Research and Publications - Department of Management

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Healthcare worker resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic: An integrative review
(Wiley, 2021) Baskin, Rachel G.; Bartlett, Robin; Villanova University; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Aim: The purpose of this review was to examine resilience among healthcare workers during the coronavirus-disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an unprecedented strain on healthcare workers internationally. Rising infection rates, inadequate personal protective equipment, and the lack of availability of hospital beds has resulted in further deterioration of the already-fragile mental health of healthcare workers. Resilient workers have lower rates of burnout and improved patient outcomes. Evaluation: PubMed and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature databases were searched using the terms resilience, nurse and COVID-19 to identify studies on resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results were organized by outcome measures for comparison. Key Issues: Resilience scores among frontline healthcare workers worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic in the studies reviewed were overall found to be in the moderate range. Data from the United States showed a decrease in nurse resilience, whereas participants from China had increased resilience compared with pre-pandemic levels. Conclusions: Building resilience in nurses and other healthcare workers can serve as a protective factor against negative outcomes related to the job, including burnout, anxiety and depression, and can improve patient outcomes. Implications for Nursing Management: Strategies for building resilience in healthcare workers are discussed.
Can't leave it at home? The effects of personal stress on burnout and salesperson performance
(Elsevier, 2020) Peasley, Michael C.; Hochstein, Bryan; Britton, Benjamin P.; Srivastava, Rajesh, V; Stewart, Geoffrey T.; Middle Tennessee State University; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; University of Louisiana Lafayette
Personal stress is a prevalent problem in a connected world. For salespeople, demands of a connected workplace have largely eliminated boundaries between personal and work life, allowing stress from personal issues to spill over into their work. Thus, problems of health, relationships, and finances are no longer "left at home" for salespeople. Rather, a less central workplace model (e.g., remote workplaces and mobile platforms) and 24/7 work expectations expand the workplace, which comingles personal and work demands. Utilizing a sample of 331 salespeople, we study personal stressors that cross boundaries into the workplace and find that they play a critical role in the formation of burnout across its dimensions, which leads to reduced salesperson performance. Our research contributes to the sales literature by investigating individual personal stressors via Job Demands and Conservation of Resources theories and offers insights for managers of salespeople that face both personal and work stress.
Running field experiments using Facebook split test
(Elsevier, 2020) Orazi, Davide C.; Johnston, Allen C.; Monash University; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Business researchers use experimental methods extensively due to their high internal validity. However, controlled laboratory and crowdsourcing settings often introduce issues of artificiality, data contamination, and low managerial relevance of the dependent variables. Field experiments can overcome these issues but are traditionally time- and resource-consuming. This primer presents an alternative experimental setting to conduct online field experiments in a time- and cost-effective way. It does so by introducing the Facebook A/B split test functionality, which allows for random assignment of manipulated variables embedded in ecologically-valid stimuli. We compare and contrast this method against laboratory settings and Amazon Mechanical Turk in terms of design flexibility, managerial relevance, data quality control, and sample representativeness. We then provide an empirical demonstration of how to set up, pre-test, run, and analyze FBST experiments.
Switching Gears: A Self-Regulatory Approach and Measure of Nonwork Role Re-Engagement Following After-Hours Work Intrusions
(Springer, 2022) Grotto, Angela R.; Mills, Maura J.; Eatough, Erin M.; Manhattan College; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
As employees' personal lives are increasingly splintered by work demands, the boundary between work and nonwork domains is becoming ever more blurred. Grounded within a self-regulatory approach and the executive control function of inhibitory control, we operationalize and examine nonwork role re-engagement (NWRR)-the extent to which individuals can redirect attentional resources back to nonwork tasks following work-related intrusions. In phases 1 and 2, we develop and refine a psychometrically sound unidimensional measure for NWRR aligned with the self-regulatory processes of self-control and interference control underlying inhibitory control. In phase 3, we confirm the factor structure with a new sample. In phase 4 we validate the measure using the samples from phases 2 and 3 to provide evidence of criterion-related, convergent, and discriminant validity. NWRR was related to important well-being and work-related outcomes above and beyond existing self-regulatory and boundary management constructs. We offer theoretical and practical implications and an agenda to guide future research, as attentional agility becomes increasingly relevant in a home life replete with interruptions from work.
