The past several decades of rapid organizational change and global economic activity beseech a fresh understanding of work conditions and mental health across all nations and regions. This volume addresses psychosocial factors at work, legislation, frameworks, research innovations and common perceptions in the Asia Pacific countries. It presents new research on psychosocial factors at work from an Asia Pacific perspective, introducing exciting new research on workaholism, bullying, work-life balance and conflict, work demands classifications, and psychosocial safety climate. Insights regarding workplace psychosocial factors, worker health and well-being have evolved mainly within North American and European cultural contexts and developed industrial countries. This state of the art account of knowledge development in the Asia Pacific region will stimulate new insights for researchers and policy makers to improve the quality of workers' lives worldwide. "This very informative book highlights the significance and uniqueness of job stress problems encountered by workers of different countries in the Asia Pacific region. Occupational health researchers all around the world will find this book a great inspiration for future research." Yawen Cheng, ScD, Institute of Health Policy and Management, Taiwan "Initiatives and interventions reported from collaborative projects present useful hints for filling gaps in policies and practices for managing psychosocial risk factors in diverse work-life situations in the Asia Pacific region". Dr. Kazutaka Kogi, President, International Commission of Occupational Health

This book is a valuable, comprehensive and unique reference text on Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC), a new work stress theory. It proposes a new PSC theory concerning the corporate climate for workers' psychological health, its origins and implications for work stress, and provides a critique of current research and theories. It provides a comprehensive review of all PSC studies to date. The chapters discuss state-of-the-art empirical evidence testing PSC theory in relation to management roles, organisational resilience, corruption, organisational status, cultural perspectives, illegitimate tasks, high PSC work groups, PSC variability in work groups, etc. They investigate outcomes such as psychological distress, emotional exhaustion, depression, worry, engagement, health, cognitive decline, personal initiative, boredom, cynicism, sickness absence, and productivity loss, in various workplace settings across many countries. This unique book allows practitioners to rapidly update practical measures, benchmarks and processes, and provides students and trainees with an introduction to PSC and important concepts and methods, quantitative and qualitative, in occupational health with leads to further sources. Students as well as experts on occupational health and safety, human resource management, occupational health psychology, organisational psychology and practitioners, unions and policy makers will find this book highly informative. It covers relevant materials for undergraduate and postgraduate education, drawing upon the concepts, topics and methods (diary, multilevel, longitudinal, qualitative, data linkage) within the multidisciplinary occupational health area.

This book is a valuable, comprehensive and unique reference text on Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC), a new work stress theory. It proposes a new PSC theory concerning the corporate climate for workers' psychological health, its origins and implications for work stress, and provides a critique of current research and theories. It provides a comprehensive review of all PSC studies to date. The chapters discuss state-of-the-art empirical evidence testing PSC theory in relation to management roles, organisational resilience, corruption, organisational status, cultural perspectives, illegitimate tasks, high PSC work groups, PSC variability in work groups, etc. They investigate outcomes such as psychological distress, emotional exhaustion, depression, worry, engagement, health, cognitive decline, personal initiative, boredom, cynicism, sickness absence, and productivity loss, in various workplace settings across many countries. This unique book allows practitioners to rapidly update practical measures, benchmarks and processes, and provides students and trainees with an introduction to PSC and important concepts and methods, quantitative and qualitative, in occupational health with leads to further sources. Students as well as experts on occupational health and safety, human resource management, occupational health psychology, organisational psychology and practitioners, unions and policy makers will find this book highly informative. It covers relevant materials for undergraduate and postgraduate education, drawing upon the concepts, topics and methods (diary, multilevel, longitudinal, qualitative, data linkage) within the multidisciplinary occupational health area.

Work related stress represents a huge cost for worker health and -productivity and is broadly regarded as an important social -determinant of global health.Over the past five decades, knowledge of the the causes of work-related illnesses and injuries has grown dramatically. Unfortunately, understanding how to use this knowledge for psychosocial risk prevention and intervention has failed to keep pace.The Australian Workplace Barometer (AWB) project was developed in order to provide national benchmarks needed to set best practice standards in the area of worker psychological health and wellbeing. The results as published in this book:Provide nationally representative data on psychosocial risk levels and working conditionsBuild upon existing knowledge and understanding of psychosocial risk factors such as bullying and harassment, and work-family conflictInvestigate relationships between psychosocial risk and workplace outcomes such as employee health and productivityDetermine the cost of poor employee wellbeing to businesses based on aspects such as depression, absenteeism and presenteeismIdentify industries and occupations at risk, andProvide evidence to support strategies for prevention and intervention.This book provides a step towards social action and work environments that will stimulate problem solving, creativity and innovation at work rather than despair through compromised health and wellbeing.