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The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has led to several changes in academic teaching practices. Although educational digital technologies have been crucial during the initial phases of the pandemic, their forced adoption has led to negative consequences. In the present study, we aimed to integrate the Technology Acceptance Model theoretical framework (Davis, 1989) by exploring the effects of some possible factors that influence the willingness to adopt digital learning tools in the future when the pandemic is over. Among them, technostress was considered one of the external factors that could have adversely affected digital teaching technology adoption in the future. In contrast, the perception of technical support offered by the university was considered a potential protective factor. A total of 463 Italian university faculty completed an online questionnaire at the end of the first semester (a.y. 2020–21). The frequency of distance teaching technologies usage behavior was measured objectively by extracting teachers' activities from the University's e-learning databases. Key findings indicated that distance teaching technologies' frequency of use increased technostress, which in turn negatively impacted the perception of ease of use. The latter influences - both directly and indirectly through perceived usefulness - the intentions to adopt distance learning tools after the pandemic. Organizational support negatively predicted technostress. Implications to help public institutions develop functional strategies to cope with the technological changes brought by the pandemic are discussed.

Occupational Psychology faces challenges concerning the promotion of employees' well-being and health. The use of emergent technologies (eg smartphone) has revealed new opportunities to deliver effective, cheap and early interventions. By following the international PRISMA statement guidelines, this systematic review aims to bring together workplace smartphone-based interventions, targeting employees' well-being and psycho-physical health, to address the lack of studies focused on workplace settings. Results were drawn from 31 quantitative and qualitative studies, testing smartphone applications. The authors extracted multiple information for each article: focus, target, theoretical background, users' engagement and study design. Findings show the lack of theoretical background, reliable study design and the prevalence of physical health interventions. Moreover, our review identifies the importance of users' engagement for an intervention's effectiveness. It is relevant to design specific mHealth interventions, to provide employees with the skills to cope with and manage work-stress and enhance their general health and well-being.

Introduzione: Lo stress lavoro-correlato risulta essere tra le principali cause di insorgenza di disturbi psico-fisici tra i lavoratori. L’adozione e lo sviluppo delle nuove tecnologie (es. smartphone) ha permesso di riflettere sulla possibilità di offrire nuovi strumenti per erogare interventi di promozione del benessere e/o gestione efficace dello stress. Ciò risulta particolarmente rilevante nell’attuale periodo storico, segnato dall’emergenza sanitaria del COVID-19, in cui l’impossibilità di usufruire di interventi in presenza, ha incrementato notevolmente l’utilizzo di soluzioni digitali per l’erogazione di interventi di promozione del benessere. L’introduzione di innovazioni tecnologiche però impone di riflettere sull’accettazione delle stesse da parte dei lavoratori. Il Tecnology Acceptance Model (TAM; Davis, 1989) è probabilmente il modello teorico più diffuso per indagare l’accettazione di una data tecnologia nel contesto lavorativo, partendo dall’assunto che la percezione di facilità d’uso e di utilità abbiano un’influenza diretta sull’intenzione di utilizzare quella tecnologia. Obiettivo: L’obiettivo della presente ricerca è di investigare l’accettazione di un’app per la gestione dello stress e la promozione del benessere da parte dei lavoratori. Ci si è proposti di estendere le principali assunzioni del TAM, attraverso l’inserimento di antecedenti personali (es. autoefficacia generale e specifica, apertura al cambiamento) e organizzativi (es. supporto organizzativo per l’innovazione). Metodo: I dati sono stati raccolti durante lo stato di emergenza sanitaria, nel mese di giugno 2020, coinvolgendo 251 partecipanti (60% donne; 19% con ruoli manageriali), di tre aziende del Centro-Nord Italia. Il questionario, somministrato online, si componeva di scale validate nella letteratura scientifica nazionale e internazionale, riguardanti le dimensioni classiche del TAM, l’autoefficacia generale e specifica per la tecnologia, l’innovazione personale, l’apertura al cambiamento, il supporto organizzativo all’innovazione e il supporto sociale di colleghi e superiori. Risultati: I risultati delle analisi hanno confermato la validità del TAM, estendendolo a variabili organizzative e personali legate all’intenzione di utilizzare una smartphone-app per la promozione del benessere e la gestione dello stress. Discussione. Tali risultati sottolineano l’importanza dei costrutti indagati e la necessità che le organizzazioni agiscano, con interventi specifici, per aumentare il supporto organizzativo all’innovazione, incrementare la percezione di supporto sociale, migliorare l’autoefficacia e l’apertura verso i cambiamenti dei lavoratori, e sviluppare l’innovazione personale. Limiti. È stata indagata unicamente l’intenzione di utilizzo di un’ipotetica smartphone-app, invece di fornire un’applicazione da provare, su cui raccogliere anche dati relativi all’effettivo utilizzo. Un secondo limite riguarda la mancanza di dati longitudinali, necessari per valutare l’influenza delle variabili considerate nell’intenzione di utilizzare un’app e nel sostenere il suo utilizzo nel tempo. Ricadute applicative. Considerato anche il perdurare dello stato di emergenza sanitaria, grazie alla loro flessibilità di utilizzo, gli interventi smartphone-based possono rappresentare una soluzione adeguata e innovativa per migliorare il benessere dei lavoratori e gestire lo stress lavoro-correlato percepito anche in relazione alle difficoltà affrontate durante la pandemia da COVID-19. L’utilizzo del TAM esteso risulta essere fondamentale per garantire che tali applicazioni siano effettivamente accettate e utilizzate dai lavoratori, evitando investimenti in innovazioni non apprezzate e contemporaneamente permettendo di programmare interventi sulle variabili implicate nel processo di accettazione.

