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This research examines effects on emotional burnout among “maternity support workers” (MSWs) that support women in labor (labor and delivery (L&D) nurses and doulas). The emotional intensity of maternity support work is likely to contribute to emotional distress, compassion fatigue, and burnout.

This study uses data from the Maternity Support Survey (MSS) to analyze emotional burnout among 807 L&D nurses and 1,226 doulas in the United States and Canada. Multivariate OLS regression models examine the effects of work–family conflict, overwork, emotional intelligence, witnessing unethical mistreatment of women in labor, and practice characteristics on emotional burnout among these MSWs. We measure emotional burnout using the Professional Quality of Life (PROQOL) Emotional Burnout subscale.

Work–family conflict, feelings of overwork, witnessing a higher frequency of unethical mistreatment, and working in a hospital with a larger percentage of cesarean deliveries are associated with higher levels of burnout among MSWs. Higher emotional intelligence is associated with lower levels of burnout, and the availability of hospital wellness programs is associated with less burnout among L&D nurses.

While the MSS obtained a large number of responses, its recruitment methods produced a nonrandom sample and made it impossible to calculate a response rate. As a result, responses may not be generalizable to all L&D nurses and doulas in the United States and Canada.

This research reveals that MSWs attitudes about medical procedures such as cesarean sections and induction are tied to their experiences of emotional burnout. It also demonstrates a link between witnessing mistreatment of laboring women and burnout, so that traumatic incidents have negative emotional consequences for MSWs. The findings have implications for secondary trauma and compassion fatigue, and for the quality of maternity care.

Justice rules are standards that serve as criteria for formulating fairness judgments. Though justice rules play a role in the organizational justice literature, they have seldom been the subject of analysis in their own right. To address this limitation, we first consider three meta-theoretical dualities that are highlighted by justice rules – the distinction between justice versus fairness, indirect versus direct measurement, and normative versus descriptive paradigms. Second, we review existing justice rules and organize them into four types of justice: distributive (e.g., equity, equality), procedural (e.g., voice, consistent treatment), interpersonal (e.g., politeness, respectfulness), and informational (e.g., candor, timeliness). We also emphasize emergent rules that have not received sufficient research attention. Third, we consider various computation models purporting to explain how justice rules are assessed and aggregated to form fairness judgments. Fourth and last, we conclude by reviewing research that enriches our understanding of justice rules by showing how they are cognitively processed. We observe that there are a number of influences on fairness judgments, and situations exist in which individuals do not systematically consider justice rules.

Within the last two decades, entrepreneurship education has become institutionalized in Germany. It is offered as a stand-alone program or as part of a business degree, combining academic knowledge, practical skills, and personal development to enhance the entrepreneurial success of university graduates. While entrepreneurship education has experienced similar growth worldwide, its emergence in Germany is closely tied to the country’s political and economic developments. The significance of entrepreneurship education for a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem and contemporary economic policy has been instrumental in advancing its academic recognition. This chapter provides a historical analysis of the academization of entrepreneurship in Germany. It explores the recursive and often idiosyncratic processes involving state and financial institutions, companies, and universities that have created, respecified, and mutually reinforced a subdiscipline and field of study. Academic entrepreneurship knowledge successively not only became relevant for starting a business but also for employment within the entrepreneurial infrastructure and beyond. This chapter follows a chronological order, highlighting three key stages in the academization of entrepreneurship education. First, the academic, financial, and political roots (I) of entrepreneurship up until the 1970s. Second, it explores the transformation (II) of entrepreneurship into a viable policy alternative and the challenges faced in establishing complementary research and education in higher education institutions during the 1980s. Finally, it sketches the institutionalization (III) of entrepreneurship as a central driver of government economic policy, allowing for the late bloom of entrepreneurship education and research at universities around the turn of the millennium.

Notwithstanding the relevance of managerial control systems (MCS) in any organization, as well the distinctive role they can play in family business, due to its specific features, the literature rarely dealt with the role and characteristics of MCS in family business. Taking into account previous contributions from different disciplines (organization, management accounting, and family business), the current work aims to better understand the state of the art about research in the field of MCS in family business in order to identify main research gaps and propose future research directions.

