Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the employee well-being from the perspectives of: first, individuals who have personal characteristics stereotypically associated with employment at the margins of the labour market and second, of individuals employed in jobs stereotypically associated with jobs at the margins of the labour market.

A set of OLS regressions is used to analyse a data set which has its origins in the Skills and Employment Surveys Series Data Set.

The expectation was that, for the individuals identified, their well-being as measured by a series of indicators would be relatively low. This proved to be not always the case. To illustrate: individuals without qualifications (relative to those who possess qualifications) reported positive experiences of well-being; and individuals in jobs which took little time to master (relative to those in jobs which took time to learn) also reported positive experiences of well-being.

The subjective indicators of employee well-being available from the data set offer only a partial psychological perspective of the concept.

Although the subject of employee well-being is well-researched, this paper focusses upon an increasingly prevalent group of workers within the labour market, often described as “disadvantaged” (or, using Standing’s terminology, the “precariat”). Furthermore, it reports some outcomes which do not conform to the conventional wisdom.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a human resource management perspective of the workforce adjustment strategies implemented at workplaces in Britain in response to the Great Recession.

The analysis uses an ordered probit and a series of binomial probits to examine a micro data set from the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study.

Not all workplaces were affected equally by the recession. Not all workplaces chose to implement workforce adjustment strategies consequential of the recession, although the probability of a workplace taking no action decreased the greater the adverse effect of the recession on the workplace. Most workplaces used a combination of workforce adjustment strategies. Workplaces implemented strategies more compatible with labour hoarding than labour shedding, i.e., cutting/freezing wages and halting recruitment to fill vacant posts rather than making employees redundant.

What was examined was the incidence of the workforce adjustment strategies, not the number of employees affected by the implementation of a strategy. Further, what was examined were outcomes. What is not known are the processes by which these outcomes were arrived at.

This paper concurs with the findings of previous economic studies that workplaces hoarded labour, cut hours and lowered pay. In so doing, however, it provides a more detailed and more informed human resource management perspective of these adjustment strategies.

The purpose of this paper is to address two questions: who commits? And who engages? For example, does an individual’s likelihood of committing/engaging vary with his/her age; or with the level of his/her qualifications; or with his/her occupation? Of what consequences are the characteristics of the workplace at which the individual is employed?

The investigation uses the Skills and Employment Surveys Series Data set to construct the indicators of commitment and engagement. Using an ordered-logit model and an OLS model, these indicators are analysed to identify their covariates.

Who commits and who engages depends upon the indicator used to measure the attitude/behaviour in question. Changing these indicators sometimes means that an individual no longer commits/engages. Further, even for the same indicator of commitment/engagement, who commits/engages varies across individuals.

The indicators of commitment and engagement examined are derived from the responses in a pre-existing data set which has its origins in survey instruments which had quite comprehensive terms of reference. Owning to the cross-sectional nature of this data set and the statistical methodology applied, the statistical results are correlations between some possible indicators of commitment and engagement and some variables which denote the personal characteristics of individuals and the characteristics of the organisations with which they are employed. Causation cannot be inferred from these correlations.

Commitment and engagement are central to many models of the management of human resources. However, the likelihood that an individual commits and/or engages differs across the workforce has rarely been examined. This paper addresses this research lacuna using a data set which is rich in detail about an individual’s personal characteristics.

The purpose of this study is to identify a comprehensive list of main enablers of successful implementation of green manufacturing (GM) practices in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Based on the inputs from Irish SMEs' experts, a validated conceptual hierarchy model of the identified enablers is developed to analyse and prioritise the most dominant ones.

Data were collected using a questionnaire survey responded by various professionals in Irish manufacturing SMEs. Experts' opinions were analysed using interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) to distinguish the mutual influences amongst the nine identified enablers.

The findings revealed that from the Irish SMEs' perspective, strong green supply chain relations are the outcome of successfully implementing GM and not a driver of the other enablers. Furthermore, lower manufacturing costs are found to arise as a result of GM practices in SMEs.

It is discussed that emulating the actions of larger companies will not necessarily yield the same results for SMEs. Innovation will become a cornerstone of remaining competitive in a sustainable environment, which is facilitated by closer green supply chain relations.

The reported findings in this article contribute to theory and practice of GM and SMEs research domains by systematically identified, classified and ranked enablers in a conceptual hierarchal model from the perspective of Irish SMEs. This research lays the foundations for further analysis of the GM practices enablers in a time when UN mandates and EU regulations are increasingly impacting SMEs all around Europe and especially Ireland.

