A twenty‐person working group convened to discuss the ethical and policy considerations of the controversial intervention called “growth attenuation,” and if possible to develop practical guidance for health professionals. A consensus proved elusive, but most of the members did reach a compromise.

In this article, we present an ethics framework for health practice in humanitarian and development work: the ethics of engaged presence. The ethics of engaged presence framework aims to articulate in a systematic fashion approaches and orientations that support the engagement of expatriate health care professionals in ways that align with diverse obligations and responsibilities, and promote respectful and effective action and relationships. Drawn from a range of sources, the framework provides a vocabulary and narrative structure for examining (...) the moral dimensions of providing development or humanitarian health assistance to individuals and communities, and working with and alongside local and international actors. The elements also help minimize or avoid certain miscalculations and harms. Emphasis is placed on the shared humanity of those who provide and those who receive assistance, acknowledgement of limits and risks related to the contributions of expatriate health care professionals, and the importance of providing skillful and relevant assistance. These elements articulate a moral posture for expatriate health care professionals that contributes to orienting the practice of clinicians in ways that reflect respect, humility, and solidarity. Health care professionals whose understanding and actions are consistent with the ethics of engaged presence will be oriented toward introspection and reflective practice and toward developing, sustaining and promoting collaborative partnerships. (shrink)

During the past few decades, a radical shift has occurred in how philosophers conceive of the relation between science and philosophy. A great number of analytic philosophers have adopted what is commonly called a ‘naturalistic’ approach, arguing that their inquiries ought to be in some sense continuous with science. Where early analytic philosophers often relied on a sharp distinction between science and philosophy—the former an empirical discipline concerned with fact, the latter an a priori discipline concerned with meaning—philosophers today largely (...) follow Willard Van Orman Quine (1908-2000) in his seminal rejection of this distinction. -/- This book offers a comprehensive study of Quine’s naturalism. Building on Quine’s published corpus as well as thousands of unpublished letters, notes, lectures, papers, proposals, and annotations from the Quine archives, this book aims to reconstruct both the nature (chapters 2-4) and the development (chapter 5-7) of his naturalism. As such, this book aims to contribute to the rapidly developing historiography of analytic philosophy, and to provide a better, historically informed, understanding of what is philosophically at stake in the contemporary naturalistic turn. (shrink)

Health professionals are involved in humanitarian assistance and development work in many regions of the world. They participate in primary health care, immunization campaigns, clinic- and hospital-based care, rehabilitation and feeding programs. In the course of this work, clinicians are frequently exposed to complex ethical issues. This paper examines how health workers experience ethics in the course of humanitarian assistance and development work. A qualitative study was conducted to consider this question. Five core themes emerged (...) from the data, including: tension between respecting local customs and imposing values; obstacles to providing adequate care; differing understandings of health and illness; questions of identity for health workers; and issues of trust and distrust. Recommendations are made for organizational strategies that could help aid agencies support and equip their staff as they respond to ethical issues. (shrink)

In this article, we present an ethics framework for health practice in humanitarian and development work: the ethics of engaged presence. The ethics of engaged presence framework aims to articulate in a systematic fashion approaches and orientations that support the engagement of expatriate health care professionals in ways that align with diverse obligations and responsibilities, and promote respectful and effective action and relationships. Drawn from a range of sources, the framework provides a vocabulary and narrative structure for examining (...) the moral dimensions of providing development or humanitarian health assistance to individuals and communities, and working with and alongside local and international actors. The elements also help minimize or avoid certain miscalculations and harms. Emphasis is placed on the shared humanity of those who provide and those who receive assistance, acknowledgement of limits and risks related to the contributions of expatriate health care professionals, and the importance of providing skillful and relevant assistance. These elements articulate a moral posture for expatriate health care professionals that contributes to orienting the practice of clinicians in ways that reflect respect, humility, and solidarity. Health care professionals whose understanding and actions are consistent with the ethics of engaged presence will be oriented toward introspection and reflective practice and toward developing, sustaining and promoting collaborative partnerships. (shrink)

