The stress of managerial and professional women: is the price too high?

‘Live as domestic a life as possible. Have your child with you all the time. Lie down an hour after each meal. Have but two hours intellectual life a day. And never touch pen, brush or pencil as long as you live’. Dr S. Weir Mitchell, 1855 When Dr Mitchell, purportedly the greatest North American nerve specialist of his time, gave the above advice to his patient Charlotte Perkins Gilman, he almost certainly believed he was helping her get over a severe nervous condition. Fortunately, she did not take his advice. Instead she devoted herself to the study of economics and regained her health. The perspectives offered to working women by many a modern day Dr Mitchell appear to have changed somewhat in subtlety, but little in kind. For example, the August 18, 1986 cover of Fortune magazine featured a beaming mother and cherubic child illustrating the lead article, entitled ‘Why women are bailing out’. The article goes on to tell why four of the ‘best’ women MBAs had quit the workforce. One stated ‘I had to hire and fire people … I just don't want the hassle’ (of corporate life). Another having passed up a promotion at a Houston bank, ‘quit to have her first child’ and after her second had no plans to go back to work. A third complained: ‘I just couldn't do it. I watched other women sliding as they tried to juggle both career and family, making themselves crazy in the process’. And the fourth left a big accounting firm because the ‘hours were bad, and is now happier as a “part time teacher”’. While the Fortune article mentioned several reasons for women's leaving the corporate world ranging from competing family demands to discrimination, the underlying messages were clearly that mothers have to choose between children and career and that the business world is too cold, uncaring and tough for women, in a word no place for a lady. A chorus of such articles have appeared in the popular media warning against the dangers of career commitment for women, which are said to include everything from burnout, infertility, alcoholism, heart attacks to terminal spinsterhood (Faludi, 1991). More serious treatments emanating from academia have often reached similar conclusions. These dire pronouncements are especially influential to young women contemplating a professional or managerial career, but indeed those already in such careers may also wonder if they have made a bad choice. To answer such questions, this paper will explore some aspects of the relationship between career and emotional health and well-being for a group of highly successful career women.     

Erratum: The JOB saga continues: chapter three

Ashkanasy, N. M. The JOB saga continues: chapter three. Journal of Organizational Behavior, Volume, 28, 137–139. The above editorial (DOI: 10.1002/job.437) was published in print in February 2007. A number of printing errors were subsequently identified throughout the article: Page 137, line 1: ‘Volume 25’ should read ‘Volume 28’ Page 137, line 4: ‘Issue 28’ should read ‘Volume 28’ Page 137, line 22: ‘for over 30 years now’ should read ‘for over 30 years’ Page 138, line 31: ‘though the JOB’ should read ‘through the JOB’     

Changing careers: the effects of social context

This paper investigates the social context in which career decisions are made. Results show that beyond individual‐level factors such as demographics and work history, individuals' decisions to change careers are socially embedded. Findings suggest that the greater the diversity of an individual's network of advisors, the greater the likelihood that an individual will change careers. In addition, this paper explores the mechanisms through which different subsets of advice relationships — instrumental versus psychosocial — affect the decision to change careers. Results show that the greater the diversity of an individual's set of instrumental relations, the greater the number of offers he or she receives during the job search process and, further, that the number of offers received is positively related to the likelihood of changing careers. The diversity of an individual's set of psychosocial relations was related to his or her confidence to overcome career obstacles. However, confidence was not, in turn, related to career change, counter to expectations. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Broadsided by broad traits: How to sink science in five dimensions or less

This paper is a conceptual and methodological critique of arguments advanced by Ones and Viswesvaran (1996, this issue) favoring ‘broad’ over ‘narrow’ personality traits for personnel selection and theoretical explanation. We agree with Ones and Viswesvaran that predictors should match criteria in terms of specificity. We depart from them, however, in our view of how traits should be chosen to obtain the best possible prediction and explanation of a complex overall job performance criterion. We argue that the best criterion-related validities will be attained if researchers use a construct-oriented approach to match specific traits (i.e. traits narrower than the Big Five) to those specific job performance dimensions that have been found to be job relevant. We further argue that researchers should focus on development of theories of job performance that incorporate constructs that are both specific and meaningful. If researchers seek to emphasize only overall job performance and personality traits greater than or equal to the Big Five in breadth, we will fail to acquire a great deal of important knowledge about the nature and causes of important aspects of work behavior.     

