The project goal is to determine the impact of organizational culture on workers' psychological distress, job-related stress and work productivity as well as to explore the relationship between organizational culture and provision of workplace crisis intervention programs to employees in the aftermath of the World Trade Center (WTC) disaster. A sample of 10 organizations and a total of 500 employees will be recruited from within a 10-mile radius of WTC. Human resource managers (or equivalent) will complete surveys to characterize disaster-related workplace programs offered to employees. Employees will complete questionnaires that assess psychological distress (Profile of Mood States), job-related stress (Job Content Questionnaire), other life stressors (PERI Life Event Scale), self-rated work productivity (Endicott Work Productivity Scale) and the perceived cultures of their respective organizations (Organizational Culture Inventory - OCI) at 12 and 24 months after the disaster. Organizations will be classified as having positive (constructive) or negative (aggressive/defensive and passive defensive) based on the OCI. Study Hypotheses: Organizations with positive (constructive) cultures are more likely provide disaster-related crisis intervention programs and have lower employee psychological distress and job-related stress compared to organizations with negative cultures. Employees of organizations with positive cultures are more likely to have higher self-reported work productivity and how a reduction in psychological distress between 12 and 24 months after the WTC disaster compared to their counterparts in organizations with negative cultures. It is recognized that the sample size for this study may not be large enough to find statistical significance. However, one of the purposes of this exploratory study is to ensure that there is enough variability in the measures of interest to warrant further investigation. Also this study is intended to obtain preliminary estimates of the effect of organizational culture on (a) whether organizations implement crisis intervention programs, (b) employee's psychological distress and job-related stress, and (c) self-reported work productivity. The preliminary data obtained will enable investigators to plan a larger, more comprehensive study.
| Osinubi, Omowunmi Y O; Gandhi, Sampada K; Ohman-Strickland, Pamela et al. (2008) Organizational factors and office workers'health after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks: long-term physical symptoms, psychological distress, and work productivity. J Occup Environ Med 50:112-25 |
