Projects

Service robots in health and elderly care

The healthcare industry is facing significant personnel shortages, leading to a search for alternative labor sources such as service robots. Despite remarkable technological advancements, our understanding of service robots remains limited. Moreover, existing literature highlights consumer resistance towards the integration of these technological entities. This project aims to investigate the factors that drive and hinder the acceptance of service robots specifically in health and elderly care. Our research will provide valuable insights into how service robots can be effectively integrated into healthcare environments. 

Researchers: Jenny van Doorn and Jana Holthöwer

Risk management and inter-organizational control in public hospitals

A longitudinal case study of the design of a shared risk management system for five hospitals, focusing specifically on the co-construction of risk management systems and the organizational structures surrounding them. This study began in 2017 and has provided insights into how risk management systems change over time and the conditions for their successful implementation.

Researchers: Jacob Reilley (University of Groningen), Christian Huber (Copenhagen Business School) and Nadine Gerhardt-Huber (Helmut-Schmidt-University, Hamburg) 

Paid unlimited holidays

Using a field experiment (cluster-randomized controlled trial) covering a period of one year, our research team examines the effects of a paid unlimited leave policy on health (i.e., absenteeism), well-being (work engagement, job satisfaction) and job performance. In addition, the goal of the project is to identify key factors to improve the policy, to facilitate the implementation process and improve communication about the policy. In addition, we aim to better understand behavioral and cultural aspects of team dynamics that are at play when an unlimited leave policy is introduced in a company.

Involved: ING bank, Professor Jessica de Bloom (Universtity of Groningen), Professor Jana Kühnel (Goethe University Frankfurt), Professor Christine Syrek (University of Applied Sciences Bonn/Rhein-Sieg, Rheinbach), Professor Tim Vahle-Hinz (Humboldt University of Berlin) and research assistant Erika Varik (University of Groningen)

Hybrid work and mental health

The project aim is to understand how employees’ and leaders’ goals guide daily work location choices in the hybrid work context. Researchers are also investigating how alignment and mismatch between goals and location choices predict paradoxical effects on mental health, well-being, task performance, sense of belonging, distress, and career progression. This will ultimately contribute to a better scientific and applied understanding of goal-directed behaviour in context and its paradoxical outcomes.

Researchers: Eleni Giannakoudi (PhD, University of Groningen), Professor Jessica de Bloom (University of Groningen), Professor Susanne Scheibe (University of Groningen) and Assistant Professor Anita Keller (University of Groningen)

Crafting life for health and well-being: Understanding different types of crafting in everyday life and in challenging times

In the new flexible (tele)working life, life domains increasingly overlap and a holistic view on life, including both work and leisure, is urgently needed. The overall goal of this project is to better understand how the different forms of job crafting, off-job crafting, and boundary crafting are related and form patterns of crafting, as well as to examine predictors (i.e., stable, situational, and crisis-related) as well as health and well-being related outcomes of single and combined crafting behaviors. The project will pave the way for creating a more meaningful and sustainable (working) life in which employees take an active role in aligning their environment with their personal needs, preferences, and abilities. Beyond this project, our findings will directly inform the parallel development of hybrid crafting interventions combining in-company training and digital tools (websites & smartphone applications).

Researchers: Jessica de Bloom (University of Groningen), Georg Bauer (University of Zürich), Philipp Kerksieck (University of Zürich), Anja Morstatt (University of Zürich), Kang Leng Ho (University of Zürich), Martin Tusl (University of Zürich)

Health-oriented leadership

Keeping employees healthy in highly stressful times at work is essential for today’s organizations. Health-oriented leadership (HoL) is a leadership approach that emphasizes the promotion and maintenance of employees' health and well-being. This concept integrates health-related activities into the daily responsibilities of leaders and focuses on creating a supportive work environment. It has been developed and first published 10 years ago and has sparked many empirical studies looking at its effects on employee health. Therefore, we now synthesize these results and conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to further show its relevance for workplace health.

Research team: Dr. Miriam Arnold (University of Groningen) in collaboration with Leibniz Institute for Resilience Research and Helmut Schmidt University Hamburg