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1 – 10 of over 40000Franciscsa S. Rodriguez, Jan Spilski, Felix Hekele, Nils Ove Beese and Thomas Lachmann
Investigating demands within an occupational context has always been an essential endeavor to guarantee worker well-being and performance efficiency. In blue-collar occupations…
Abstract
Purpose
Investigating demands within an occupational context has always been an essential endeavor to guarantee worker well-being and performance efficiency. In blue-collar occupations, the physical demands of manual labor have always been the major focus, but recent technological changes may come with higher demands on the intellectual capacities of workers. For this reason, the purpose of this paper is to assess physical and cognitive demands that construction workers face.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a quantitative study using standardized research instruments. Construction workers of three German construction companies were asked to volunteer to participate in interviews (n=35) and a survey (n=30) that assessed the extent of physical demands and a variety of cognitive demands experienced by construction workers.
Findings
The results suggest that construction work is demanding in physical terms as well as in perceptual, psychomotor, social and cognitive terms. Using and updating specialized knowledge, giving advice and providing consultation, friendliness, assertiveness and reliability are important demands among construction workers.
Research limitations/implications
Construction workers face an undervalued level of demands in their everyday work environment. As high demands can affect well-being and mental health, construction companies would greatly benefit from investing efforts into evaluating the multi-component demands profile of their workers and the impact on their health, in particular through the strongly increasing cognitive demands due to the ongoing digitization of the sector.
Originality/value
The study identified essential demands in construction work that are relevant for the workers’ productivity and well-being.
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This chapter focuses on researchers as knowledge workers in higher education in England as an illustration of what Katznelson (2003, p. 189) identifies as the ‘professional…
Abstract
This chapter focuses on researchers as knowledge workers in higher education in England as an illustration of what Katznelson (2003, p. 189) identifies as the ‘professional scholar’ undertaking intellectual work as a public intellectual. I begin by examining the challenges to intellectual work and its location in a university, particular from the media and the popularity of what Bourdieu calls Le Fast Talkers 1 – those who talk a lot but have nothing much to say. After drawing out the tensions within knowledge production, I then locate the analysis of what it means to do research in a period of education policymaking in England between 1997 and 2010, when New Labour called on researchers to produce evidence to support radical reforms. In particular, I argue that school effectiveness and school improvement (SESI) knowledge workers in Schools of Education in higher education in England are an interesting case for investigating the public intellectual positioning as ‘detached attachment’ (Melzner, 2003, p. 4), particularly through their attachment to New Labour governments and the subsequent detachment following a change of government in May 2010.
Anis Khedhaouria and Vincent Ribiere
In a knowledge economy where innovation is a way for an organization to gain a competitive advantage, team creativity becomes an important factor of success. This paper aims to…
Abstract
Purpose
In a knowledge economy where innovation is a way for an organization to gain a competitive advantage, team creativity becomes an important factor of success. This paper aims to look at how a team's creativity is influenced by the degree of the team's knowledge sourcing.
Design/methodology/approach
A theoretical model is developed and tested to assess the influence of four main antecedents of team knowledge sourcing and creativity: learning orientation, intellectual demands, risk aversion, and relational capital. The research model is tested using PLSPM.
Findings
The findings show the significant influence of all the independent variables, but more particularly the strong influence of learning orientation on team knowledge sourcing and on team creativity.
Research limitations/implications
Team creativity was examined as team member perceptions of the creative processes in the team task. Data were gathered from graduate students working in a team on an e‐commerce development project. The data set was relatively small (148). Despite these limitations, the initial findings show some interesting patterns that will be worth investigating on a larger scale and in various environments.
Practical implications
The results provide considerable support for the idea that knowledge sourcing and the learning orientation of the team members can play an important role in supporting team creativity.
Originality/value
This research adapts the construct of knowledge sourcing from Gray and Meister to the team level of analysis. It conceptualizes the perspective that individually held knowledge influences creativity primarily through the process of knowledge sourcing (internal and external) at the team level.
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Jan Terje Karlsen, Erika Balsvik and Marie Rønnevik
This study aims to investigate which a priori factors documented in the literature and new factors that influence employees’ self-regulated microlearning behavior and the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate which a priori factors documented in the literature and new factors that influence employees’ self-regulated microlearning behavior and the utilization of internal microlearning platforms in organizations.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted a single-case study on a Swedish retail group that had developed an internally-built microlearning platform, collecting data through semistructured interviews with 13 informants.
Findings
The authors have identified eight factors that affect employees’ self-regulated microlearning processes. In addition to confirming the presence of five factors from previous research, the authors have discovered the influence of three new factors on self-regulated learning. These new factors are prioritization, other learning platforms and relevant content.
Originality/value
The study conducted a unique investigation into the factors influencing employees’ self-regulated learning strategies and their impact on the utilization of microlearning platforms. Previous research has given limited attention to this research topic and associated questions, making this study a valuable contribution.
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There is a popular psychometric thesis suggesting that people with different levels of cognitive ability end up in different occupations because some occupations require greater…
Abstract
There is a popular psychometric thesis suggesting that people with different levels of cognitive ability end up in different occupations because some occupations require greater intelligence than others for successful performance. To examine several central claims of the psychometric thesis, this study uses two kinds of data for analysis: one is cross-sectional and occupation-level data from various sources dated as early as World War I and the other is longitudinal and individual-level data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort (NLSY79) and the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study (WLS) in the United States. Findings of this study suggest that occupational segregation by cognitive ability is much less intensive than that suggested by the psychometric theory, and there is no evidence of a trend of increasing cognitive partitioning by occupation over time.
