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A substantial literature examines the effect of high-performance workplace practices on various outcomes for firms and workers. However, little attention has been paid to the effect of broad job design on product quality or financial performance. And with rare exception, the empirical literature on outcomes from high-performance work practices treats those practices as exogenously determined. This chapter seeks to address these two shortcomings in the existing literature. Using a nationally representative cross-section of British employers in 2004, we measure the effect of multiskilling on establishment-level labor productivity, product quality, and financial performance. We find that treating multiskilling as an endogenous choice of employers in empirical models of organizational performance has significant implications for the results. In particular, the estimated (positive) effect of multiskilling on labor productivity vanishes when we treat multiskilling as an endogenous choice of employers. Treating multiskilling as an endogenous choice changes its estimated effect on product quality from zero to positive and substantially increases the estimated magnitude of its (positive) effect on financial performance.

The purpose of this chapter is to offer new justification for multiskilling practices such as job rotation and extensive training for broad skills and explain why there appear to exist complementarity between multiskilling and the delegation of decision authority to workers.

By developing a new model of incomplete contracting where workers make noncontractable investments in multiple skills, we obtain the key insight that worker investments in firm-specific human capital become strategic substitutes when their skills overlap each other.

The “skill substitution effect” analyzed in this chapter induces the following three major results, unless specialization offers a substantial technological advantage: (1) workers' incentives to invest in firm-specific human capital tend to be stronger; (2) the optimal level of delegation is typically higher; and (3) firms' ex post profits tend to be higher with multiskilling than with specialization.

The novel implication of the chapter is that multiskilling may be desirable from a firm's viewpoint even if there are no technological or informational task complementarities among the combined skills, which have been believed to be primary reasons for multiskilling in prior works.

Reports on research which was funded by the 20 NHS trusts which are members of the Health Service Facilities Management Research and Application Forum co‐ordinated by the Unit for Facilities Management Research at Sheffield Hallam University. Using a literature search and by collecting primary data from NHS and non‐NHS organizations, tested the hypothesis that the introduction of multiskilling and/or generic working can give an organization greater efficiency and also provide job enrichment for its workers. These benefits will increasingly lead NHS trusts to introduce these systems as a means of making effective use of the available resources. Refers to recent changes in the pattern of working in NHS trusts. Uses various case studies to provide guidance. These, together with the primary information, are used to identify the key success factors and the potential dangers of implementing multiskilling or generic working. Also outlines steps for the introduction of these policies into an NHS trust.

Multiskilling refers to a labour utilization strategy in which workers learn multiple skills in one or more trades outside of their primary trade. Over 700 non‐union craft workers across the USA were surveyed as part of a research effort. The data collected show that a slight increase in the breadth of skills positively impacts a worker’s hourly wage, but only a weak relationship was found between multiskilling and more continuous employment.

This article aims to report on research conducted inside British national media organisations. The research was designed to investigate the impact on the working practices of journalists of the process of production convergence – the trend towards news reporting in more than one medium in formerly single‐medium organisations. The article describes the changes that are taking place and the ways journalists are reacting to them.

Interviews were conducted with 20 journalists during 2002 and 2003. The interviews were with journalists working in newsrooms at the BBC, Sky News, The Guardian and the Financial Times.

The data show that while multimedia news is becoming well established, the multimedia journalist has been slow to arrive. This is because of the pressures that multi‐media working adds to the journalist's daily routine and a concern over the impact on the quality of output.

The media environment is evolving rapidly and research findings on this topic quickly go out of date, but the findings presented here offer valuable insights into the news production processes operating in British national media organisations and the ways journalists are adapting to, and are likely to continue to adapt to, changes in production technologies and changed systems of working.

The paper is the first to focus on journalistic practice in a converging media environment.

The purpose of this paper is to study the following two issues regarding blockchain crowdsourcing. First, to design smart contracts with lower consumption to meet the needs of blockchain crowdsourcing services and also need to design better interaction modes to further reduce the cost of blockchain crowdsourcing services. Second, to design an effective privacy protection mechanism to protect user privacy while still providing high-quality crowdsourcing services for location-sensitive multiskilled mobile space crowdsourcing scenarios and blockchain exposure issues.

