Ulla Kinnunen

• PhD (in psychology)
• Professor Emerita at Tampere University

Työntekijöiden jaksaminen on työelämässä koetuksella. Tarkoituksemme on tutkia, kuinka uupumusasteisen väsymyksen taso muuttuu kahden vuoden aikana ja miten tämä muutos tai pysyvyys kytkeytyy työstä palautumiseen. Palautumista tutkimme sitä ylläpitävien palautumisen kokemusten (työstä irrottautuminen, rentoutuminen, taidonhallinta ja kontrolli vapa...

Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli selvittää, ovatko työn vaatimukset yhteydessä unettomuusoireisiin ja syntyykö yhteys työasioiden vatvomisen kautta. Työn vaatimuksina tarkasteltiin aikapaineita sekä kognitiivisia ja emotionaalisia vaatimuksia. Vatvomisen osalta keskityttiin tunnepitoiseen vatvomiseen, jonka on todettu olevan terveyden kannalta h...

Arvioiden mukaan 39–44 prosenttia peruskoulujen ja lukioiden opettajista on yli 50-vuotiaita (Opetushallitus, 2017). Tutkimuksessa selvitetään tulevaisuusorientaation (eli työuran loppupuolella nähtyjen mahdollisuuksien ja tavoitteiden) ja opettajapystyvyyden (eli opettajana onnistumisen) yhteyttä koettuun työkykyyn ja eläkeajatuksiin sekä koettua...

Tässä katsauksessa tarkastellaan työstä palautumista prosessinäkökulmasta. Tällöin keskiössä ovat palautumista edistävät vapaa-ajan ja taukojen toiminnot ja kokemukset. Katsaus perustuu aiheesta tehtyihin katsauksiin ja meta-analyyseihin. Ne osoittavat, että liikunta ja sosiaalinen kanssakäyminen ovat voimakkaimmin yhteydessä palautumisen kokemuksi...

This research aimed to study the prevalence of PERMA experiences (Positive emotions, Engagement, (positive) Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment) among elite athletes in Finland ( n = 2,045) and factors that are potentially connected to these experiences. The results indicated that, depending on the PERMA component, 40%–52% of the athletes ha...

The aim of this research was to study the prevalence of nonaccidental violence among elite athletes in Finland, the predisposing factors to violence, and its consequences for mental well-being and ill-being. A total of 2,045 Finnish athletes participated in the study. Logistic and linear regression analyses were used to analyze the associations. Th...

The present study aimed to examine longitudinal recovery profiles based on three recovery-enhancing processes, i.e., psychological detachment from work, physical exercise, and sleep. In addition, we examined whether job-related demands and resources predict profile membership and whether profile membership predicts well-being outcomes. The particip...

Shaping off-job life is becoming increasingly important for workers to increase and maintain their optimal functioning (i.e., feeling and performing well). Proactively shaping the job domain (referred to as job crafting) has been extensively studied, but crafting in the off-job domain has received markedly less research attention. Based on the Inte...

Studies on the stress‐sleep relationship consistently demonstrate negative effects of stress on sleep. The reversed relation, however, has received less research attention. Also, field studies on physiological stress are scarce. The aim of this day‐level diary study was to examine daily relationships between sleep quality and quantity, and subjecti...

Recovery from work stress during workday breaks, free evenings, weekends, and vacations is known to benefit employee health and well-being. However, how recovery at different temporal settings is interconnected is not well understood. We hypothesized that on days when employees engage in recovery-enhancing lunchtime activities, they will experience...

The aim of the present study was to identify profiles of elite athlete mental well- and ill-being and study how the profiles (i.e., subgroups of athletes) differed in sport-related demands and resources. A total of 259 Finnish elite athletes ( n = 170 active and n = 89 retired) completed quantitative self-report inventories. Through cluster analysi...

Technological acceleration is intensifying job demands (IJDs), referring to work intensification, intensified job- and career-related planning and decision-making demands, and intensified learning demands at work. IJDs mean new challenges for workers but recovery from work during off-job time through psychological detachment from work may help empl...

