Michàlle E. Mor Barak

• Ph.D.
• Dean's Endowed Professor of Social Work and Business at University of Southern California

In 2016, the United States Army removed its ban on women working in combat roles in previously reserved jobs for men. This policy change included a concerted effort by Army leadership to ensure women felt included in their new roles. Nevertheless, the immediate response to the policy changes led to mixed results in translating and implementing thes...

Despite recent theoretical developments examining the emergence of several types of leadership, there is a paucity of research on the emergence of inclusive leaders. We sought to address this gap by proposing a theory-based conceptual model. We identify a paradox in leader emergence: Although there is evidence that inclusive leaders can improve org...

Despite recent theoretical developments examining the emergence of several types of leadership, there is a paucity of research on the emergence of inclusive leaders. We sought to address this gap by proposing a theory-based conceptual model. We identify a paradox in leader emergence: Although there is evidence that inclusive leaders can improve org...

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for potent community-based tools to improve preparedness. We developed a community health-safety climate (HSC) measure to assess readiness to adopt health behaviors during a pandemic. We conducted a mixed-methods study incorporating qualitative methods (e.g., focus groups) to generate items for the measure...

Increasingly inhospitable conditions will change the nation’s demography, argues a journalist

Joining the Army, a new installation or a new unit are times of significant stress for Soldiers. Support provided during these transitions can affect unit cohesion, Soldier well-being, retention, and mission readiness. This research aimed to explore how Soldiers experience the Army onboarding process as well as perceptions of the welcome experience...

Inclusion is increasingly recognized as a critical leadership issue, yet research points to effectiveness variability among diversity and inclusion initiatives, indicative of potential policy-practice decoupling. Drawing on climate theory, we develop supervisors’ inclusive leadership and climate for inclusion and introducing CEO’s inclusive leaders...

Managerial literature increasingly points to the need for creating inclusive workplaces. Particular emphasis is given to the central role of leadership in creating an inclusive climate in organizations (Mor Barak, Luria, & Brimhall). Studies have demonstrated how various levels of leadership (e.g., top level, group level), shape workers’ experience...

The promotion of inclusion in the U.S. Army requires an understanding of how and why exclusion occurs. As exclusion can have deleterious impacts at both and individual and organizational level, reducing exclusive behaviors can have positive effects on Soldiers and the Army. To explore exclusion in the Army, 19 focus groups were conducted with 120 a...

Volatile economic, demographic and political trends have severe implications for human service organizations (HSOs). Restricted governmental budgets threaten HSOs’ funding and negative attitudes toward science threaten HSOs’ evidence-based practices. A ray of light in this bleak context is the emergence of the social good movement that coalesces gr...

https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/AMBPP.2019.16134symposium The increase in workforce diversity is a global phenomenon and puts extra pressure on organizations to manage employee diversity. This organizational challenge is reflected in the 2019 All-Academy theme, “Understanding the Inclusive Organization.” However, despite a strong body of rese...

With increases in workforce diversity, human service leaders are recognizing the need to create inclusive workplaces. Yet little research exists about the influence of inclusion on innovation, job satisfaction, and perceived quality of care. Using a sample of 213 participants within 21 departmental units (10 employees on average) in a diverse human...

This editorial illuminates the evidence of how human and social rights and diversity gains at work are under attack in the aftermath of the global economic crisis and in times of austerity. We provide a brief overview of the six articles in this issue, which draw upon a wide range of theories and engage with different, but in many ways connected, i...

Media images of walls being erected or dismantled symbolize the global dilemma at the heart of the approach toward diversity during economically challenging times. Will communities, organizations, and nations become more isolated, exclusionary, and protective of scarce resources? Or will they embrace diversity for humanistic reasons and its potenti...

Purpose To explore the practice and science of social good and identify avenues for producing research and evidence-based practice in this area. The main proposition of this paper is that social good has the potential to promote ideals that directly align with social work values, offer new alliances and innovative technologies for achieving them, a...

This study explores the dynamics of workforce diversity, diversity management, and organizational performance in social enterprises. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 14 individuals working in the social enterprise sector in Los Angeles, California, including both top management and regular employees. Data were analyzed using...

