The classical criteria for the evaluation of clinical trials in cancer reflect alterations in physical well-being, but are insensitive to other important factors, such as psychosocial state, sociability, and somatic sensation that may play a critical role in determining the patients' functional response to their illness and its treatment. The Functional Living Index-Cancer is designed for easy, repeated patient self-administration. It is a 22-item questionnaire that has been validated on 837 patients in two cities over a three-year period. Criteria for validity include stability of factor analysis, concurrent validation studies against the Karnofsky, Beck Depression, Spielberger State and Trait Anxiety, and Katz Activities of Daily Living scales, as well as the scaled version of The General Health Questionnaire and The McGill/ Melzack Pain Index. The index is uncontaminated by social desirability issues. The validation studies demonstrate the lack of correlation between traditional measures of patient response and other significant functional factors such as depression and anxiety (r = 0.33), sociability and family interaction, and nausea. These findings elucidate the frequently observed discrepancies between traditional assessments of clinical response and overall functional patient outcome. The index is proposed as an adjunct to clinical trials assessment and may provide additional patient functional information on which to analyse the outcome of clinical trials or offer specific advice to individual patients.
PurposeThis exploratory study aims to examine the effects of leadership on organizational climate, employee psychological capital, commitment, and wellbeing in a religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.Design/methodology/approachLeadership effects are investigated using established scales including the transformational leadership scale, (TLS), organizational climate questionnaire (OCQ), positive and negative affect scale (PANAS), psychological capital (PsyCap), and organizational commitment. It is a context‐based study that considers a unique organizational culture that comprises social, political, economic, technological, personnel, and personal facets. The survey was administered across a large religious/church‐based non‐profit organization.FindingsThe findings show strong positive relationships between employee ratings of their immediate supervisor's transformational leadership and employee ratings of organizational climate, wellbeing, employee commitment and psychological capital. Additional analyses which explored the impact of demographic variables revealed older employees recorded significantly higher scores on psychological capital than younger employees. These findings inform organizational sustainability where the principles of socially responsible management practices form the heart of responsible stewardship.Research limitations/implicationsRisks of method variance or response biases are likely as all data are drawn from employee surveys, and some selection bias as respondents could not be directly compared with non‐respondents.Originality/valueThis study makes a significant contribution to the non‐profit literature by providing further evidence of the impact of leadership on organizational climate, with the added dimensions of psychological capital, employee wellbeing, and commitment adding to the knowledge of these relationships.
Purpose
Employees’ job engagement is a key driver for organizational success and competitive advantage. Based on Kahn’s engagement theory and social exchange theory, the purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between job engagement, transformational leadership, high-performance human resource (HR) practices, climate for innovation, and contextual performance.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire survey, conducted at two different points in time, was employed to collect data from 394 pairs of Vietnamese university academics and their leaders. Data were analyzed by structural equation modeling (SEM) and multilevel SEM using the Statistical Package for Social Science Version 24 and Mplus Version 7.4.
Findings
The findings indicated that transformational leadership and high-performance HR practices were key drivers of employees’ job engagement. A climate for innovation contributed effectively to mediate the effect of transformational leadership on employees’ job engagement. Further, employees’ job engagement was positively and significantly related to contextual performance.
Research limitations/implications
The short time lag between the two data collection phases might limit the ability to reach definite causal conclusions. Future research using a longitudinal design is needed to provide stronger validation for the underlying model.
Originality/value
This study is a rare attempt that investigates the process from which employees’ job engagement is generated and contributes to improve contextual performance in the higher education sector.
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