On the use of criteria based on the SMART acronym to assess quality of performance indicators for safety management in process industries

Management of safety, and barriers in particular, includes using information expressing performance, i.e. use of safety performance indicators. For this information to be useful, the indicators should demonstrate adequate quality. In other words, they should satisfy some predefined set of quality criteria. Without showing adequate quality, the indicators are generally unable to provide sufficient support for barrier management, which could result in poor decisions. In this article, the use of the SMART criteria is considered to assess the quality of safety performance indicators in process industries. SMART being an acronym for ‘specificity’, ‘measurability’ or ‘manageability’, ‘achievability’, ‘relevancy’ and ‘time-based’, covering five key aspects and criteria for assessing the quality of an indicator. A discussion on whether the indicators are able to demonstrate adequate quality by satisfying these criteria has been conducted. The finding is that all of the SMART criteria should be satisfied for a safety performance indicator to demonstrate acceptable quality and to be regarded as useful to support barrier management decision-making. However, it has also been observed that including the ‘M’ criterion in the assessment of quality is not needed. When all the other criteria are satisfied there is no way the conclusions could be misleading as a result of measurability or manageability aspects. Hence, for safety performance indicator quality, only four of the criteria are assessed and suggested for such situations to shorten the acronym to ‘STAR’. A key safety indicator used in downstream process facilities, i.e. ‘dangerous fluid overfilling events’, motivated from the 2005 Texas City refinery accident, is used to illustrate the situation. The indicator is also applied to another incident, the Buncefield oil storage depot's accident in 2005, to provide a broader context for using it. The findings in this article could also be applied beyond the context studied. This means that, despite focusing on safety indicators in the process industries, the findings are considered as relevant and applicable to other types of performance indicators and to other energy industries.     

Trevor Kletz's scholarly legacy: A co-citation analysis

Dr. Kletz is one the pioneers in the process safety area, known widely for his work on inherent safety design and loss prevention. He worked 38 years in Imperial Chemical Industries, and became a fulltime researcher only after his retirement. He published more than 200 papers and 15 books during his retirement. The intellectual basis analysis presented in this article shows that he frequently cited his books in his articles, indicating that his industrial experience was very influential to his scholarly contributions. Lawley, H.G. was one of the researchers whose work had most influence on Kletz's research. Among Dr. Kletz's publications, the article ‘What You Don't Have, Can't Leak’ has the highest impact, while his most influential book is ‘Process plants: A handbook for inherently safer design’. The references co-citation network is divided in two clearly connected components: his earlier work related to infra-red spectra, and his later work addressing process safety related topics, including inherent safety and hazard and accident analysis. Both his work and that of his followers is rooted in a similar intellectual basis within process safety research, in which particularly Dr. Kletz's earlier work forms an influential original body of knowledge rooted in his industrial experience. His career is a prime example of how process safety research has been strongly influenced by knowledge from industrial practice, illustrating that a continued strong connection between industry and academia can lead to very fruitful outcomes. It is hoped that the presented analysis can inspire especially young graduates with academic interests to first embark on an industrial career to gain industrial experience before aiming to contribute to academic process safety knowledge.     

Valuing lives equally in a benefit-coast analysis of safety projects: A method to reconcile theory and practice

A value of statistical life (VSL) is used in cost-benefit analysis (CBA) as a monetary measure of the benefits to people from small risk reductions that arise from safety projects. Despite its widespread use in a number of countries, the concept of a VSL remains controversial, not least because it implies acceptance of the underlying ethical assumptions of CBA together with the idea that ‘social welfare’ can be measured and aggregated in some manner. In addition, to comply with theory, variable VSLs for different groups within society would be advocated. However, without fail, empirically, it is the case that those countries that employ a willingness to pay based approach to cost-benefit analysis of a safety project appraisal tend to use a single value for that accident context that is independent of the per capita income level, or indeed other personal characteristics, of the sub-group in society to which the safety improvement will actually apply. This article presents a straightforward, but theoretically justified adaptation to the calculation of a VSL which allows empirical practice by policymakers i.e. the application of a “common” VSL for any particular hazard within a given society, to be compatible with a CBA decision making approach.     

