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Housing is a fundamental need for all humans. A roof over our heads can provide safety, warmth and stability. Once we have this stability, our physical and mental health is more likely to be managed effectively. However, housing, or indeed a roof, is not something everyone has the privilege of experiencing. Housing policy across the globe is dominated by capitalistic thinking: the profit becomes the priority. Those marginalised, traumatised and stigmatised suffer the most, many having to access inadequate homeless shelters, still more sleeping on our cold streets. Current service provision favours the middle class. In these circumstances ill-health manifests, responses are often inadequate, yet some innovations develop. Housing First seeks to reach into the homeless population and provide housing to those most entrenched, while Safetynet seeks to provide health-related services to those homeless and experiencing other related problems. Both interventions understand the role peers can play in providing these services.

Mainland Tanzania has seen two decades of significant social policy reforms and transformations in its social and economic structures, whilst the country continues to grapple with persisting gender inequalities. This article examines Tanzania's social policy developments from a gender perspective. The authors analyse the level, reach and quality of social policy delivery to working-age women across the areas of health policy, social protection and employment policy during 2000–2021.

The article draws on qualitative research deploying the scoping review method. The data consist of diverse secondary materials, including academic publications, government policy documents, relevant statistics and other types of “grey” literature.

Tanzania has made significant advancements in the legal frameworks around welfare provision and has instituted increasingly gender-responsive government policy plans. The health and social protection sectors, in particular, have witnessed the introduction of large-scale measures expanding social policy implementation. However, social policy delivery remains two-tiered, with differences in provisions for women in the formal and informal sectors.

Social policy delivery and implementation have increased and diversified in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) during the new millennium, with a growing integration of gender-specific policy objectives. However, limited social policy scholarship has focused on the gendered effects of broader social policy models in SSA. The article remedies the concomitant knowledge gaps by examining various social policies and their impacts on working-age women in Mainland Tanzania. The authors also engage with the theoretical welfare regime literature and present an analytical framework for gender-sensitive assessment of emerging social policy models in the Global South.

3D-printed devices proved their efficacy across different clinical applications, helping personalize medical treatments. This paper aims to present the procedure for the design and production of patient-specific dynamic simulators of the human knee. The scope of these simulators is to improve surgical outcomes, investigate the motion and load response of the human knee and standardize in-vitro experiments for testing orthopedic devices through a personalized physical representation of the patient’s joint.

This paper tested the approach on three volunteers. For each, a patient-specific mathematical joint model was defined from an magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the knee. The model guided the CAD design of the simulators, which was then realized through stereolithography printing. Manufacturing accuracy was tested by quantifying the differences between 3D-printed and CAD geometry. To assess the simulator functionality, its motion was measured through a stereophotogrammetric system and compared with the natural tibio-femoral motion of the volunteers, measured as a sequence of static MRI.

The 3D-printing accuracy was very high, with average differences between ideal and printed parts below ± 0.1 mm. However, the assembly of different 3D-printed parts resulted in a higher average error of 0.97 mm and peak values of 2.33 mm. Despite that, the rotational and translational accuracy of the simulator was about 5° and 4 mm, respectively.

Although improvements in the production process are needed, the proposed simulators successfully replicated the individual articular behavior. The proposed approach is general and thus extendible to other articulations.

While scholarly studies focus on the role of technology in digital transformation, an important direction of research still requires examining HR-related factors in this regard specifically. This study aims to analyze factors pertaining to human and organizational resources in the context of digital transformation within healthcare enterprises. The study examines the possible impacts of organizational energy (OE) and human resource flexibility (HRF) on digital transformation (DT). The study also seeks to investigate the influence of organizational inertia (OI) on the relationships being examined, according to the theory of change principles.

The empirical study used a survey method on 355 Mansoura University Hospitals employees, Egypt. The study data were analyzed using structural equations modeling with WarpPLS V. 8.0.

The results showed that all OE dimensions directly affected DT and HRF dimensions. Through HRF, OE indirectly affected DT. The study also found that all dimensions of OI negatively moderated the OE-DT and HRF-DT relationships. Based on the study's results, theoretical and practical implications were drawn.