The relationship between recovery experiences and cognitive failures among Finnish teachers The aim of this study was to investigate how recovery experiences during off-job time (i.e., detachment from work, relaxation, control, mastery, meaning, and affiliation) are related to self-reported cognitive failures among Finnish teachers. Cognitive fail...

This chapter focuses on intensified working life via the intensified job demands (IJDs) model from the perspective of recovery from work by paying particular attention to the potentially mediating and buffering roles of recovery in the linkages between IJDs and their consequences. In empirical analyses, we examined the buffering role of psychologic...

Objective This research examined the work-related ill- and well-being of Finnish sport coaches and the associations of job demands and resources with burnout and work engagement. Our study was based on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model. The JD-R model proposes that job demands relate especially to burnout and job resources relate especially to...

Aims and objectives The aims of the study were to identify content categories of unreasonable and unnecessary illegitimate tasks and to investigate how unreasonable and unnecessary tasks relate to occupational wellbeing. Background Illegitimate tasks are a common stressor among healthcare professionals, and they have been shown to have negative as...

The present study focused on within‐workday recovery, which has received less scholarly attention than has recovery outside work. We examined six break recovery experiences (detachment, relaxation, autonomy, mastery, meaning and affiliation) as possible mediators between daily emotional job demands, positive and negative affect both in the afternoo...

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in psychological need satisfaction and its role in promoting optimal functioning. The DRAMMA model integrates existing need and recovery models to explain why leisure is connected to optimal functioning (i.e., high well-being and low ill-being). It encompasses six psychological needs: detachmen...

Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli selvittää, onko palautumisessa jatkuvuutta työpäivän aikana ja vapaa-ajalla. Etsimme aineistosta palautumisprofiileja sen perusteella, miten hyvin työntekijät palautuvat työstä sekä tauoilla että vapaa-ajalla. Palautumista tarkasteltiin psykologisen työstä irrottautumisen ja rentoutumisen kautta. Lisäksi tutkitti...

The aim of the present study was twofold: First, to profile the long-term development of burnout symptoms (exhaustion, cynicism and reduced professional efficacy), and second, to investigate the associations of developmental burnout profiles with job demands and resources. The study focused on Finnish white-collar professionals (N = 169) who partic...

This study investigates leaders' motivation to lead (MTL) as a personal resource for building a sustainable career as a leader. Using a person-centered methodology, we identified different latent profiles of leadership motivation. These motivational profiles were compared with leaders' occupational well-being and leadership-related career intention...

Purpose The study had three aims. We investigated, first, how six recovery experiences (i.e., detachment, relaxation, control, mastery, meaning, and affiliation) during off-job time suggested by the DRAMMA model (Newman et al. in J Happiness Stud 15(3):555–578. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-013-9435-x, 2014) are related to well-being (i.e., vital...

The aim of this study was to investigate whether beneficial vacation effects can be strengthened and prolonged with a smartphone-based intervention. In a four-week longitudinal study among 79 Finnish teachers, we investigated the development of recovery, well-being, and job performance before, during, and after a one-week vacation in three groups:...

Age has not received much attention in research on work stress recovery. The present study addressed this research gap by studying whether age moderates the relationship between recovery experiences (detachment from work and relaxation) during workday breaks and recovery outcomes (need for recovery and job burnout) among teachers. Both lunchbreaks...

Purpose: Individual differences in the development of perceived job insecurity among young workers may be influenced by characteristics of the first job (contract type and sector) and individual background (education and previous unemployment), and can have implications for subsequent health and well-being. The aim of this study was to investigate...

Does recovery from work strain protect employees from the effects of intensified job demands on job exhaustion? Abstract Purpose: Technological acceleration is changing working life and one of its implications are intensified job demands (IJDs), referring to work intensification, intensified job-related planning and decision-making demands, intensi...

This study aimed to improve our understanding of what constitutes a healthy organizational change process among university employees. Positive attitudes and proactive participation toward organizational change were presumed to affect and be affected by personality resources measured via core selfevaluations and work-related motivational well-being...

