PRINCIPLE 8. ACTING WITH CONSIDERATION FOR LEVEL OF INFLUENCE

Implementation of preventive organization level intervention activities have a high risk of failing, which means that organizational sources of work-related stress are at risk of remaining unaffected. One explanation of implementation failures is that participants have limited level of influence over the choice of activities.

Consequently, participants do not have sufficient power and control to make the necessary decisions and changes. This paper addresses one of the ecommendation in the manifesto - Acting with consideration for level of influence. Level of influence should be considered when the project participant decide on the specific/concrete activities, more specifically the intersection between the exploration phase (Ipsen & Andersen 2013) or action planning (Nielsen et al. 2010) and the implementation phase .

We present findings from two studies (Jarebrant et al. 2016; Ipsen et al. 2015)of participatory interventions. Covey’s work on circles of Concern and Control (Covey 1989) forms the basis for the principle. In an organizational level intervention context, it means that the change agent, problem owner and participants together decide the scope of the intervention.

The scope should focus on interventions where the project participants can exert sufficient influence to control the design and content of the intervention activities and the subsequent implementation process. Control means that the person in charge of the intervention has legitimate power (Raven 1992) to decide which changes the participants are to implement.

Control also implies that the changes lie within the responsibilities of the person in charge, and s/he can take necessary actions, if needed.