Lonely at the top? Try being in the middle.

A recent study finds middle managers who feel less powerful are often lonelier in their work than those who feel more so. This can have ramifications not only for individuals who feel unrecognised and alienated from those who employ them, but also for organisations themselves, particularly if the affected mid-level managers take out their frustrations in the workplace

Lonely-ship:The Emergence and Experience of Leader Loneliness

Over the past few decades, interest in loneliness – broadly defined as the subjective, unpleasant experience of social disconnectedness – has grown significantly. Scholars from disciplines such as psychology, sociology, and philosophy have been studying the phenomenon and its largely undesirable consequences to individual health, general functioning, and relational outcomes. Despite rising academic interest in these adjacent academic domains, loneliness has only recently started to attract attention in the management field. This is surprising, given the potential negative organizational and managerial implications of loneliness.Leaders, particularly, seem to be vulnerable to experiences of loneliness. Yet, scholars tend to conflate leader loneliness with general loneliness. Considering leadership often involves directing teams, influencing strategic directions, and making high-pressure decisions in organizations, a generalized approach ignores these leadership-specific factors that may trigger loneliness experiences.To better understand this overlooked phenomenon, I adopted multiple perspectives and methods in this PhD thesis. In the first project, I conducted a review-based critique of evidence that attempted the question: does loneliness matter for leadership? Recent years saw an increase in academic literature trying to answer this question. While leader loneliness is an important concern for organizations, it remains unclear how existing research could support theory and practice of this phenomenon. I synthesized and evaluated the literature, including 69 empirical articles and five conceptual pieces, to lay foundation for the organizational scholarship of leader loneliness. By critically evaluating prior work across levels of analysis and research paradigms, I clarified the conceptualization of leader loneliness, provided an integrative understanding of the antecedents and outcomes, discussed issues of previous research, and offered a research agenda for future research to understand loneliness in leadership contexts. My critique suggests that the current scientific field has four conceptual and methodological limitations. First, the conceptual representation of leader loneliness is unclear. The concept is often conflated with general loneliness. As a result, leadership-specific antecedents and outcomes are missing in the theoretical conceptualizations. Second, findings based on different research paradigms and levels of analysis have led to inconsistent yet unreconciled conclusions. Third, the measurement of leader loneliness is often imprecise. Fourth, the methodological concerns in previous studies hinder the interpretation of many available findings. Specifically, some quantitative studies incur endogeneity issues, while a number of qualitative studies involve research design issues. In the second project, I adopted an inductive, narrative approach to understand how leaders make sense of loneliness experiences. Despite the cultural narrative of “lonely at the top”, organizational members rarely consider loneliness as a leadership challenge. The stigma on negative emotions and romanticized view on leadership further contributed to the continued silence on workplace loneliness. Moreover, prior work often assumed that loneliness was a universal experience and ignored the nuances of individual relational expectations and meanings attached to loneliness. I conducted in-depth interviews with 26 leaders in the Netherlands and extracted stories about their day-to-day leadership and loneliness experiences in their organizational roles. My narrative analysis revealed that loneliness is situated and adaptive for leaders requiring a dynamic perspective. Bringing narratives of leadership meta-categories and instances of loneliness experiences together, I proposed a characterization model of leadership and loneliness that shows the processes of (a) successful adaptation and (b) loneliness perpetuation through making sense of loneliness triggers and deploying one’s coping repertoire. My conceptual model has implications for the blooming literature of loneliness in leadership contexts. In the third project, I examined subjective power and self-disclosure across hierarchy to explain the emergence of loneliness of mid-level managers. Previous studies often focus on either individual or peer-related factors to loneliness and ignored the influence of organizational hierarchy on relationships and emotions at work. Integrating social penetration theory and the power literature, I proposed that self-disclosure across hierarchy, i.e., to superiors and to followers, would reduce workplace loneliness; and that subjective power would relate negatively to loneliness via self-disclosure across hierarchy. Across two studies, I tested my model in the mid-level management context, in which loneliness is prevalent and the hierarchical influence is salient. In an online experiment (Study 1; N = 453), I manipulated the frequency and target (to superiors vs. to followers) of self-disclosure and found that frequent self-disclosure, both upwards and downwards, could reduce loneliness. In a three-wave, time-lagged survey study (Study 2; N = 200), I showed that employees with high subjective power were more likely to share personal, sensitive information to their superiors and to their followers, and hence reported feeling less lonely at work. However, results from a supplementary analysis suggest that upward disclosure was more effective than downward disclosure in preventing workplace loneliness. Finally, I present evidence that workplace loneliness had positive associations with emotional exhaustion, ego depletion, and sleep problems. Together, my work is a timely response to the loneliness “epidemic” and calls for more attention to leader well-being issues in both research and practice.<br/

Aggregative oviposition varies with density in processionary moths—Implications for insect outbreak propensity

1. In gregarious insects, groups commonly originate from females laying eggs in masses and feeding groups are established as soon as larvae hatch. Some groupliving insect species may aggregate beyond the individual parent level, such that offspring from two or more egg masses develop within a common resource. 2. Here we show that aggregative oviposition can vary with population density at oviposition and possibly be an important factor in outbreak dynamics of phytophagous insects. 3. We analysed density data with respect to egg mass aggregation for two species of pine processionary moths, Thaumetopoea pinivora (in Sweden 2005–2019) and T. pityocampa (in Spain 1973–1991). Both species lay their eggs in egg masses and feed in groups. During the study periods, insect population density for both species varied by at least an order of magnitude. 4. The two species showed strikingly similar patterns of egg mass aggregation. Egg masses were overdispersed at high population density, with few trees showing a high load of egg masses. 5. Our data suggest that aggregative oviposition can be important in explaining the previously documented higher propensity for outbreaks in insects laying eggs in clusters, compared with those laying individual eggs.European Union's Horizon 2020 Program for Research and Innovation 771271Spanish Governmen

Four Simple Ways To Combat The Loneliness Caused By COVID-19

The growth of remote working is nothing new, but the panic brought on by the COVID-19 crisis means many of us may suddenly need to work from home, sometimes for the first time, with a lack of formal policies or training.Research shows that working from home can mean higher productivity, increased creativity and job satisfaction. But the extreme nature of coronavirus and the introduction of social distancing have meant that many employees are now being forced to work from home and physically isolate themselves from friends, family and colleagues- resulting in feelings of loneliness for many. [...