With increased workforce diversity, human service organizations are recognizing the need to create inclusive workplaces; yet little is known about how leaders can enhance workplace inclusion. We collected data at three time points in 6-month intervals from a public child welfare organization (n = 363). Using latent change score models, we analyzed...

Applying a theory-based conceptual model of organizational diversity, climate of inclusion, and beneficial/detrimental outcomes, this study analyzes 30 qualified studies (N = 496,740 workers) published during the past two decades. Results indicate that although diversity is associated with both beneficial and detrimental outcomes, diversity managem...

This study examined mechanisms of the effect of involuntary retirement on self-rated health and mental health among adults aged 50 or older. Using two waves of the Health and Retirement Study (2006 and 2010), we selected a sample of 1,195 individuals working for pay at baseline who responded to a lifestyle questionnaire in both waves. Regression-ba...

The well-documented day-to-day and long-term experiences of job stress and burnout among employees in child welfare organisations increasingly raise concerns among leaders, policy makers and scholars. Testing a theory-driven longitudinal model, this study seeks to advance understanding of the differential impact of job stressors (work-family confli...

ABSTRACT Although nonregular workers experience higher job stress, poorer mental health, and different job stress dimensions relative to regular workers, little is known about which job stress dimensions are associated with poor mental health among nonregular workers. This study investigated the association between job stress dimensions and mental...

This study sought to identify the mediating roles of leader–member exchange (LMX) and perceived organizational support (POS) as social exchange relationships in the role stress–turnover intention relationship using a longitudinal perspective. Using three waves of 1-year data from a child welfare workforce study, cross-sectional and longitudinal pat...

Three themes are central to preparing doctoral students for the professoriate: identity formation, scientific integration, and intellectual communities. In this article, we argue that these three themes are not separate pillars but interlocking circles. Our main thesis is that (1) social work must develop into a distinct integrative scientific disc...

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Social issues in the workplace are of increasing concern to social services agencies, Corporate America, and organized labor. Increasing numbers of social workers are practicing in occupational and industrial settings, but the profession is still struggling with conceptualizing and implementing a curriculum that will prepare students for these care...

Background: Organizational diversity has been linked to both beneficial and detrimental outcomes—increasing the likelihood of creativity in work teams as well as mistrust and animosity among employees. Recent research suggests that diversity management efforts, particularly those designed to create a climate of inclusion could reduce negative conse...

Mor Barak, Managing Diversity: Toward a Globally Inclusive Workplace Managing Diversity won the prestigious Academy of Management’s George Terry Book award for “the most outstanding contribution to the advancement of management knowledge” and received the CHOICE Award for Outstanding Academic Titles by the Association of College and University Lib...

Due to globalization and outsourcing of commodity production, an estimated 60 million workers are employed in the garment industry by multinational corporations, yet relatively little is known about the work–family tensions experienced by these workers. Building on role stress and job demands–resources theories, this study employed mixed methods to...

To keep pace with the changing business environment as globalization permeates both consumer and labor markets, this handbook offers the most current research in the workplace diversity, exploring what diversity means and its impact on group and organizational functioning. The volume is comprised of eight sections. The first section provides a fund...

Background and Purpose: Researchers have identified job stressors (low wages, high caseloads, inadequate training, and poor supervision) as substantial risk factors to employees and organizations (AECF, 2003; General Accounting Office, 2003). Employees are considered the heart of social service delivery systems. The study of stress-related predicto...

Purpose: A study conducted by NASW in 2008 among 3,653 social workers found that one third of the social workers had experienced psychological problems (Arrington, 2008). Most studies using cross-sectional design have found that work-family conflict, a significant source of work strain, has deleterious effects on psychological well-being. According...

Background/Purpose As diversity in child welfare organizations has been growing, it is crucial to understand how diversity in the organizations influences organizational outcomes that may affect quality of service (Mor Barak & Travis, 2009). However, little understanding of the impact of diversity on organizational outcomes in child welfare exists...

This chapter argues that to avoid the pitfalls and reap the benefits of a diverse workforce, employers need to adopt a broader vision of inclusion -a vision that includes not only the organization itself but also its surrounding community and its national and international context. It provides a description of the inclusive workplace model, highlig...

