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The Covid-19 pandemic appears to have engendered heterogeneous effects on individuals’ labour market prospects. This paper focuses on two possible sources of a heterogeneous exposition to labour market risks associated with the pandemic outbreak: the routine task content of the job and the teleworkability. To evaluate whether these dimensions played a crucial role in amplifying employment and wage gaps among workers, we focus on the case of Italy, the first EU country hit by Covid-19.

Investigating the actual effect of the pandemic on workers employed in jobs with a different degree of teleworkability and routinization, using real microdata, is currently unfeasible. This is because longitudinal datasets collecting annual earnings and the detailed information about occupations needed to capture a job’s routine task content and teleworkability are not presently available. To simulate changes in the wage distribution for the year 2020, we have employed a static microsimulation model. This model is built on data from the Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (IT-SILC) survey, which has been enriched with administrative data and aligned with monthly observed labour market dynamics by industries and regions.

We measure the degree of job teleworkability and routinization with the teleworkability index (TWA) built by Sostero et al. (2020) and the routine-task-intensity index (RTI) developed by Cirillo et al. (2021), respectively. We find that RTI and TWA are negatively and positively associated with wages, respectively, and they are correlated with higher (respectively lower) risks of a large labour income drop due to the pandemic. Our evidence suggests that labour market risks related to the pandemic – and the associated new types of earnings inequality that may derive – are shaped by various factors (including TWA and RTI) instead of by a single dimension. However, differences in income drop risks for workers in jobs with varying degrees of teleworkability and routinization largely reduce when income support measures are considered, thus suggesting that the redistributive effect of the emergency measures implemented by the Italian government was rather effective.

No studies have so far investigated the effect of the pandemic on workers employed in jobs with a different degree of routinization and teleworkability in Italy. We thus investigate whether income drop risks in Italy in 2020 – before and after income support measures – differed among workers whose jobs are characterized by a different degree of RTI and TWA.

Following the introduction of user fee for interpreting in Danish health care, a considerable decrease in interpreter services has been shown. This study aims to explore the experiences of language minority patients with health-care encounters when an interpreter was needed but not present.

Semistructured, in-depth interviews were conducted with 13 language minority patients with limited Danish proficiency. All interviews were conducted with interpreters in the participants’ native language. Data were analyzed using an inductive thematic approach.

Most participants experienced communication difficulties and difficulties participating actively in their own health care. The experience of unresolved language barriers led to a high degree of uncertainty and left the participants with unanswered health concerns. Participants expressed a reluctance to seek health care, which consequently limited the utilization of health care services.

Although the findings only represent a small sample of patients, the results still reveal major challenges that minority-language patients encounter when seeking health care. Future studies should explore, if the intention of the law is met through the user fees.

Despite having the same entitlements as native Danish-speaking patients, minority-language patients experienced difficulties accessing and using health care services due to the user fee and unresolved language barriers. The study elucidates patient perspectives and points to important ways of improving the quality of health care.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, no investigation into the communicative consequences of the introduction of the user fee for interpreting services exists. Thus, this study seeks to address that gap.

The purpose of this briefing is to highlight the critical importance of negotiation skills in the everyday lives of real estate professionals. It delves into how negotiators must improve their negotiations skills given the negotiation-intensive nature of real estate. It also helps to handle common pitfalls and challenges in negotiations, particularly in the increasingly volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) reality of the real estate industry. The briefing offers strategic insights for preparation and negotiation aimed at improving any real estate negotiator’s average performance.

The expert opinion piece combines a literature review on negotiation strategies with practical insights. It addresses the observed under appreciation of negotiation theory and skill, reflecting on real-world real estate negotiations. The goal is to enhance the use and recognition of negotiation theory in the real estate industry. The approach merges theoretical analysis with practical application, offering actionable recommendations to improve negotiation outcomes.

The negotiation-intensive real estate industry and the transformative impact of VUCA challenges on real estate professionals’ ability to adapt and continuously negotiate successful deals clashes with many real estate’s professional or fixed mind-set over negotiation historically being an art or a talent and mostly being stuck with win-lose strategies. Instead, negotiation is a science that can be learned and deliberately improved to counter stress-induced or fear-based responses that lead negotiators toward suboptimal negotiation strategies, such as win-lose or naive win-win. However, these dynamics are preventable. Well-equipped and well-prepared value win-win negotiators can adopt a growth mind-set, study modern negotiation advice and frameworks to thrive in the negotiation-rich real estate industry and convert even VUCA challenges into an amazing source of value.

Real estate professionals can become more aware of which and how current obstacles and poor choices negatively contribute to their negotiation performance. It contrasts win-lose and win-win strategic frameworks to enable real estate professionals to become more sophisticated when choosing their negotiation strategies. The briefing also helps real estate professionals expand their negotiation repertoire towards improved strategic flexibility when managing the evolving real estate profession reality and challenges.

The originality and value of the briefing lie in its comprehensive approach to addressing the negotiation challenges faced by real estate professionals. It offers a holistic view of real estate negotiation, advocating for a paradigm shift from traditional win-lose tactics to a collaborative, value win-win approach. The briefing integrates modern negotiation theory and emphasises ethical practices, providing practical strategies and best practices for professionals to improve their skills and adapt to industry changes. By empowering real estate professionals with knowledge and tools to navigate negotiations effectively, the briefing contributes to the overall success and professionalism of the industry.

The COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to making workers more uncompromising with respect to issues such as quality of workplace relations and work-life balance. Hence, motivation and leadership style assume a key relevance for keeping the workforce engaged. We hypothesize that individuals may exhibit different preferences for motivational drivers and for leadership style, and that these two sets of preferences might be correlated with each other and with employees’ personality traits.

Here, we empirically investigate the relationship between leadership style and motivation, by also hypothesizing the possible contribution of personality traits. An online survey was developed and distributed to 150 employees or interns/trainees to collect measures related to their preference for leadership, their motivational drivers, as well as their personality traits. The data were analyzed by means of mediation and moderation analyses to disentangle the three-level relationship existing between these constructs.

Our results suggest that indeed there exists a relationship between preferences for leadership style and motivational drivers. Furthermore, one of these relationships appears to be critically mediated by specific personality traits.

This work is the first, to our knowledge, empirically testing the existence of a three-level relationship between leadership preferences, motivation and personality traits of employees and to contribute to disentangle their reciprocal influences.

This study aims to explore the influence of health-care service quality on customers’ perceived value, satisfaction, effectiveness and behavioural intention concerning district health centres (DHCs) in Hong Kong. This research also intends to assess customers’ perception of the subsidy scheme and its influence on the relationships amongst the aforementioned constructs.

The convenience and snowball sampling approaches were adopted, and the self-administered questionnaire was sent to 309 customers of DHCs.

Service quality attributes in terms of staffing and procedures positively increased customers’ perceived value and staffing, procedures and operations. Physical facilities positively promoted customers’ satisfaction, consequently improving DHCs’ effectiveness and behavioural intention. However, core treatments and services of DHCs did not impact customers’ perceived value and satisfaction. Furthermore, customers receiving subsidies exhibited a more positive perception than those without subsidies.

Health-care organisations are advised to strategically allocate resources (staffing, facilities and procedures and operations management) to optimise overall performance outcomes. DHC operators could reinforce the core services of DHCs and health-care voucher subsidies to local citizens so as to enhance the effectiveness of DHCs and behavioural intention of customers.

This study integrates the input–process–output approach in measuring the effectiveness of and customers’ behavioural intention towards newly established DHCs.

This study aims to analyse the differences between professional interaction mediated by video conferencing and direct professional interaction. The research identifies diverging interests of office workers for the purpose of addressing work ethical and business ethical issues of professional collaboration, competition, and power in future hybrid work models.

Based on 28 qualitative interviews conducted between November 2020 and June 2021, and through the theoretical lens of phenomenology, the study develops explanatory hypotheses conceptualising four basic intentions of professional interaction and their corresponding preferences for video conferences and working on site.

The four intentions developed on the basis of the interviews are: the need for physical proximity; the challenge of collective creativity; the will to influence; and control of communication. This conceptual framework qualifies a moral ambivalence of professional interaction. The authors identify a connectivity paradox of professional interaction where the personal dimension remains unarticulated for the purpose of maintaining professionality. This tacit human connectivity is intertwined with latent power relations. This plasticity of both connectivity and power in direct interaction can be diminished by transferring the interaction to video conferencing.

The application of phenomenology to a collection of qualitative interviews has enabled the identification of underlying intention structures and the system in which they affect each other. This research identifies conflicts of interests between workers relative to their different self-perceived abilities to persevere in competitive professional interaction. It is therefore able to address consequences of future hybrid work models at an existential and societal level.

This study is based on the regulatory focus theory and conservation of resources theory to examine how information confusion leads to users’ discontinuous usage intention of social networking sites (SNSs), with the mediating mechanisms of users’ motivation and affectivity.

Data were obtained from 270 users in different SNSs in Vietnam. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the sample data and test the hypotheses.

Results show that information confusion has a positive influence on discontinuous usage intention, and prevention focus positively mediates this relationship. Furthermore, the negative affectivity positively mediates the link between information confusion and discontinuous usage intention and that between prevention focus and discontinuous usage intention. In addition, prevention focus and negative affectivity together play a serial mediating effect in the link between information confusion and discontinuous usage intention.

This study extends the regulatory focus theory and conservation of resources theory to validate a model that explains the transitional process of users’ motivation and affectivity in the link between information confusion and discontinuous usage intention of SNSs. The findings of this study provide implications for academic researchers and business managers of SNSs to understand and make better decisions to retain their users.

Based on the moral licensing theory, this study aims to reveal the mechanism of self-sacrificial leadership inducing abusive supervision from two paths of leader moral credit and leader moral credential. At the same time, it also discusses the moderating effect of leader behavioral integrity on the two paths.

In this study, 434 employees and their direct leaders from six Chinese companies were investigated in a paired survey at three time points, and the empirical data was analyzed using Mplus 7.4 software.

Self-sacrificial leadership has a positive effect on leader abusive supervision through the mediating role of leader moral credit and leader moral credential. In addition, this study also finds that leader behavioral integrity is the “gate” for self-sacrificial leadership to promote abusive supervision, and the leader behavioral integrity has a moderating effect on the process of self-sacrificial leadership influencing on leader moral credit and leader moral credential.

This study explores the evolution of self-sacrificial leadership from “good” to “bad” from the perspective of moral licensing and broadens the research on the mechanism and boundary conditions of self-sacrificial leadership. At the same time, it also provides important reference value for preventing the negative effects of self-sacrificial leadership in organizations.