Purpose. Although some individuals with disabilities have normal intellectual abilities and high skill levels in specific areas, the unemployment rate of this population is alarming. This research aimed to create a form for the presentation of candidates with disabilities to match their needs and profile sought by recruiters. The form was articulated into: a) the description of personal and job-related skills, main personality traits, behavioural characteristics, reasonable workplace accommodations and supports; b) the assessment of candidate’s linguistic, mental and personal skills. Methodology. 62 recruiters evaluated the form comparing it with a traditional CV. Employees’ perspective on barriers to employment of people with disabilities were analysed. Interviews were conducted to investigate more in-depth recruiters’ attitudes toward employment of people with disabilities and their perspectives on the presence of obstacles to their employment. Results. The global format evaluation was positive.Results revealed that the main obstacle to work inclusion of people with disabilities was lack of knowledge and information. Limitations. Although this study used both quantitative and qualitative data, the sample dimension was limited, and the design was cross-sectional. Practical implications. Since this form provides a detailed skill profile of candidates suggesting possible practical solutions to overcome potential problems, it could be an effective tool to facilitate recruitment and work inclusion of people with disabilities. Value. To date, this is one of the few studies to examine disabled people’ work inclusion by using both quantitative and qualitative data in order to provide a practical tool for the presentation of candidates with disabilities.

Introduzione. Sulla base della teoria della Conservazione delle Risorse (Hobfoll, 1989), la resilienza rappresenta un’importante risorsa personale poiché può aiutare i lavoratori a fronteggiare efficacemente le sfide professionali, favorendo il mantenimento del loro benessere psicologico. Studiare il ruolo di protezione di tale risorsa all’interno del contesto lavorativo è di particolare interesse poiché essa può essere rafforzata attraverso specifici training. Obiettivi. Questo studio si propone di indagare la presenza di differenze tra lavoratori aventi diversi livelli di resilienza nella percezione di possibili fonti di stress lavoro-correlato e il ruolo di protezione di tale caratteristica individuale rispetto allo sviluppo di esiti negativi di salute. Metodo. 179 lavoratori impiegati in diverse divisioni aziendali di una multinazionale italiana hanno compilato un questionario self-report che analizzava: resilienza (Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale); fonti di stress-lavoro correlato (Questionario Strumento Indicatore; Occupational Checkup System); burnout (Maslach Burnout Inventory); stato di salute psico-fisica (Occupational Stress Inventory). Le analisi dei dati hanno previsto statistiche descrittive, ANOVA e regressioni. Risultati. I lavoratori maggiormente resilienti tendono a percepire un maggiore controllo sul proprio lavoro e supporto da parte di colleghi e superiori, un minor conflitto di ruolo, una maggiore capacità di gestire i cambiamenti interni, una maggiore percezione di equità e sintonia con i valori aziendali. Inoltre, controllando per le variabili demografiche e le fonti di stress lavoro-correlato, la resilienza protegge i lavoratori dallo sviluppo di sintomi fisici (β = -.32; p

