertainty and negative emotions, role ambiguity, system-level barriers, and team communication and collaboration.Results: The codesign process showed that the participants were strong supporters of palliative care, members of different teams had preferences for different materials that would be appropriate for their teams, and that while participants reported frustration with timing of palliative care, they had difficulty suggesting how to change current practices.Conclusions: The current project demonstrated the feasibility of collaborating with pediatric oncology clinicians to develop interventions about introducing palliative care. The procedures and results of this project will be posted online so that other institutions can use them as a model for developing similar interventions appropriate for their needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The aim of the present study was to examine the bidirectional associations between subjective role ambiguity and role conflicts at work, respectively, and self-reported sleep 2 years later. In addition, we also examine whether sense of coherence (SOC) moderate or mediate the association between role stressors and poor sleep and between poor sleep and role stressors.Methods: We used questionnaire data collected in 2006 and 2008 from the Workplace Bullying and Harassment cohort. In 2006, 3363 responded to the questionnaire and in 2008 1671 responded. In total, 1569 participants responded in both 2006 and 2008 to the questions on role stressors (in terms of role ambiguity and role conflicts at work) and sleep problems in both 2006 and 2008. Sleep problems were assessed with the awakening index (AWI) and the disturbed sleep index (DSI). Moderation and mediation analyses of the association were estimated using structural equation modelling.Results: We found a prospective association between role stressors and sleep problems [beta values were 0.07 (95% CI 0.03-0.11) and 0.05 (CI 0.01-0.10) for DSI and AWI, respectively] when adjusting for sleep problems at baseline, age, sex, and life style factors (i.e. alcohol, smoking, and leisure time physical activity). SOC moderated the association showing that participants with lower SOC scores who reported higher role ambiguity reported sleep problems to a higher extent than participants with high SOC scores. SOC also mediated the association between role stressors and sleep problems. We also found support for sleep problems at baseline and role stressors 2 years later [DSI 0.04 (CI 0.00-0.08) and 0.15 (CI 0.09-0.21)] for role ambiguity and role conflicts, respectively. Similar results were observed for AWI.Conclusion: Subjective role stressors were prospectively associated with sleep problems. Yet, sleep problems could also prospectively predict subjective role stressors (i.e. reverse causation). The analyses also showed that SOC may be regarded as both a mediating and a moderating factor of the association between subjective role conflicts and poor sleep. We found that SOC moderated the prospective association so participants with low SOC report more sleep problems with subjective role conflicts compared to participants with high SOC. Finally, we also found SOC mediated the prospective association between subjective role stressors and sleep problems and the reverse association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses application of norms to stop interstate cyber attacks. Topics discussed include strategic ambiguity which is often presented as a way to confuse the opponents about the consequences of cyber attacks, the Declaration on Responsible States Behaviour in Cyberspace (G7 Declaration), and voluntary norms which identifies non-binding principles that shape state conduct in cyberspace.