To keep pace with the changing business environment as globalization permeates both consumer and labor markets, this handbook offers the most current research in the workplace diversity, exploring what diversity means and its impact on group and organizational functioning. The volume is comprised of eight sections. The first section provides a fund...

In Mexico, the rate of female participation in the labor force increased to 38% in 2008, up from 32% in 1995 (ILO, 2009). The economic need for additional income in the family can be perceived as a source of stress in Mexico where characterizes traditional gender role expectations. However, work-family research tends to focus narrowly on well-educa...

How does an employee attempts (or lack thereof) to improve or change work related circumstances influence one's ability to do one's job? This longitudinal study sought to examine this question by testing the relationship between employee voice and two distinct forms of job neglect (active and passive neglect) among child welfare workers at baseline...

This cross-sectional study tests a theory-driven, conceptual model examining factors supporting or hindering child welfare workers' (n = 359) efforts to speak up (voice) or disengage psychologically (neglect) or physically (exit) from their jobs. Based on path analysis results, key findings indicate that workers who feel included in decision-making...

Background and Purpose: Effective management of the public child welfare workforce has been a growing concern for practitioners as well as researchers in recent years. Research has demonstrated the pivotal role of organizational commitment in affecting intention to leave and job performance (Mor Barak et al., 2006; Weaver et al., 2007) but to date...

Employee assistance and counseling are employer-sponsored services aimed at helping employees manage job-related stress and personal problems. These services assist employees in managing challenges that affect their well-being and job performance and contribute to the containment of costs associated with employee problems such as reduced job effect...

There is growing evidence indicating that diversity and inclusion are critical predictors of organizational commitment and job performance. Social workers and managers who work with clients of diverse backgrounds as well as with immigrants need to have a clear understanding of diversity in its widest context. Utilizing a sample of 381 employees who...

Social work managers are increasingly challenged by the growing need to effectively manage workforce diversity and to create a welcoming and inclusive organizational environment. This is particularly important in light of the disproportional representation of women and members of minority groups in human service organizations and the gap between di...

The high rates of turnover in the child welfare field have grave implications for service provision to vulnerable populations. Using mixed methods with SEM and constant comparative content analyses, the study tested a theoretical model of intention to leave among child welfare workers. The theoretical model was found to fit the data well, indicatin...

The present study examined the relationships among stress, social support, and intention to leave in 418 public child welfare workers. Workers with higher levels of stress were more likely to think about leaving, while those receiving greater social support were less likely. Social support did not buffer the effects of organizational stress, but ha...

This study examines the predictive value of coping behaviors in discriminating drinkers from nondrinkers among 109 primary in-home dementia caregivers. The participants were enrolled in a caregivers education project and completed comprehensive health and psychosocial assessments prior to receiving education. Coping was measured using the Ways of C...

Social work education has historically focused on clinical practice and community organization, rather than on the development of management skills, and research documenting the macro practice field experiences of social work students is scarce. A national retrospective study of the fieldwork experiences of social work managers was conducted based...

Worldwide, both overt and covert discrimination against minorities in the workplace are pervasive. The social work profession has long been concerned with social justice as it pertains to diversity and the inequitable treatment of disadvantaged groups. The premise of this study is that individuals from diverse backgrounds experience greater exclusi...

Research over the past two decades indicates that exclusion from organizational information networks and from important decision-making processes is one of the most significant problems facing today's diverse workforce. Employees' sense of exclusion may play a critical role in explaining the connection between lack of opportunities experienced by e...

This study involves a metanalysis of 25 articles concerning the relationship between demographic variables, personal perceptions, and organizational conditions and either turnover or intention to leave. It finds that burnout, job dissatisfaction, availability of employment alternatives, low organizational and professional commitment, stress, and la...

This article's main argument is that organizations need to expand their notion of diversity to include not only the organization itself, but also the larger systems that constitute its environment. The concept of "the inclusive workplace," introduced here, refers to a work organization that is not only accepting and using the diversity of its own w...