A causa delle particolari condizioni lavorative, il personale di soccorso sanitario è esposto ad un elevato rischio di infortuni e sviluppo di sintomi psico-fisici. OBIETTIVO E METODI. Lo studio esamina lo stato di benessere occupazionale in un campione di operatori impiegati nel soccorso su ambulanze (N=478), con specifico focus sulle risorse personali utilizzate per contrastare eventuali esiti negativi di salute. I lavoratori hanno compilato un questionario atto alla valutazione dei seguenti costrutti: burnout (MBI-GS), malessere psico-somatico (GHQ-12), conflitto lavoro-vita privata (Work-Family Conflict Scale), resilienza (Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale), engagement (UWES), mindfulness (MAAS). Statistiche descrittive, correlazioni e regressioni sono state condotte usando SPSS. RISULTATI E CONCLUSIONI. Il campione è risultato esposto a un basso rischio di burnout e presenta livelli contenuti di malessere psico-somatico. I partecipanti possiedono buoni livelli di risorse personali in termini di resilienza, engagement e mindfulness. Le analisi di regressione hanno evidenziato come le dimensioni dell’engagement (dedizione, assorbimento, vigore) proteggano dal rischio di sviluppare sintomi di burnout: in particolare, è significativa l’influenza della dedizione e del vigore sull’esaurimento emotivo (ß=-0.53, p

In workplaces, inequality is still a very sound issue for women in respect to their male colleagues. Multiple forms of discrimination concerning lack of opportunities at work and lower salary and status are reported. These aspects may significantly affect women’s psychological and physical well-being. We developed an anonymous self-reported questionnaire based both on literature data and on specialists’ experience, aiming to explore the occupational condition experienced by female in Northern Italy. Respondents were recruited face-to-face and online through snowball sampling. The questionnaire had three sections regarding socio-demographic data, occupational situation (characteristics and possible perceived discriminations) and psychological risk and protective factors. These ones were assessed through Maslach Burnout Inventory General Survey (MBI-GS), Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale (CDS-RISC-10) and Work-Family Conflict Scale (WAFCS). Results may contribute to the understanding of psychosocial and occupational condition experienced by Italian female workers, suggesting tailored interventions to reduce discrimination and foster healthier organisations.

Although some individuals with autism have normal intellectual abilities and high skill levels in specific areas, the unemployment rate of this population is alarming. This research aimed to create a schedule for the presentation of candidates with autism to match candidate’s needs and profile sought by recruiters. The schedule was articulated into two parts: a) the description of personal and job-related skills, main personality traits, behavioural characteristics, reasonable workplace accommodations and supports; b) the assessment of candidates’ linguistic, mental and personal skills. 62 recruiters evaluated the schedule comparing it with a traditional CV on the following domains: usefulness, simplicity, understandability, accurateness, clearness, relevance, effectiveness, completeness. The global evaluation was positive. Since it provides a detailed skill profile of candidates and suggests possible practical solutions to overcome potential problems, it could be an effective tool to facilitate recruitment and work inclusion of people with autism in order to promote their well-being.