There has, over the last few decades, been a considerable growth in the development ‘business’ where, largely western, donors have sought to help the poorer nations develop. Much of this growth has been driven by Christian motivation. Increasingly such projects are being held accountable to try to ensure that the money and the effort being spent are being well spent. The question that is being asked of, and by, development workers is ‘how do we know that we are (...) making a difference?’ and a range of practices have been developed to assess, to measure, to evaluate such effects. Terms like impact assessment, objectives, log-frames, objective verifiable indicators, baselines, clients, have become part of the language. In this paper the author raises various fundamental questions about this practice of evaluating development projects, and in so doing challenges the suitability of some of the current practices for development work. (shrink)

This article explores the accounts of Canadian-trained health professionals working in humanitarian and development organizations who considered not treating a patient or group of patients because of resource limitations. In the narratives, not treating the patient(s) was sometimes understood as the right thing to do, and sometimes as wrong. In analyzing participants’ narratives we draw attention to how medications and equipment are represented. In one type of narrative, medications and equipment are represented primarily as scarce resources; in another, they (...) are represented as patient care. In the contexts respondents were working, medications and equipment were often both patient care interventions and scarce resources. The analytic point is that health professionals tend to emphasize one conceptualization over the other in coming to assert that not treating is right, or wrong. Rendering tacit ethical frameworks more explicit makes them available for reflection and debate. (shrink)

Canadian health professionals are involved in humanitarian assistance and development work in many regions of the world. They participate in primary health care, immunization campaigns, feeding programs, rehabilitation and hospital-based care. In the course of their work clinicians are frequently exposed to complex ethical issues. This thesis examines how health workers experience ethics in the course of humanitarian assistance and development work. A qualitative study was conducted to consider this question. Five core themes emerged from (...) the data including experiencing a tension between respecting local customs and imposing values, knowing how to respond when basic care is impossible, addressing differing understandings of health and illness, questions of identity for health workers, and issues of trust and distrust. Recommendations are made for standards and organizational strategies that could help aid agencies better support and equip their staff as they respond to ethical issues. (shrink)

Measuring and evaluating a learner’s learning ability is always the focus of every person whose aim is to develop strategies and plans for their learners to improve the learning process. For example, classroom assessments, self-assessment using computer systems such as Intelligent Tutoring Systems, and other approaches are available. Assessment of metacognition is one of these techniques. Having the ability to evaluate and monitor one’s learning is known as metacognition. An individual can then propose adjustments to their learning process based on (...) this assessment. By monitoring, improving, and planning their activities, learners who can manage their cognitive skills are better able to manage their knowledge about a particular subject. It is common knowledge that students’ metacognitive and self-assessment skills and abilities have been extensively studied, but no research has been carried out on the mistakes that novice developers make because they do not use their self-assessment abilities enough. This study aims to assess the metacognitive skills and abilities of novice software developers working in the industry and to describe the consequences of awareness of metacognition on their performance. In the proposed study, we experimented with novice software developers and collected data using Devskiller and a self-assessment log to analyze their use of self-regulation skills. The proposed study showed that when developers are asked to reflect upon their work, they become more informed about their habitual mistakes, and using a self-assessment log helps them highlight their repetitive mistakes and experiences which allows them to improve their performance on future tasks. (shrink)

The conventional approach to international development by civil society—that is, the installation of “Western” programs and institutions by “Western” groups in “underdeveloped” regions—has remained largely unchanged since global poverty reduction, whether for political or social justice motivations, gained prominence in public discourse after World War II. Yet poverty rates, literacy, life expectancy, and unemployment in one of the poorest regions of the world, sub-Saharan Africa, has remained the same if not worsened since the 1970s . And, still, the great (...) Development Project continues: Problems in under-resourced areas are identified by well-meaning people from well-resourced areas, proposals to solve those problems are crafted by project managers and submitted to government and nongovernmental agencies, and successful projects are implemented by other well-meaning people who, for the most part, honestly want to make a difference. This is the system in which Priya seems to .. (shrink)

