1

Role of Employee’s Health Belief and Readiness to Change in Response to Health

Management Interventions in Higher Education Institutes
: A case reference to Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune.
Vishal Pradhan1, Sharvari Shukla

1 Symbiosis Centre for Information Technology, vishal@scit.edu

2 Symbiosis Statistical Institute, director@ssi.edu
Symbiosis International (Deemed University), Pune (India).

Introduction

Indian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are more process driven and further set to
become performance driven. The knowledge imparted and created in HEIs is a force for
national development. The career in or serving for HEI is rewarding for some critical reasons.
For academicians, job satisfaction is realized through teaching, research, consultancy, and
related intellectual challenges. At higher management and administrative level- strategizing
for performance and growth, and exhibit HEIs prowess regarding ranks may be an essential
challenge. At service-staff level, need for socialization and job security may be the critical
considerations. In general, a job in HEI ensures better socio-economic stature in the time of
growing uncertainty. Apart from providing a quality lifestyle for thy family and fascination
for onlookers, the implications for health, primarily due to physical inactivity and increase in
levels of stress could be severe.

Job in an HEI needs a fixed number of office hours to be physically clocked-in with a rare
scope for telecommuting. The educators and academic researchers are self-driven to work
much beyond the stipulated office hours to satisfy their intellectual thirst for knowledge and
also contribute their part in HEIs research goals. The service-staff have demanding physical-
activity schedule due to their job nature and on the other side office, and academic employees
starve for natural daylight. HEIs compare and strive to be better to be viable producers of
student workforce for corporate recruiters and diversify in new disciplines (faculty). To
mitigate the demand for sustainable advancement, the national and international rank of the
HEIs is an important index. Fulfilling the evaluation parameters at an institute or HEI level is
the responsibility of the team and sub-teams of employees. A share of accountability is thus
communicated to all employees down the line. Many of these evaluation parameters are
related to quality improvement and conduct of innovative practices in HEIs, which need
substantial ideation and efforts. The employment rationality, within a relatively secured job
environment, is thus linked to the status-performance conflict in the job role.

Coping with the increasing competition, state of losing the job by being redundant in the
system is the atypical risk in HEI job. In HEI job volatility, complexity, and job ambiguity
have been increasingly experienced. These may be sources of distress. The sedentary habits
and occupation-related problems may cause atypical health hazards. The employees operating
in such an environment, stress can quickly turn to pain, may lead to anxiety and depression.

Shortly, some Indian HEI employees may find it difficult to cope up with such ‘occupational
hazards' – the health problems related to work. Health welfare should be a matter of concern
for all and not treated simply as ‘HEI job phenomenon.' Though work performance is a good

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antidote on overall psychophysical well-being and happiness (eustress effect), it also fuels
physical and mental strains (distress effect).

To proactively mitigate health contingencies SIU acknowledges several regular welfare

programs. Some employees may feel that most activities tend to prepare them from health
criticality and not necessarily help prevent it. The recreational activities may engage new and
young employees and only a few interested employees. People's ability to manage physical
health (sickness) may keep them going in a busy HEI job. Can HEI employee be made aware
and trained to independently deal with their customized- practical solution to deal with the
health issues, and invest regularly for the betterment of it? Can their measurable health
targets be linked to PAR evaluations? The onus of ensuring a stable balance between personal
life and professional commitments lies on the employee. To be a party to healthy competition
and practice healthy habits during work hours is a judgment call that needs to stem out of the
employee's awareness. In such a case the HEIs role may be instead of facilitating.

The knowledge workers in the HEI are also much involved in cognitive activities. The mental
exercise outcomes are interrelated to physical health outcomes. The traditional academic
duties have started taking newer forms. The new teaching-learning methodologies, such as
MOOC, MOODLE, OBE, Experiential learning, require much mental involvement and
patience. The measurable outcomes of academic activities are audited in various ways. This
continuous performance-feedback loop tests the stamina of the intellect. The much sought-
after transition of HEIs in India is to be recognized as varsity of research excellence.
Administrative roles are multitasked demanding.

The study would attempt to enable comprehension of employees' health-related patterns and
habits in various campuses of the University. This descriptive study with its deductive
approach would aim to be a foundation effort for preventive health assessments of the
university workforce. This scientific inquiry would highlight the University's noble intention
towards its employee's psycho-physical well-being.