The aim of this three‐wave longitudinal study conducted among 664 Finnish employees was to examine the cross‐lagged relationships between various work‐related ruminative thoughts (affective rumination, problem‐solving pondering, lack of detachment from work) during off‐job time and employee well‐being (exhaustion, vigour). We tested normal, reverse...

Longitudinal research on the relationship between job demands and job performance and its underlying mechanisms is scarce. The aims of this longitudinal three‐wave study among 920 Finnish employees were to ascertain whether (1) challenge job demands (i.e., workload, cognitive demands) and self‐reported job performance are positively related over ti...

This research addresses the profiles of nature exposure and outdoor activities in nature among Finnish employees (N = 783). The profiles were formed on the bases of nature exposure at work and the frequency and type of outdoor activities in nature engaged in during leisure time. The profiles were investigated in relation to work engagement and burn...

Latent profile analysis (LPA) is a person-centered method commonly used in organizational research to identify homogeneous subpopulations of employees within a heterogeneous population. However, in the case of nested data structures, such as employees nested in work departments, multilevel techniques are needed. Multilevel LPA (MLPA) enables adequa...

To test the direct and moderator effects of the stressor–detachment model from a long-term perspective, we investigated whether workload and detachment are related to changes in exhaustion and sleep difficulties over one year. We also examined whether detachment attenuates the relationship between high workload and these outcomes both cross-section...

Aims: We investigated two single items of the Work Ability Index - work ability score, and future work ability - as predictors of register-based disability pension and long-term sickness absence over a three-year follow-up. Methods: Survey responses of 11,131 Finnish employees were linked to pension and long-term (more than 10 days) sickness abs...

Työntekijöiden jaksaminen on työelämässä koetuksella. Tarkoituksemme on tutkia, kuinka uupumusasteisen väsymyksen taso muuttuu kahden vuoden aikana ja miten tämä muutos tai pysyvyys kytkeytyy työstä palautumiseen. Palautumista tutkimme sitä ylläpitävien palautumisen kokemusten (työstä irrottautuminen, rentoutuminen, taidonhallinta ja kontrolli vapa...

We aimed to identify longitudinal leisure activity profiles among working adults and their links to recovery experiences and job performance. Leisure activities, recovery experiences, and job performance were investigated in 831 employees using survey data collected in spring 2013 (T1) and 2014 (T2). Through latent profile analysis (LPA) four stabl...

We investigated relations between various types of self-reported nature exposure at work and at home, and well-being among employees (N = 664) across two years. An electronic questionnaire was delivered three times, once a year. We identified seven employee groups with different long-term trajectories of four well-being indicators (vitality, happin...

- Emotional labor is a common job stressor among health care professionals and therefore more research evidence is needed concerning its buffers. - Age-specific knowledge regarding the buffers of different job stressors is needed as health care professionals in industrialized countries are aging. - The results showed that recovery from work bufferi...

This study extends previous research on recovery from work stress by investigating the role of qualitative job demands and leadership in employees’ work-related rumination (WRR). The long-term development of WRR was examined from a person-centred approach across 22 months. Drawing on the stressor-detachment framework and conservation of resources t...

Considering the increasing demands of various occupational interventions, this study aimed at examining the impact of relaxation exercises and park walks during lunch breaks on physiological recovery (i.e., on changes in cortisol excretion and blood pressure). In a four-week randomized controlled trial, 153 knowledge workers in seven companies were...

Only few studies so far have examined recovery from work during workday breaks. In this intervention study, based on the effort-recovery model and the conservation of resources theory, we examined how to enhance recovery during lunch breaks. More specifically, we examined the within-person effects of lunchtime park walks and relaxation exercises on...

The aim of this 2-year longitudinal study was to identify long-term patterns of work-related rumination in terms of affective rumination, problem-solving pondering, and lack of psychological detachment from work during off-job time. We also examined how the patterns differed in job demands and wellbeing outcomes. The data were collected via questio...

The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS) is a commonly used life satisfaction scale. Cross-cultural researchers use SWLS to compare mean scores of life satisfaction across countries. Despite the wide use of SWLS in cross-cultural studies, measurement invariance of SWLS has rarely been investigated, and previous studies showed inconsistent findings....

