A study of the role of collective psychological ownership in the relationship between work conditions and workplace well-being among young adult social workers

Social workers’ workplace well-being is an important issue, not only for themselves, but also for their service users. The focus of this research study is to examine work conditions and psychological factors which may lead to the positive state of workplace well-being such as work engagement and the negative state of workplace well-being such as burnout and health problems among young adult social workers aged 21-29 in four Chinese cities: Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong.

In the past decade, a number of studies on workplace well-being, mostly conducted in western societies, have supported the dual processes in the job demands-resources (JD- R) model where job demands positively predict burnout while job resources positively predict work engagement. However, this model is not free of critique. First, it is suggested that job demands be unpacked into two different types: hindrance and challenge. Second, the model does not take personal resources into account. Finally, the psychological mechanisms which may explain how job demands and job resources lead to relevant workplace well-being are still unknown.

In this study, an emerging construct, namely collective psychological ownership (CPO), which refers to a collective sense shared by co-workers that they feel they own the organization, will be tested for its role in the relationship between work conditions and workplace well-being. This study will examine how CPO affects job demands and job resources understood in an expanded notion on their influences on work engagement, burnout, and health problems of young adult social workers.

A mixed-method research methodology will be adopted for collecting empirical data in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hong Kong. Questionnaire surveys will be designed specifically to test the CPO conceptual model. Focus groups will aim at discussing general topics regarding the influences of various work conditions on workplace well-being and how young adult social workers handle their various states of workplace well-being. The emphasis of individual interviews with the social worker respondents will be on understanding their work experience, and their perceptions about the influence of CPO on workplace well-being. Interventions on enhancing workplace well-being by leveraging on personal resources will be provided to 120 young adult social workers in the four Chinese cities. Both intervention and control groups will be included to test the effectiveness of the interventions. The findings of this study will inform research studies on and interventions for developing young adult social workers’ workplace well-being.