Winter temperature predicts prolonged diapause in pine processionary moth species across their geographic range

Prolonged diapause occurs in a number of insects and is interpreted as a way to evade adverse conditions. The winter pine processionary moths (Thaumetopoea pityocampa and Th. wilkinsoni) are important pests of pines and cedars in the Mediterranean region. They are typically univoltine, with larvae feeding across the winter, pupating in spring in the soil and emerging as adults in summer. Pupae may, however, enter a prolonged diapause with adults emerging one or more years later. We tested the effect of variation in winter temperature on the incidence of prolonged diapause, using a total of 64 individual datasets related to insect cohorts over the period 1964 2015 for 36 sites in seven countries, covering most of the geographic range of both species. We found high variation in prolonged diapause incidence over their ranges. At both lower and upper ends of the thermal range in winter, prolonged diapause tended to be higher than at intermediate temperatures. Prolonged diapause may represent a risk-spreading strategy to mitigate climate uncertainty, although it may increase individual mortality because of a longer exposure to mortality factors such as predation, parasitism, diseases or energy depletion. Climate change, and in particular the increase of winter temperature, may reduce the incidence of prolonged diapause in colder regions whereas it may increase it in warmer ones, with consequences for population dynamics.Work supported by Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Padova e Rovigo to Md H.R. Salman, University of Padova to Myron P. Zalucki and Folco Giomi, Spanish Ministry of the Environment (PROPINOL PN22/2008 and CONSOLIDER-MONTES CSD2008- 00040) to José A. Hodar, DIAMETABO project of the INRA EFPA department to Mathieu Laparie, European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement N. 771271 HOMED (Holistic Management of Emerging forest pests and Diseases) to Andrea Battisti

Fitting Biochars and Activated Carbons from Residues of the Olive Oil Industry as Supports of FeCatalysts for the Heterogeneous Fenton-Like Treatment of Simulated Olive Mill Wastewater

Bruno Esteves is grateful to FCT for financial support through the PhD grant (SFRH/BD/129235/2017), with financing from National and the European Social Funds through the Human Capital Operational Programme (POCH). Sergio Morales-Torres acknowledges the financial support from the University of Granada (Reincorporación Plan Propio).A series of biochars and activated carbons (ACs) was prepared combining carbonization and physical or chemical activation of cheap and abundant residues of the olive oil industry. These materials were used as Fe-support to develop low-cost catalysts for the heterogeneous Fenton-like oxidation of simulated olive mill wastewater (OMW), the highly pollutant effluent generated by this agroindustry. Commercial ACs were also used as reference. All catalysts prepared were extensively characterized and results related with their performances in the catalytic wet peroxide oxidation (CWPO). Results showed a linear relationship of the textural properties of the catalysts with the adsorptive and catalytic performance, as well as the preferential adsorption and degradation of some phenolic compounds (caffeic and gallic acids) by specific interactions with the catalysts’ surface. Despite the best performance of catalysts developed using commercial supports, those prepared from agro-industrial residues present some advantages, including a smaller catalyst deactivation by iron leaching. CWPO results show that catalysts from physically activated olive stones are the most promising materials, reaching total organic carbon and toxicity reductions of 35% and 60%, respectively, as well an efficient use of H2O2, comparable with those obtained using commercial supports. This approach showed that the optimized treatment of this type of residues will allow their integration in the circular economic process of the olive oil production.Laboratory for Process Engineering, Environment, Biotechnology and Energy-LEPABE - FCT/MCTES (PIDDAC) - European Regional Development Funds (ERDF) through North Portugal Regional Operational Programme (NORTE 2020) UIDB/00511/2020 NORTE-01-0247-FEDER-39789Spanish Project from ERDF/Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities-State Research Agency RTI2018-099224-B-I0

Aggregative oviposition varies with density in processionary moths-Implications for insect outbreak propensity

In gregarious insects, groups commonly originate from females laying eggs in masses and feeding groups are established as soon as larvae hatch. Some group-living insect species may aggregate beyond the individual parent level, such that offspring from two or more egg masses develop within a common resource. Here we show that aggregative oviposition can vary with population density at oviposition and possibly be an important factor in outbreak dynamics of phytophagous insects. We analysed density data with respect to egg mass aggregation for two species of pine processionary moths, Thaumetopoea pinivora (in Sweden 2005-2019) and T. pityocampa (in Spain 1973-1991). Both species lay their eggs in egg masses and feed in groups. During the study periods, insect population density for both species varied by at least an order of magnitude. The two species showed strikingly similar patterns of egg mass aggregation. Egg masses were overdispersed at high population density, with few trees showing a high load of egg masses. Our data suggest that aggregative oviposition can be important in explaining the previously documented higher propensity for outbreaks in insects laying eggs in clusters, compared with those laying individual eggs