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Introduction: Overconfidence is understood as the susceptibility to cognitive error caused by overconfidence in one’s own means and a lack of awareness of one’s own limits. The purpose of the work is to investigate the level of overconfidence in 186 maintenance workers and identify those most at risk of injury based on certain characteristics such as gender, age, educational qualification, and task performed. Methods: The study was conducted among the employees of a large metalworking company in central Italy over a three-months period. The validated questionnaire of Cavazza & Serpe was administered, on a voluntary basis, used for data collection, and subsequently descriptive analysis was carried out for data interpretation. Results: The study surveyed 184 male maintenance workers (response rate: 81.1%). Workers over 51 years old showed higher negative emotions toward safety procedures (SP) and greater intention to transgress, though actual transgressions were low. Living arrangements and education influenced attitudes, with workers living with others reporting higher control (p=0.032) and those with high school diplomas showing more positive attitudes (p=0.018). Transgressive behavior correlated with reduced moral norms, positive emotions, and control (all p

Burnout among nurses is a pervasive concern in healthcare, with profound implications for patient care and nurse well-being. While research has highlighted the detrimental effects of burnout on many aspects of nursing, including patient safety and quality of care, the underlying mechanisms driving burnout warrant further investigation. In this cross-sectional study, we surveyed 196 nurses from diverse Italian hospitals using an online questionnaire via Qualtrics. Our findings revealed significant negative correlations between psychological safety climate and both relational stressors and emotional exhaustion. Conversely, relational stressors positively correlated with emotional exhaustion, and a significant negative indirect effect of psychological safety climate was found for emotional exhaustion through relational stressors, emphasizing the pivotal role of psychological safety climate in mitigating nurse burnout. Our study underscores the potential effectiveness of interventions targeting psychological safety climate and relational stressors in alleviating emotional exhaustion and burnout among nurses. Theoretical implications underscore the importance of deepening the role of psychological safety climate in mitigating emotional exhaustion, while practical implications emphasize the need for fostering a positive psychological safety climate and implementing targeted interventions to support nurses' well-being.

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted significant changes in education, including a widespread transition from traditional, in-person instruction to online learning, which has also affected music conservatories. This study investigates the relationship between social outcome expectations and teacher satisfaction with remote education (SRE) among conservatory music professors during the pandemic. Rooted in the Social Cognitive Theory (SCT), the study examines whether technostress mediates this relationship and whether the intention to use information and communication technology (ICT) moderates it. A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 108 Italian conservatory teachers through an online self-report questionnaire. The results indicate a negative indirect effect of social outcome expectations on teacher satisfaction through technostress. However, surprisingly, the direct effect was positive and stronger. The study suggests that social expectations lead to technostress. Still, they also present an opportunity for music educators to embrace the challenge of remote education and increase their satisfaction with it.

