Why Teleworkers are More Satisfied with Their Jobs than are Office-Based Workers: When Less Contact is Beneficial

This study challenges assumptions regarding the value and necessity of frequent face-to-face workplace interaction by building upon a theoretical framework for the consequences of telecommuting. Using a multiple mediation approach and path analysis, the study examines the extent to which telework affects job satisfaction through the experiences of work–life conflict, stress due to meetings and interruptions, perceived organizational politics, and information exchange. Results reveal that high-intensity teleworkers (n=89) are more satisfied than office-based employees (n=103) and achieve significant benefits from their work arrangement, with work–life conflict most influential toward job satisfaction. The path model reveals more complex indirect paths linking telework and job satisfaction.     

Communicating About Chronic Caregiving in the Workplace: Employees’ Disclosure Preferences,Intentions, and Behaviors

A growing number of Americans are living with chronic health conditions that require informal, ongoing care from family members who are also in the paid labor force. In this exploratory study, communication privacy management is used to make sense of chronic caregiving (N = 48–64) and noncaregiving (N = 174–178) employees’ disclosure preferences, intentions, and behaviors in the workplace. We find that workers in general anticipate that they would disclose to many individuals at work about their caregiving, but employees actually disclose much less information to far fewer people at work when they occupy the chronic caregiver role. For chronic caregivers, positive perceptions about coworker supportiveness predict increased disclosure behaviors. Finally, future research directions as employers, workers, and policy makers prepare for the complex challenges associated with negotiating paid work and unpaid chronic caregiving are provided.     

From Knowing to Not Knowing: Moving Beyond “Outcomes”

The ways that museums measure the success of their exhibitions reveal their attitudes and values. Are they striving to control visitors so that people will experience what the museum wants? Or are they working to support visitors, who seek to find their own path? The type of approach known as “outcome‐based evaluation” weighs in on the side of control. These outcomes are sometimes codified and limited to some half‐dozen or so “learning objectives” or “impact categories.” In essence, those who follow this approach are committed to creating exhibitions that will tell visitors what they must experience. Yet people come to museums to construct something new and personally meaningful (and perhaps unexpected or unpredictable) for themselves. They come for their own reasons, see the world through their own frameworks, and may resist (and even resent) attempts to shape their experience. How can museums design and evaluate exhibitions that seek to support visitors rather than control them? How can museum professionals cultivate “not knowing” as a motivation for improving what they do?     

Golden Handcuffs in the Fortune 1000? An Employee-Organization Relationship Survey of Public Relations Executives and Practitioners in the Largest Companies

This study delivered an employee-organization relationship survey to public relations executives and practitioners in Fortune 1000 companies. Almost two-thirds (64.3%) were the top-ranking public relations executives in their organizations, and most (79.2%) were paid $100,000 or more. Respondents had significantly higher scores on a majority (66.7%) of relationship outcome measures than did Millennials who worked for public relations agencies. The researcher found a statistically significant difference between salary categories at or above $100,000 and those below $100,000 on the combined dependent variables of trust, control mutuality, commitment, and satisfaction using a one-way between-groups multivariate analysis of variance: F(1, 50) = 4.586, p = .003; Wilks’ Lambda = .71; partial η² = .29. Results may be explained by age and workplace variables and/or the higher compensation and benefits embodied in the concept of the Golden Handcuffs. Results also suggest that relationship-type scales are not reliable.     

Degradation of Emerald green in oil paint and its contribution to the rapid change in colour of the Descente des vaches (1834–1835) painted by Théodore Rousseau

Abstract

Descente des vaches (1836) by Théodore Rousseau in the Mesdag Collection in The Hague is barely readable and its paint layers are in poor condition. The surface of the painting is strongly deformed and cracked, the whole painting has darkened and especially the greens have lost all or most of their colour resulting in brown passages. Large passages of the painting that were painted with multiple thick and medium-rich layers have darkened dramatically. This paper proposes that the degradation of Emerald green (Cu(C₂H₃O₂)₂·3Cu(AsO₂)₂, copperacetoarsenite) – the main green pigment used in this painting – is a significant factor in the cause of the darkening. Electron backscatter images reveal that the Emerald green particles are shown different degrees of degradation: from partially to completely disintegrated. Elemental maps show that arsenic is distributed throughout the paint cross section, with relatively higher concentrations around iron- and aluminium-containing particles, and in the varnish layer. Imaging-Fourier-transform infrared microscopy detects copper soaps in the degraded Emerald green-containing layers. Analytical data from four paint cross sections strongly suggest that Emerald green reacts with free fatty acids derived from the binding medium forming copper soaps and mobile arsenic-based species. Chemical laboratory experiments fully support this hypothesis. Emerald green and palmitic acid in chloroform form copper palmitate and arsenic trioxide (arsenolite, cubic) under room temperature and normal light conditions. The degradation of Emerald green particles in Descente des vaches has resulted in a loss of light-reflecting surfaces and in newly formed compounds in the paint, both contribute to the colour change from green to brown.     

