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This study aims to analyse the role of tacit knowledge in fulfilling employees’ side of the psychological contract in blue-collar work.

The research questions are as follows: How is tacit knowledge acquired in blue-collar work and how do blue-collar workers use tacit knowledge to fulfil their obligations within the psychological contract? This qualitative study comprising 30 interviews uses theory-led content analysis.

Blue-collar workers need time and experience to acquire tacit knowledge. An important aspect of tacit knowledge is knowing the ways in which the work is best done in practice and seeking better ways of doing the job. Workers use their tacit knowledge to perform their work well and efficiently, even in problematic situations, and to improve their work to fulfil their side of the psychological contract.

Organisations should see the value of the tacit knowledge blue-collar workers possess and develop actions that involve the workers in sharing their tacit knowledge and also in planning the actions related to this knowledge sharing.

This study adds to the limited body of studies on the relationship between tacit knowledge and the psychological contract.

This study examines the case of an initial training, called “Dojo”, invented and implemented at a production site in the Czech Republic. It clarifies the initial training program implementation process and offers a conceptual framework for cooperative management of subsidiary activities at the site and firm.

This study conducts an in-depth analysis of qualitative data from the Czech production site over a five-year period. The theoretical base is the theorization and labeling phase of management innovation (MI), the final phase of which legitimizes a new management practice. Interview data, archival data, pictures and financial data are used for the analysis.

To legitimize the Dojo in the operational flow controlled by the site and firm, the Czech production site acquires validation of the Dojo from employees and board members of the Japanese and European headquarters, helping the site build trustful relationships with them. Training programs, process standardization and skills standardization of the workers offer benefits to the trainees, production site and firm.

The authors offer theoretical insights into MI at the subsidiary-level, which past studies have not differentiated at the firm-level. The authors also provide details of the implementation and management of initial training for newly hired blue-collar workers at the production site. The findings complement related literature on human resource management and operational management.

Although the number of blue-collar industrial workers has been declining, manufacturing jobs continue to have considerable importance, even in technologically advanced economies. This study gives a voice to this often-overlooked group of workers, focusing on the Finnish vehicle industry.

The study assessed how manual workers in automotive manufacturing describe their job pride and how their accounts were related to conceptualizations of work orientation. The data included semi-structured interviews and an open-ended survey question on situations in which the respondents had felt proud of their work. The data were analysed using thematic analysis.

According to the results, the respondents had a high level of job pride in general, but the meaning given to this attitude varied considerably, depending on the situation. The study participants' work orientation was a mixture of instrumental and intrinsic traits. However, there were also respondents who did not experience job pride or who had lost it because of the work circumstances.

Relatively little research has assessed the importance of job pride in the context of industrial manufacturing. Recognizing job pride in its variety is crucial information for employers who aim to develop working conditions and employee retention.

The purpose of this contribution is twofold: at the empirical level, it is shown how in the relationship that subjects are encouraged to construct with their bodies major implications for workers' well-being can be found; at a theoretical level, attention is drawn to the importance of framing the different practices workers may display towards digital wellness programmes not just in terms of acceptance or resistance, but also in terms of appropriation.

Empirically, this study concentrates on the pilot study conducted by a large manufacturing firm that decided to implement a digitally assisted corporate wellness programme. The experimentation involves a sample of the company's workers. The 24 participants were interviewed at the beginning, during the programme and at its end, for a total of 69 interviews. Interviews were transcribed and analysed through a template analysis.

This research emphasizes how workers' well-being manifests in the relationship subjects are fostered to construct with their body and, in parallel, how workers may play an active and unpredictable role in corporate wellness programmes.

Differently from the current literature that frames workers' reactions towards digital corporate well-being initiatives in mainly polarized ways, this contribution leads to a less dichotomic and more nuanced interpretation of the “impacts” wellness programmes may have, showing how workers may display practices not just of acceptance or resistance, but also of appropriation.

Reports from the Norwegian police indicate that actors in the architecture, engineering and construction industry face severe competition from criminal actors. Sub-contractors working within the law struggle to be competitive compared to dubious sub-contractors. This study aims to examine (1) what the sub-contractors’ perceptions of current contracting practices are, (2) what problems they face and (3) what countermeasures can be used to improve the situation.