Data for a meta-analysis of the adaptive layer in adaptive large neighborhood search
(Elsevier, 2020) Turkes, Renata; Sorensen, Kenneth; Hvattum, Lars Magnus; Barrena, Eva; Chentli, Hayet; Coelho, Leandro C.; Dayarian, Iman; Grimault, Axel; Gullhav, Anders N.; Iris, Cagatay; Keskin, Merve; Kiefer, Alexander; Lusby, Richard Martin; Mauri, Geraldo Regis; Monroy-Licht, Marcela; Parragh, Sophie N.; Riquelme-Rodriguez, Juan-Pablo; Santini, Alberto; Martins Santos, Vinicius Gandra; Thomas, Charles; University of Antwerp; Molde University College; Universidad Pablo de Olavide; University Science & Technology Houari Boumediene; Laval University; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Universite d'Angers; Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU); University of Liverpool; University of Warwick; University of Vienna; Technical University of Denmark; Universidade Federal do Espirito Santo; McMaster University; Johannes Kepler University Linz; Universidad Anahuac; Pompeu Fabra University; Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto; Universite Catholique Louvain
Meta-analysis, a systematic statistical examination that combines the results of several independent studies, has the potential of obtaining problem- and implementation-independent knowledge and understanding of metaheuristic algorithms, but has not yet been applied in the domain of operations research. To illustrate the procedure, we carried out a meta-analysis of the adaptive layer in adaptive large neighborhood search (ALNS). Although ALNS has been widely used to solve a broad range of problems, it has not yet been established whether or not adaptiveness actually contributes to the performance of an ALNS algorithm. A total of 134 studies were identified through Google Scholar or personal email correspondence with researchers in the domain, 63 of which fit a set of predefined eligibility criteria. The results for 25 different implementations of ALNS solving a variety of problems were collected and analyzed using a random effects model. This dataset contains a detailed comparison of ALNS with the non-adaptive variant per study and per instance, together with the meta-analysis summary results. The data enable to replicate the analysis, to evaluate the algorithms using other metrics, to revisit the importance of ALNS adaptive layer if results from more studies become available, or to simply consult the ready-to-use formulas in the summary file to carry out a meta-analysis of any research question. The individual studies, the meta-analysis and its results are described and interpreted in detail in Renata Turkes, Kenneth Sorensen, Lars Magnus Hvattum, Meta-analysis of Metaheuristics: Quantifying the Effect of Adaptiveness in Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search, in the European Journal of Operational Research. (c) 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Public and health professionals' misconceptions about the dynamics of body weight gain/loss
(Wiley-Blackwell, 2014) Abdel-Hamid, Tarek; Ankel, Felix; Battle-Fisher, Michele; Gibson, Bryan; Gonzalez-Parra, Gilberto; Jalali, Mohammad; Kaipainen, Kirsikka; Kalupahana, Nishan; Karanfil, Ozge; Marathe, Achla; Martinson, Brian; McKelvey, Karma; Sarbadhikari, Suptendra Nath; Pintauro, Stephen; Poucheret, Patrick; Pronk, Nicolaas; Qian, Ying; Sazonov, Edward; Van Oorschot, Kim; Venkitasubramanian, Akshay; Murphy, Philip; United States Department of Defense; United States Navy; Naval Postgraduate School; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; University of Utah; US Department of Veterans Affairs; University of Los Andes Venezuela; Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University; VTT Technical Research Center Finland; University of Tennessee Knoxville; UT Institute of Agriculture; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Florida International University; University of Vermont; Universite de Montpellier; Shanghai University; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; BI Norwegian Business School; North Carolina State University
