Introduction: Cross-cultural research is fundamental for the development and validation of work and organizational theories and to guide evidence-based practices around the globe. Although organizational climate is one of the most investigated higher-level constructs in organizational psychology, there is a lack of research analysing the invariance of measurements across national cultures in Latin America. This prevents scientists and practitioners from having a deeper understanding of this variable across the different countries and cultures composing this continent.
Objectives: This study aims at examining the measurement invariance of the Encuesta de Clima Organizacional scale in its VI version (ECO VI) in Colombia, Costa Rica, Panama, and Dominican Republic.
Method: Data were gathered from 38 companies operating in the manufacturing sector based in the four abovementioned countries and the sample sizes were as follows: Colombia was represented by 1007 employees, Costa Rica by 1090 employees, Panama by 372 employees, and Dominican Republic by 213. Measurement invariance was examined by testing the configural, metric, scalar, and structural models of invariance.
Results: The results supported with empirical evidence that the ECO VI scale is characterized by measurement invariance. More precisely, 6 of its 8 dimensions are unbiasedly interpreted and can be considered for making meaningful comparisons across the considered national cultures, while the outputs deriving from the dimensions of "resources availability" and "interpersonal relationships" should be treated with more caution. Indeed, for such dimensions support for only configural and metric invariance was found.
Conclusions: The main contribution of the present study was to provide evidence about the measurement invariance of the ECO VI scale. Thus, providing the community of scientists and practitioners operating in different Latin American countries with a molar organizational climate scale that can be used for conducting cross-cultural research. Hence, it is now possible to have a deeper understanding of how theories and practices involving the organizational climate for well-being can be better applied across the countries and cultures composing this continent.
Objective: The objective of this study is to evaluate the impact of psychosocial risks based on the demographic variables of sex, age, and seniority, on the perception of workplace violence in a group of workers from Spanish companies.
Methods: a total of 22 Spanish companies were analysed between 2016 and 2018 with a total sample of 26741 people using the FPSICO 3.1 psychosocial assessment method and divided into demographic groups of sex, age, and seniority for subsequent comparison of means and regression analysis.
Results: The results confirm the relationship between psychosocial risks and the perception of workplace violence. The analyses by demographic variables position the group of men as the group with the highest perception of workplace violence, except for discrimination, where it was higher in the group of women. The results confirm that the perception of workplace violence increases significantly with age and seniority in the company.
Conclusions: workplace violence is one of the most worrying risk factors today and it is necessary to better understand what risk factors can favour its appearance or its differentiated behaviour according to sex, age, or seniority. This can allow us to develop planned strategies to control this risk and focus on specific demographic groups.
Attachment has a fundamental role in the development of empathy, which helps people interact with others and prevents aggressive behaviors. It is believed that having a secure attachment can promote empathy. However, there is no clear evidence about the relationship between insecure attachment styles and empathy. Therefore, a meta-analysis was performed to clarify the relation between different types of attachment and empathy from late children to adults (9-47 years). It was conducted using 14 studies (11542 participants) for the secure attachment, 7 studies (3115 participants) for the avoidant, and 8 studies (3479 participants) for the anxious-ambivalent. Results indicated that secure attachment was positively correlated with empathy, avoidant attachment was negatively correlated, and anxious-ambivalent attachment had an inconclusive relationship. Whereas the results obtained for the secure and avoidant attachment with empathy are consistent with literature, the inconsistencies in anxious-ambivalent style may be due to a duality of feelings experienced by these individuals, who go from high levels of empathy (to be accepted) to low levels of empathy (to avoid distressing emotions). We suggest broadening the limit in age, include the multidirectional nature of empathy, as well as the effect of gender and different sorts of affiliations (parents, couples) for future studies.