Inherently safer design of solvent processes at the conceptual stage: Practical application for substitution

The implementation of inherently safer design concepts is considered beneficial to avoid hazards during early stages of design. The application of existing process design and modeling techniques that aid ‘substitution’, ‘intensification’ and ‘attenuation’ has been shown in this work. The techniques have been applied to solvent processes because of the inherent hazards associated with them, such as large inventories, and presence of highly toxic and flammable materials. For ‘substitution’, computer aided molecular design technique has been applied to select inherently safer solvents for a solvent operation. For ‘intensification’ and ‘attenuation’, consequence models and regulatory guidance from EPA RMP have been integrated into process simulation. Combining existing techniques provides a design team with a higher level of information to make decisions based on process safety. A case study has been shown for liquid extraction of acetic acid–water mixture. Suitable solvents were identified using ICAS 11.0-ProCAMD, and consequence models were integrated into Aspen plus simulator using a calculator sheet. Solvents such as 5-nonanone, 2-nonanone and 5-methyl-2-hexanone provide inherently safer options, but conventionally-used solvent, ethyl acetate, provides higher degree of separation capability. A conclusive decision regarding feasible solvents and operating conditions would depend on design requirements, regulatory guidance, and safety criteria specified for the process. Inherent safety has always been an important consideration to be implemented during early design steps, and this paper presents a methodology to incorporate the principles and to obtain inherently safer alternatives.     

Why are powered two wheeler riders still fatally injured in road junction crashes? – A causation analysis

Introduction: Powered Two Wheeler (PTW) crashes continue to be a road safety concern with a plateauing of the number of associated fatalities. Method: Forty one UK fatal or serious injury crashes involving a PTW and another vehicle at a junction were examined. Crash causation was analysed using the Driver Reliability and Error Analysis Method (DREAMv3.2). Crashes were split into two groups: Group A, where the other vehicle was travelling in the opposite direction to the PTW and commenced a right turn across the PTW’s path; and Group B where the other vehicle turned right out of a side road (or entrance) across the PTW’s path. Results: Overall, the factor that led directly to the crash (phenotype) was most commonly ‘too high speed’ or ‘too late action’ for the motorcyclist and ‘too early action’ for the other driver. Missed or late observations were contributory factors for both PTW riders and other vehicle drivers. Some differences between groups were observed with the PTW riders in Group B more likely to have ‘insufficient skills’ and the other vehicle drivers in Group A more likely to have ‘attention allocation’ as a causation factor. For both groups the crashes occurred because the other vehicle failed to give way to the PTW with causation chains that suggest ‘looked but failed to see’ is still an issue in this type of crash. The excessive speed of the PTW contributed to some crashes. Conclusions: This analysis suggests that drivers failing to give way to PTW riders at junctions is still a problem. This may relate to the ‘looked but did not see’ phenomenon. Causation differences were observed between the examined groups. Practical considerations: The DREAM methodology is an effective tool in analysing crash data from police collision investigation reports. Different countermeasures may be necessary to prevent different types of junction crashes.     

Cultural influences on risks and risk management: six case studies

Ever since the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant on 28 March 1979, the term ‘safety culture’ has been a hot topic for both researchers and organisations. Both the content and causes of a poor safety culture have been the focus of numerous research projects, but also its consequences on an organisation's safety performance and the way organisations should be ‘designed’ to facilitate a ‘good’ safety culture. Since others in this issue focus on the content and causes of safety culture, this article focuses on its consequences from two different but inter-related angles. In the first place, the cultural influences on incident causation are considered. In the second place, the cultural influences on risk management, or specifically incident reporting and analysis, are considered. Both angles are supported by empirical incident data collected in the Dutch steel industry and the medical domain. To collect this data, a risk management approach called PRISMA was used. Further, cultural differences between the domains investigated are highlighted and discussed.     

Accidents in “normal” operation – Can you see them coming?

Despite the increased understanding of how accidents occur in the chemical process industry, today's safety measures and indicators do not prevent these accidents from occurring. Finding a way to better, proactively, identifying precursors to imminent safety risks, could help organizations to focus their limited resources. The protocol proposed and demonstrated in this paper shows a way to do this. Basis is to examine usually low consequence, high likelihood reoccurring disruptions or deviations in the process (e.g. defects, disturbances, anomalies) for their relevance to process safety and define those possibly leading to accidents as ‘precursors’. As a next step ineffective supervising and managerial control processes and their underlying latent conditions, causing the persistence of these precursors, are identified and it was shown how these cause safety barriers to become ineffective and to open the way to accidents. In conclusion, this paper demonstrates that the proposed 7-stage protocol developed to this end can explicitly and proactively indicate safety risks, and find the controlling latent conditions causing the trouble. It will help organizations to direct their resources to improve safety, which will include their control structure and their normal way of working and will yield higher efficiency as a side benefit.     