L’attuale avanzamento tecnologico ha portato una serie di benefici (es. flessibilità) e svantaggi (es. sovraccarico di informazioni) a lavoratori e studenti. I fattori avversi possono aumentare le possibilità di sviluppare problemi di salute psicofisica. Inoltre, la diffusione del COVID-19 ha peggiorato le esistenti problematiche stress-correlate. Le aziende e le università sono ancora alla ricerca di nuovi approcci per la promozione del benessere di lavoratori e studenti, poiché gli interventi tradizionali in presenza sembrano essere non sempre efficaci e poco utilizzati. Le mobile-app permettono di erogare interventi non-intrusivi, anonimi e di coinvolgere un maggior numero di partecipanti. Tuttavia, l’efficacia di tali interventi è ancora poco chiara. Inoltre, fattori come user engagement, usabilità e accettazione della tecnologia, spesso sottovalutati, potrebbero influenzare l’intenzione di utilizzare gli interventi erogati tramite app e influenzarne l’efficacia. La presente tesi di dottorato si è concentrata sugli interventi mobile-based, visti come una soluzione volta a diminuire lo stress e promuovere il benessere, e sui facilitatori e le barriere coinvolte nell’utilizzo e nell’efficacia di tali interventi. Abbiamo considerato sia i lavoratori, sia gli studenti universitari, due categorie particolarmente soggette al rischio stress. Il primo capitolo consiste in una revisione sistematica della letteratura, focalizzata sugli studi esistenti riguardo gli interventi smartphone-based in ambito lavorativo. I risultati indicano che gli interventi si focalizzano principalmente sulla salute fisica e che l’user engagement, l’accettazione della tecnologia e l’usabilità dovrebbero essere considerati nella progettazione di interventi mobile-based e nella valutazione della loro efficacia. Il secondo capitolo valuta l’invarianza di misura e strutturale del Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), da una prospettiva cross-nazionale, considerando un campione di studenti universitari italiani e tedeschi. I risultati confermano l’invarianza di misura, e l’influenza della percezione di facilità d’uso (PU) e dell’utilità (PU) degli studenti sulla loro intenzione d’utilizzo (INT) di una app per la promozione del benessere e gestione dello stress. Lo studio ha dimostrato la relazione diretta tra PEOU e PU solo nel campione di studenti italiani. Il terzo capitolo riguarda l’integrazione del TAM con variabili personali e contestuali che potrebbero influenzare l’accettazione di una app per la promozione del benessere e la gestione dello stress in azienda. I risultati mostrano che l’innovatività personale ha un impatto diretto su INT e che l’autoefficacia percepita nell’uso dello smartphone e il supporto organizzativo all’innovazione influenzano indirettamente l’INT, via PU e PEOU. Il quarto capitolo si focalizza sullo studio dell’efficacia di WellBe!, una app per la promozione del benessere e la gestione dello stress di studenti universitari, sviluppata dal Bicocca Center for Applied Psychology. I risultati mostrano che il gruppo sperimentale ha riportato buoni livelli di user engagement e di usabilità. L’utilizzo dell’app sembra aver avuto un effetto sul miglioramento dei livelli di salute, soddisfazione e mindfulness subito dopo l’intervento. Tuttavia, WellBe! non ha diminuito lo stress percepito e non ha aumentato il capitale psicologico. In conclusione, gli studi presentati hanno messo in luce un cambio di paradigma, dagli interventi faccia-a-faccia a un approccio mobile-based. Questo cambiamento deriva anche dalla necessità di interventi più efficaci per gestire lo stress. Questa tesi sottolinea alcune questioni aperte che le organizzazioni e le università dovrebbero affrontare prima di adottare interventi mobile-based, in modo da aumentare le probabilità di successo, e dopo l’implementazione degli stessi, per comprendere le ragioni della loro efficacia o inefficacia. The moment in which we live is dominated by notable technological advancements, leading to a series of benefits (e.g., flexibility) and disadvantages (e.g., information overload) for workers and university students. The adverse factors may raise their chances of getting psychophysical health problems. Moreover, the current spread of the COVID-19 may have worsened antecedent stress-related disease. For several years, organizations and universities have been looking for new approaches to promote the wellbeing of workers and students, as traditional face-to-face interventions do not always seem to be effective or seem not to be used. Mobile apps make it possible to deliver unobtrusive, anonymous interventions and reach a broader range of participants. To date, the effectiveness of mobile-based app interventions is still unclear. In addition, there is a need to clarify the role of user engagement, usability, and technology acceptance, which are often neglected, but could influence the intention to use mobile-app interventions and impact their effectiveness. To advance the limited research on this topic and fill the current gaps, this dissertation focuses on mobile-based interventions as a solution to decrease stress and improve wellbeing, as well as on facilitators and barriers involved in the use of such interventions and their effectiveness. Chapter 1 systematically reviews studies on workplace smartphone-based interventions. Results indicate that most of these interventions focused on physical health and that user engagement, usability and technology acceptance should be considered in designing mobile-based interventions and evaluating their effectiveness. Chapter 2 tests the measurement invariance of the Technology Acceptance Model scale among university students from Italy and Germany and whether TAM is structurally invariant across countries. Results support the measurement invariance of the TAM scale. The structural invariance of the TAM model is only partially confirmed. Although perceived usefulness (PU) and ease of use (PEOU) impact students' intention to use mobile apps in both countries, PEUO is positively related to PU in the Italian sample only. These results allow a cross-national perspective to understand students' intention to use mobile apps for stress management. Chapter 3 integrates the TAM with personal and contextual factors affecting the acceptance of mobile-based apps for workplace stress management and well-being promotion. Results show that personal innovativeness impacts INT, while smartphone-related self-efficacy and organizational support for innovation indirectly affect INT via PU and PEOU. These results shed light on factors contributing to users’ acceptance of app-based interventions for mental health. Chapter 4 investigates the effectiveness of a mobile app named WellBe! that the Bicocca Center for Applied Psychology developed to provide students with well-being promotion interventions. Results show that the intervention group reports good engagement levels and perceived usability, in addition to an increase in general health, life satisfaction scores and mindfulness level after the intervention. However, there are no statistically significant differences in psychological capital and stress levels reported by participants pre-and post-intervention. Overall, WellBe! displays promising results. In sum, a paradigm shift in intervention design is taking place from a face-to-face to a mobile-based approach. This shift results from society's need for more effective interventions to manage stress. This dissertation underlines some critical open issues that organizations and universities should address before adopting mobile-based intervention, in order to increase the chances of intervention success, and after the intervention delivery to capture the reasons for its effectiveness.