Purpose: This research evaluates how reward and punishment behaviors are related to employee satisfaction, and how perceptions of justice mediate the effects of these behaviors. This study also seeks to examine the connection between some boundary conditions and the efficacy of reward and punishment behaviors. Design/Methodology/Approach: Data were collected using questionnaires, and hypotheses were tested using a sample of 3,065 managers from 41 business units. Findings: We found that contingent financial and social rewards were positively related to fairness and satisfaction, whereas punishment behaviors exert a negative influence. Findings reveal that high-trust propensity and low-pay level strengthen the positive influence of rewards on distributive justice, whereas high role ambiguity increases the positive effect of reward behaviors and the negative influence of non-contingent punishment (NCP) on superior satisfaction. Implications: This study provided evidence that using contingent rewards is more effective in promoting positive attitudes at work than using contingent punishments. Our findings add to the evidence that organizations would benefit from encouraging their managers to use financial and social rewards and reducing the administration of NCP among performing employees. Originality/Value: This study represents a first attempt to examine an integrated model of the effects of reward and punishment behaviors. It also contributes to this field by empirically evaluating the impact of individual and situational boundary conditions in the efficacy of these leader behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined relationships between role conflict, role ambiguity, and three facets of clergy job satisfaction: Relationships and Support, Denominational Involvement, and Intrinsic Aspects. Web survey data from 179 United Methodist clergy indicated that role ambiguity and role conflict had negative relationships with each of the three facets of job satisfaction, as well as with overall job satisfaction. Interactions between role conflict and ambiguity were not significant for overall job satisfaction or for two of the three facets, suggesting that the effects of role conflict and role ambiguity on these aspects of job satisfaction were linear and cumulative. However, the effects of role ambiguity and role conflict considered together were nonlinear and interactive for the Intrinsic Aspects facet of job satisfaction, indicating that when role ambiguity was low, the relationship between role conflict and intrinsic job satisfaction was not significant, whereas when role ambiguity was high, there was a significant negative relationship between role conflict and intrinsic job satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Turkish health care system and hospitals it is very common to witness role conflict and ambiguity among health care personnel. Often this is due to a lack of clarity as to what is expected and required of them. The unfortunate and unavoidable result is a high level of burnout caused by uncertain working conditions in Turkish hospitals. The objectives of this study were to determine the level of role conflict, role ambiguity, and burnout of physicians and nurses working in hospitals, to see the relationship between role conflict, ambiguity and burnout level, to reveal the effects of organisational and indvidual characteristics on the burnout level of physicians and nurses. The study was conducted in three hospitals attached to the Ministry of Health (MoH) of Turkey. 149 nurses and 83 physicians were included in the sample of this study although several efforts of reminders and additional visits to the hospitals to increase the response rate. Structural Equational Modelling (SEM) was chosen to estimate the effects of certain selected individual and organisational variables that were determined by a set of correlation and biovariate analyses on role conflict and ambiguity as well as the burnout level. The SEM results showed that working in surgical units, having less working experience and choosing the profession unwillingly had significant and negative direct effects on the burnout level of the physicians and nurses in the sample of this study. Decreasing the level of role conflict and ambiguity would serve to decrease the level of burnout. In order to decrease the level of role conflict, ambiguity, and burn out level for nurses and physicans, serious efforts must be made to clarify role definitions, increase resources, and employ conflict management methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate how work environment and psychological empowerment related to worker outcomes in public child welfare. These relationships were examined by testing a conceptual model in which psychological empowerment mediated the relationships between work environment variables (quality of supervision and role ambiguity) and worker outcome variables (emotional exhaustion and intentions to remain employed in child welfare). Responses from 234 public child welfare front-line workers in a southeastern state were used to test the proposed mediating model. The results of the study revealed that quality of supervision and psychological empowerment were directly related to workers' intentions to remain employed in child welfare. An indirect relationship between quality of supervision and intentions to remain through the mediating variable of psychological empowerment was found. Quality of supervision was also indirectly related to worker emotional exhaustion through the mediating variable of psychological empowerment. While the work environment variable role ambiguity was not directly related to the outcomes emotional exhaustion or intentions to remain, indirect relationships through the mediating variable of psychological empowerment were found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using theories of social comparison and influence as a lens through which to view the operation of justice in teams, this study explores the effects of interdependence and group identification on referent choice and justice climate strength. 372 undergraduate students participated in a laboratory experiment with two levels each of team interdependence, procedural treatment, and outcome favorability. The results showed that members of highly interdependent teams were more likely to make intergroup justice comparisons and that group identification partially mediated this relationship. Interdependence was also related to variability in team climate perceptions, with group identification as a mediator between interdependence and procedural justice climate strength. Overall, the findings highlight interdependence and social identity as contextual variables that influence the emergence of team-level justice perceptions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined relationships between role conflict and role ambiguity and clergy satisfaction with their church appointment. Questionnaire data obtained from 293 United Methodist clergy suggested that role conflict and role ambiguity each have a negative relationship with appointment satisfaction. However, when considered together, they displayed a more complex relationship with appointment satisfaction. Contrary to conventional wisdom, results indicated that although these stressors operate together to influence appointment satisfaction, their combined effect is not simply cumulative. That is, when role conflict is low, clergy report the most satisfaction when role ambiguity is high. However, when role conflict and role ambiguity are both high, appointment satisfaction is low. These findings are interpreted in light of clergy influence strategies. And, recommendations for remedying clergy role stress are offered. Furthermore, it is suggested that interactive models of role stressors could lead to more in-depth understanding of organizational stress as well as advances in role stress theory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Knowledge of being selected preferentially has been shown to have negative effects. This study examined how changing the operationalization of preferential treatment to allow for perceptions of ambiguity in the nature of the selection decision may lead to changes in research conclusions. Eighty-four female undergraduates were led to believe they were selected to perform a mathematical task based on their merit, direct preferential treatment, or a more ambiguous or indirect preferential treatment. Results indicated that participants' self-efficacy levels affected their interpretations of the manipulation and performance. Implications for the study of preferential treatment are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reflects on the ambiguity of U.S. foreign policy. This clumsiness is attributed to inexperience, lack of focus, engagement in activities which do not clearly advance vital national interests, and idealistic impulses checked by realistic determinants. While these factors do contribute, U.S. clumsiness also relates to an inability to come to terms with its soldiers performing missions that require them to work closely with people they will possibly help, and fight, simultaneously.

This paper reviews and takes to task functionalist and interactionist role theories through an examination of their major exponents, Ralph Linton and Ralph H. Turner. The article demonstrates that the distinctions between them are less real than apparent and that they share an implicit commitment to the possibility of literal role prescription. Though sociologists apparently do not take this commitment seriously, the kind of social science indicated by this commitment will be revealed through an examination of Competency Based Teacher Education, a movement in which the possibility of literal prescription plays a prominent part. Finally, the article author says that we should re-emphasize our objection to the notion that members necessarily engage in continual role negotiation. Rather than taking roles for granted as existent behavior, the author recommends that "role" be treated as an organizing concept used by members when they require it. It is interactionists' ongoing, nonstop, commitment to explain role behavior that generates theories which state that actors must be continually involved in some kind of interaction process.

This paper analyzes how people define their relation to different forms of community. Interviews with 77 Californians revealed that respondents either chose a community identity as a city person, suburbanite, small-town person, or country person, or rejected such identification as meaningless, stigmatizing, constraining, or a source of identity conflict. Those who identify express a sense of belonging, based on ties of sentiment, interest, value, or knowledge. They also use community imagery to interpret self: Self-designated city people, for instance, characterize themselves as active, liberal, city-wise; small-town people, as friendly, family-oriented, less materialistic, unpermissive; country people, as easy-going, independent, practical, ordinary, outdoor folk; suburbanites, as people of the middle ground. This rich, complex pattern of community identification suggests the limited value of traditional sociological images of community decline and placelessness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]