Suffolk University

ABSTRACT How employees respond to organizational change is critical to the success of change initiatives. Scholars from diverse research communities have developed a wide range of theories to explain why some employees support while others resist organizational change. However, making sense of this theoretical diversity remains a key challenge for researchers aiming to advance both organizational change theory and practice across research communities. To address this challenge, we reviewed 215 empirical articles published between 1998 and 2024 in leading business administration journals. Through this review, we identified eight overarching theoretical themes that structure existing explanations: (1) motivational–attitudinal, (2) relational, (3) sensemaking and discourse, (4) work environment, (5) emotion, (6) morality and justice, (7) individual characteristics, and (8) learning. These themes provide a pluralistic map of the field's theoretical landscape, making visible the distinct perspectives, assumptions, and explanatory logics that characterize different research communities. Building on this framework, we outline how scholars can use our framework to advance research on change responses in five key areas: (a) refine theorizing within themes, (b) integrate across themes, (c) leverage new styles of theorizing, (d) extend theorizing on temporality, and (e) advance context‐sensitive theorizing. Finally, we elaborate on how the eight themes can be used in practice by change managers. In sum, this paper offers a foundation for pluralistic integration and advancing theory on employee responses to change across research communities.

Mobile health (mHealth) technology has been utilized to offer self-management tools to people with pain, including symptom tracking. Existing mobile tracking applications (apps) for chronic pain management have demonstrated reliability, feasibility, improved coping, and reduced health care utilization. Unfortunately, adherence in using a pain app can be problematic with many not using or discontinuing its use early. The current study aimed to investigate the impact that pain self-efficacy, pain conceptualizations, and patient perception of pain care providers, have on engagement with a mobile pain tracking app. Seventy-six (N=76) individuals with chronic pain downloaded a pain app and completed questionnaires assessing their pain and use of a pain app 3 months after they had downloaded the app. Associations with engagement with the app, defined as the number of daily diaries completed, and demographic and self-report questionnaire data were examined. Results showed that engagement with the app was unrelated to self-efficacy and pain conceptualization but significantly related to positive perceptions of their pain care providers. Patients with more severe pain were found to have lower self-efficacy, less understanding of the biopsychosocial model of pain, and lower satisfaction with their involvement in their pain care decisions. Surprisingly, those who engaged more with the app demonstrated lower self-efficacy as compared with those who used the pain app less. These findings highlight the importance of the patient-provider relationship in engaging with mHealth technology for pain management. Results further imply that longer-term use of mHealth tools may not be perceived as adaptive or clinically helpful for certain individuals.

Previous literature has primarily employed cross-sectional designs to investigate associations between gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and eating disorder (ED) psychopathology, a closely correlated, potentially bidirectional phenomenon; yet few studies have examined the longitudinal directionality of these relationships. This study examined the bidirectional associations between GI symptoms and ED psychopathology in cisgender Chinese adults. Using a two-wave, 6-month longitudinal design, data were collected from 400 men (Mage = 31.86 years at baseline) and 400 women (Mage = 29.71 years at baseline) via online self-reported questionnaires. GI symptoms and three types of ED psychopathology were measured at baseline (T1) and 6 months later (T2). Data analyses were conducted separately for men and women. Pearson correlation analyses were used to examine bivariate correlations among the variables. Cross-lagged models examined the bidirectional associations of GI symptoms with three types of ED psychopathology, after adjusting for demographic covariates and baseline levels of ED psychopathology. Thinness-oriented disordered eating (βs = 0.12-0.16) and avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID) symptoms (βs = 0.12-0.13) were found to have positive bidirectional associations with GI symptoms in men. No significant bidirectional associations were identified in women. However, in women, thinness- and muscularity-oriented ED psychopathology significantly predicted more GI symptoms, and GI symptoms significantly predicted more ARFID symptoms. Findings provide valuable insights for potential intervention strategies that target GI symptoms to reduce thinness-oriented ED psychopathology and ARFID symptoms in men. For women, the non-significant bidirectional results also underscore the need for future research to further clarify associations between GI symptoms and ED psychopathology.

Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) offers a powerful approach for young people to analyse, critique and mobilise for equity within adult-controlled transportation systems. This article, authored by an intergenerational team (students, teachers and a university researcher) utilising a collective autoethnographic approach, examines two school-based YPAR projects in Denver, Colorado, that sought to influence local transportation policy. One addresses a deadly street, and the other insufficient bus services. Findings suggest that youth policy demands achieved greater success when they were clearly articulated with actionable solutions, grounded in data reflecting young people's lived experiences of the problem, and presented to adult decision-makers who were willing to genuinely listen and act. The cases also highlight the compelling potential for in-school YPAR initiatives to drive tangible social and policy change in the surrounding community. Ultimately, transportation inequities serve as a critical opportunity for youth and civic leaders to meaningfully collaborate and enact inclusive systemic reform.

In this pedagogical article, I describe my classroom practice in which the context of place becomes supremely important when introducing Wheatley’s work to students. With the help of experiential learning in the form of a walking tour of Wheatley's Boston and some maps, I call attention to spatiality as a crucial context for framing the poet’s most persistent concerns. The article contains images that can be useful to instructors who do not have the benefit of teaching Wheatley in Boston.