Digital contact tracing apps have been introduced by governments as a strategy to limit the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital contact tracking is an alternative to traditional contact tracing performed by human tracers who have to reconstruct each contact an infected person had in the recent past by means of interviews. The Italian government proposed the Immuni digital contact tracking app as a solution. Immuni uses Bluetooth technology to anonymously register all close contacts a person had: if she tests positive for COVID-19 then all registered contacts are notified. The main aim of the paper is to propose a cluster analysis of some factors concerning the possible acceptance of the Immuni app to build behaviour profiles that explain and predict the possible behaviours of the respondents. The factors considered referred to three different pillars: the technological pillar, investigated by considering factors from the technology acceptance models family; the health pillar, where variables of the health belief model were used; and the sociopolitical pillar, where some values of the respondents were considered as possible barriers to or facilitators of the acceptance of this technology. As a result of the cluster analysis, three behavioural profiles were built: the ProApp profile, the Hesitant profile, and the AntiApp profile. The first is the profile grouping the respondents who intend to use the contact tracing app; the second is more about people who are favourable of the use of the app, but some issues such as privacy reduce the strength of their intention; the last profile is about people who are less favourable to use the app. We are confident that the behaviour profiles found would be useful to build more tailored communication campaigns to help promote the use of the app by managing factors that could either be facilitators or barriers.

The choice of different kind of technologies to be adopted for the construction of road pavement is a subject of great interest both in the international and in the Italian context. Pavement is one of the most expensive component in the road infrastructure system. The analysis of the literature, as well as the empirical experiences, shows that from a sustainable perspective the decision problem concerning the choice of technologies to be adopted, has turned the attention towards evaluation methodologies able to integrate aspects that are not directly measurable in monetary terms, such as the environmental aspects (Zhang et al. 2010; Lidicker et al. 2013; Torres-Machi et al. 2017). The present contribution proposes an Integrated Evaluation System to support the choice between two different road paving technologies, namely interlocking concrete blocks paving and bituminous conglomerate. In order to evaluate the most convenient and sustainable option by considering economic and environmental costs, the proposed approach is based on the integration of different evaluation models, each capable of capturing multiple and complementary aspects. Specifically, the Life Cycle Costing Analysis (LCCA) has been firstly applied, as a decision criterion introduced by the Legislative Decree 50/2016 for the evaluation of the financial aspects related to the entire products’ life cycle. The results obtained are then verified according to the Whole Life Costing (WLC) approach, by introducing also the “Event related costs” in addition to the main environmental costs. Finally, the choice between the different road paving alternatives has been supported by a Multicriteria Analysis, that allows to carry on the comparison between the two abovementioned options by a comprehensive analytical framework based on the economic, social and environmental dimensions of sustainability. The proposed evaluation approach allows to test the robustness and the degree of suitability of the alternative options under investigation by pointing out the trade-off among all the aspects involved and by integrating three different methodologies.

Organizations are interested in finding new and more effective ways to promote the well-being of their workers, to help their workers manage work-related stress. New technologies (e.g., smartphones) are cheaper, allow more workers to be reached, and guarantee their anonymity. However, not all employees agree on the use of new technological interventions for the promotion of well-being. Consequently, organizations need to investigate technological acceptance before introducing these tools. By considering the technology acceptance model (TAM) framework, we investigate both the influence of workers’ perceived usefulness and ease of use on their intentions to use apps that help them managing work stress. Moreover, we contribute to the extension of this model by considering both personal (i.e., self-efficacy, personal innovativeness) and organizational (i.e., organizational support for innovation) variables. Our research involved 251 participants who completed an online self-report questionnaire. The results confirm the central hypothesis of the TAM and the influence of other variables that could influence acceptance of new technologies, such as apps that help manage work stress, and the intentions to use them. These results could help organizations ensure technological acceptance and usage by their workers, increasing the effectiveness of new technologies and interventions to promote well-being.