Topic Avoidance,Everyday Talk,and Stress in Romantic Military and Non-Military Couples

Relationships are increasingly impacted by military involvement, necessitating a deeper understanding of communication within these couples. This study examined perceptions of everyday talk, topic avoidance, and stress of participants romantically involved with (a) a military partner (n = 118) or (b) a non-military partner (n = 94). Couple types avoided similar topics, but non-military partners avoided these topics more frequently than military partners. Both couple types engaged in everyday talk, but military partners found this communicative exchange to be more important. Non-military partners experienced greater stress than military partners, and communication was predictive of the stress experienced. The results of this study highlight similarities and differences in romantic couples and reveal areas in which relationship education can address these communicative nuances of military couples.     

Collegiality in the Workplace

ABSTRACT

Libraries are considered safe spaces to explore different topics facilitating the sharing of knowledge so it would appear that colle giality and civility are cornerstones of our service. But within our organizations, collegiality is not always stressed as an important value within the workplace. Civility and collegiality are important for libraries as they are the foundation of our public services and support diversity of ideas and open communication within the workplace. Collegiality standards are set by the leaders and managers within an organization and this column will explore the need for civility standards to successfully achieve library goals.

Column Editor’s NoteLeadership skills are essential to creating libraries that are effective and relevant to their communities. While some individuals seem to possess inherent leadership capabilities, it is possible to develop and strengthen skills to effectively lead a department, unit, or organization. This column explores ways for librarians and library workers to improve their knowledge and abilities as they lead their units, libraries, communities, and the library profession. Interested authors are invited to submit articles for this column to the editor at maggie4@clemson.edu.     

Revival of the Position Paper: Aligning Curricula and Professional Competencies

Those of us who teach technical and professional writing may read [findings on typical pedagogical effectiveness] and end up feeling that our efforts to simulate workplace writing and to teach workplace genres in our classrooms are at best unreliable and at worst futile. Blakeslee (2001), p. 170.

Courses: Writing for Public Relations, Business Communications; Marketing

Objective: Students will be able to identify audience issues, marshal evidence, garner support, and motivate adoption of a position via visual imagery and persuasive writing     

A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Organizational Dissent and Workplace Freedom in Five European Economies

Individuals in five European countries—Finland, France, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom (n = 1184)—completed a survey exploring the relationship between organizational dissent and workplace freedom of speech. Results revealed workplace freedom of speech is positively correlated with dissent among the entire sample in France and in Germany. Results in Spain were nonsignificant. In the United Kingdom, there was a negative relationship between workplace freedom of speech and dissent. There was a negative relationship between workplace freedom of speech and articulated dissent and a positive relationship with latent dissent in Finland. Moreover, MANCOVA testing showed nationality to have a significant effect on organizational dissent and workplace freedom of speech. Germans scored the highest on dissent and workplace freedom with Spain scoring the lowest.     

Welcoming Our Robot Overlords: Initial Expectations About Interaction With a Robot

This study examined the relationships between faculty workplace bullying with graduate students’ burnout and organizational citizenship behaviors. Graduate students (N = 272) completed a self-report questionnaire measuring the degree to which faculty bully them at work (i.e., through belittlement, punishment, managerial misconduct, exclusion) along with reports of their student burnout (i.e., exhaustion, cynicism, professional efficacy) and use of organizational citizenship behaviors (i.e., helping, civic virtue, sportsmanship). Results of canonical correlations revealed that faculty bullying was related positively to graduate student burnout and was related inversely to organizational citizenship behaviors.     

Insights into stigma management communication theory: considering stigmatization as interpersonal influence

ABSTRACT

The theory of stigma management communication has helped identify and categorize the tactics people use to manage stigmatization, but tactics' predictors remain unknown. To address this gap, we considered stigmatization through the lens of interpersonal influence: as an act in which stigmatizers attempt to persuade their targets to accept categorization and de-individualization into a social group with a marginalized social status. Obstacle hypothesis, a theory of resistance to interpersonal influence, was used to derive predictors. Participants (N = 124) facing possible stigmatization due to their genetic risk for a chronic health condition completed a survey and shared memories of their initial test disclosures. The empirical tests showed that having a stronger sense of meaning in life, more unsafe experiences, and a broader information network predicted resisting stigmatization. The practical implications of bolstering one's sense of meaning in life and argumentation skills and their connections to resilience research are discussed.     

Records guardianship: security and protection in the workplace

Ensuring the proper protection of records presents numerous challenges. The archival community has adequately addressed how to recognise, and deal with, threats to the conservation and preservation care of records, but security risks in the workplace are often not given appropriate attention. The identification of potential sources of risk, at all stages of a record's existence, and the discovery of solutions to prevent or mitigate these risks is crucial to guaranteeing the ongoing care and complete protection of records of all types.     