The tourism industry thrives on the notion that holiday travel improves wellbeing. However, scientific evidence that holiday travel is more beneficial than spending free time at home is lacking. Using the Effort-Recovery and the Limited Resources model as theoretical basis, this study investigates whether workers behave, think, and feel differently...

Lunch breaks constitute the longest within-workday rest period, but it is unclear how they affect recovery from job stress. We conducted two randomized controlled trials with 153 Finnish knowledge workers who engaged for 15 minutes daily in various prescribed lunch break activities for ten consecutive working days. Participants were randomly assig...

Adequate energy management during the working day is essential for employees to remain healthy and vital. Research has investigated which energy management strategies are frequently used and which are most beneficial, but the results are inconclusive and research is still scarce. We aim to extend the current knowledge by considering individual diff...

Work-related rumination is not a single construct, but consists of a dimension associated with negative emotions or affect (affective rumination), and a dimension associated with reflective thinking and applying strategies to solve problems (problem-solving pondering). In this threewave longitudinal study across two years (N = 630) we investigated...

We investigated school psychologists’ experiences of ethical strain (the frequency of ethical dilemmas at work and the stress caused by these dilemmas) and dilemma-related rumination outside working hours. Individual latent profiles were estimated at the study baseline based on these three dimensions. The psychologists’ weekly well-being (vigor, ex...

We investigated two-directional relations between various types of exposure to the natural world, at work and at home, and employee well-being. In total, 841 employees answered an electronic questionnaire twice with a one-year interval. Path analysis indicated that frequent physical activity in natural surroundings during free time predicted greate...

The long-term development of employee well-being is still poorly understood. Consequently, in this three-wave 10-year longitudinal study among Finnish managers (n = 402) the development of employee well-being was examined in in detail. Specifically, the long-term development of job-related affective well-being was investigated at the intra-individu...

Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli selvittää työuupumuksesta toipumisen kehityspolkuja ja näihin yhteydessä olevia tekijöitä 1,5 vuoden seurannan aikana. Erityisenä kiinnostuksen kohteena oli toimijuus ja sen rakentumisen yhteys työuupumuksesta toipumiseen. Tutkimusaineisto koostui Kuntoutus Peurungan Virveli-kuntoutuskursseille osallistuneista ja kunto...

The personality high-order concept of core self-evaluations (CSE), which refers to a basic evaluation of one’s worth, capability, and effectiveness, has attracted a lot of research interest. Yet little is known about the construct validity of the core self-evaluation scale (CSES) while information on its longitudinal factorial validity is wholly la...

This study had two aims. First, we examined whether lunch break settings, activities, and recovery experiences were associated with lunchtime recovery cross-sectionally. Second, we investigated whether lunchtime recovery was related to energy levels (i.e., exhaustion and vigor) across a 12-month period. We collected longitudinal questionnaire data...

Background: Both work stress and poor recovery have been shown to contribute to the development of burnout. However, the role of recovery as a mediating mechanism that links work stress to burnout has not been sufficiently addressed in research. Aims: To examine recovery as a mediator in the relationship between work stress and burnout among tea...

This study contributes to the literature on the supervisors’ role in employee well-being by drawing on two separate lines of research: transformational leadership and organizational justice. The purpose of the study was to investigate the 'unique' contributions of transformational and fair leadership (justice behaviours of supervisors) on work enga...

This study examines the effects of the job demands and job resources typical of international business travel (IBT) on psychological well-being (job exhaustion, vigor and satisfaction with work-related travel) among 232 Finnish IBTs. The study is theoretically based on the job demands-resources model and both health impairment and motivational proc...

Objective: The effort-reward imbalance (ERI) model includes the personal characteristic of overcommitment (OC) and the job-related characteristics of effort, reward, and ERI, all of which are assumed to play a role in an employee's health and well-being at work. The aim of the present longitudinal study was to shed more light on the dynamics of th...

We used a longitudinal design and a person-centred methodology to test the strain and learning hypotheses of the job demands–control model among Finnish employees (n = 926), who were followed-up at three time points covering a period of 2 years (2008–2010). First, we identified longitudinal subgroups in demands and control across three measurement...

