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In this paper, I explore what shapes the identities of digital nomads (DNs), a class of remote workers who travel and work concurrently. Through extensive fieldwork and interviews with 50 digital nomads conducted in seven coworking hostels in Mexico in 2022, I construct a theory of DN identity. I base this upon the frequent transformations they undergo in their Circumstances, which regularly change their worker identity.

DNs relinquish traditional social determinants of identity, such as nationality and religion. They define their personal identities by their passions and interests, which are influenced by the people they meet. DNs exist in inherently transitive social spaces and, without rigid social roles to fulfil, they represent themselves authentically. They form close relationships with other long-term travellers to combat loneliness and homesickness. Digital nomads define their worker identities around their location independence. This study shows that DNs value their nomadic lifestyle above promotions and financial gain. They define themselves by productivity and professionalism to ensure the sustainability of their lifestyle. Furthermore, digital nomad coworking hubs serve focused, individual work, leaving workplace politics and strict ‘office image’ norms behind. Without fixed social and professional roles to play, digital nomads define themselves personally according to their ever-evolving passions and the sustainability of their nomadic life. Based on these findings, I present a cyclical framework for DN identity evolution which demonstrates how relational, logistical, and socio-personal flux evolves DN’s worker identities.

This chapter focuses on the impact of generational differences between younger (Millennial) and older generations of frontline miners on team performance as one of the factors that compelled the mining teams to make a plan (planisa) at the rock-face down the mine. In this context, making a plan is a work strategy the mining teams adopted to offset the adverse impact of intergenerational conflict on their team performance and on their prospects of earning the production bonus. The chapter examines intergenerational conflict within the mining teams as a work and organisational phenomenon rather than simply from a birth cohort perspective. It locates the clash of older and younger generations of miners and their generational identities in the historical, national and social contexts shaping the employment relationship, managerial strategies, work practices and production culture of the apartheid and post-apartheid deep-level mining. This shows the impact that the society has in shaping the differences across generations. The chapter highlights work group dynamics that generated conflict between the older and younger generations of frontline mineworkers. The chapter argues that at the heart of the intergenerational conflict was their orientation towards work and management decisions.

This chapter provides an ethnographic account of conducting organisational research in a deep-level gold mining workplace. The ethnography presented in this book entailed living in the mine hostel, observing and participating in the production tasks of the underground mining teams for a full production shift for a period stretching over six months. The chapter discusses the day-to-day running of the production process at the rock-face down the mine. This section is important for understanding the organisation of the production cycle and the actions of the mining teams, foremen and management to ensuring the smooth daily running of the production process inside the pit. Furthermore, the chapter presents an overview of AfricaGold’s business performance in terms of operational efficiency, productivity and safety.

Almost every year the nation was shocked by the fire incident at school and hostel. The Fire and Rescue Department of Malaysia (2020) recorded 216 fires that have occurred at the private Islamic religious schools from 2015 until 2019, where several fires have killed many students, such as accidents in 1985, 1998, 2013, 2014 and 2017. As a result, the public began questioning the level of awareness among the school administrators. Addressing these issues, a survey has been conducted on the private Islamic religious schools that had experienced fire incidents in order to identify the awareness level among the administrators and students and to investigate whether aspects of compliance with fire safety procedures are enhanced. Four groups of respondents were selected, in which the Department of Fire and Rescue acts as a focus group. The other three groups are the victims who have faced the fire itself in their respective schools. The findings highlighted that the awareness level among victims towards the fire prevention practices is very low. Evidence has revealed there is no periodic supervision towards fire safety equipment, and only 35% comply with the standard procedure. Experts suggest sustainable school building should introduce to meet the criteria in performance-based fire management solutions. This reflects the fact that building continuity and fire safety can be complementary, not contradictory, if the two disciplines engage in meaningful dialogue at the beginning of the design process.

This chapter examines and discusses the unintended outcomes of the production bonus scheme the mine had instituted to motivate and increase the productivity of the frontline mining teams. This is crucial given that the maladministration of the bonus system could lead to a range of undesired outcomes such as deteriorating levels of trust between management and frontline workers, prioritisation of production at the expense of safety, poor work relations and ultimately low levels of organisational, employee and team performance. There are a number of organisational, management and labour factors that can render a production bonus scheme effective or ineffective. These factors influence the nature and extent of worker reactions to the bonus scheme.