The paper highlights the dependence of the level of organizational trust on work ethic and aims to show that development of trust in organizations can be␣stimulated by raising the level of work ethic with organizational practices. Based on the framework by Kanungo, R. N. and A. M. Jaeger (1990, ‘Introduction: The Need for Indigenous Management In Developing Countries’, in A. M. Jaeger and R. N. Kanungo (eds.), Management in Developing Countries (Routledge, London), pp. 1–23), historical–cultural analysis of (...) the Lithuanian context is carried out. The country is chosen as an example of a post-socialist context where work ethic and trust in the society tended to be rather low. The authors discuss organizational practices, particularly the ones related to people management, which can facilitate development of work ethic, and thus, trust in organizations operating in a post-socialist context. The importance of a processual approach to the development of organizational trust and the ethical content of organizational practices, which are aimed at developing organizational trust is highlighted. Directions for further research are indicated. (shrink)

In this paper we review two debates in the current literature on clinical delusions. One debate is about what delusions are. If delusions are beliefs, why are they described as failing to play the causal roles that characterise beliefs, such as being responsive to evidence and guiding action? The other debate is about how delusions develop. What processes lead people to form delusions and maintain them in the face of challenges and counter-evidence? Do the formation and maintenance of delusions require (...) abnormal experience alone, or also reasoning biases or deficits? We hope to show that the focus on delusions has made a substantial contribution to the philosophy of the mind and continues to raise issues that are central to defining the concept of belief and gaining a better understanding of how people process information and learn about the world. (shrink)

The paper highlights the dependence of the level of organizational trust on work ethic and aims to show that development of trust in organizations can be stimulated by raising the level of work ethic with organizational practices. Based on the framework by Kanungo, R. N. and A. M. Jaeger, Management in Developing Countries, pp. 1-23), historical-cultural analysis of the Lithuanian context is carried out. The country is chosen as an example of a post-socialist context where work (...) ethic and trust in the society tended to be rather low. The authors discuss organizational practices, particularly the ones related to people management, which can facilitate development of work ethic, and thus, trust in organizations operating in a post-socialist context. The importance of a processual approach to the development of organizational trust and the ethical content of organizational practices, which are aimed at developing organizational trust is highlighted. Directions for further research are indicated. (shrink)

A subject’s relationship with work is by no means “neutral” as regards selfdevelopment. What becomes of the psychical relationship with work does not depend solely on the individual’s particular characteristics as a person, in particular their gender; it depends also on the nature and organization of work. In order to analyse the importance of work in the development of the psychic erotic economics, I refer to the psychotherapy of a young woman that took place towards (...) the end of her adolescence. This will enable me to show how work can have a positive impact on mental development. Then, in order to illustrate how work may destroy mental functioning, I briefly analyse examples taken from investigations I undertook in France in companies where several workplace suicides had taken place. (shrink)

This study explores gratitude as a multidimensional and work-specific construct. Utilizing a sample of 625 employees from a variety of positions in a medium-sized school district in the United States, we developed and evaluated a new measure, namely the Work Gratitude Scale, which encompasses recognized conative, cognitive, affective, and social aspects of gratitude. A systematic, six-phased approach through structural equation modeling was used to explore and confirm the factorial structure, internal consistency, measurement invariance, concurrent, convergent, and discriminant validity (...) of the WGS. The results supported a 10-item measure with three dimensions: “grateful appraisals”, “gratitude toward others”, and “intentional attitude of gratitude”. Thereafter, first-order, second-order, and bifactor confirmatory models were estimated and compared. Work gratitude was found to be best described by a second-order construct with three underlying first-order dimensions. Measurement invariance was supported in relation to gender. Concurrent validity was supported in relation to two existing dispositional gratitude scales, namely the Gratitude Questionnaire and the Gratitude, Resentment, and Appreciation Scale. Convergent validity was supported in relation to the Core Self-Evaluations Scale and the Psychological Capital Questionnaire. Discriminant validity was supported in relation to various demographic factors such as age, gender, occupation, and tenure. The findings support the WGS as a multidimensional measure that can be used in practice to measure overall work-related gratitude and to track the effectiveness of gratitude-related workplace interventions. (shrink)