This one-year follow-up study (N = 841) investigated the relationship between boundary crossing behavior from work to non-work and work-related rumination (i.e., affective rumination, problem-solving pondering and lack of psychological detachment from work during off-job time). This relationship is important to examine as work-related rumination is...

This study identified patterns of psychological contract (PC) and examined how these patterns were related to employee well-being and in-role performance over time (T1–T3). PC was measured at T1 based on cross-sectional data and well-being and performance longitudinally in two consecutive years (T1−T3) among university employees. Latent profile ana...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between authentic leadership and team climate across 22 months. More specifically, three alternative causation models (normal, reversed, reciprocal) were tested. Design/methodology/approach – The longitudinal study was conducted among 265 Finnish municipal employees (87.5 per cent...

Aim: The study examined whether three resources, that is, compassion, transformational leadership and work ethic feasibility, buffer against the negative effects of emotional labour on work engagement. Background: Emotional labour is a common job stressor among nurses, but little is known about whether certain personal and work resources buffer...

This article reports a systematic review of findings on the long-term development of employee well-being, taking into account the effects of time lag, age, and job change. High-quality quantitative empirical studies focusing on employee affective well-being based on the circumplex model and utilizing measurements at more than two points in time wer...

This study explored the relationship between cultural leisure activities, recovery experiences and two outcomes among hospital workers. The differences in recovery experiences (detachment, relaxation, mastery and control) and outcomes (work engagement and subjective recovery state) among hospital personnel (N=769) were analysed by the type (recepti...

The variable-oriented approach has dominated empirical burnout research, but during the last 10 years a person-oriented approach to burnout has also become common. The aim of this systematic literature review was to identify, categorize and evaluate the empirical research to date that has adopted a person-oriented approach to burnout. The results o...

The aim of the present study conducted among 1,106 Finnish employees was to identify boundary management profiles based on cross-role interruption behaviors from work to nonwork and from nonwork to work. Adopting a person-oriented approach through latent profile analysis, five profiles were identified: Work Guardians (21% of the employees), Nonwork...

It has been shown that recovery (i.e., unwinding from one’s job demands) is important for reducing the negative effects of job stress. Consequently, poor recovery from job stress deserves research attention as a risk factor in the job stress–strain relationship. Recovery can occur both during free time (i.e., evenings, weekends, vacations) and with...

In this study we found that fair leadership is even more important for employee well-being than transformational leadership. Using Cholesky decomposition to overcome multicollinearity, we demonstrated that fair leadership explained work engagement among employees to the same extent as transformational leadership. Furthermore, unfair leadership cont...

Research has provided convincing evidence for the adverse effects of both short- and long-term unemployment, and perceived job insecurity on individuals' health and well-being. This study aims to go one critical step further by comparing the association between short- and long-term unemployment, and perceived job insecurity with a diverse set of he...

Purpose: To explore how burnout rehabilitation clients experienced their recovery from burnout and what they found beneficial in rehabilitation. Subjects: Twelve clients whose burnout levels had declined during rehabilitation were interviewed at the end of the second period of the rehabilitation course. Methods: Semi-structured interviews comp...

We examined work-family conflict (WFC) and work-family enrichment (WFE) by comparing Finnish nurses, working dayshifts (non-shiftworkers, n = 874) and non-dayshifts. The non-dayshift employees worked either two different dayshifts (2-shiftworkers, n = 490) or three different shifts including nightshifts (3-shiftworkers, n = 270). Specifically, we i...

We examined energy management during work, recovery experiences after work and their connections to health, work engagement, and job performance. An online survey was completed by 1208 Finnish employees. Energy management was assessed through 13 strategies and recovery experiences through four experiences. As outcomes of recovery, we examined self-...

This study investigated work–family conflict (WFC) and enrichment (WFE) in relation to job exhaustion and turnover intentions among long-term temporary (n = 384) and permanent (n = 430) workers. We used three-wave data collected among Finnish university employees in 3 consecutive years. The participants were either permanently or temporarily employ...