Volatile global market conditions dictate to companies the necessity to expand and contract in response to the changing market needs, forcing layoffs on the one hand, and rapid hiring on the other hand. In order to provide services to populations in need, it may be time for occupational social work to redefine its parameters and include all aspects...

The demographic changes in the American population, coupled with civil rights legislation and affirmative action programs, have created an unprecedented diversity in the American workforce, and have made diversity management a central issue in human resource management. There is accumulating evidence indicating that, although present in greater num...

The work place of the 21st century is increasingly leaner, flatter, more aggressive and more technical. The technological development which a few decades ago represented the seductive vision of “automated factories effortlessly churning out products” have failed to create the Utopic society, liberated from the daily burdens of work (Schor, 1992: 5-...

This article reports results from an organizational evaluation examining gender and racial/ethnic differences in the diversity perceptions of 2,686 employees of an electronics company located in a multicultural community. Based on social identity and intergroup theories, the authors explore employees' views of the organizational dimension as well a...

The authors propose that the heterogeneous workforce is a reality that is here to stay, and the current diversity focus needs to be extended to include a bridge between diversity characteristics and the organizational environment. Defined as a continuum of the degree to which individuals feel a part of critical organizational processes, the concept...

The primary qualification for Medicare's home health care benefit is being homebound, typically by a chronic disability. Disability and functional ability in late-life are heavily influenced by the long-term practice of health behaviors. One of the goals of Healthy People 2000 is to increase the years of healthy life which are measured, in part, by...

Although social networks has been extensively studied as independent, intervening, and moderating variables affecting health, little attention has been paid to social networks as dependent variables. The present research is a longitudinal study which focuses on social networks as the dependent variable. A sample of 3,559 poor, frail, elderly from C...

This study is a theory-based examination of the meaning of work for older adults in a sample of 146 older job-seekers. It proposes four factors to the meaning of work: Financial, Personal, Social, and the Generativity factor. The Generativity factor, unique to older adults, refers to viewing work as a way to teach, train and share skills with young...

The authors evaluated an innovative corporate-sponsored health care program for retired employees and their dependents. The program included a multidisciplinary health care team, care coordination and referral, and health promotion workshops. Of 111 program participants who responded to a mailed survey, 95 percent reported that participation helped...

The trend toward early retirement, coupled with the diminishing numbers of youths entering the labor market as a result of lower birth rates, presents American industry with an impending shortage of available workers. Concurrently, many older adults can anticipate a prolonged and healthy aging and are interested in continuing their productive invol...

The University of Southern California has developed a comprehensive model for teaching the increasing numbers of social workers practicing in occupational and industrial settings. The program's rationale, themes and objectives, and application across six courses and a field practicum are described. Also noted is the program's utility for second-yea...

Generation is a geriatric clinic program sponsored by Southern California Edison Company for the company's retirees and their dependents. This innovative program uses a multidisciplinary team approach, including a comprehensive health and psychosocial assessment, complete medication review, retiree advisors, health promotion programs, and case mana...

This paper deals with girls aged 13 to 21 who have run away from home. Social workers who work with such girls point out that they are not a homogeneous population and that their motives can be very different. This study divides their motives for running away into two types, "running from" and "running to," and describes the specific personality tr...

The impact of employment on the health of retirees is examined, with particular attention to the hypothesis that social roles affect health through their impact on social networks. Data are based on comprehensive assessment questionnaires completed by 175 participants of a corporate sponsored geriatric clinic. Results indicate that employment in th...

Research over the past two decades has documented a positive relationship between social support and health. The causal interpretation of these associations has, however, been unclear. This study aims at filling the gap in our understanding of this causal link with respect to the frail poor elderly. The main questions addressed are, Does lack of so...

This review is concerned with the buffering hypothesis, which states that social support ameliorates the impact of occupational stress and other stressful situations on employees' mental and physical health. The author deals with various ways by which management and occupational and mental health professionals can use research findings on social su...

This paper describes the help given by the social services department of a shipping company to bereaved families following a shipping disaster. In the absence of clear, factual and prompt information from an authoritative source, there is a tendency for bereaved individuals to deny their loss and thereby delay the process of mourning and eventual r...