In the contemporary educational landscape, there is a growing recognition of the transformative impact of practical experiences within traditional learning frameworks. This shift reflects a pedagogical evolution that values contextualized learning and the acquisition of practical skills together with theoretical knowledge. In the Italian educational context, School–Work Alternation (SWA) represents a proactive response to the evolving needs of the workforce and the imperative for educational institutions to prepare students for professional life. This study’s objectives include a deep exploration of students’ SWA experience, evaluating its impact on employability perceptions and the sense of agency, examining the influence of Self-Orientation, and contributing insights to the discourse on integrating practical experiences in education. Employing a mixed methodology and a bottom-up approach, 63 high school students of different Italian regions participated in an online in-depth interview and an ad hoc questionnaire designed to measure the experience of SWA in relation to variables of interest, utility, advantage, perception of support, quality of received mentoring, engagement, and satisfaction. The quantitative results indicate that personal choice significantly influences the perceived usefulness of and satisfaction with SWA, with those students guided by curiosity exhibiting higher utility and satisfaction. Qualitative analysis underscores both positive and negative aspects, with respondents viewing SWA as a useful experience bridging work, corporate, and school realms provided that students are key players in the SWA experience’s choice and that the SWA’s partners are motivated to guide them in this practical training. Moreover, results highlight SWA’s relevance in guiding academic and career paths, emphasizing its potential to offer valuable support to students. This study contributes nuanced insights into integrating practical experiences in education, offering recommendations for educators and policymakers to better prepare students for the dynamic demands of the modern job market.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the sudden switch from face-to-face learning to distance learning generated many critical issues in music institutes. Specifically, conservatories found themselves using a didactic methodology that had never been considered before to ensure the continuation of students’ education. In particular, the adoption of distance learning has had a greater impact on those classes characterized by a significant practical–experiential component. This study aims to investigate the phenomenon of distance learning in Italian conservatories to explore how this experience affects students’ performance through their satisfaction with distance learning. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 328 students of 41 Italian conservatories, using an online self-report questionnaire to investigate conservatory students’ experience of distance learning and its impact on performance. To test the hypotheses, a mediation model was tested using SPSS version 26. The results show that the positive experience of distance learning has a positive impact on perceived performance and that satisfaction with distance learning, as a mediator role, further reinforces this relationship. This study is the first known one to explore the relationship between the experience of distance learning and student performance in the context of conservatories and music teaching.

Background: The outbreak of COVID-19 pushed organizations towards the adoption of new ways of organizing the workplace, to contrast the diffusion of the virus as well as to ensure the production of goods and services. Many workers and employers were suddenly forced to switch to forms of remote work, quite often without any real preparation to successfully deal with these changes. This exploratory study aimed to investigate the point of view of Italian HR managers on the introduction of these new ways of working in Italian SMEs, to underline both the advantages and risks of remote work and to provide a shared list of best and worst practices related to remote work adoption. A Panel of 19 Italian experts of HR management was recruited in April 2022 to perform a Delphi study. They were asked to take part in an anonymous and asynchronous discussion started with stimulus questions, on their remote working experience during the pandemic. A mixed-methods approach was adopted for data collection and analysis. Results: Five principal themes emerged, related to both the positive and negative implications of the adoption of hybrid and remote work, namely: work-life balance, environmental sustainability, impact of working life on individual wellbeing and health, and technological improvement. The content analysis was realized with the use of the T-Lab software, stressing the risks of inaccurate planning and management of these new ways of work. Conclusions: This is the first application of a Delphi study in the Italian context on the impact of COVID-19 on work-life transformative processes. The results highlight the importance of clear communication, transparency, trust, and technology in successfully implementing remote and hybrid forms of work. By implementing these best practices, organizations can create a work environment that supports remote and hybrid work, fosters collaboration, and maintains productivity. The findings of this study can serve as a useful guide for organizations that are transitioning to remote or hybrid work models.

BackgroundThe job placement of persons with disability is often threatened by prejudices and stereotypes; even when they are employed, they have less qualified and less paid jobs. The aim of this study was to investigate the self-perceived employability in a sample of workers with disability, hypothesizing to find a good level of self-determination and positive meaning of work.Materials and MethodsTen semi-structured interviews have been conducted, applying a mix-method to the data analysis through qualitative interpretation and quantitative content analysis. Results confirmed what recent literature shows about the need for job inclusiveness for persons with disability and also underlined a profound sense of satisfaction related to the job, strong identity, and empowerment derived from the job involvement.ConclusionPractical implications are related to the job design procedure inspired by diversity management, in order to pay attention to every single diversity and ensure equity and inclusion.

With the increasing complexity and dynamism of the modern work experience, the importance of the psychological contract has become increasingly clear. Organizations and researchers alike have recognized the implications of this contract for employee performance, satisfaction and well-being. However, certain work contexts can increase psychosocial risks, making it crucial to investigate the individual and contextual characteristics that can promote well-being and mitigate risks. In this study, we examined the impact of psychological contract types and task repetitiveness on organizational commitment among call center employees. By conducting a cross-sectional study involving 201 call center employees working in-person and administering an ad hoc questionnaire, we aimed to enrich the scientific literature on the psychological contract and its implications for the call center work environment. Our findings revealed that a transactional psychological contract has a negative impact on affective and normative commitment, potentially undermining employees’ sense of obligation and responsibility towards these organizations. To promote healthy work relationships and well-being among call center employees, we suggest the importance of a relational psychological contract. By highlighting the role of psychological contract types in organizational commitment, our study offers valuable insights for both researchers and practitioners.