This chapter examines and discusses the factors that influenced the reaction of the mining teams to the team-based production bonus scheme and the extent to which mine management fulfilled its side of the bargain in the implementation of the production bonus. The chapter highlights the manner in which the team-based bonus system influenced teams of stope workers to engage in their informal organisational practice of making plan (planisa) in order to offset the snags that jeopardised their prospects of earning the production bonus. The chapter reveals that, to a large extent, the productivity bonus generated conflict rather than cooperation at the point of production down the mine. As a result, the incentive scheme failed to live up to expectations by not eliciting the desired levels of organisational, worker and team performance at the rock-face.

This paper examines the exercise of Black employee voice in South Africa over the past 53 years. Black workers constitute almost 4 out of every 5 workers in the country and experienced racial oppression from the time of colonisation up to the end of apartheid in 1994. They are still congregated around the lower skilled occupations with low incomes and high unemployment levels.

The paper draws on the theory of voice, exit and loyalty of Albert Hirschman, but extends voice to include sabotage as this encapsulates the nature of employee voice from about 2007 onwards. It reflects a culture of insurgence that entered employment relations from about that time onwards, but was lurking below the surface well before then.

The exercise of employee voice has gone through five phases from 1963 to mid-2016 starting with a silent phase for the first ten years when it was hardly heard at all. However, as a Black trade union movement emerged after extensive strikes in Durban in 1973, employee voice grew stronger and stronger until it reached an insurgent phase.

The phases employee voice went through were heavily influenced by the socio-political situation in the country. The reason for the emergence of an insurgent phase was due to the failure of the ruling African National Congress government to deliver services and to alleviate the plight of the poor in South Africa, most of whom are Black. The failure was due to neo-patrimonialism and corruption practised by the ruling elite and politically connected. Protests by local communities escalated and became increasingly violent. This spilled over into the workplace. As a result many strikes turned violent and destructive, demonstrating voice exercised as sabotage and reflecting a culture of insurgence.

In the era of globalization, we have large market. Here, each one has to offer something for its survival or sustenance. Now, to capture the market of any product, the customer's satisfaction is essential. Government supported higher education institutions or the knowledge providing sectors day by day facing challenges both from nation's private institutions and global academic institutions. Students satisfaction obtained from the outcome or services provided by the institution is essential for its sustenance. Given that education is an experienced good, its efficacy can be measured by evaluating its effect on users, that is, students. Under these circumstances, it becomes very important to measure the level of satisfaction from the angle of the students of higher education institutions specially financed by government. An attempt has been taken in this chapter to measure students' satisfaction in master's level students of the University of North Bengal. This study is completely based on primary data collected from the structured questionnaire. Logistic regression model is used in this study as methodology.

Workplace temporalities are being reshaped under globalization. Some scholars argue that work time is becoming more flexible, de-territorializing, and even disappearing. I provide an alternative picture of what is happening to work time by focusing on the customer service call center industry in India. Through case studies of three firms, and interviews with 80 employees, managers, and officials, I show how this industry involves a “reversal” of work time in which organizations and their employees shift their schedules entirely to the night. Rather than liberation from time, workers experience a hyper-management, rigidification, and re-territorialization of temporalities. This temporal order pervades both the physical and virtual tasks of the job, and has consequences for workers’ health, families, future careers, and the wider community of New Delhi. I argue that this trend is prompted by capital mobility within the information economy, expansion of the service sector, and global inequalities of time, and is reflective of an emerging stratification of employment temporalities across lines of the Global North and South.

The play text, You Strike the Woman, You Strike the Rock, (Klotz, 1994) takes its title from a protest slogan ‘Wathint Abafazi’Wathint’. This slogan is associated with the Women’s Protest March in 1956, the largest mass gathering of women in South African herstory where women gathered to demonstrate peacefully against the imposition of pass laws on black South African women. The play recalls the story of the Women’s March and their courage as they fought against the imposition of the pass laws and is based on the lives of three women, Sdudla, Mampompo and Mambhele who sell chickens, vetkoek and oranges near a taxi rank in the squatter camp of Crossroads in Cape Town. Sdudla is the political activist who tries throughout the play to politicise both Mampompo and Mamphlele by making frequent references to the Women’s March and recalling the defiance and strength of the women who went on that March. What You Strike the Woman You Strike the Rock does is firstly to emphasise and explore the personal experiences, and perspectives of three women and, importantly, to represent a break from tradition, secondly to use consciousness-raising as a way for the women to talk about their experiences; to offer their testimony and, thirdly, to use the process as a bonding experience.