Human body energy storage operates as a stock-and-flow system with inflow (food intake) and outflow (energy expenditure). In spite of the ubiquity of stock-and-flow structures, evidence suggests that human beings fail to understand stock accumulation and rates of change, a difficulty called the stock-flow failure. This study examines the influence of health care training and cultural background in overcoming stock-flow failure. A standardized protocol assessed lay people's and health care professionals' ability to apply stock-and-flow reasoning to infer the dynamics of weight gain/loss during the holiday season (621 subjects from seven countries). Our results indicate that both types of subjects exhibited systematic errors indicative of use of erroneous heuristics. Indeed 76% of lay subjects and 71% of health care professionals failed to understand the simple dynamic impact of energy intake and energy expenditure on body weight. Stock-flow failure was found across cultures and was not improved by professional health training. The problem of stock-flow failure as a transcultural global issue with education and policy implications is discussed. Copyright (C) 2014 System Dynamics Society
Who's Remembering to Buy the Eggs? The Meaning, Measurement, and Implications of Invisible Family Load
(Springer, 2023) Wayne, Julie Holliday; Mills, Maura J.; Wang, Yi-Ren; Matthews, Russell A.; Whitman, Marilyn V.; Wake Forest University; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
Although much is known of the observable physical tasks associated with household management and child rearing, there is scant understanding of the less visible tasks that are just as critical. Grounding our research in the extant literature, the broader lay discussion, as well as our own qualitative research, we define, conceptualize, and operationalize this construct, which we label as "invisible family load." Using a mixed method, five-study approach, we offer a comprehensive, multidimensional definition and provide a nine-item, empirically validated scale to measure its component parts-managerial, cognitive, and emotional family load. In addition, we investigate gender differences and find, as expected, that women report higher levels of each dimension. We also examine the implications of invisible family load for employee health, well-being, and job attitudes, as well as family-to-work spillover. Although we substantiated some significant negative consequences, contrary to the popular view that consequences of invisible family load are uniformly negative, our results show some potential benefits. Even after accounting for conscientiousness and neuroticism, managerial family load related to greater family-work enrichment, and cognitive family load related to greater family satisfaction and job performance. Yet, emotional family load had uniformly negative potential consequences including greater family-to-work conflict, sleep problems, family and job exhaustion, and lower life and family satisfaction. Our research sets the stage for scholars to forge a path forward to enhance understanding of this phenomenon and its implications for individuals, their families, and the organizations for which they work.
I don't want to be a rule enforcer during the COVID-19 pandemic: Frontline employees' plight
(Elsevier, 2021) Northington, William Magnus; Gillison, Stephanie T.; Beatty, Sharon E.; Vivek, Shiri; University of North Carolina; Appalachian State University; University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Eastern Michigan University
This research explores the pandemic-related experiences of frontline employees (FLEs) relative to customer ruleenforcement interactions within retail and service industries. Using a survey, incorporating closed-ended and CIT questions, we investigated, from the FLEs' perspectives, the occupational stress of rule-enforcement, company expectations of FLEs regarding rule enforcement, and the emotional impact of customer interactions on FLEs. Results indicate that several customer misbehaviors, such as not following rules and being rude, produce significant occupational stress. Further, based on our CIT assessments, many of the FLEs' recounted ruleenforcement incidents involved negative customer reactions, translating to heightened negativity for FLEs due to emotional contagion.