IFLA and other International Library Associations,Institutions and Organizations

Column Editor's Notes

This workforce column, guest written by Jill Mierke, evokes memories of the saying, you are not alone. The challenges of workforce and workplace leadership for any library chief executive officer are many and varied. We come to those roles usually as experienced (if not seasoned) professionals, but we do not always have the theoretical grounding and specific professional practice experience a dedicated human resources professional might bring to the organization. A Master's in library and information sciences qualification is no guarantee that you will have the requite knowledge, skills, experience, and abilities to be a good people manager or a strategic leader of the library workforce. This article paints a compelling picture of what success for library human resource management and leadership can look like, through the lens of an experienced and seasoned human resources professional. Recent workforce research is telling us there are many roles within our libraries that are now being successfully filled by “other” professionals. In our ever changing and dynamic information landscape, the human resources strategic advisory role is one of them.

As always, I invite further contributions to our ongoing discussion! Please submit articles for this column to the editor at vicki.williamson@usask.ca     

General remarks on the painting technique of Velazquez and restoration carried out at the Museo del Prado

Abstract

The collection of paintings by Velázquez in the Museo del Prado is important both because of the number of works — about 50 — and because of their quality and significance. It includes the Feast of Bacchus (The Drunkards), the Forge of Vulcan, Christ on the Cross, the Surrender of Breda (The Lances), the Fable of Arachne (The Spinners), Las Meninas and various royal portraits. Most of these works are in very good condition, which is essential for a proper study of the painter's technique and his development; in addition, since their source is the royal collection, they are well documented. Since 1982 most of the works by Velázquez in the Museo del Prado have been submitted to technical examination and to restoration. The technical studies included X-radiography, infrared reflectography, and analysis of the supports and materials, allowing us to establish the characteristics of each painting (technique, changes in composition, condition, history) and the development ofthe artist through the changes in his technique. Restoration consisted basically of consolidating the paint layers, moderate cleaning and the inpainting oflacunae. The only exception to the general good condition of the paintings was The Spinners, which presented a serious problem of craquelure and lack of adhesion in the paint layer.     

The Classroom-Community Connection Design: An Instructional Approach Guided by Service-Learning and Dual System of Vocational Education and Training to Improve Journalism Students' Workplace Readiness and Civic Engagement

Today's rapidly changing media industry poses an ongoing challenge for American institutions of higher education, which are often responsible for educating and preparing the next generation of skilled professionals. This case study examined how a service-learning design guided by the dual system of vocational education and training could help address journalism students' workplace readiness and increase their capacity to contribute to the community.     

Leadership Reflections: Parent Leadership

Abstract

There are many types of leadership but little known is parent leadership – how parental skills are applied to the workplace. Libraries depend more on soft skills that facilitate work and advance an organization. How individuals work together in an organization is just as critical as the work they accomplish. This depends on the ability of employees to develop and utilize their soft skills complementing their technical skills and expertise. As leaders focus more on behavior, they may tap into their parenting techniques in order to coach, guide, direct, and resolve conflicts. While a leader may not be able to ground an employee or take away their TV watching privileges, they might find themselves resorting to similar techniques in their management.     

Reality Bites: An Investigation of the Genre of Reality Television and Its Relationship to Viewers’ Body Image

Utilizing a unique methodological approach, this study investigated subtypes of reality television (RTV) to study the influence of exposure to RTV on body image (body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness) as compared a more traditional weekly report of RTV viewing. Young adults (N = 472) completed online surveys measuring their exposure to RTV and perceptions of their own body image. Four types of RTV were uncovered. Regression analyses using these 4 factors demonstrated that exposure to competition-based RTV shows (e.g., Dancing with the Stars) predicted increased body dissatisfaction and drive for thinness. On the other hand, the weekly self-report of RTV viewing did not reveal any relationships between weekly exposure to RTV and body image. These findings underline the need for cultivation-based media studies that include program-based measures of genre-specific media exposure, especially when seeking to capture media effects related to RTV.     

Nineteenth century chrome yellow and chrome deep from Winsor & NewtonTM

The Winsor & Newton^TM (W&N) nineteenth century archive database includes digitised images of hand-written instructions and workshop notes for the manufacture of their artists’ materials. For the first time, all 183 production records for yellow lead chromate pigments were studied and evaluated. They revealed that W&N produced essentially three pigment types: lemon/pale based on mixed crystals of lead chromate and lead sulphate [Pb(Cr,S)O₄]; middle on pure monoclinic lead chromate [PbCrO₄]; and deep that contains the latter admixed with basic lead chromate [Pb₂CrO₅]; accounting for 53, 22, and 21% of the production, respectively. Production records for primrose (4%) were also included since the formulation results in mixed crystals with a high percentage of lead sulphate, which, according to the literature, leaves it more prone to degradation. Each pigment type is characterised by only one or two main synthetic pathways; process variations reveal a systematic and thorough search for a high-quality durable product. A comparison of the chemical composition of pigment reconstructions with early W&N oil paint tubes showed that their records entitled ‘pale’ and ‘lemon’ correlated with the pigment in their tube labelled chrome yellow and, ‘middle’ and ‘deep’ with the label chrome deep. Lemon and middle pigment formulations were made into oil paints to assess their relative photo-stability. The degradation process was followed by colorimetry and was studied by synchrotron radiation-based techniques. Based on the X-ray absorption spectroscopy data, the possibility for creating a stability index for chrome yellows is discussed.