Occupational Health and Social Resources

There is a relationship between the changes in work-related diseases and the following factors: the transformation of the organization of work, organizational development, as well as human and social changes in the work environment. These factors also influence the maintenance of industrial health and safety standards at work. Safety technology will continue to be important, but will be reduced in significance compared to the so-called soft factors, that is, all dimensions and parameters affecting people’s health and social environment at the work place.

It seems that in the future the relationship between the social resource development and work protection will become more relevant. Social resource development influences the quality of work performance and motivation, the quality of work and work protection, the likelihood of accidents and breakdowns, and the level of self-control and capacity of change.

The consequences of work protection research will be discussed in this article with a focus on the contribution of social sciences.     

Performance dimension accessibility: Implications for rating accuracy

Recent models of evaluative information processing suggest that individuals will form differentiated dimensional judgments only if a differentiated set of categories or dimensions is accessible as behavior is observed. If, however, a differentiated set of dimensions is not accessible, individuals will form a more general global evaluation. Subsequent dimensional evaluations will be driven by this ‘overall ’evaluation. The present study supports this and indicates that dimensional performance evaluations will be more accurate if the performance appraisal dimensions are accessible to individual raters. This study demonstrates the importance of the accessibility of dimensions for accurate dimensional performance evaluations.     

Assessing the likelihood of secondary crashes on freeways with Adaptive Signal Control System deployed on alternate routes

Introduction: Reducing the likelihood of freeway secondary crashes will provide significant safety, operational and environmental benefits. This paper presents a method for assessing the likelihood of freeway secondary crashes with Adaptive Signal Control Systems (ASCS) deployed on alternate routes that are typically used by diverted freeway traffic to avoid any delay or congestion due to a freeway primary crash. Method: The method includes four steps: (1) identification of secondary crashes, (2) verification of alternate routes, (3) assessment of the likelihood of secondary crashes for freeways with ASCS deployed on alternate routes and non-ASCS (i.e. pre-timed, semi- or fully-actuated) alternate routes, and (4) investigation of unobserved heterogeneity of the likelihood of freeway secondary crashes. Four freeway sections (i.e., two with ASCS deployed on alternate routes and two non-ASCS alternate routes) in South Carolina are considered. Results and Conclusions: Findings from the logistic regression modeling reveal significant reduction in the likelihood of secondary crashes for one freeway section (i.e., Charleston I-26 E) with ASCS deployed on alternate route. Other factors such as rear-end crash, dark or limited light, peak period, and annual average daily traffic contribute to the likelihood of freeway secondary crashes. Furthermore, random-parameter logistic regression model results for Charleston I-26 E reveal that unobserved heterogeneity of ASCS effect exists across the observations and ASCS are associated with the reduction of the likelihood of freeway secondary crashes for 84% of the observations (i.e., primary crashes). Location of the primary crash on the freeway is observed to affect the benefit of ASCS toward freeway secondary crash reduction as the primary crash’s location determines how many upstream freeway vehicles will be able to take the alternate route. Practical Applications: Based on the findings, it is recommended that the South Carolina Department of Transportation (SCDOT) considers deploying ASCS on alternate routes parallel to freeway sections where high percentages of secondary crashes are found.     