AimTo determine work conditions and reactions related to nurse burnout while exploring characteristics of favorable work environments among nurses without burnout.Design/MethodsThe Coping with Covid survey, administered between April 14, 2020, and March 2021, was fashioned after the Mini Z, with 15 questions related to work conditions (fear/safety, work overload, anxiety/depression from work, feeling valued, and sense of purpose) and healthcare worker (HCW) reactions, including burnout, stress, and intention to leave (ITL) the job. Work conditions and reactions such as burnout were measured on 5‐point scales and then dichotomized as present/high or absent/low. Multilevel regressions assessed burnout‐related work conditions, adjusting for gender, race, and years in practice. Thematic analysis of comments from nurses without burnout identified protective factors.ResultsOf 58,408 HCW respondents at over 200 organizations (median response rate 34%), 11,040 were nurses, with 10,873 at 43 organizations with over 10 nurses. More than half the nurses (56%) reported burnout, 42% intended to leave, and only 40% felt valued. Nurse burnout was significantly related to workload (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) 3.71 (95% CIs 3.26, 4.22), p < 0.001); anxiety/depression symptoms from work (aOR 2.96 (2.59, 3.39), p < 0.001), and fear of exposure to SARS‐CoV‐2 (aOR 1.38 (1.20, 1.59), p < 0.001). Those feeling valued had less than half the odds of burning out (aOR 0.40 (0.35, 0.46), p < 0.001). These variables explained 42 percent of burnout variance. Nurses without burnout identified additional positive influences, including teamwork, leader support, and timely communication.ConclusionsNurse burnout may be prevented by addressing workload, mental health symptoms, and relationships with team members and leaders. Feeling valued is a strong mitigator of burnout. These strategies may be useful to nurse leaders in building sustainable workplaces.ImplicationsAlmost half of nurse burnout may be addressed by a brief list of remediable variables.

Each year millions of people seek help for their legal problems by calling a legal aid program hotline, walking into a legal aid office, or using a lawyer referral service. The first step to match them to the right help is to identify the legal problem the applicant is experiencing. Misdirected applicants may miss a deadline, experience physical abuse, lose housing or lose custody of children while waiting to connect to the right legal help. We introduce and evaluate the FETCH classifier for legal issue classification and describe two methods for improving accuracy: a hybrid LLM/ML ensemble classification method, and the automatic generation of follow-up questions to enrich the initial problem narrative. We employ a novel dataset of 419 real-world queries to a nonprofit lawyer referral service. We achieve 97.37% accuracy (hits@2) with inexpensive models, slightly above GPT-5, while reducing cost of guiding users to the right legal resource.

ABSTRACTWe live in a time of global crises: a deteriorating environment that is struggling to provide all the resources and services we demand of it, changing climate and its consequences for the biosphere, its habitats, inhabitants and biodiversity, conflicts‐divisive ideologies‐competition for resources, increasing societal inequalities and human deprivations, and a youth mental health pandemic, to name but just a few. Most of these crises are self‐made, the result of human decisions, and their acceptance/toleration by society. Policies and practices at all levels of society that created, exacerbate and launch new crises are, at worst, self‐serving and, at best, faulted through a lack of understanding. In democracies, citizens can hold decision‐makers to account but, to do this, they must understand the issues and be able to imagine better policies. We also live in a digital world in which a flood of mostly inconsequential information and misinformation pollutes our brains, enhancing pre‐existing biases and creating new ones, and numbing our mental ability to think clearly and reach sensible decisions. But sensible decisions are urgently needed at all levels to fix problems and reduce future self‐harm. Sensible decisions require sourcing the best available relevant information, and a process to convert information into understanding, understanding into clear decision options, and the choice of a decision option that leads to an action that represents best practice. Critical thinking is the enabling cognitive process of this decision pathway, because it selects the best available information through demanding evidence‐basing, seeks critical discourse between experts and stakeholders that agnostically explores solution space to find plausible options, and whittles down options inter alia through plausibility, due diligence, bottleneck analysis, cost‐benefit analysis, and benchmarking filtering. Crucially, it rejects biases, influencing factors, and other constraints on options, and is an effective barrier to the information flood. The problem is that critical thinking capacity is not widely available among either decision makers or stakeholders. There is an urgent need to rapidly roll out effective education programmes in which critical thinking teaching is solidly embedded. Since biases accumulate with age, the teaching of critical thinking must begin with the very young. However, the very young are not able to comprehend the complex abstract issues underpinning critical thinking. Embedding the teaching of critical thinking in a suitable educational context, and integrating it into curricula, is another challenge. To address these two challenges, the International Microbiology Literacy Initiative is developing a storytelling programme for children, called the Critical Thinking MicroChats Gallery, within the curriculum of societally relevant microbiology it is creating. MicroChats illustrate the principal practical elements of critical thinking, like bottlenecks, cost: benefit, benchmarking, the need for discussions and other points of view, employing readily relatable, relevant microbially centric scenarios. MicroChats suggest class discussion topics to encourage children to imagine the application of each element in other contexts to reinforce principles and hone critical thinking skills. Critical thinking, and especially the cultivation of the habit of asking ‘why’ and requiring plausible justification for policies/actions, is a shield against bias, prejudice, propaganda, misinformation and the incessant pressures of social media. It promotes a healthy mind and the attainment of the developmental potential of individuals. Increasing critical thinking in society will raise the quality of decision making at all levels and thereby improve sustainability/reduce the human footprint on our planet, and promote the individual sense of responsibility and global citizenship necessary for the improvement of the condition of humanity and its relationship with Planet Earth.

ABSTRACT Religiosity has been employed as a key variable in various disciplines, including communication and media research, as it is inextricably intertwined with many aspects of individuals’ lives. However, few studies in the field of media and religion have attempted to conceptualize and operationalize religiosity in a way that scholars can measure this construct efficiently and effectively. This study thoroughly examined the relevant literature to provide a streamlined approach to the use of religiosity for communication research. The 6-item scale proposed in the study was tested and is considered a reliable and valid measurement instrument for religiosity. This measure will make it possible to increase both consistency and replicability of empirical studies that examine the interplay between religiosity and media/communication behaviors.