The research was carried out on the basis of a qualitative approach. A literature review and a document study of reports from the sub-contractors, public agencies and other relevant organisations were conducted. In addition, in-depth interviews were conducted with the management of eight sub-contractors in the Norwegian architecture, engineering and construction industry.

There is a significant difference in the perception of the reality between contractors’ management and the blue-collar workers. Management among the contractors maintain that their control systems work; however, the result from this study shows that it is easy for the sub-contractors to take advantage of loopholes or avoid the countermeasures.

This paper is limited to Norway and use only the paint industry as a case study.

This study shows that sub-contractors constitute an important source of information in the effort to prevent dubious sub-contractors as they are the actors who experience the greatest pressure and competition from them. Therefore, contractors should include the sub-contractors in the process of developing measures to prevent this misconduct.

A very little research has been carried out within this field of study in Norway.

The study examined the utilisation patterns of healthcare services among tea garden workers and analysed the factors influencing utilisation in an Indian context.

The authors employed a mixed-method approach and an explanatory sequential design for the study. A survey was conducted in the beginning followed by in-depth interviews in a north-eastern state of India (Assam). Andersen health behaviour model was used to explore the factors influencing healthcare utilisation. The sample size for the survey and in-depth interviews were 300 and 19, respectively, recruited employing multistage random and purposive sampling techniques.

Out of 300 workers surveyed, 169 (56.3%) were females, 257 (85.7%) were married, 77 (25.7%) were illiterates and 229 (76.3%) had monthly household income less than 100 US$. The survey also found that 47.3% and 15.3% had non-communicable and communicable disease respectively. Most of the workers (67.3%) utilised government facilities, and close to one third (28.7%) utilised tea garden hospitals. About 63.3% had health insurance, but a majority (78.9%) did not use it previously. The analyses of interviews explored the need, enabling, predisposing factors under three important themes influencing utilisation of healthcare services among the workers.

The study generates evidence to strengthen the Indian Plantation Labour Act, 1951 for tea garden worker's welfare protection and warrants transition from colonial-era policies to contemporary industry realities in order to improve their living, employment, nutritional and health conditions.

The research adds to the existing literature on overall healthcare services utilisation (including coverage and utilisation of health insurance) among blue collar workers who usually lack access to healthcare facilities and explores important factors that determine utilisation in the Indian context.

In this study, the authors examine whether social capital embedded in individuals' social networks is connected to employees' long-term income development in Finland.

Analyses are based on 25–35-year-old employees from the Finnish Living Conditions Survey of 1994 combined with register data on earned incomes from 1995 to 2016. The authors used questions addressing the frequency of meeting parents or siblings, spending free time with co-workers and participation in associational, civic or other societal activities as measures of the extent of network capital. Ordered logistic model was used to examine whether the size and composition of social networks differ by gender and socio-economic status. Linear growth curve models were employed to estimate the effect of social capital on long-term income development.

Results indicate minor differences in network composition according to gender, but large differences between socio-economic groups. The authors found that income development was faster for those who participated in civic activities occasionally or who met their relatives or co-workers on a monthly basis, that is, for the “middle group”.

Results are generalizable only to Finnish or Nordic welfare state context. The authors’ measures of social capital come from cross-sectional survey. Thus, the authors are not able to address the stability or accumulation of social capital during life course. This restriction will probably cause the authors’ analysis to underestimate the true effect of social capital on earned incomes.

Moderate-level investments to network capital seem to be the most beneficial with regard to the long-term income development.

The study results give support to the idea that social capital can be transformed into economic capital. The results also imply that in economic terms it is important to balance diverse forms of social capital. At the policy level, a special emphasis should be directed to employees with low-socio-economic position. These people are especially vulnerable as their low level of income is combined with network composition that hinders their further income development.

The combined survey and register data give unique insight on how the social capital embedded in individuals' social networks is connected with long-term income development.

Although we know that HRM practices can have a huge impact on employees’ innovative work behaviour (IWB), we do not know exactly which practices make the difference and how they affect IWB. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to determine the best HRM practices for boosting IWB, to understand the theoretical reasons for this, and to discover mediators and moderators in the relationship between HRM practices and IWB.

