Manager-Employee Relationships in Organizations for Persons with Intellectual Disability
- Autores: Sedigheh Jalili Abnargesi
- Directores de la Tesis: Vicente Martínez Tur (dir. tes.), Yolanda Estreder Ortí (dir. tes.), Carolina Moliner Cantos (dir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat de València ( España ) en 2024
- Idioma: inglés
- Número de páginas: 268
- Materias:
- Enlaces
- Tesis en acceso abierto en: RODERIC
- Resumen
Service organizations dedicated to persons with ID play a vital role in promoting human rights and enhancing the QoL for this population (Holloway, 2012; Schalock et al., 2021). These organizations provide essential support and assistance to person who may be vulnerable and at risk of exclusion due to their disability. With over 200 million people worldwide living with ID (Wagner, 2021), these organizations offer a wide range of services, including therapeutic, educational, residential, vocational, and recreational programs tailored to the specific needs of persons with ID (García‐Villamisar et al., 2017). The primary goal of these services is to provide personalized support that improves the overall functioning and QoL of service users (Alonso-Sardón et al., 2019).
Despite the progress made in promoting the participation of persons with ID in society and the workforce, service organizations still face significant challenges. These challenges include negative societal attitudes, inaccessibility, and disempowering delivery structures that are rooted in historical institutionalization legacies (Mansell & Beadle-Brown, 2010). To overcome these barriers and ensure the successful implementation of contemporary, human rights-based service models, effective leadership is crucial. Leadership plays a key role in driving the shift towards personalized and inclusive support models, providing guidance on the caring process (Boyle & Doyle, 2023), investing in professionals development, promoting teamwork, and managing change with limited resources (Mansell & Beadle-Brown, 2010).
Leaders, who directly manage and support teams of professionals, have a particularly significant impact on the quality of care and the well-being of their teams in organizations serving persons with ID (Mansell et al., 2008). These leaders are responsible for translating the organization’s mission, values, and policies into the daily practices of professionals (Beadle-Brown et al., 2014). They play a critical role in training, evaluating, and motivating direct support professionals, as well as modeling positive attitudes, creating a person-centered culture, and empowering professionals to provide flexible and individualized support (Mansell et al., 2008). However, leaders face numerous challenges, such as high professional’s turnover, the need for multidisciplinary collaboration, keeping up with evolving knowledge and skills, budget constraints, balancing health and safety with individual rights, and adapting their leadership style to different contextual factors (Beadle-Brown et al., 2014; Hewitt et al., 2008; Tichá et al., 2013).
Despite the importance of leadership in shaping the supportive environment, improving professionals’ well-being, and enhancing the QoL for service users, research on leaders within service organizations dedicated to persons with ID remains limited (Hewitt et al., 2004). This thesis aims to address this research gap by examining the role of leadership, engagement, and trust in service organizations dedicated to persons with ID. Through a series of three interconnected studies, this research explores the impact of leadership on professionals’ well-being, engagement, and performance, as well as the ultimate goal of improving the QoL for service users. By adopting a contextualized approach, considering multiple perspectives, and examining understudied constructs and mechanisms, this thesis contributes to advancing our understanding of effective leadership practices in this crucial sector and offers valuable insights for enhancing service quality and organizational performance.
This doctoral thesis, comprised of three distinct yet interconnected research studies, delves into the crucial role of leadership, engagement, and trust within organizations dedicated to supporting persons with ID. The overarching aim is to enhance our understanding of how these key factors interplay to ultimately improve the QoL for service users. The originality and value of this research lie in its contextualized approach, its consideration of multiple perspectives, and its examination of understudied constructs and mechanisms in this specific organizational context.
Study 1, titled “Leadership in Organizations for Persons with ID: A Systematic Review”, provides a comprehensive synthesis of the existing literature on leadership in organizations dedicated to persons with ID over the past decade. This systematic review offers valuable insights into the critical leadership competencies, theoretical frameworks, key variables and processes, and relevant obstacles related to leaders in these organizations. A key contribution of this review is its focus on the specific context of intellectual disability services, addressing a significant research gap (Hewitt et al., 2004). By consolidating empirical findings and identifying future research challenges, this study lays a solid foundation for the subsequent studies in this thesis.
Building upon the insights from the systematic review, Study 2 (“Engagement Contagion from Leaders to Professionals: The Role of Eudaimonic Well-being Beliefs”) examines the transmission of engagement from leaders to professionals and the role of leaders’ eudaimonic well-being beliefs (EWBs) as a precursor of this contagion. Using multilevel structural equation modeling with data from leaders and professionals in organizations dedicated to persons with ID, this study confirms the existence of engagement contagion and highlights the importance of leaders’ EWBs in fostering their own engagement, which subsequently spreads to professionals. The originality of this research lies in its focus on the understudied concept of EWBs, its consideration of both leadership and professional’s perspectives, and its contextualization in the services sector, where maintaining high levels of engagement is crucial for service quality (Shanafelt & Noseworthy, 2017).
Lastly, Study 3 (“Trust and Quality of Life: A Study in Organizations for Person with Intellectual Disability) examines the role of trust between leaders and team members and its association with organizational performance oriented towards improving the QoL of service users. Employing a multi-informant design with data from leaders, team members, and family members, this study confirms a cross-level mediation process where leaders’ trust in their teams leads to teams’ trust in their leaders, which in turn is positively associated with organizational performance focused on service users’ QoL. The value of this research stems from its consideration of trust from both leader and team member perspectives, its examination of trust as a mechanism linking to performance, and its contextualized view of performance that prioritizes the central goal of service organizations dedicated to persons with ID.
Taken together, these three studies make significant contributions to advancing our knowledge of leadership, engagement, and trust in the specific context of service organizations dedicated to persons with ID. By adopting a contextualized approach, considering multiple perspectives, and examining understudied constructs and mechanisms, this doctoral thesis offers valuable insights that can inform both theory and practice in this crucial sector.
The originality and value of this doctoral thesis lie in its contextualized approach, its consideration of multiple perspectives, and its examination of understudied constructs and mechanisms in the specific context of service organizations dedicated to persons with ID. By focusing on this crucial sector and addressing significant research gaps, these studies contribute to advancing our theoretical understanding of leadership, engagement, and trust while also offering practical implications for enhancing service quality and improving the lives of person with ID.
Moreover, the multi-study design of this thesis allows for a comprehensive exploration of these key factors from different angles, with each study building upon the insights of the previous one. This approach not only strengthens the overall contribution of the research but also highlights the interconnectedness of leadership, engagement, and trust in shaping organizational performance and service user outcomes in this context.
In conclusion, this doctoral thesis makes significant strides in advancing our knowledge of leadership, engagement, and trust in organizations serving person with ID. By adopting a contextualized approach, considering multiple perspectives, and examining understudied constructs and mechanisms, these studies offer valuable insights that can inform both theory and practice in this crucial sector. The originality and value of this research lie in its comprehensive, multi-study design, its focus on addressing research gaps, and its potential to drive positive change in the lives of persons with ID through enhanced service quality and organizational performance.