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In the wake of a global mental health crisis, management scholars have recommended taking a more nuanced perspective of employee mental health and well-being. Recent interdisciplinary reviews have called for researchers to adequately differentiate between poor mental health and severe mental health conditions (Rosado-Solomon, Koopmann, Lee, & Cronin, 2023), while considering their respective roles along the 'mental health continuum' (Kelloway, Dimoff, & Gilbert, 2023: 365). This symposium seeks to present research with novel implications for employee well-being at various points along this continuum. First, this symposium introduces novel phenomena (e.g., AI) that may lead employee mental well-being to fluctuate or worsen. Second, this symposium introduces novel research on the experience of having mental health conditions while being employed; it also introduces a novel category of stigma, and the associated implications for both employees and organizations. From Colleagues to Co-Bots: Exploring Employee Reactions to AI Integration at Work Author: Jessica Mariah Rivin; San Diego State U., Fowler College of Business Author: Ksenia Keplinger; Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems Author: Rick Reed; Assistant Professor at Le Moyne College Author: Phoenix Van Wagoner; California State U., Fullerton "Love It or Leave It?" Work Passion, Stress, Burnout, and Turnover in Nurses Author: Karen Landay; U. of North Texas Author: David F. Arena; U. of Texas At Arlington Author: Joseph Richard Schaefer; SUNY New Paltz Frames of Mental Illness and Workplace Implications Author: Dane Cannon; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business Plowing Ahead or Sowing Seeds: Navigating Mental Health Stigma at Work Author: Devin Rapp; San Diego State U., Fowler College of Business Author: Glen E. Kreiner; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business Author: Dane Cannon; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business Author: James Hughey; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business Author: Robert Monnot; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amidst the transition to a post-industrial economy and the rise of nonstandard work arrangements, researchers have been encouraged to follow the flow of work—and workers—from organizations toward more modern (and increasingly prominent) forms of organizing like occupations. Questions abound, however, with respect to how identity work—the forming, repairing, maintaining, strengthening, and/or revising of one's self-concept—is conducted outside of traditional organizational structures and, further, the extent to which existing theories accurately describe the full breadth of identity work in such contexts. This symposium aims to highlight ongoing research on identity work in the new world of work—i.e., occupations and their occupants—with a specific emphasis on comparing and contrasting identity phenomena in occupations with existing theory. To advance our thinking on this important topic, we bring together a diversity of research (and researchers) to help explicate this increasingly prevalent phenomenon. Moving on While Going Back? How Refugees Craft New Lives While Not Abandoning Those Still Suffering Author: Trenton A. Williams; BYU Marriott School of Business Author: Ramzi Fathallah; Telfer School of Management, U. of Ottawa It's All in a (Stage) Name: How Anticipatory Creative Identities Facilitate Creativity & Well-Being Author: Chad Benjamin Murphy; Oregon State U. Fit or Misfit? Toward a Theory of Identity Construction in Nonstandard Work Contexts Author: James Hughey; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business Author: Devin Rapp; San Diego State U., Fowler College of Business Author: Robert Monnot; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business Author: Dane Cannon; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business Author: Glen E. Kreiner; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business Desired and Feared Occupational Identities Author: Sarah Page-Jones; U. of Bath Author: Andrew D. Brown; U. of Bath [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fundamental premise of the sensemaking literature is that the disruption of sense (commonly referred to as a sensebreaking event) gives rise to meaning voids that, in turn, trigger sensemaking. Despite this theoretical basis, we know surprisingly little about how sensebreaking events impair meaning. In other words, while we know a lot about how individuals make sense, we know comparatively little about how individuals break sense. Using qualitative data collected from healthcare workers, this paper explores the experience of sensebreaking amidst a global crisis—the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings reveal that, despite evincing all the classic characteristics of a sensebreaking event, many of our participants did not perceive the pandemic as such. Among those whose sense was broken, however, we unearthed multiple senses susceptible to disruption and widespread