The capacity of visual working memory (VWM) refers to the amount of visual information that can be maintained in mind at once, readily accessible for ongoing tasks. In healthy young adults, the capacity limit of VWM corresponds to about three simple objects. While some researchers argued that VWM capacity becomes adult-like in early years of life, others claimed that the capacity of VWM continues to develop beyond middle childhood. Here we assessed whether VWM capacity reaches adult levels in adolescence. Using (...) an adaptation of the visual change detection task, we measured visual working memory capacity estimates in 13 year-olds, 16-year-olds, and young adults. We tested whether the capacity estimates observed in early or later years of adolescence were comparable to the estimates obtained from adults. Our results demonstrated that the capacity of VWM continues to develop throughout adolescence, not reaching adult levels even in 16 year-olds. These findings suggest that VWM capacity displays a prolonged development, similar to the protracted trajectories observed in various other aspects of cognition. (shrink)

The increased influence of neoliberalism in education has allowed the trend of evidence-based teaching to dominate professional development in many Western countries. Despite increased and persistent neoliberal measures in education, education critics argue that neoliberal reforms have a naive view of teaching. This narrowed neoliberal view both ignores the complexities involved in the everyday interaction between teacher and student and constrains the teacher’s judgement thereby limiting their contribution in the educational process. Many educators will note the significance of reflection (...) in learning as essential and often emotional. However, the emotional experiences embedded in teacher reflections are often ignored, even discounted, in the discussion of teachers’ professional development. Investigating this phenomenon of emotions in teacher reflections, analysed by drawing on lifeworld theory, revealed how emotional experiences can be a resource in teachers’ professional development. To acknowledge teachers’ emotional experiences means recognizing that the teacher’s subjective and lived body is involved in the reflective and learning process of becoming professional. (shrink)

The purpose of this study was to determine if there is a relationship between the ethical climate of the organization and the development of person-organization fit. The relationship between an individual's stage of moral development and his/her perceived ethical work environment was examined using a sample of 86 working students. Results indicate that a match between individual preferences and present position proved most satisfying. Subjects expressing a match between their preferences for an ethical work climate and (...) their present ethical work climate indicated that they were less likely to leave their positions. (shrink)

The long-term success of organizations is mainly attributable to employees’ psychological health. Organizations focusing on promoting and managing the flow may enhance employees’ well-being and performance to an optimum level. Surprisingly, the literature representing the role of HRM practices for their effect on work-related flow is very sparse. Accordingly, by drawing primarily on the job demands-resources model and HRM specific attribution theory, this paper develops a theoretical framework that unravels the effectiveness of specific organizational level High Involvement HRM practices (...) in activating the individual level work-related flow with beneficial effect and mediating role of affective commitment. In addition to highlighting the underlying mechanisms that may cause HIHRM practices to be regarded as resources and sometimes as demands, this paper especially proposes that these practices implemented with a focus to promote employee well-being are perceived as job resources and may positively influence affective commitment and flow, whereas these practices used as a demand to increase performance are perceived as job demands and may hinder affective commitment and flow. It is further significant to understand the possible moderating effects of emotional intelligence on the relationships among HIHRM practices, affective commitment, and flow. The paper augments the knowledge and understanding of the impact process of HIHRM practices, in particular how the HIHRM effect is sensed by the workers and thus, influences their succeeding job attitude and work experience. Finally, this work, as the first paper to link HIHRM practices with work-related flow, promotes the concept of positive psychology in the workplace. (shrink)

