workplace

In a scholarly convention, ESP has bilaterally focused on “academic” and “occupational” arenas leaving the symbiosis between the two almost untouched. The present study, thus, aims to weigh the concordance between what is taught in universities as EAP courses for B.A. students in Business and Economics and what English skills and abilities are, actually, required from them on the job. Altogether, 120 university teachers and 30 business managers were asked for their opinions about the existing curricula from one side and occupation-related English expectations from the graduates from the other. Triangulation of instruments using questionnaire, interview, teacher-assessment, and participant observation was applied. The results narrated not good news: considerable mismatch between the aforementioned arenas (education and occupation) and complete ignorance of oral skills (listening and speaking) in the academia, despite their vital importance at the workplace. The participants mainly emphasized equipping students with various skills required from them at work after their general English proficiency development and empowering EAP teachers with the needed content knowledge to potentially tailor university education and market. Implications of the study can include creating more practical opportunities such as simulated classes based on workshops and on-the-job training (OJT) with cooperation of the professionals in business. The findings can help educational policy-makers shift their focus to the graduates’ professional-future literacy, modify the EAP curricula with regard to real needs of the workplace and contribute to decreasing the gap between academia and labor market.

The study investigated EFL teachers’ current level of critical consciousness as well as their beliefs about the educational context where they taught. The study also explored how gender, teaching experience, workplace, and academic degree differentiated the participants with regard to their critical consciousness. Drawing upon the related literature and the existing questionnaires in the field, we designed and validated a questionnaire applying technical statistical procedures (e.g., confirmatory factor analysis). The questionnaire was then completed by 310 English teachers teaching in different language institutions across the country. The findings revealed that, in general, EFL teachers’ current level of critical consciousness was above average. However, they believed that the educational context did not encourage and cultivate in them critical consciousness. It was also found that, contrary to expectations, the academic degree did not differentiate teachers in this regard. Moreover, male and female teachers were found not to be significantly different in their critical consciousness. The theoretical and pedagogical implications are discussed in the paper.

Sexual harassment at workplace is a phenomenon that has many implications for women. Also, organizations and other employees are not immune to the devastating consequences of sexual harassment against women. Victimized women respond to harassment differently, such as silence, tolerance, bullying and aggression, leaving the workplace and even positive responding to sexual demands. In this article, in-depth interviews with victims will address the reactions and effects of harassment. We have also used the same tool to analyze the consequences of sexual harassment in organizations. The main questions of the study were the type of victim response to the harasser, the impact of the harassment on the victim, and the organization or other staff. The findings are obtained from interpretation and classification of in-depth and semi-structured interviews with 25 women in 23-47 age groups. They were selected from those with bachelor and doctoral degrees and working in government and private sectors. In order to obtain data, 5 open-ended and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 5 managers and administrative and financial assistants of public and private companies. The results of qualitative content analysis of interviews with victims, focused group, and the organizational management panel showed that women's responses differed by education, age, public or workplace privacy, from fear and silence to aggressive responses and complaints. And even retreats toward harassers were different. From individual perspective, harassment causes depression, morbid fears, prolonged anxiety, pessimism and suspicion, physical illness, labeling and social isolation. From an organizational point of view, there is virtually no protection mechanism for victims, which results in the abandonment of work, unwanted displacements, harassing dismissals, and even harassment and reduced organizational productivity.

This study examined the influence of time management practices and workplace bullying on organizational commitment amongst employees at Zahedan University of Medical Sciences. This study employed a descriptive-correlational research design. A convenience sample of 195 participants (93 women and 102 men) was recruited. Data collection utilized questionnaires that measured time management, workplace bullying, and organizational commitment. Pearson correlation coefficients and stepwise multiple regression analyses were conducted using SPSS software version 26. Analysis revealed significant positive correlations between organizational commitment and short-range planning skills and total time management scores. Conversely, negative correlations emerged between organizational commitment and victimization experiences, instances of fighting, and overall workplace bullying. Stepwise multiple regressions indicated that workplace bullying scores entered the model first, explaining 12.4% of the variance in organizational commitment. Short-range planning scores entered the second step, explaining an additional 2.3% of the variance. Interestingly, however, both bullying and short-range planning emerged as negative predictors of organizational commitment. These findings suggest that fostering short-range planning skills and addressing workplace bullying could be beneficial in enhancing employee organizational commitment. Future research could investigate potential interventions to improve time management and mitigate bullying behaviors within similar organizational contexts.

One of the important challenges of organizational behavior is bullying in the workplace. The aim of the present study is to describe, analyze, and combine the analyses presented in the field of variables related to bullying in the workplace, and the meta-analysis method was used. The statistical population of this study included all scientific research articles and thesis available on the IranDoc website in Iran from 2011 to 2014. Among the studies conducted, 16 studies were selected for review based on the inclusion criteria. The data from these 16 studies were statistically analyzed based on the Pearson r correlation coefficient and the t-statistic for the Hedges' g fixed and random effects model. All statistical analyses were performed using CMA2 software. The findings showed that the average overall and combined effect size for the fixed effects model was 0.07 g=0.05, which was significant (P<0.05) and for the random effects model was 0.10 g=0.05, which was not significant (P<0.05). Therefore, the average effect size of the factors cannot be interpreted. Among the 48 factors identified, the discriminant effect size of 45 factors was significant. The factors that have the greatest impact on workplace bullying (P<0.05) include authoritative leadership (g=-1.28), demand balance (g=-1.01), fairness (g=1.01), excessive self-interest (g=1.44), contextual factors (g=1.56), jealousy (g=1.35), moral climate (g=-1.96), and moral leadership (g=-1.13).

Given the severe psychological stress of teachers in educational settings, it is of particular value to pay attention to improving their psychological well-being and to identify the factors that contribute to the decrease or increase in teachers' psychological well-being. For this reason, the aim of the present study was to investigate the role of predictor variables of psychological resilience, happiness, and mindfulness in the criterion variable of teachers' psychological well-being. For this reason, 113 people were selected from the statistical population of elementary school teachers in Rasht in the academic year (2023-2024) using the convenience sampling method and responded to the questionnaires of psychological well-being (Reif and Keyes, 1995), psychological resilience (Connor and Davidson, 2003), Oxford Happiness (Hills and Argyle, 2002), and Freiburg Mindfulness (Wallach et al., 2006). The results were analyzed in SPSS22 software using Pearson's correlation coefficient and stepwise regression, and the results showed that the relationship between psychological resilience and psychological well-being (r=0.61), the relationship between happiness and psychological well-being (r=0.49), and the relationship between mindfulness and psychological well-being (r=0.41) was positive and significant (p<0.01), and the three variables explained 50% of the variance in the changes in teachers' psychological well-being. Therefore, the psychological well-being of elementary school teachers can be predicted based on psychological resilience, mindfulness, and happiness.