variation in the degrees to which they were disrupted. While we document sensebreaking's effects on sensemaking and learning, our study also suggests that sensegiving—when it vacillates beyond expectation, contradicts past practice, or is perceived as incommensurate with experience—can paradoxically promote sensebreaking. In this important respect, our study speaks to the difficulty of distributed sensemaking and the fragility of institutional trust during a crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This symposium presents a series of novel insights into a spectrum of employee wellbeing experiences across a variety of understudied contexts. Using both qualitative and quantitative methods, these presentations highlight the unique challenges of farming occupations, music performance professions, the employee medical leave process, and the experience of working with colleagues who are recipients of partner violence. Our papers highlight a range of health outcomes, from the positive effects of stress habituation to the negative impacts of nonwork spillover from coworkers. Our papers also highlight how both positive and negative wellbeing experiences (such as passion and burnout) are often intertwined and embedded within certain professions. Together, these presentations offer both a glimpse into unique populations as well as a high-level perspective of the range of mental health & wellbeing experiences for modern workers. Stress Habituation & Status in Male Professionals: A Testosterone and Cortisol Study Author: Lieke Laura Ten Brummelhuis; Simon Fraser U. Author: Mariana Toniolo-Barrios; Simon Fraser U. Work that Drives and Drains: The Fluidity of Mental Health & Engagement with Strong Occupational Identity Author: Devin Johnson Rapp; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business Author: Robert Monnot; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business When Passion Meets Unfulfilled Expectations: Predicting Burnout Among Professional Musicians Author: Alexandra Lefcoe; DeGroote School of Business, McMaster U. Author: Catherine Connelly; McMaster U. Author: Laura Venz; Leuphana U. Lüneburg Author: George Elchuk; McMaster U. Author: Andrew Scott; Humber College Medical Leaves of Absence: How Individuals and Organizations Respond to Leave-Related Suffering Author: Liza Yasemin Barnes; Drexel U. Potential Drawbacks of Connection at Work: An Evaluation on Coworker's Mental Health Author: Jessica Mariah Rivin; San Diego State U., Fowler College of Business Author: Russell Cropanzano; U. of Colorado, Boulder Author: Rick Reed; PhD Student at U. of Colorado, Boulder Author: Phoenix Van Wagoner; California State U., Fullerton [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our presenter symposium seeks to address the mental health crisis at work by introducing four projects that all contribute to better understanding and addressing the stigma surrounding mental illness and intellectual disabilities in the workplace. We do this by presenting the history and state of mental illness stigma, including some important measuring issues. Additionally, we highlight two inductive studies and one deductive field study that examine different dynamics of workers and leaders related to navigating the stigma of mental illness and intellectual disabilities. Our findings present theoretical and practical implications that can be used for future research and effective policy and organizational guidelines to better reduce the effects of stigma and encourage a more inclusive and healthy workplace. Mental Illness Stigma in the Workplace Author: Dane Cannon; - Disability Imposter Syndrome Author: Christine Anna Mihelcic; U. of Richmond Allies as Intermediaries: Strategies that Promote Hiring People with Intellectual Disabilities Author: Christine Nittrouer; Texas Tech U. Author: Michelle Hebl; Rice U. Reframing the Traditional Sources of Mental Health Stigma Amongst Farmers Author: Devin Johnson Rapp; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business Author: Robert Monnot; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business Author: Glen E. Kreiner; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sudden onset of the COVID-19 pandemic ushered in an unprecedented era of public admiration for healthcare workers. Indeed, the title "healthcare heroes" became a ubiquitous moniker for healthcare providers of all stripes during the pandemic, a sentiment reflected in countless television ads and banners. Paradoxically, these same "healthcare heroes" who were publicly celebrated for their work in the fight against the novel coronavirus also faced stigma for their work amidst the virus and infected patients. Using grounded theory, we explore how members of an occupation experience and respond to mixed--even conflicting--social evaluations. We contribute to the literature on stigma and social evaluations by showing how targets of stigma evaluate their evaluators through nuanced logical and emotional processing and, moreover, that such processing can lead recipients of mixed evaluations toward a number of outcomes not previously