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Richard Smith and Graham Bradley
Using the Schools Council initiative to construct a Teaching Charter asan example, proposes that the orthodox analysis of the relationshipsbetween teachers′ work and student…
Abstract
Using the Schools Council initiative to construct a Teaching Charter as an example, proposes that the orthodox analysis of the relationships between teachers′ work and student performance is incomplete. To this end, research into climatic conditions that affect human physical, emotional and cognitive performance is reviewed. Argues that Australian educational research and policy have ignored the potential of direct and indirect effects of thermal conditions to influence school outcomes adversely. Concludes that there is a case for educational research and policy to account for climatic factors, especially the interactions between social, psychological, cultural and thermal variables in the formulation of teacher and student performance standards.
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Xuejiao An, Lin Qi, Jian Zhang and Xinran Jiang
This paper aims to find out the factors that influence the choice of dual innovation strategies in the process of knowledge pricing and transaction between first-mover and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to find out the factors that influence the choice of dual innovation strategies in the process of knowledge pricing and transaction between first-mover and late-mover companies in an open innovation environment and also to find the key factors that affect the company's strategic choice in factors such as heterogeneous market environment, demand elasticity, exploration risk intellectual property prices and transaction cost.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses the Cournot equilibrium and Stackelberg two-stage master-slave game model to describe the evolutionary process of knowledge pricing in an open innovation environment of first-mover and late-mover companies.
Findings
Research shows that in an open innovation environment, the formation of a dual innovation strategy in the pricing process of corporate intellectual property transactions is a complex process. Changes in one-time transaction costs and changes in the inverse demand coefficient of the innovation market play the decisive role in the choice of dual innovation strategies. When the demand of the innovation market is moderate, the inverse demand coefficient of the innovation market and the one-time transaction cost has an inverted U-shaped influence relationship. As the innovation market's inverse demand coefficient and the one-time transaction cost increase at the same time, the degree of differentiation of the enterprise's dual innovation strategy choice gradually reduces; when the one-time transaction cost is the largest, the degree of strategy differentiation is minimized.
Originality/value
Based on the above relationship, suggestions are made to guide enterprises in the knowledge pricing and transaction process in an open innovation environment, promote enterprises to form a dislocation development and complementary advantages in the knowledge innovation ecological chain and improve the overall innovation efficiency of the industry.
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Yolanda Ramírez Córcoles, Jesús F. Santos Peñalver and Ángel Tejada Ponce
This paper aims to demonstrate the need for universities to include information on intellectual capital in their accounting information system.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to demonstrate the need for universities to include information on intellectual capital in their accounting information system.
Design/methodology/approach
An empirical study was conducted to discover the extent to which the different users of university accounting information are now demanding information concerning intellectual capital in order to make the right decisions. To this end a questionnaire was designed and sent to all the members of the Social Councils of Spain's public universities.
Findings
The findings show the opinion of university accounting information users regarding the need for universities to publish information on their intellectual capital in order to make the current model of university accounting information more relevant.
Practical implications
The results of this research show the intangible elements about which universities should provide information in order to satisfy their users' new information demands.
Originality/value
No previous research in this area has been conducted for Spanish universities. This paper brings new expertise regarding the traditional information supplied by universities, which needs to be extended to include information on intellectual capital. Giving users access to a type of information that is relevant for good decision‐making constitutes a healthy exercise in transparency for universities.
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Sukanya Wadhwa and Seshadev Sahoo
This study aims to investigate the impact of intellectual capital (IC) on investor demand (i.e. subscription rate). The rise of the knowledge economy motivates us to investigate…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the impact of intellectual capital (IC) on investor demand (i.e. subscription rate). The rise of the knowledge economy motivates us to investigate how the value added by the IC of the issuing firms affects potential investors’ responses.
Design/methodology/approach
This study investigates the impact of IC on initial public offering (IPO) subscription rates using 234 IPOs from March 31, 2010 to March 31, 2021. This study uses multivariate regression, including year and industry dummies, and conduct robustness tests with industry subsamples. Additionally, this paper uses an alternative demand proxy (i.e. listing day returns) and two-staged least squares to address endogeneity.
Findings
This paper documents an inverse relationship between investor demand and human capital efficiency alongside a positive correlation between investor demand and structural capital efficiency. Additionally, IC efficiency positively affects listing day returns, with individual investor demand significantly driven by institutional investors.
Originality/value
This study uses Pulic’s (2000) methodology for measuring IC and examines whether it reduces information asymmetry in the IPO market and encourages investors to subscribe to an issue. This study holds significant implications for IPO issuing firms, investors and regulators regarding the IC disclosure in the prospectus.
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This paper argues that manufacturing system effectiveness has been severely weakened by the inefficient use of human intellectual energy and that traditional measures of human…
Abstract
This paper argues that manufacturing system effectiveness has been severely weakened by the inefficient use of human intellectual energy and that traditional measures of human inputs are simplistic and fail to identify vital contributions to developing value adding capability. Directing and maintaining intellectual energy while attempting a restructuring or re‐engineering programme is seen as a typically difficult example of this much overlooked area. In particular, levels of physical activity must not be confused with intellectual output or the much needed mindset changes. Observations and outcomes from five UK manufacturing companies are used to expand the views presented by the author.
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