Decision makers in Indian HEIs who intend to evolve the transition of HEIs to a physically
healthy workforce stand to benefit from this research. The expected low absenteeism, more
synergy, and happiness in work teams would relate to the derived win-win benefits, be the
dimensions worthy to be reviewed carefully. The three fundamental job nature in an HEI
demand employee role in service, administration and knowledge force. Beginning with
functional changes in health priorities, taking urgent actions to combat health ailments, could
overall inspire other HEI’s well-being policies development to define and compute wellness
index HEI’s based on physical fitness parameters of its employees. Widespread
implementable policy options would aid integration with other wellbeing practices.

Scope

Investigators would primarily attempt to focus study on physical health issues rather than
psychological ailments (source of deviance behaviors) in this study. This research work aims
to incorporate SIU affiliated employees working in its various Pune campuses. Presently we
do not include students as participants in the survey assuming health contingencies for these
young professionals is unlikely. Also, their physical association with the university is for a
fixed-short period of a few years. Although, the researchers appreciate the need to make
students aware and educate them regarding health benefits for their career and life. For the

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students’ community, the awareness and education with regards to health hazards due to road
traffic accidents would be essential ‘parallel form’ of this proposed study. The researchers
would primarily limit the geographical limits of their investigation to SIU campuses in Pune
city and region. We would find reasons to comment about the external validity
(generalizability) of this study for similar HEI in India.

Interdisciplinary relevance

The study originates primarily from the two disciplines. One, in the socio-organizational
context it clarifies the integrity intention of the two stakeholders, namely, HEI health advisors
and the employees. Second, on health discipline context it spread the compelling message
regarding purpose and continuance of pro-health related behavior. The long-term investment
in one's health eventually benefits the individual employee regarding a prolonged and
successful career.

Objectives

The study aims

 to describe the select health intervention programs for employee’s, their priority
assessment and performance at Symbiosis International University, Pune, India.

This overall objective would specifically further state the specific goal as,

 to ascertain the role of employee's self-health belief and readiness to mitigate health
priorities is the central theme of this proposed study.

Methodology

Diagnosis of existing qualitative data and exploratory results would decide the direction of
the comprehensive empirical survey to be undertaken. The path for further course of the
study could be ascertained by mining secondary data (- annual medical test data and fitness
test data, and feedback collected on continuous and planned recreational activities), the
extended nature of response given to the choices by employees, and information gathered
from the university's health experts mission. Primary data would attempt to estimate the
employees' ongoing health status beliefs based on specific health parameters. The study aims
to specifically state the health behavior change intervention (BCI) planning mechanisms.
Before initiating the policy formulation discussion as a mission to achieve ‘health conscious
workforce’ of the university, the researchers would attempt to rank and rationalize barriers in
this change program. The successful implementation of some component of behavior change
intervention may indicate social co-benefits for each campus community. The causality of
health state variation at campuses may be construed from patterns of employee designations,
campus locations, and gender types. Grouping of employees may be deduced, with practical
recommendations for each group and the University as a whole.

Taking cues from the socio-cognitive model of the perceived health risk (Rosenstock et al.,
1988); the study would investigate the extent of demand for the personal health risk
mitigation (wellbeing) as a preventive or restoring mechanism. The research problem
statement has a theoretical reference of Rosenstock’s HBM along with the trans-theoretical
model (stages of change). We would prescribe a composite mechanism to test the health
priorities of employees. These been fundamental theoretical approaches proposed to have

Minor Research Proposal, 2019 Health-Management Pradhan, V. S., Shukla, S. R.

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influenced employee study groups. The study groups are widely considered by gender (male,
female), designation (Academics, administration, and service-staff), age (unmarried and
below 30 years, married and below 40 years, 40-50, >50 years). 500 SIU employees would be
invited to participate in an adapted survey. Confirmatory structure among the derived latent
factors may be further tested for the conditional process analysis (for Analysis of mean and
covariance structure or Partial least squares path modeling method.)

Respondents would be identified through a mixed sampling strategy. Realizing the

categorical moderators considered in the study we propose to do quota sampling to have the
sizable representation of moderators. Quota sampling is a nonprobability sampling. While
formulating the mixed sampling practice, proportionate stratified random sampling would
add the benefits of random sampling procedures.

Questionnaire designing process would be linked to the theoretical foundation. Field-work:

Training of identified field-workers would be undertaken in the form of a short workshop.
The person interview, telephonic interviews seems the most appropriate means of motivating
respondents to participate in the study. Thus they may feel encouraged to give information
that they can provide. Comparative scales are useful for branching and looping as needed in
the questionnaire. Itemized rating scales (non-comparative) are deemed appropriate for
Survey. Semi-structured qualitative surveys (open-ended questions) with health intervention
designers and implementers.

