No abstract

The growth in corporate ownership of community pharmacies, which is associated with more stressful working environments, together with current economic pressures could have consequences not only for the future well-being of pharmacists but also for patient safety.

Within the existing leadership literature, the role of context for shaping the effectiveness of leadership is yet to be fully understood. One type of context that poses particular challenges for leaders is an environment where safety is highly critical (i.e., high exposure to risk and likelihood of an accident). We hypothesize that such environments call for specific transformational and transactional leadership behaviours, which differ from those behaviours most effective in less safety‐critical contexts. We tested for moderating effects of perceptions of hazard exposure and accident likelihood on the relationship between transformational leadership and Management‐By‐Exception‐Active with safety and job performance outcomes. The moderation effects of accident likelihood on the link between transformational/MBEA leadership and subordinate performance were supported, demonstrating variation in the effectiveness of leader behaviours dependent on followers’ perceptions about the likelihood for an accident. MBEA leadership was found to be more strongly linked to contextual performance and safety participation if accident likelihood was high, but not under low accident likelihood conditions. Transformational leadership was found to be less strongly related to these performance outcomes in contexts where safety was perceived as highly critical. Our findings have important theoretical and practical implications, and call into question the universality of the transformational–transactional leadership framework. Practical considerations focus on the implications for managers and supervisors who operate in safety‐critical contexts. Practitioner points Safety‐critical contexts pose particular challenges to leaders. If safety is perceived as highly critical, leaders and/or followers may hold different expectations about leadership and different leadership styles could be required compared to contexts where safety is not critical. Perceived effectiveness of transformational leadership and Management‐By‐Exception‐Active for employees’ safety participation and contextual performance is influenced by employees’ perceptions of the risk for an accident within their work context. Management‐By‐Exception‐Active is effective for enhancing team members’ extra effort for safety and contextual performance if the perceived risk of an accident is high, but less effective if perceptions of accident likelihood are low. Managers and supervisors should therefore pay attention to employees’ perceptions of risk of an accident and the factors that determine how employees perceive their context.

The veterinary profession recognises the importance of addressing work-related stress for veterinary surgeons’ wellbeing. Identifying aspects of veterinarians’ work that are sources of stress is a key step in implementing appropriate stress management interventions for the profession. However, little systematic research on the causes of stress in veterinary work has been carried out. A qualitative interview study was conducted with 18 veterinarians practising in the UK to explore aspects of their work that are stressful. Thematic analysis revealed principal stressors to be poor work-life balance, interaction with animal owners, specific aspects of euthanasia, dealing with poor animal welfare and staff management responsibilities. Injury risk, supervision arrangements for newly qualified veterinarians and lack of control over work were stressors for some. The practical implications of the findings for stress management in veterinary work are considered. Comments by several participants indicated a strong achievement focus and possible perfectionism. It is proposed that veterinarians with perfectionist traits might experience greater psychological distress in the face of some specific stressors in veterinary practice, and further investigation of possible interactive effects of work stressors and perfectionism on veterinarians’ wellbeing is merited.

Although self-disclosure is regarded primarily as an affiliative behavior, it has recently been proposed that disclosure may also function as an interpersonal manipulation strategy for females high in machiavellianism. A study was conducted to test this proposal, existing data being inconclusive. Groups of male (n = 29) and female (n = 27) subjects completed measures of machiavellianism and of willingness to self-disclose to the target of an experimental influence attempt. A significant positive correlation between machiavellianism and disclosure was found for female subjects; no relationship between the variables was evident for males. These findings suggest that machiavellian females may indeed use self-disclosure as a means of manipulating others in interpersonal control attempts. Theoretical and research implications are discussed.