Mental health conditions such as depression and anxiety are prevalent and costly on both a social and economic level. As a large proportion of the costs are borne by employers, organizations need to develop effective responses. We frame dealing with employee mental health issues as a reasonably common, but complex, managerial job demand that requires adequate preparation. Hence, we position the development of Applied Management Knowledge (AMK) for effectively managing employee mental health issues as a critical objective for management education. This study presents an analysis of qualitative data related to managers' experiences of working with an employee with a mental health issue that identifies forms of knowledge used and needed in these situations. Our findings indicate that managers reference specific forms of conceptual and procedural knowledge when becoming aware of the employee's mental health issue, exploring the workplace implications and developing an action response, implementing the response and managing it as an ongoing situation and engaging in reflective learning. In order to begin the work of curriculum development, we provide a preliminary discussion of educational strategies that may aid in the development of this form of AMK and outline a number of priorities for future research and practice.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Research Division:	Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services
Research Group:	Business and Management
Research Field:	Organisation and Management Theory
Objective Division:	Law, Politics and Community Services
Objective Group:	Work and Institutional Development
Objective Field:	Employment Patterns and Change
Author:	Martin, A (Associate Professor Angela Martin)
Author:	Woods, M (Dr Megan Woods)
Author:	Dawkins, S (Dr Sarah Dawkins)
ID Code:	92425
Year Published:	2015
Web of Science® Times Cited:	2
Deposited By:	Tasmanian School of Business and Economics
Deposited On:	2014-06-18
Last Modified:	2016-02-18
Downloads:	0