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Purpose A critical aspect of understanding any culture is how it manifests in artifacts and social interactions, yet this understanding largely remains absent from the MCC literature. We explore one costly organizational artifact: the employee benefits package. Design/methodology/approach Using cross-sectional survey data (N = 486), we examine the relationships between MCC and benefit provision, communication, and knowledge confidence. Exploratory mediation analyses were conducted to explore the role of communication in MCC’s relations with employee benefit knowledge confidence. Findings MCC was significantly negatively associated with the provision of mental health benefits but showed no significant relationship with physical health benefits. MCC was negatively associated with benefits communication and confidence in mental health benefit knowledge, with communication partially mediating the relationship between MCC and knowledge confidence. Originality These findings demonstrate organizational culture is linked to access to healthcare resources, particularly benefits serving mental, but not physical, health. Benefit communication may play a pivotal role in bridging gaps in employee understanding of benefits. This research extends Schein’s framework of organizational culture by highlighting MCC’s relationship with both structural and social artifacts within organizations. MCC may be a fruitful intervention target for employee healthcare access. 

Abstract Organizations spend trillions of dollars per year on their employee benefits packages. One reason for this may be that benefits packages are key tools for organizations to signal their values. We draw on signaling theory to understand how employees interpret and react to healthcare benefits as a function of (1) benefit universality, (2) benefit political contentiousness, and (3) individual political orientation. We collect two cross-sectional studies that capture reactions to four healthcare benefits: cancer treatment, reproductive care, abortion-facilitation, and gender-affirming care benefits. We find healthcare benefits signal several underlying organizational qualities, including support for employee health and well-being. Signaling support for employee health and well-being was less closely fitted to abortion-facilitative benefits and gender-affirming care benefits compared to more universal and less contentious benefits (cancer treatment and reproductive care benefits), especially among political conservatives. Similarly, abortion-facilitative benefits and gender-affirming care benefits were evaluated less positively and seen as less important and of lower utility than cancer treatment benefits and non-abortive reproductive care benefits, especially among those who identify as politically conservative. The findings extend knowledge of how and why employee reactions to benefits may differ, test under-developed aspects of signaling theory (signal fit, features and individual differences that modify fit), and inform organizational practice regarding benefit offerings. 

In this study we examine whether and why daily work stressors are associated with sleep quality and sleep quantity. We draw on the effort-recovery model to test daily relationships between challenge and hindrance work stressors and sleep quality and quantity through physical and psychological fatigue, and vigor. We analyze daily diary data from 98 working sole mothers collected over seven days. The within-person daily hypotheses linking challenge and hindrance stressors to sleep via energetic mediators in our model were not supported. Exploratory analysis revealed several of our hypotheses were supported at the between-person level. Challenge and hindrance stressors were differentially related to psychological fatigue and physical fatigue such that hindrance stressors were positively associated, and challenge stressors were negatively associated. Challenge and hindrance stressors were differentially related to vigor such that hindrance stressors were negatively associated, and challenge stressors were positively associated. Across individuals, challenge and hindrance stressors were indirectly related to sleep quantity through these energetic mediators. This study answers calls for more investigations into mechanisms linking work stressors and sleep, and emphasizes the importance of examining phenomena at multiple levels of analysis. Theoretical and practical implications for the challenge-hindrance framework and effort-recovery model, including the appropriate timeframe for study, are discussed. 

Working sole mothers (i.e., non-partnered women who work) may experience elevated family demands that impose barriers to pursuing health behaviors during their daily leisure time. We aimed to map the process through which evening family demands influence leisure-time health behaviors in this priority population of employees, in an effort to identify targets for intervention development and health disparity reduction. Conducting a seven-day daily survey study in a sample of 102 working sole mothers, we supported perceptions of control over leisure time as a key mechanism linking evening family demands to leisure-time exercise. Furthermore, we identified the individual difference of present-focus (i.e., a tendency to focus on current experiences) as a key factor that alters how evening family demands affect control over leisure time, which ultimately mitigates the detrimental influence of these demands on evening exercise engagement. In contrast, we did not find evidence to support relationships of evening family demands with the health behaviors of leisure time consumption of alcohol or high sugar, high fat foods via control over leisure time. We discuss how our findings advance theory regarding how family demands influence health and inform practical efforts to reduce health disparities that working sole mothers face.