Team Spirit Makes the Difference: The Interactive Effects of Team Work Engagement and Organizational Constraints during a Military Operation on Psychological Outcomes Afterwards

This article prospectively explores the effects of collective team work engagement and organizational constraints during military deployment on individual‐level psychological outcomes afterwards. Participants were 971 Dutch peacekeepers within 93 teams who were deployed between the end of 2008 and b...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Stress and health 2014-12, Vol.30 (5), p.386-396
Main Authors: Boermans, S. M., Kamphuis, W., Delahaij, R., van den Berg, C., Euwema, M. C.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Cooperative Behavior
Fatigue
Fatigue - psychology
fatigue symptoms
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Health Surveys - methods
Health Surveys - statistics & numerical data
Humans
longitudinal research
Male
Military deployment
Military Personnel - psychology
Military Personnel - statistics & numerical data
Netherlands
Occupational psychology
organizational constraints
Organizational Culture
Peacekeeping forces
Post traumatic stress disorder
post-traumatic growth
Prospective Studies
Stress, Psychological - psychology
Surveys and Questionnaires
team work engagement
Teamwork
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:This article prospectively explores the effects of collective team work engagement and organizational constraints during military deployment on individual‐level psychological outcomes afterwards. Participants were 971 Dutch peacekeepers within 93 teams who were deployed between the end of 2008 and beginning of 2010, for an average of 4 months, in the International Security Assistance Force. Surveys were administered 2 months into deployment and 6 months afterwards. Multi‐level regression analyses demonstrated that team work engagement during deployment moderated the relation between organizational constraints and post‐deployment fatigue symptoms. Team members reported less fatigue symptoms after deployment if they were part of highly engaged teams during deployment, particularly when concerns about organizational constraints during deployment were high. In contrast, low team work engagement was related to more fatigue symptoms, particularly when concerns about organizational constraints were high. Contrary to expectations, no effects for team work engagement or organizational constraints were found for post‐traumatic growth. The present study highlights that investing in team work engagement is important for those working in highly demanding jobs. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
ISSN:1532-3005
1532-2998
DOI:10.1002/smi.2621