This paper proposes a blockchain-based privacy-preserving crowdsourcing model for multiskill mobile spaces. The model in this paper uses the zero-knowledge proof method to make the requester believe that the user is within a certain location without the user providing specific location information, thereby protecting the user’s location information and other privacy. In addition, through off-chain calculation and on-chain verification methods, gas consumption is also optimized.

This study deployed the model on Ethereum for testing. This study found that the privacy protection is feasible and the gas optimization is obvious.

This study designed a mobile space crowdsourcing based on a zero-knowledge proof privacy protection mechanism and optimized gas consumption.

The purpose of this paper is to look at workplace learning through research into sociology of work. It explores the “learning discourse” at work place level looking for possibilities to oppose learning.

This paper is based on case studies conducted at six workplaces. The data on the cases include interviews and observation and three of the cases can be characterized as being based on action research.

In light of the case studies, learning at workplaces shows up as action and discourse that is quite interest‐laden and contested. Employers demand learning but employees find ways to oppose these demands.

In the planning of measures that support workplace learning it is important to identify general structures and trends of working life, as well as the different interests at the workplace. In this way, a situation can be avoided in which adult educators and their activities are used as weapons in campaigning for some groups' interests.

The article's distinctive feature lies in its critical approach to workplace learning through in‐depth data sets. It explores further so‐called positive learning discourse and its implications at different kind of workplaces and to different kind of personnel groups.

The desirability of having a more flexible workforce is emphasised across many health systems yet this goal is as ambiguous as it is ubiquitous. In the absence of empirical studies in healthcare that have defined flexibility as an outcome, the purpose of this paper is to draw on classic management and sociological theory to reduce this ambiguity.

The paper uses the Weberian tool of “ideal types”. Key workforce reforms are held against Atkinson’s model of functional flexibility which aims to increase responsiveness and adaptability through multiskilling, autonomy and teams; and Taylorism which seeks stability and reduced costs through specialisation, fragmentation and management control.

Appeals to an amorphous goal of increasing workforce flexibility make an assumption that any reform will increase flexibility. However, this paper finds that the work of healthcare professionals already displays most of the essential features of functional flexibility but many widespread reforms are shifting healthcare work in a Taylorist direction. This contradiction is symptomatic of a failure to confront inevitable trade-offs in reform: between the benefits of specialisation and the costs of fragmentation; and between management control and professional autonomy.

The paper questions the conventional conception of “the problem” of workforce reform as primarily one of professional control over tasks. Holding reforms against the ideal types of Taylorism and functional flexibility is a simple, effective way the costs and benefits of workforce reform can be revealed.

This paper aims to explore advantages, disadvantages, advice and concerns regarding workforce cross training practices, as well as examples of businesses and organizations that have successfully implemented cross training programs.

This article is a general review, based on the literature available and the knowledge and expertise of the authors.

There are a number of realities, such as increased training cost, questionable improvement in productivity, complexity of workflow, and employee resistance, that an employer must consider carefully before moving towards a cross training approach. At the same time, cross training can provide employees with learning and growth opportunities that can help them be ready for emergencies, recessions, and the competition of a global economy.

This article adds to the literature on workforce cross training and will be of interest to those involved in that field.

The purpose of this paper is to obtain and to expose work organisation practices common to the factories that successfully follow lean production (LP) principles.

Analysis of the literature and interviews with experts.

An analysis of the literature reveals clear connections between work organisation practices and LP. However, general reports on LP barely deal with work organisation. A set of work organisation objectives for LP was established for the authors and interviewed experts and analysed by reviewing the literature. Similarities are found between the different sources in terms of defining a set of policies and practices covering all the aspects of work organisation. It is shown that there are indeed work organisation practices characteristic of LP.

This paper is believed to be the first complete analysis of work organisation practices for LP.