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“Day to Day, Town to Town, Sing My Songs, Travel on”? Examining Aspects of Precarious Employment for Work Psychologists in Austria

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Advances in Safety Management and Human Factors (AHFE 2017)

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 604))

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Abstract

Work psychologists play a crucial role in today’s work systems, where psychological stressors are on the rise. However, the occupational profile of work psychologists is not clearly defined by Austrian law and atypical employment might be common among Austrian work psychologists. In our study, we identified aspects of an undefined and insecure occupational profile and hypothesized a positive association with role ambiguity, which in turn was supposed to affect psychological wellbeing negatively. Finally, we hypothesized that well-functioning cooperation with occupational physicians would buffer experiences of role ambiguity in work psychologists. 31 experts were interviewed and salient topics served as a base for an Austria-wide online survey study with N = 122 participating work psychologists. Regression analyses supported the assumed effects. The results highlight the importance of a more clearly defined occupational profile for work psychologists. We discuss viable approaches to improve working conditions for work psychologists in Austria.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Chamber of Labor of Austria and the national associations of the occupational groups of occupational physicians, safety engineers, and work psychologists. Part of the results presented in this paper are also published in [27].

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, University of Innsbruck, Innrain 52f, 6020, Innsbruck, Austria

    Lisa Hopfgartner, Christian Seubert & Jürgen Glaser

Authors
  1. Lisa Hopfgartner
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  2. Christian Seubert
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  3. Jürgen Glaser
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lisa Hopfgartner .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Produção e Sistemas, Campus de Azurém, Guimarães, Portugal

    Pedro Arezes

Appendix: Item Wordings of Indices

Appendix: Item Wordings of Indices

Table 5. Items of the index undefined and insecure occupational profile.
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Table 6. Items of the index cooperation with occupational physicians.
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Hopfgartner, L., Seubert, C., Glaser, J. (2018). “Day to Day, Town to Town, Sing My Songs, Travel on”? Examining Aspects of Precarious Employment for Work Psychologists in Austria. In: Arezes, P. (eds) Advances in Safety Management and Human Factors. AHFE 2017. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 604. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60525-8_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60525-8_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60524-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60525-8

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