Minor Research Proposal, 2019 Health-Management Pradhan, V. S., Shukla, S. R.

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Month-wise plan of work and targets to be achieved

Month Plan of activity
Apr 2019 To identify key resource persons (experts) and discuss the rationale of the
present study and request their guidance. Establish rapport with some panel
of employee participants from each campus.
May 2019 To conduct unstructured interviews of experts that establish SIUs efforts to
understand and describe present health intervention formulation –
phenomenological interpretations
Jun 2019 To perform a structured qualitative survey with experts to develop beliefs,
barriers, and benefits required as antecedents to proactive change.
Jul 2019 To formulate interpretive structural models using IRP, TISM and SAP-LAP
methods
Aug 2019 To do a secondary quantitative collection to ascertain present state of
intervention formulation and performance
Sep 2019 Secondary quantitative data analysis and deriving descriptive results
Oct 2019 Initiate review of literature and discussion of RQs
Nov 2019 Questionnaire designing process based on HBM, SLT theories
Dec 2019 Field-work: Primary data collection on psychometric scales of constructs
based on HBM, SLT/ SCT
Jan 2020 Data analysis and Interpretations
Feb 2020 Reporting primary (quantitative) data analysis by comparing with literature
reviews and secondary (qualitative) data analysis
Mar 2020 Discussions chapter – presentation in SymHealth conference
Apr 2020 Limitations and conclusions -
May 2020 To communicate research paper based on specific findings to ‘health and
employee wellbeing' theme journal.
Jun 2020 Report submission

Financial Assistance Required

Item Details Estimated
Expenditure
(in INR)
Non-recurring expenditures:
Books and articles A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural 10,000/=
Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), Book on
Advanced Issues in PLS-SEM, Handbook of
Handbook of Partial Least Squares
Software package SmartPLS 3.0 pro-version 18,000/=
Recurring expenditures:
Field-work and travel describe the survey fieldwork process and 50,000/=
explain
the selecting, training and supervising of
fieldworkers, validating fieldwork and
evaluating
fieldworkers in a workshop mode.
Contingency Photocopying, binding, group rewards – fitness 40,000/=
routine books, healthy recipe book, books
psycho-physical health symptoms, books on
primarily prescribed remedies, etc.
Estimated Total 118,000/=

Minor Research Proposal, 2019 Health-Management Pradhan, V. S., Shukla, S. R.

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Research publications in last 3 years:

Title Authors Research Paper/
Book Chapter
The inclusion of sustainability education in S Krishnamurthy, S Published Research
business schools–An Indian B-school case Joseph, V Bharathi, Paper
study of MBA-ITBM curriculum Vishal Pradhan
Analyses of Factors Affecting Employee Vishal Pradhan, RK Published Research
Perception of Organizational Corporate Social Sharma, S Paper in SCIT
Responsibility Krishnamurthy Journal

Empowering Women of Rural India for S Krishnamurthy, S Published Research

Renewable Energy Adoption–An Exploratory Joseph, Vishal Paper in Indian
Factor Analysis Pradhan, P Rao Journal of Science
and Technology
Commuter's Carbon Footprints: A Prakash Rao, S Published Book
Sustainability Case Study from Symbiosis Krishnamurthy, Vishal Chapter
International University, India Pradhan
Determinants of Employees’ Perceptions, Vishal Pradhan, Published Book
Commuting Culture, and Environmental Prakash Rao, S Chapter
Sustainability at Symbiosis International Krishnamurthy
University, India
Anecdotes of Action Learning: Initiations of S Krishnamurthy, Published Book
Sustainability Lessons by an Indian B-School Vishal Pradhan Chapter
Anecdotes of Action Learning: Realizations S Krishnamurthy, Published Book
of an Indian B-School's Sustainability Lessons Vishal Pradhan Chapter
Through the Lens of Facebook Users: Angelina Gokhale, Research paper
Analyzing Implied-Perceived Negative Vishal Pradhan, Ravi communicated to a
Psychological Outcomes and Awareness Kulkarni, Dhanya Journal
Level regarding Digital Image Forgery Pramod
The Role of Displeasure, Worry, and Vishal Pradhan, Sonali Research paper
Annoyance on Pro-safety Intention among Bhattacharya accepted by IJTM-
Young Motorcyclist in Pune, India CIRT

Minor Research Proposal, 2019 Health-Management Pradhan, V. S., Shukla, S. R.