Seeking a scientific basis for understanding and treating mental illness, and inspired by the work of Ivan Pavlov, American physiologists, psychiatrists and psychologists in the 1920s turned to nonhuman animals. This paper examines how new constructs such as “experimental neurosis” emerged as tools to enable psychiatric comparison across species. From 1923 to 1962, the Cornell “Behavior Farm” was a leading interdisciplinary research center pioneering novel techniques to experimentally study nonhuman psychopathology. Led by the psychobiologist Howard Liddell, work at (...) the Behavior Farm formed part of an ambitious program to develop new preventative and therapeutic techniques and bring psychiatry into closer relations with physiology and medicine. At the heart of Liddell’s activities were a range of nonhuman animals, including pigs, sheep, goats and dogs, each serving as a proxy for human patients. We examine how Pavlov’s conceptualization of ‘experimental neurosis’ was used by Liddell to facilitate comparison across species and communication between researchers and clinicians. Our close reading of his experimental system demonstrates how unexpected animal behaviors and emotions were transformed into experimental virtues. However, to successfully translate such behaviors from the animal laboratory into the field of human psychopathology, Liddell increasingly reached beyond, and, in effect, redefined, the Pavlovian method to make it compatible and compliant with an ethological approach to the animal laboratory. We show how the resultant Behavior Farm served as a productive “hybrid” place, containing elements of experiment and observation, laboratory and field. It was through the building of close and more naturalistic relationships with animals over extended periods of time, both normal and pathological, and within and outside of the experimental space, that Liddell could understand, manage, and make useful the myriad behavioral complexities that emerged from the life histories of experimental animals, the researchers who worked with them, and their shared relationships to the wider physical and social environments. (shrink)

The authors of this article are previous or current members of the Clinical Ethics Consultation Affairs (CECA) Committee, a standing committee of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH). The committee is composed of seasoned healthcare ethics consultants (HCECs), and it is charged with developing and disseminating education materials for HCECs and ethics committees. The purpose of this article is to describe the educational research and development processes behind our teaching materials, which culminated in a case studies book (...) called A Case-Based Study Guide for Addressing Patient-Centered Ethical Issues in Health Care (hereafter, the Study Guide). In this article, we also enumerate how the Study Guide could be used in teaching and learning, and we identify areas that are ripe for future work. (shrink)

The central question addressed in this paper is about the ethics of engaging with educational development in countries perceived as undemocratic or as failing to respect human rights. More particularly, it examines the nature of the arguments that are brought to bear on this issue. It suggests that these are essentially consequentialist in character and hence fall prey to many of the limitations of such consequentialism, including the unpredictability of what will unfold, the indeterminacy of the consequences and the (...) complex balance sheet of benefits and loss that might be anticipated. The paper also suggests some unease about the way judgements of the acceptability or otherwise of political processes are made across international boundaries and the presumptions of a ‘democratic’ western perspective. The observation of these complexities of principle and fact take the argument into the territory of case-based ethical judgement and the world of casuistry. (shrink)

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces--extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and/practical contributions--so the work can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands of their work and see their contribution to the development of a field. A developmental psychologist by training, Howard Gardner has spent the last 30 (...) years researching, thinking and writing about the development and education of the mind. He has contributed over 30 years researching, thinking and writing about the development and education of the mind. He has contributed over 30 books and 700 articles to the field. He is best known for his critique of the notion that intelligence is one single human intelligence that can be assessed through psychometric tests. Instead Gardner developed the theory of "multiple intelligence" which states that an individual has eight relatively autonomous intelligence: · Language · Music · Emotional · Logical-mathematical · Spatial · Kinesthetic · Creative · Interpersonal (understanding oneself) This theory has proved popular, particularly with those who see the IQ testing a relatively narrow set of abilities. In this book, he brings together over 20 of his key writings in one place. The book begins with a specially written Introduction, which gives an overview of Howard's career and contextualizes his selection in this book. Through his selection we can see the development of his thinking as well as the development of the field. This is the only book that offers this insight into this great scholar's work. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Catalogues and Editions of Aristotle's Works Chronology of Aristotle's Works The Development of Aristotle's Thought Notes Bibliography.