Sam Mannan and his scientific publications: A life in process safety research

Dr. M. Sam Mannan is one of the true pioneers in the process safety area, spending almost his entire lifetime in process safety and risk research. He was dedicated to ‘make safety second nature’ and published an impressive body of work. An overview of his research helps understanding the process safety area and provides insight in the legacy of this process safety pioneer. In this paper, 327 publications authored by Dr. Mannan from 1999 to 2019 in Web of Science core collection were downloaded and visually analyzed from four perspectives: his publication outputs, collaboration networks, topic areas, and highly cited papers and cited references. The results show a rapidly increasing trend in his research activity, mostly through journal publications. He published in 53 different outlets, with Journal of Loss Prevention in the Process Industries being most frequently selected. Dr. Mannan had a very active and diverse worldwide network, and collaborated with 18 different countries/regions, nearly 90 different institutions and 387 authors. His publications addressed process safety-related topics widely, including safety related to liquefied natural gas, explosions, runaway reactions, inherent safety, flammability and aerosol, and more recently resilience. Dr. Mannan's most cited paper focused on ‘fuzzy risk matrix’, whereas the most frequently cited reference in his work is ‘thermal hazard evaluation by an accelerating rate calorimeter’ by Townsend DI in 1980. Based on his most recent research activity, promising future directions for process safety research include resilience linked to risk assessment and management, for instance through the ‘safety triad’ concept he promoted shortly before passing away.     

Thought self-leadership: The influence of self-talk and mental imagery on performance

Self-leadership theory can be described as the ‘process of influencing oneself ’as opposed to the influence of leaders over followers (Manz, 1983, 1986). We focus on and develop a model for a particular aspect of self-leadership — thought self-leadership — emphasizing two primary elements, self-talk and mental imagery. The major thrust of this model is that employees can influence or lead themselves by utilizing specific cognitive strategies that focus on individual self-dialogue and mental imagery. It is proposed that constructive thought management through the effective application of cognitive strategies can lead to enhanced individual and organizational performance.     

A study of the precursors leading to ‘organisational’ accidents in complex industrial settings

This study aggregates the narrative findings from the investigation of 12 accidents or ‘near hits’ across a wide range of industrial settings to build a catalogue of organisational and cultural precursors to accidents. It was found that many were important factors in multiple events. It is argued that by addressing these potential vulnerabilities using the findings and proposed tools based upon them, organisations undertaking safety related activities will not only develop greater awareness of these deeper-lying issues but should be able to better control the risks associated with them.The precursors have been classified under eight headings and examples of key findings from three of these are presented. Statements providing potential defences against the identified vulnerabilities have been developed which should enable organisations to scrutinise the adequacy of existing expectations or requirements within their business. Probing questions have been developed based on the statements which should allow an assessment to be made as to whether these have been ‘embedded’ in the organisation.It is argued that organisational vulnerability tools should be developed to enable a systematic approach to ‘diagnosing’ incubating precursors. It is also argued that there is the potential for further resilience to be achieved through the use of models of the complex dynamics of socio-technical processes within organisations.     

Occupational deaths and injuries by the types of street cleaning process

This study aims to obtain an overall picture of occupational injuries by the types of street cleaning process. Three hundred and fifty-four injured persons were analyzed in terms of the company size and details of the injured persons and accidents. Results show that ‘roadway cleaning’ was the most common type of cleaning process for injuries, followed by ‘sidewalk cleaning,’ ‘going/returning to work by bike’ and ‘lifting/carrying.’ The findings also show that most accidents which occur when ‘going/returning to work by bike’ are in the form of traffic accidents, while in other processes they happen most often in the form of slips. Most of the accidents related to ‘lifting/carrying’ affected workers in their 50s or younger while other processes had a large portion of injured persons in their 50s or older. The findings of this study can be used as baseline data for preventative policies.     

The safety barometer: How safe is my plant today? Is instantaneously measuring safety level utopia or realizable?

During the last decade, serious accidents have continued to occur in the process industry. Apparently the scenarios of various undesired events leading to those accidents are still not sufficiently controlled. The key question is how potentially hazardous situations develop, what processes form the basis for this development, and how to control them? Safety level is not static but depends on many risk factors that change in presence and intensity over location and time. Safety level is dependent not only on technical process parameters that have immediate effects on the ‘frequency’ or probability of catastrophic consequences, but also depends on equipment integrity degradation, operational and management quality, attitudes, and cultural processes which may change over a prolonged time. The time and human interaction aspects make dynamic risk assessment complex. This paper will outline a conceptual approach using in addition to the regular process parameter signals received, also weak and slowly changing signals from various safety indicators, enabling to keep track of the risk factors. In theory this could lead to obtaining an instantaneous safety level ‘measure’ making possible forecast alarming for an imminent event to occur. Such concept could be regarded as a ‘writing’ safety barometer, or barograph. However, there are quite a number of problems to be solved which in the paper will be discussed.