theorized. We also develop the concept of "hero-washing" to describe occasions when workers are publicly lauded yet given insufficient resources by their organizations and/or the public. Finally, we illustrate how mixed evaluations manifested within many of the same actors according to evaluative dimensions of work (i.e., physical, social, moral) and the intervening factors that influenced their salience in a given context. Keywords: stigma, dirty work, social evaluations, heroes, health care, COVID-19 pandemic [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: The COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented stress on health care systems worldwide. The global scale of the outbreak and its unpredictable nature has put a significant leadership burden on health care leaders and decision-makers. Predefined emergency preparedness plans are no longer working. Evidence-based guidelines and crisis communication plans are insufficient. There is an increased amount of pandemic fatigue among the general population. Businesses are suffering. A financial crisis is looming. Health systems leaders need new leadership behaviors and mindsets to help them lead during the next phases of this dynamic crisis as well as in future pandemics. Despite a proliferation of perspectives on the topic, given the novelty of the situation there is no aggregated resource distilling the evidence about how to lead under crisis conditions. Objective: The aim of this paper is to systematically examine evidence from research on public health crisis leadership to determine what competencies are explicitly needed to better respond to pandemics like COVID-19. Specifically, we sought to map and assess published studies on pandemics (a) to characterize core competencies required to lead in the health sector during a pandemic, and (b) to identify contextual enablers and barriers to leading during a crisis. Methods: We conducted a rapid review using the methodological framework of Arksey and O'Malley (2005), the World Health Organization Rapid Review Guide, and the Joanna Briggs Institute 2020 guide to scoping reviews (Peters et al., 2020; Tricco et al., 2017). The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-SR) guided our reporting of study findings. Data Sources: We performed a systematic and comprehensive search of MEDLINE (via Ovid), EMBASE, PsycINFO, Business Source Premier, and Canadian Business & Current Affairs for studies published between 2003 (since SARS) and July 28, 2020. Study Selection, Extraction, and Synthesis: We selected all empirical articles (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods) that discussed crisis leadership during a pandemic. Data Synthesis: The literature search identified 8,044 citations. A review of abstracts led to the retrieval of 749 full-text articles for assessment, of which 30 were selected for review. Conclusions: Our findings show that crisis leadership competencies commonly fall under three categories of leadership capacity: task, people, and adaptive. In pandemic-related leadership literature, task-related behaviors such as preparing and planning, establishing collaborations, and crisis communication often receive more attention. Our analysis revealed that during a crisis, people-oriented capacities and adaptive capacities are equally important for leaders to successfully lead in a dynamic situation shaped by structural, political, and cultural contextual factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Whereas most research focuses on the negative effects of stigma, this symposium will present research from 4 empirical projects that showcase both the negative and positive elements of stigmatized work and workers. The studies range both in terms of method (qualitative and quantitative) and sample (Covid-19 health care workers, impoverished newspaper vendors, sex workers, and workers with disabilities). We consider the theoretical advantages of taking this both/and approach, note the methodological opportunities of doing so, and discuss how future research on stigma can implement this holistic lens. The Sympathy Paradox: Navigating Stigma and Ableism in Social Entrepreneurship. Presenter: Christine Anna Mihelcic; Penn State Smeal College of Business. Stigma Hierarchies: The Internal Dynamics of Stigmatization in the Sex Work Occupation. Presenter: Madeline Toubiana; U. of Alberta. Presenter: Trish Ruebottom; Degroote School of Business, McMaster U. Positive Job Performance Implications of Frontline Employees' Racial Stigma. Presenter: Katharina Dinhof; WU Vienna U. of Economics and Business. Presenter: Janet Kleber; U. of Klagenfurt. Presenter: Sven Mikolon; Imperial College London. Dirty Heroes? Increased Esteem and Stigma Among Health Care Workers During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Presenter: Devin Johnson Rapp; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business. Presenter: James Hughey; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business. Presenter: Glen E. Kreiner; U. of Utah, David Eccles School of Business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]