Using virtual reality to increase charitable donations
(Springer, 2022) Kristofferson, Kirk; Daniels, Michelle E.; Morales, Andrea C.; Western University (University of Western Ontario); University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe
Marketer interest in using virtual reality (VR) as a persuasion tactic continues to rise. Notably, one sector at the forefront of utilizing this tactic for persuasive means is nonprofit marketing. Many charities have devoted considerable resources to creating VR appeals under the assumption that this medium will increase donations over and above present tactics. However, research has not yet examined the persuasive consequences VR may provide over more traditional channels. This research seeks to understand the opportunities and limitations this emerging tactic can offer marketers. Specifically, we examine the donation effectiveness of three real VR charitable appeals by assessing actual donation behaviors, and find that VR appeals increase donations compared to a two-dimensional (2D) format. This work addresses a timely and relevant issue for practitioners and opens doors to future research investigating VR's applications to marketing.
Screening multi-dimensional heterogeneous populations for infectious diseases under scarce testing resources, with application to COVID-19
(Wiley, 2022) El Hajj, Hussein; Bish, Douglas R.; Bish, Ebru K.; Aprahamian, Hrayer; Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa; Texas A&M University College Station
Testing provides essential information for managing infectious disease outbreaks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When testing resources are scarce, an important managerial decision is who to test. This decision is compounded by the fact that potential testing subjects are heterogeneous in multiple dimensions that are important to consider, including their likelihood of being disease-positive, and how much potential harm would be averted through testing and the subsequent interventions. To increase testing coverage, pooled testing can be utilized, but this comes at a cost of increased false-negatives when the test is imperfect. Then, the decision problem is to partition the heterogeneous testing population into three mutually exclusive sets: those to be individually tested, those to be pool tested, and those not to be tested. Additionally, the subjects to be pool tested must be further partitioned into testing pools, potentially containing different numbers of subjects. The objectives include the minimization of harm (through detection and mitigation) or maximization of testing coverage. We develop data-driven optimization models and algorithms to design pooled testing strategies, and show, via a COVID-19 contact tracing case study, that the proposed testing strategies can substantially outperform the current practice used for COVID-19 contact tracing (individually testing those contacts with symptoms). Our results demonstrate the substantial benefits of optimizing the testing design, while considering the multiple dimensions of population heterogeneity and the limited testing capacity.
Venture creation in the aftermath of COVID-19: The impact of US governor party affiliation and discretion
(Springer, 2023) Borgholthaus, Cameron J.; White, Joshua, V; Markin, Erik; Gupta, Vishal K.; Southern Illinois University Edwardsville; University of Dayton; Saint Petersburg State University; Mississippi State University; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa
In the USA, governors became central figures in the fight against the novel coronavirus. In many cases, state leaders were forced to choose between preserving life and protecting economic livelihood. While prior research has underscored the important role that US governors played in implementing healthcare policies at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we know little about how characteristics of state leaders impacted self-employment. In this paper, we draw from upper echelons theory to examine how governor party and discretion impacted venture creation in the food and restaurant industry. Interestingly, we find no significant relationship between governor party and venture creation. However, we find that when the governor and legislature were unified in their political party - irrespective of party line - there were a higher number of new food and restaurant ventures created. We also found this effect to be strengthened when small business unemployment levels were higher. We explore the implications of these results for how unity of command may be beneficial during times of crisis. Plain English Summary During the initial outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA, governors played a critical role in creating policy that either helped to preserve life or protect economic livelihood. Our research examines how two particularly important characteristics of governors and the political environment - party affiliation and discretion - impacted new venture creation within the food and restaurant industry, which is an important indicator of economic recovery. Using a publicly available, hand-collected dataset inclusive of all 50 states, we find that the political party of the governor has no effect on venture creation. However, we demonstrate that when the governorship and state legislature were aligned and led by members with the same party affiliation, the state experienced a greater number of new venture creation in the food and restaurant industry than when leaders of these two branches of government were not aligned. We further found that the effect of governor discretion was stronger when small business unemployment levels were higher. Our findings have implications for practice by suggesting that a unity of command government structure can be advantageous for economic outcomes during crises.
Beyond the Bright Side: Dark Personality at Work
(2015) Harms, Peter D.; Spain, Seth M.; University of Alabama Tuscaloosa

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