Background: The impact of technologies on workers has been a recurring theme in occupational health psychology. In particular, the sudden digital transformation of the last two decades, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has stressed the urgency to investigate new ways of working that are characterized by flexibility and a constant increase of autonomy. In this perspective, this study aims to investigate the state of the art of the innovation process in Italian factories, explore whether and how digitalization can be seen as an opportunity, and imagine a new way of working characterized by adaptability, resilience, and openness to change. Methods: Thirty in-depth interviews of Italian experts in HR management were collected and analyzed using a mix-method approach. Results: The findings underline the Italian HR experts’ perceptions of the risks associated with rapid changes required by technological progress in terms of workers’ wellbeing and satisfaction and suggest how important it is that organizations rapidly set up learning and training programs to guide workers to the acquisition of new skills required by Industry 4.0. Conclusions: Future workplaces will be characterized by extreme versatility, which requires workers to increasingly have both technical and soft skills as well as the ability to collaborate and build functional relationships.

Focus group technique is often described as a subaltern procedure for collecting and analysing data, underestimating the FG great value; today this method has such a big scientific reputation that it is widely applied in different social research areas such as marketing, education, communication. This theoretical study aims at deeply analyze the matter about the right number of participants for a focus group; this methodological consideration can provide useful elements in order to balance risks and benefits when planning qualitative research in social context. In addition to the numerosity matter there are some elements to carefully consider for an effective focus group research: the sensitivity of themes, the scope of the research, the recording setting, the social category of both participants and researcher, the client.

This study investigated the relationships between leader–member exchange (LMX) and workers’ perceptions of family–work conflict (FWC) and between LMX and satisfaction with remote working (SRW). It also assessed the moderating effect of employees’ ability to cope (AC) with the work in the interaction between LMX and FWC. Using a cross-sectional design, this study tested a moderated mediation model using Model 7 of Macro “PROCESS” for SPSS. The study sample consisted of 455 employees engaged in remote working activities during the COVID-19 health emergency. Surprisingly, the results showed that LMX was positively associated with FWC, while the latter was negatively associated with SWR. There were neither direct nor indirect effects of LMX on SRW, but the moderation of the AC with work on the relationship between LMX and FWC was significant and negative. In particular, the results showed that, in workers who reported lower values of AC, the increase in the quality of LMX also corresponded to an increase in FWC. Conversely, in employees with very high AC, as LMX increased, FWC decreased. Good relationships with the boss in a new and challenging situation such as remote working during COVID-19 threatens employees’ well-being when accompanied by poor coping skills. This study sheds light on these mechanisms and opens new questions in the literature about family–work conflict and remote working.

Organisations appear to pay little attention to rejection letters, considered a special form of organisational communication, despite a growing body of literature that shows they play an important role in terms of employer branding. This study aims to empirically test how applicants’ perceptions are affected by differently manipulated rejection letters. In detail, a sample of 138 rejected candidates filled in an ad hoc questionnaire on perceived selection procedure fairness and satisfaction, after receiving a rejection letter where we had manipulated time latency, the politeness formula and customisation. Results suggest that providing a timely, customised and informal notification is something agreeable, which is able to affect, above all, fairness perceptions and intention to re-apply. In detail, the time latency in giving feedback appears to affect the relationship between fairness perception and organisational recommendation and acts more as a mediator rather than an antecedent variable. Considering that providing feedback is a relatively low-cost activity that at the same time has a big impact on job applicants, our results show that organisations should be sensitive to negative feedback communication, especially in relation to response time, in order to support their employer branding.