The ability to reason independently from one's own goals or beliefs has long been recognised as a key characteristic of the development of formal operational thought. In this article we present the results of a study that examined the correlates of this ability in a group of 10-year-old children ( N = 61). Participants were presented with conditional and relational reasoning items, where the content was manipulated such that the conclusion to the arguments were either congruent, neutral, or incongruent (...) with beliefs, and either logically valid or logically invalid. Participants also received a measure of working memory capacity (the counting span task) and a measure of inhibitory control (the stop signal task). Indices of belief bias and logical reasoning on belief-based problems were predicted independently by both measures. In contrast logical reasoning on belief neutral problems was predicted by working memory alone. The findings suggest that executive functions play a key role in the development of children's ability to decontextualise their thinking. (shrink)

Food-for-work programs distribute food aid to recipients in exchange for labor, and are an important mode of aid delivery for both public and private aid providers. While debate continues as to whether food-for-work programs are socially just and economically sensible, governments, international institutions, and NGOs continue to tout them as a flexible and cost-effective way to deliver targeted aid and promote community development. This paper critiques the underlying logic of food-for-work, focusing on how this approach to (...) food aid and food security promote labor force participation by leveraging hunger against poverty, and how the ideological and practical assumptions of food-for-work become enmeshed within discourses of geopolitical security. I rely on a case study examination of US-funded food-for-work programs implemented in Jakarta, Indonesia following the 1997 financial crisis. The crisis produced acute food insecurity and poverty in Indonesia, provoking fears of mob violence by the hungry poor and the spread of radical Islamism in the post-crisis political vacuum. Food-for-work programs were, in this context, meant to resolve the problems of both food insecurity and geopolitical insecurity by providing food to targeted populations, employment to those otherwise thrown out of work, and resituating the hungry poor in relation to broader scales of local, national, and global power. (shrink)

Multi-stakeholder partnerships have become a major driver to attain the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. However, managing MSPs is difficult because of the multiple complexities they involve. We seek to contribute to a better understanding of how MSPs cope with these complexities by exploring the MSP scope. In our study of four global health MSPs, we find that a function-oriented scope in terms of focusing on a single intervention helped filter the relevant external and internal complexities, whereas an issue-oriented (...) scope focused on addressing the health issue with multiple interventions magnified the complexities. As a result, the latter MSPs became overwhelmed and self-absorbed, while the former MSPs managed to remain outward-looking and sustain their collaborative energy and support. On this basis, we identify three mechanisms through which the MSP scope either helped or hampered the ability to cope with complexity, and we discuss the theoretical and practical implications for MSPs addressing the SDGs. (shrink)

The emergence and scope of personal and collective efforts to integrate faith into workplaces is a social movement that includes and extends beyond personal ethics. This paper discusses the development of The Integration Profile Faith and Work Integration Scale, which is designed to measure the multidimensional nature of faith expressions within workplace settings. TIP measures the manifestations of faith, religion, and spirituality at the individual level. Earlier research theorized that individuals tend to manifest or live out their faith (...) in one of four ways ; TIP expands this to assess eight sub-orientations, nested within the four main manifestations of faith–work integration. The development of the 24-item TIP scale involved exploratory analyses in a sample of 512 employees of a for-profit palliative care organization and a hierarchical confirmatory factor analysis in a sample of 4463 employees in an American multinational food processing organization. Additional analyses were conducted in a third sample of 266 working adults to assess the convergent and discriminant validity of the eight sub-orientations with other faith variables as well as associations with work outcomes. (shrink)

