University of Haifa

About: University of Haifa is a education organization based out in Haifa, Israel. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 7558 authors who have published 27141 publications receiving 711629 citations. The organization is also known as: Haifa University & Universiṭat Ḥefah.

Change-Oriented Organizational Citizenship Behavior in Public Administration: The Power of Leadership and the Cost of Organizational Politics

Abstract: Using a well-grounded theory of organizational citizenship behavior, this study attempts to extend the meaning of the good soldier syndrome beyond its common boundaries of the business sector. We follow Bettencourt's (2004) conceptualization and model of change-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) to explain why and how public employees engage in activities targeted at changing and improving the public work environment and its job processes even when no formal rewards are offered in return. We extend Bettencourt's model and demonstrate its usefulness and contribution to public administration organizations, focusing especially on leadership behavior, leader-member exchange relations, and perceptions of organizational politics in public agencies. A field study of 217 public personnel in a large public health care organization yields interesting findings, demonstrating the uniqueness of change-oriented OCB over classical OCB measures (individual and organizational), the general positive effect of leadership on OCB and the moderating effect of perceptions of politics in this relationship. Implications of the findings are developed and discussed in the context of modern public administration.

Anxiety disorder and accompanying subjective memory loss in the elderly as a predictor of future cognitive decline.

Abstract: Objective The aim of the study was to empirically investigate the hypothesis that anxiety in the elderly, secondary to loss of memory, predicts future cognitive decline. Method The participants were 137 elderly subjects with no depression or cognitive impairment from a community geriatric assessment unit, 45% with anxiety. In addition to demographic characteristics, cognitive status was assessed using the Mini Mental State Examination; depression was assessed by Tucker's short Interviewer-Assisted Depression Rating Scale; anxiety by Sinoff's Short Anxiety Screening Test and Activities of Daily Living function by Shah's modified Barthel's Index. Results At follow-up 37 persons had dropped out, leaving 100 participants for final analysis. Mean re-examination time was 3.2 years with no group differences. The mean MMSE and modified Barthel scores decreased significantly more in those with anxiety. A relative risk of 3.96 for developing future cognitive impairment was found. Regression analysis showed that only anxiety was a significant predictor of cognitive decline. By path analysis, a more parsimonious model showed anxiety to have both a direct and an indirect effect on predicting future cognitive decline, and that the effect of loss of memory on cognitive decline was via anxiety. Conclusions Anxiety is inter-related and inseparable with loss of memory and its presence is a strong predictor for future cognitive decline, directly or indirectly via depression. It appears that loss of memory is the initial problem with consequent development of anxiety. Therefore, anxiety, like depression, is probably an early predictor of future cognitive decline and even possible future cognitive impairment. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.