Purpose: The present study aimed at identifying subgroups of employees with similar daily energy management strategies at work and finding out whether well-being indicators and job characteristics differ between these subgroups. Methods: The study was conducted by electronic questionnaire among 1,122 Finnish employees. First, subgroups of employee...

The overall objective of this longitudinal study was to investigate the association between perceived leadership and employee well-being from a person-centred approach utilizing the principles of the conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist, 44...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether immigrants, when in the minority, are more exposed to bullying at work than natives, and whether immigrants’ cultural distance from the host culture increases the risk of being bullied. Design/methodology/approach – The study was conducted as a cross-sectional survey. The participants...

This study examines the effects of the job demands typical of international business travel (i.e., workload, pressure, and risks associated with destinations) and those of supportive HR practices applied as a job resource on psychological well-being (job exhaustion, vigor and satisfaction with work-related travel) among international business trave...

There is increasing pressure to develop services to enhance the health of the workforce on the periphery of the labour market. Health promotion among unemployed people may improve their health but also to increase their employability. We tested whether re-employment can be enhanced with a health care intervention targeted at the unemployed. A 3-yea...

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to study well-being among the internationally mobile work force by exploring the relationships between international business traveling, work–family conflict, and health issues. In this study, these relationships are examined on the basis of the health impairment process of the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model. M...

This is an illustrative review on studies revealing the restorative, i.e. stress-reducing, effects of natural settings. We focus on the effects of viewing or being physically active in the natural setting and the effects of indoor plants and window views on restoration and recovery. These themes represent interesting and potentially fruitful areas...

The present study examines the direct and moderating effects of an international career orientation in the relationship between frequency and duration of international business traveling and work-to-life conflict and enrichment. In addition, the effort-reward imbalance that potentially features in the international business traveler's job was exami...

The aim of this study was to investigate how co-worker relations are associated with psychological well-being and job satisfaction among immigrants and host nationals working at the same workplace. Among immigrants, we examined co-worker relations with co-culturals, host nationals, and foreign immigrants, whereas among host nationals, we focused on...

Purpose ‐ The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the link between transformational leadership and depressive symptoms among employees is mediated by such personal resources as occupational self-efficacy, perceived meaningfulness of the work, and work-related rumination. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The study was conducted using questionna...

Background The objective of this research project is to understand and to improve workers’ recovery from work stress. Although recovery during lunch breaks is the most common within-workday break, it has received only minor research attention. Therefore, we will study whether lunch breaks including a relaxation session or exposure to nature have mo...

The present study tested the factorial validity of the 9-item Bergen Burnout Inventory (BBI-9)1). The BBI-9 is comprised of three core dimensions: (1) exhaustion at work; (2) cynicism toward the meaning of work; and (3) sense of inadequacy at work. The study further investigated whether the three-factor structure of the BBI-9 remains the same acros...

This 2-year longitudinal study among 848 university employees investigated the individual development of perceived job insecurity (JI) in the context of changes occurring in the Finnish universities during the follow-up time. Adopting a person-oriented approach through latent profile analysis, 8 classes of employees with similar mean levels and mea...

ReSuLead (Rewarding and sustainable health-promoting leadership) is a joint venture of three research teams from Leipzig (Germany), Västerås (Sweden), and Tampere (Finland). The aim of this project is to examine the role of leadership in relation to employees’ psychological health and wellbeing. Leadership is considered as a social process which is...

This study examined the relationship between job insecurity and turnover intention by applying occupational well-being (exhaustion, vigour) as a mediator. The study was inspired by two theories: the conservation of resources and emotional contagion theories. We investigated the relationships at the individual and work department levels by utilizing...

The first aim of this study was to identify trajectories of perceived employability (PE) with a longitudinal person-centered approach, accounting for both the level of PE and changes in PE. The second aim was to examine how the trajectories were related to well-being at work (i.e., vigor at work, job satisfaction, and job exhaustion) with a variabl...

The aim of the present study conducted among 274 Finnish employees was to examine the relationships between job characteristics, recovery experiences and occupational well-being across 1 year. We hypothesized that these relationships would follow normal causation, that is, job characteristics at T1 predict recovery experiences (detachment, relaxati...