The Youth Training Scheme (YTS) became operational nationally in September 1983. In May 1990, Youth Training (YT) was introduced to replace YTS. Throughout the economy, substantial numbers of new entrants to the labour market were subsidized by both schemes. In professional football in England and Wales, the former ad hoc system of “apprenticeship” was replaced by a more uniform systemic programme of both “specific” and “general” training, operating under the aegis of the Footballers’ Further Education and Vocational Training Society. Examines data to show how, subsequent to the implementation of the YTS/YT schemes in professional football, the number of registered contract professionals has increased: the ratio of contract professionals to trainees has decreased and the inter‐divisional distribution of apprentices/trainees has changed, with proportionately more trainees than before now registered with clubs in the lower divisions. Additionally, describes the “specific” (i.e. football club‐based) and “general” (i.e. college‐based) components of the training programme.

Examines some of the changes that have occurred in the labour market for young people in the last quarter of a century. Then proceeds to describe the nature of the relevant policy interventions during this same period, in particular the exhortation that “learning pays”. This provides the context for the identification of three challenges for all those directly and indirectly associated with the labour market for young people. In the viewpoint of the author, these challenges are: to espouse the cause of education and training; to create a flexible learning structure to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to learn both through and over time; and to improve the quantity and quality of information flows within this learning infrastructure.

Investing in Industry 4.0 is an important consideration for manufacturing firms who strive to remain competitive in this global economy, but the uncertainty and complexity of where to focus technology investments is a problem facing many manufacturers. The purpose of this paper is to highlight a region of manufacturing firms in the Midwest USA to investigate the role of firm size, access to funds and industry type on decision to invest in and deploy various Industry 4.0 technologies.

A survey was developed, piloted, and deployed to manufacturing companies located in the Midwest USA, specifically, Indiana, USA. A total of 138 manufacturing firms completed the full survey. The survey participants were requested to rank order the various technology categories with respect to previous historical spending, workforce capabilities and anticipated return on investment. The survey was supplemented with publically available data. Due to the use of rank-order data to identify Industry 4.0 priorities, a non-parametric analysis was completed using the Kruskall Wallis test.

The findings suggest that manufacturers with less than 20 employees and/or less access to funds (sales less than $10m) prioritize digital factory floor technologies (e.g. technology directly impacting productivity, quality and safety of manufacturing processes). Larger manufacturers with 20 or more employees and/or access to more funds (sales greater than or equal to $10m) prioritize enterprise support operations technologies.

Research studies and reports tend to lump manufacturing’s perspective of Industry 4.0 into one homogenous group, and rarely acknowledge the limited participation of “smaller” Small and medium-sized enterprises, which account for the far majority of manufacturing firms in the USA. The value of this study is on the “novelty of approach,” in that the data collection and analysis focuses on heterogeneity of manufacturing firms with respect to size, access to funds and industry type. The findings and recommendations are beneficial and relevant to organizations supporting Industry 4.0 efforts through workforce development and economic development initiatives.

This chapter provides an overview of two generally applicable frameworks relating to the use of technology-enhanced learning – ‘affordances’ and multimedia learning effects. First, the concept of ‘affordances’ as action potentials of technologies is identified as a way to think through technology-enhanced learning design possibilities, so as to help make technology selection decisions. Second, multimedia learning effects including the multimedia effect, the modality effect, the redundancy effect, the split-attention effect, and the personalization effect are presented as a scientific basis for understanding how to create cognitively effective learning experiences using text, images, sound, and video. Both affordances and multimedia learning effects are characterized as ongoing areas of research that are somewhat related, with the successful utilization of each depending on critical application by the designer.

The management of children′s literature is a search for value and suitability. Effective policies in library and educational work are based firmly on knowledge of materials, and on the bibliographical and critical frame within which the materials appear and might best be selected. Boundaries, like those between quality and popular books, and between children′s and adult materials, present important challenges for selection, and implicit in this process are professional acumen and judgement. Yet also there are attitudes and systems of values, which can powerfully influence selection on grounds of morality and good taste. To guard against undue subjectivity, the knowledge frame should acknowledge the relevance of social and experiential context for all reading materials, how readers think as well as how they read, and what explicit and implicit agendas the authors have. The good professional takes all these factors on board.

The process of small business establishment is examined in a step by step approach with reference to John Williams. Initially, the entrepreneurial focus is considered and the case study leads to the examination of entrepreneurial traits. Some facts relating to the owners personal situation are given. As opportunities appear they are also presented for decision‐making purposes and these lead into marketing issues such as customer identification, environmental influences and the marketing mix variables. As the case study concludes, it establishes a focus on the future direction of the firm, bearing in mind a record of sales 23% above target for the first year. There are four assignment stages, each of which is free‐standing: the start‐up decision; preparation of a business plan; marketing planning; and planning for growth. The learning experience of this case study is broad and it has been specifically developed to suit a wide range of readers from academic and non‐academic backgrounds.