This study develops a novel model to empirically investigate the quantitative relationships between OE, HRF, OI, and DT. This study provides an addition to understanding how human resources and organizational mechanisms work in technology-based experiments such as digital transformation and adds contributions in this regard to the health sector in particular.

Amid challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, fostering employee creativity has become paramount for organizations. However, there is a scarcity of research on digitalization of the workplace and its implications for implementing high involvement work systems (HIWSs) in organizations, particularly in relation to their impact on employee outcomes, such as creativity and job satisfaction. Additionally, limited attention has been given to the role of job level and organizational type in driving change during times of adversity. This study aims to examine the factors within the HIWSs model using the PIRK model – power (P), information sharing (I), rewards (R) and knowledge (K) to explore how HIWSs shape the extent of power individuals have over their employment, the sharing of information, the types of rewards that engage and motivate employees and the knowledge required to fulfil employees’ responsibilities effectively, both individually and collectively.

Using a qualitative research methodology, this study uses thematic analysis for data collection, analysis and interpretation. Semi-structured interviews (n = 48) served as the primary data collection method. Using the theoretical lenses of high-involvement practices and employee perceptions of PIRK, the effect on employee creativity and job satisfaction is analysed.

The findings of this study reveal that employee creativity is significantly influenced by how employees perceive power, information, rewards and knowledge. Moreover, the study highlights the role of transformational and transactional leadership in shaping employee perceptions of power, information and knowledge within HIWSs. A high perception of PIRK is found to positively impact employee job satisfaction.

This study offers valuable insights for human resource management (HRM) professionals seeking to make informed decisions regarding best practices and initiatives for enhancing employee outcomes in the post-COVID era. By recognizing the pivotal role of HIWSs and their influence on employee perceptions, organizations can strategically implement HIWSs to foster creativity and job satisfaction. Furthermore, this research contributes to the existing literature by examining the interplay between HIWSs and the PIRK model in the context of workplace digitalization, emphasizing the importance of adapting HRM practices to address the evolving needs of the modern workforce.

This study will help HRM professionals in making informed decisions on the best practices and initiatives to enhance employee outcomes in the post-COVID era. This paper adds to the existing literature on HIWS and PIRK in the context of workplace digitalization.

In a complex, ever-changing, and turbulent business world, encouraging employees to express their improvement-oriented novel ideas through voice behavior is crucial for organizations to survive and thrive. Understanding how to foster employee promotive voice at work is a significant issue for both researchers and managers. This study explores how to foster employee promotive voice through specific HRM practices and positive employee attitudes. It also examines the effect of employee promotive voice on perceived organizational performance.

This study employed a time-lagged multisource survey design. Data were collected from 215 executives, 790 supervisors, and 1,004 employees in 113 firms, and analyzed utilizing a multilevel moderated serial mediation model.

The findings of this study revealed that promotive voice was significantly related to perceived organizational performance. Innovation-enhancing HRM was positively associated with employee promotive voice. The HRM-voice relationship was partially mediated by employee job satisfaction. Power distance orientation was found to significantly moderate the relationship between innovation-enhancing HRM and employee job satisfaction at the firm level. Our findings showed that innovation-enhancing HRM policies may fail to foster promotive voice if they do not enhance employee job satisfaction.

This study challenges some taken-for-granted assumptions in the literature such as any high performance HRM bundles (e.g. HPWS) can foster employee promotive voice, and the effects of HRM are direct and even unconditional on organizational outcomes. It emphasizes the need to avoid potential unintended effects of HRM on employee voice and the importance of contextualizing voice research.

New generations actively seek employment in organizations that resonate with their values, mission and sense of purpose. However, perceptions of organizational politics (POP) associated with unethical practices detrimentally affects meaningful work experiences and employee retention. Ethical leadership emerges as a critical factor in mitigating these negative effects. This study aims to propose a comprehensive model that examines the impact of ethical leadership on two crucial work outcomes: meaningful work and turnover intention. The mediating role of POP is explored, shedding light on the intricate dynamics within organizational contexts.

To test the model, the authors use a sample of 261 respondents who completed an online questionnaire shared on social networks. Partial least squares is used for data analysis.

