Climate and Ties in Workplace versus Sense of Danger and Stress, Based on Empirical Research in the Aviation Industry

Abstract

The climate of the workplace, as well as the issues of relations and ties in the professional environment have long aroused considerable interest among psychologists and management practitioners. The organizational climate, which is defined as a set of beliefs about the organization, its relations, the atmosphere of the workplace, circulation of communication, development opportunities, etc., has often been associated with well-being and job satisfaction. Performing work related to numerous stress factors and difficult situations may significantly affect how both the professional environment and employees’ well-being are perceived. Many empirical studies concerning work psychology and organization, including the works of Rosenstiel and Boegel, Gonzales-Roma, Peiro, Schneider and Earhart underline the importance of the organization climate in the construction of efficient and effectively functioning organizations. One of its important aspects is the level of social relationships and cooperation within an organization. Ties in the workplace are defined as the quality and depth of relations between members of an organization. Studies presented in this paper are of an exploratory nature due to the sector specificity, i.e., aviation and provision of services related to ground control operations. The aim of the empirical research presented herein is to verify the assumption about mutual relations between such variables as the perceived climate of the workplace and interpersonal bonds, as well as experiencing negative emotional states, such as the sense of danger and stress. The psychological literature suggests that low evaluation of the organizational climate parameters should be related to worse, more negative evaluation of the workplace and that the dissatisfaction within the scope of ties and relations with employees affects the perception of stress and threat. In the course of the study, 326 persons working at Pyrzowice and Szymany (Poland) and Kosice (Slovakia) have been examined. Polish employees dominated in this group (250 persons). The remaining group was constituted of individuals working at the Kosice (Slovakia) airport. The respondents represent a specific professional group. The authors tried to learn the specificity of the stress and threat experiencing process due to organizational variables—such as aspects related to evaluation of the workplace and the feeling of ties. To achieve this goal, in the course of statistical analyses, models were built to predict the sense of danger and stress among the surveyed population. A hierarchical regression analysis was carried out in order to determine which of the variables allow predicting the sense of danger and stress in the examined occupational group. The results showed that the higher sense of threat was predicted by the less positive views about the workload, the social support and by the higher ratings of ties in the workplace. In this model, the statistically significant predictors of the sense of threat were the perception of workload (β = − 0.184; s.e. = 0.29; t = −3.297; p < 0.001), the social support (β = − 0.272; s.e. = 0.52; t = −3.916; p < 0.001) and ties in the workplace (β = 0.115; s.e. = 0.51; t = 2.162; p = 0.031). Additionally, the higher level of sense of stress was predicted by the less positive views about the workload, fair play and by the higher sense of threat. The final model explained 12% of all variability regarding the sense of stress (R2 = 0.115; F [8, 317] = 5.122; p < 0.001). In this model, the statistically significant predictors of the sense of stress were the workload (β = − 0.120; s.e. = 0.11; t = −2.079; p = 0.038), sense of justice (β = 0.160; s.e. = 0.20; t = 1.965; p < 0.001) and the sense of threat (β = 0.219; s.e. = 0.02; t = 3.859; p < 0.001). The interest in employees from the aviation sector stems from the lack of empirical data on how people working in this industry function psychologically. This branch of industry is currently developing extremely dynamically and is expected to evolve even more in the wake of the industrial revolution 4.0. Work in the field of modern industry 4.0 forces the employees to acquire many important competencies related to managing new, automated working conditions. As suggested by some authors (Popkova, 2019; Neufeind, 2018), in the light of the 4.0 revolution, one must assume that both the requirements of the work environment and reactions and behavior of employees will differ from the more typical and stable organizational conditions. Meanwhile, in the light of automation and specificity of the industry in question, not much attention is paid to human resources, who—while cooperating in various teams (organic and inorganic)—experience various challenges, as well as difficulties resulting from their professional work.