Dr Ali Afsharian is a highly qualified clinical psychologist with Bachelor's and Master's degrees from USWR, Iran, and a PhD from UniSA, Australia. His research focuses on Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) from composition and dispersion perspectives, with the aim of identifying and preventing psychosocial risk factors at national and international levels in the workplace. He has compared PSC in different cultural contexts, particularly in Australian and Iranian workplaces. Dr Afsharian is currently an academic researcher at the Centre for Workplace Excellence at UniSA, where he continues to pursue his research interests in organisational and clinical psychology, psychosocial safety climate, psychosocial risk factors, and employees' perception of managerial policies. He is also skilled in developing management plans to create a healthy working environment, addressing psychosocial health issues and risk factors at work.
EDUCATION
PhD in Work and Organisational Psychology UniSA
MA in Clinical Psychology USWR, Tehran, Iran
BA in Psychology FUM, Mashhad, Iran
RESEARCH INTERESTS
Organisational and clinical psychology,
Psychosocial Safety Climate and the climate strength
Managerial policies and plans to design working environments,
Psychosocial health risk factors at work and MSDs,
PSC and biomarkers (HRV, BP, sleep data) of workplace stressors
Cross-cultural investigation
The Generality of Psychosocial Safety Climate Theory—A Fundamental Element for Global Worker Well-Being: Evidence From Four Nations May Young Loh, Michelle Chin Chin Lee, Maureen Dollard, Dianne Gardner, Kazuki Kikunaga, et al. Stress and Health, 2025 Occupational health and safety researchers and policymakers often rely on organisational theories and evidence to provide valuable information for effective policy making and understanding. Yet, most traditional and contemporary organisational theories are developed within a single nation, often in high‐income countries. Therefore, cross‐national validation is required for generalisable worldwide use. The current study focuses on an antecedent to workplace health and safety, that is, the psychosocial safety climate (PSC), and aims to investigate if PSC is an etic (i.e., universally applicable) or emic (i.e., nationally/context specific) theory. Across nations, we investigate the construct meaning of PSC by testing PSC measurement invariance and the invariance of a nomological network of PSC relationships, (1) PSC to co‐worker to work engagement (PSC extended Job‐Demands Resources (JD‐R) motivational pathway), (2) PSC to co‐worker support to psychological distress (PSC extended JD‐R health erosion pathway), and (3) the moderation of PSC on the co‐worker to outcomes relationship. A total of 5854 employees from four nations (Australia = 1198, New Zealand = 2029, Malaysia = 575, Japan = 2052) participated in the study. Multi‐group structural equation modelling suggested that there was measurement invariance in a four‐factor PSC model across the four samples. Findings from multigroup analyses support both the PSC extended motivational and health erosion pathways across nations, as well as the moderation effect of PSC in the Australian and Japanese samples. Together, the results largely support the etic nature of PSC construct and theory, with a few national nuances.
Longitudinal investigation of restructuring, psychosocial safety climate and burnout in Australian universities during COVID-19 2020–2022 R. Potter, A. Afsharian, S. Richter, D. Neser, A. Zadow, et al. Journal of Industrial Relations, 2025 Australian universities have undergone considerable restructuring within the last few decades such as downsizing, unit amalgamations and adopting new digital work practices. This article draws together industrial relations and organisational psychology literature, exploring restructuring and effects within universities. It presents national data on university restructuring, levels of organisational psychosocial safety climate (PSC), and burnout from 2020 to 2022, from the workers’ perspective. Survey responses were collected across 39 Australian universities at 3 time points: 2020 (n = 2191), 2021 (n = 1731) and 2022 (n = 1373). A large proportion reported ‘high’ levels of restructuring at each data collection phase (2020 = 41%, 2021 = 56% and 2022 = 49%). A multi-level model showed that PSC is an organisational climate predictor of restructuring, and in turn, worker burnout. Hierarchical linear modelling of the longitudinal data revealed significant pathways and a good model fit. Findings suggest that organisations with poor climates for psychological health (i.e. low PSC) are more likely to restructure, which is then associated with higher levels of burnout. Primary-level PSC-focused interventions are needed to prioritise the psychological health of the workforce over persistent productivity concerns, which is the conventional driver of restructuring.
Psychosocial Safety Climate as an Enabler of Teacher Health and Occupational Well-being João Viseu, Liberata Borralho, Ali Afsharian, Tiago Domingues Universitas Psychologica, 2025 The aim of this quantitative research was to understand the mechanisms that intervene in the relationship between Psychosocial Safety Climate (PSC) and work outcomes through the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model in a sample of Portuguese school teachers. 1481 participants, mostly female (78.9%), completed a research protocol consisting of six self-report questionnaires and one sociodemographic and professional questionnaire. The results indicated that PSC correlates positively with teacher health, work engagement and positive psychological capital (PsyCap); teacher health mediates the relationship between PSC and both work engagement and PsyCap, promoting both; PsyCap is linked to higher job satisfaction and lower stress; and work engagement and PsyCap partially mediate the relationship between PSC and job satisfaction, promoting the latter, and stress, reducing its levels. It would be important that these results would have a driving effect on interventions with teachers to prevent and improve their health and well-being.