Results evidence that ethical leadership reduces employees’ POP, increases meaningful work and reduces turnover intention. One dimension of POP – communication – mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and work outcomes. Furthermore, meaningful work mediates the relationship between ethical leadership and turnover intention.

The study offers practical suggestions for managers to mitigate the negative impact of POP on meaningful work and employee retention.

This study adds to previous research by analyzing the separate and combined effects of ethical leadership on five dimensions of POP – communication, resources, decisions, reputation and relationships. Furthermore, this study adds empirical evidence on how POP influence meaningful work and employee retention.

This research aims to determine the influence that work flexibility (WF) has on the happiness of workers through the work and personal life balance, work-life balance (WLB), as a mediating variable, as well as the moderating role of gender between WLB and job happiness (JH). A structural model that describes the interactions between these study variables is proposed.

A quantitative approach was used. The data were collected by non-probabilistic sampling, surveying 200 mid-level employees in small and medium industrial enterprises (industrial SMEs). The proposed hypotheses were analyzed and tested using partial least squares structural equation modeling.

The results confirmed the hypotheses presented. In the relation of WLB and JH, positive work-family and family-work interactions would result in a greater increase in JH in the women group compared to men, and special characteristics were found in the variables in the Mexican context.

This study will provide information to those responsible for the human resources departments of companies to design and implement good practices in which importance can be given to labor agreements involving WF and the implementation of WLB policies differentiated by gender to generate happiness at work.

The JH construct proposed by Fisher (2010) was applied, and its relationship with WF and WLB in a post-pandemic context was studied. The research applied to supervisors and area managers of industrial SMEs reflects the importance of considering the balance between their life and work to achieve JH, understanding it as job satisfaction and more commitment to work, in addition to considering the differences by gender.

Innovative work behaviour (IWB) has long been advocated as a crucial resource for organisations. Evidence that work characteristics stimulate the adoption of IWB is widespread. Yet, the relationship between knowledge characteristics and IWB has often been overlooked. This study aims to address this gap by examining this relationship.

Building on an integrative vision of innovation, this study analyses the effects of combinations in work characteristics on IWB through a configurational approach. Job autonomy, complexity, problem solving, specialisation and demand for constant learning were examined as determinants of IWB using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis.

Based on a sample of 214 Belgium employees, the results highlight seven configurations of work characteristics to elicit high levels of IWB. For six of them, problem solving appears as a needed condition.

Presented findings offer insights for organisations aiming at evolving in a competitive context to generate optimal conditions for promoting employee innovation.

While most studies have tested the influence of work characteristics independently, this research investigates the joint influence of work characteristics and identifies how combinations of multiple variables lead to IWB.

The contemporary business environment is characterised by an increasing reliance on artificial intelligence, automation, optimisation, efficient communication and data-driven decision making. Based on the limited academic literature that examines the managerial perspective on enterprise chatbots, the paper aims to explore organisational needs and expectations for enterprise chatbots from a managerial perspective, assesses the relationship between managerial knowledge and managerial opinion regarding enterprise chatbots, and delivers a framework for integrating chatbots into the digital workforce.

The paper presents a quantitative design. An online, self-administered survey yielded 111 valid responses from managers in service and manufacturing organisations based on convenience and snowball sampling strategies. Given the nature of the data and the research questions, the research was conducted using principal component analysis, parallel analysis, correlation, internal consistency and difference in means tests.

This research explores the managerial perspective on enterprise chatbots from multiple perspectives (i.e., adoption, suitability, development requirements, benefits, barriers, performance and implications), presents a heat map of the average level of chatbot need across industries and business units, highlights the urgent need for education and training initiatives targeted at decision makers, and provides a strategic framework for successful chatbot implementation.

This study equips managers and practitioners dealing with enterprise chatbots with knowledge to effectively leverage the expected benefits of investing in this technology for their organisations. It offers direction for developers in designing chatbots that align with organisational expectations, capabilities and skills.

Insights for managers, researchers and chatbot developers are provided. The work complements the few academic studies that examine enterprise chatbots from a managerial perspective and enriches related commercial studies with more rigourous statistical analysis. The paper contributes to the ongoing discourse on decision-making in the context of technology development, integration and education.