Based on a systematic review of the literature, the authors carried out a content analysis on 27 peer-reviewed journal articles.

Working with the definitions and items provided in the articles, the authors were able to cluster HRM practices according to the ability-motivation-opportunity framework. The best HRM practices for enhancing IWB are training and development, reward, job security, autonomy, task composition, job demand, and feedback.

The results of this study provide practical information for HRM professionals aiming to develop an HRM system that generates innovative employee behaviours that might help build an innovative climate.

A framework is presented that aggregates the findings and clarifies which HRM practices influence IWB and how these relationships can be explained.

Ethical leadership is at the forefront of what matters in today’s business life and current issues, with a view to making strong moral decisions through bilateral communication. Service innovation behavior is important in terms of individual and institutional actions in the process of producing and implementing new ideas. Investigating the mediating role of psychological capital which consists of self-efficacy, optimism, hope and psychological endurance dimensions, between ethical leadership and service innovation behavior, is a matter to be investigated. This study aims to assess the impact of ethical leadership on service innovation behavior by means of a comprehensive literature review. In this framework, psychological capital forms the scope of researching the mediating role.

This study was conducted with 376 blue-collar workers randomly selected from 140 company which were selected from 1,294 joint stock companies among 76,882 companies operating in the province of Adana in Turkey and registered in the Adana Chamber of Commerce, by applying a questionnaire of 40 items.

As a result of the factor analysis, 6 items which could not provide reliability were extracted from the scale and the remaining 34 items were distributed in three factors and the validity of the construct validity was measured by the convergence and divergence methods. Construct reliability (CR) values were found to be statistically significant (SRMR: 0.50, RMSEA = 0.058, IFI: 0.955, CFI = 0.97, GFI = 0.96, AGFI = 0.86, TLI = 0.97, χ²/s.d. = 2.264) when it was above 0.7, and the structural equation model determined that the research data and the initially determined model are compatible. Ethical leadership has a significant effect on psychological capital (ß = 0.224, p < 0.001), ethical leadership has a significant effect on innovation (ß = 0.113, p < 0.001), psychological capital was found to have a significant influence on service innovation (ß = 0.965, p < 0.001), and ethical leadership was mediated by psychological capital on service innovation behavior (SIE = 0.235).

Further research is needed to assess conducting research in enterprises with different cultural characteristics. This paper provides the effectiveness of ethical leadership and psychological capital factors, which are effective in improving employee service innovation behavior and enabling managers to develop human resources strategies in this respect.

The results provide the impact of ethical leadership on the productivity of employees in the workplace and provide practical benefits in terms of developing innovation-oriented service development behaviors.

The innovative behaviors of the employees enable the development of innovative ideas in social life by contributing to consumer satisfaction and economy. Ethical leadership ensures positive behaviors in the society by ensuring that employees in the workplace develop justice sentiments.

The mediating role of psychological capital between ethical leadership and service innovation behavior has not been investigated before. In this study, the effects of self-efficacy, optimism, hope and resilience factors were investigated in providing ethical leaders and employees, creating value in the enterprise, and in providing innovation-focused services for employees.

Low productivity in construction is typically blamed on the seemingly complex and chaotic nature of construction, which emerges as the stakeholders do not have an adequate picture of the evolving situation. The ever-increasing volume of situation data owing to the recent advances in IoT devices and reality capture platforms provide a unique opportunity to capture the actual situation data of construction projects accurately at a fraction of the cost compared to manual status tracking and reporting. This paper aims to investigate the concept of a situation picture, challenges in collecting situation data and its benefits.

Empirical data is collected through interviews in California and Finland, and by organizing workshops.

We contribute to literature on managing operational information by defining the concept of a situation picture in the context of construction, specifically from the blue-collar’s perspective during on-site activities. We present the key components of a conceptual information model that represents a situation picture in construction.

The applicability of conceptual information model of situation picture is not tested in practice, but the model will provide a starting point for research to comprehensively integrate social and digital information exchange for improving workflow.

The paper claims that designing and building comprehensive information management infrastructure would contribute to solving the problems of low productivity, quality and safety in construction projects.

Research on situation picture and situation awareness is scarce in the context of construction. The study links various information management technologies and practices to actual construction productivity.