The emergence and scope of personal and collective efforts to integrate faith into workplaces is a social movement that includes and extends beyond personal ethics. This paper discusses the development of The Integration Profile (TIP) Faith and Work Integration Scale, which is designed to measure the multidimensional nature of faith expressions within workplace settings. TIP measures the manifestations of faith, religion, and spirituality at the individual level. Earlier research theorized that individuals tend to manifest or live out their (...) faith in one of four ways (Miller in God at work: the history and promise of the faith at work movement, Oxford University Press, New York, 2007); TIP expands this to assess eight sub-orientations, nested within the four main manifestations of faith–work integration. The development of the 24-item TIP scale involved exploratory analyses in a sample of 512 employees of a for-profit palliative care organization and a hierarchical confirmatory factor analysis in a sample of 4463 employees in an American multinational food processing organization. Additional analyses were conducted in a third sample of 266 working adults to assess the convergent and discriminant validity of the eight sub-orientations with other faith variables as well as associations with work outcomes. (shrink)

In this paper we describe the development and initial psychometric evaluation of a new measure, the values in scientific work. This scale assesses the level of importance that investigators attach to different VSW. It taps a broad range of intrinsic, extrinsic, and social values that motivate the work of scientists, including values specific to scientific work and more classic work values in the context of science. Notably, the values represented in this scale are relevant to (...) scientists regardless of their career stage and research focus. We administered the VSW and a measure of global values to 203 NIH-funded investigators. Exploratory factor analyses suggest the delineation of eight VSW, including autonomy, research ethics, social impact, income, collaboration, innovation and growth, conserving relationships, and job security. These VSW showed predictable and distinct associations with global values. Implications of these findings for work on research integrity and scientific misconduct are discussed. (shrink)

Ongoing developments, such as digitalization, increased the interference of the work and nonwork life domains, urging many to continuously manage engagement in respective domains. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent home-office regulations further boosted the need for employees to find a good work-nonwork balance, thereby optimizing their health and well-being. Consequently, proactive individual-level crafting strategies for balancing work with other relevant life domains were becoming increasingly important. However, these strategies received insufficient attention in previous research despite their potential (...) relevance for satisfying psychological needs, such as psychological detachment. We addressed this research gap by introducing a new scale measuring crafting for a work-nonwork balance and examining its relevance in job-and life satisfaction, work engagement, subjective vitality, family role and job performance, boundary management and self-rated work-nonwork balance. The Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale was validated in five countries, encompassing data from a heterogeneous sample of more than 4,200 employees. In study 1, exploratory factor analysis revealed a two-factorial scale structure. Confirmatory factor analysis, test for measurement invariance, and convergent validity were provided in study 2. Replication of confirmatory factor analysis, incremental and criterion validity of the Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale for job and life satisfaction were assessed in study 3. Study 4 displayed criterion validity, test–retest reliability, testing measurement invariance, and applicability of the scale across work cultures. Finally, study 5 delivered evidence for the Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale in predicting work-nonwork balance. The novel Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale captured crafting for the challenging balance between work and nonwork and performed well across several different working cultures in increasingly digitalized societies. Both researchers and practitioners may use this tool to assess crafting efforts to balance both life domains and to study relationships with outcomes relevant to employee health and well-being. (shrink)

As research on meaning in work progresses, access to theoretically integrated, differentiated survey instruments becomes crucial. In response to this demand, the present article introduces ME-Work, a modular inventory to measure meaning in work. Derived from research findings on meaning in life, the ME-Work inventory offers three modules that can be used separately or jointly. Module 1 assesses four facets of meaning in work, i.e., coherence, significance, purpose and belonging; module 2 measures the subjective assessment (...) of work as meaningful or meaningless, and module 3 records the extent to which work is perceived as a source of meaning. We report on the development of the instrument and the results of an exploratory factor analysis in a pilot study of 115 working adults. A further study with 278 working adults provided evidence for construct and incremental validity. Relationships with meaning in life, mental health, job satisfaction, socio-moral climate, burnout and work as meaning were investigated. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the factor structure. Gender-specific analyses of the four facets of meaning’s differential predictive power provided additional insights. Practical implications and further research needs are discussed. (shrink)