Forty-five articles have been analyzed, which were issued in 29 sources. Research findings show that the literature on MCS in family business is limited and not very conclusive. Some authors focused on the type of controls, other authors outlined the role of MCS in managerialization and the relation with professionalization. A few studies focused on some specific mechanisms, especially strategic planning and compensation. Some contributes dealt with MCS’ determinants and impacts. Differences between family and non-family firms were proposed. However, a clear and organized picture of the features of MCS in family firms, their determinants, and impacts has not yet been developed. Particularly, the impact of the distinctive features of family business on MCS represents an underdeveloped research field along with how MCS can be differently developed and used in different kinds of family firms. In the light of findings of the literature review, we propose a reference research framework on MCS in family business.

The explicit assumption in most literature on educational and skill mismatches is that these mismatches are inherently costly for workers. However, the results in the literature on the effects of underqualification or underskilling on wages and job satisfaction only partly support this hypothesis. Rather than assuming that both skill surpluses and skill deficits are inherently costly for workers, we interpret these mixed findings by taking a learning perspective on skill mismatches. Following the theory of Vygotski on the so-called “zone of proximal development,” we expect that workers who start their job with a small skill deficit, show more skill growth than workers who start in a matching job or workers with a more severe skill deficit. We test this hypothesis using the Cedefop European skills and jobs survey (ESJS) and the results confirm these expectations. Workers learn more from job tasks that are more demanding than if they would work in a job that perfectly matches their initial skill level and this skill growth is largest for those who start with a small skill deficit. The learning opportunities are worst when workers start in a job for which they have a skill surplus. This is reflected in the type of learning activities that workers take up. Workers with a small skill deficit are more often engaged in informal learning activities. Finally, workers who started with a small skill deficit are no less satisfied with their job than workers who started in a well-matched job. We conclude that a skill match is good for workers, but a small skill deficit is even better. This puts some responsibility on employers to keep job tasks and responsibilities at a challenging level for their employees.

Purpose – In this chapter, we report on the lessons of cross-disciplinary collaborative workshop between sociologists and engineering educators to synthesize what is known about legitimating and disseminating educational reform and to develop a research agenda for what needs to be known in order to spread educational reform and to overcome on-the-ground resistance to change.

Methodology/approach – This chapter is based on a case study of this workshop, describing the “white papers” prepared by participants prior to the workshop and the research agendas that emerged from discussions of them during the workshop and after.

Findings – The workshop resulted in a sophisticated research agenda as well as some modest efforts to create cross-disciplinary links to implement it. However, a one-time workshop did not overcome institutional barriers to this kind of activity.

Research limitations – Since this is a case study of a single collaboration we cannot generalize to all cross-disciplinary collaborations, although it does provide an example of what works to facilitate cross-disciplinary efforts and what obstacles remain.

Practical implications – An advantage to the workshop was the absence of institutional barriers to cross-disciplinary collaboration. Attendees were removed from their institutions, departments, disciplines, and turf battles. However, without increased institutional support for cross-disciplinary efforts, such as this one, the value of the social sciences for diffusing the innovations of science and engineering reform movements may not be realized.

The debate about tackling online misinformation and disinformation is not unique to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the health crisis has elevated the danger of misleading information circulated on social media. Labelled as ‘infodemic’, the problem of COVID-19-related misinformation and disinformation prompted governments and social media platforms around the globe to impose various speech restrictions. The public and private policy frameworks aiming to curb the spread of the infodemic were adopted in a state of emergency and without proper scrutiny. Yet, they are shaping the future of content regulation, possibly affecting freedom of speech and other democratic values for years to come. This chapter looks at the key problematic aspects of actions taken by governments and social media platforms to address COVID-19-related misinformation and disinformation and discusses the possible long-term effects of these measures.

Codes of ethics are a moral reflection centred on the duties and rights of a given profession that establishes the minimum moral standards required. These codes imply self-regulation and therefore an individual application on the conduct of professionals. In this chapter we reflect on the main values that guide PR practice based on Schwartz's theory of basic human values, which measures universal values that are recognised throughout all major cultures. A qualitative and quantitative content analysis was carried out of the codes of ethics of six national PR and communication associations and of the Global Alliance's code. The ethics codes were analysed to study the priorities of values stressed by PR professional associations and to highlight the motivational values that may be present in them. Findings show that values contained in the codes of ethics are based on a system of 32 human values; three of the values – the common good, integrity and truthfulness – are identified in all the codes; motivational values relating to universalism, benevolence and conformity are also covered to varying degrees in all the texts. It has been confirmed that the Global Alliance code is the only text that deals with the values of all the motivations described by Schwartz. The PR codes of ethics are based on a list of common ethical values of a collective nature, which are mostly contemplated by the Global Alliance; the main difference at the national level is that Latin countries include in their texts more principles of ethical universalism.