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Investigates an economic barrier for foreign affiliates in Japan, the high cost of local labour: to attract qualified workers, foreign affiliates must pay a basic wage premium and offer fewer hours of work over their Japanese counterparts, a factor which reduces cost flexibility and impairs foreign competition in the Japanese market. Foreign affiliates′ inability to offer employment security is a plausible explanation for such wage premium.

Businesses are rapidly automating workplaces with new technologies (e.g., driverless cargo trucks, artificially intelligent mortgage approvals, machine-learning-based paralegals, algorithmic managers). Such technological advancement raises a host of questions for business and society. As Thomas Donaldson recently remarked, “It’s instance of a problem that more sophisticated engineering cannot solve, and that requires a more sophisticated approach to values” (Ufberg, 2017). In this chapter, we explore the value questions as follows: What is the purpose of business in the machine age? What model for business will best serve society in coming decades: profit maximization, stakeholder theory, or another conception entirely? Is it time for a new social contract between business and society? Do firms have a natural duty to offer employment? Are existing concepts of responsibility/liability adequate for an age in which companies use autonomous robots as scapegoats? How can we protect our humanity and dignity in an algorithm-based society? Do we need to teach ethics to robots?

This paper aims to review the latest management developments across the globe and pinpoint practical implications from cutting-edge research and case studies.

This briefing is prepared by an independent writer who adds their own impartial comments and places the articles in context.

This research paper focuses on employee experience quality in university spin-off companies in Portugal. Specifically, it explores seven dimensions of employment quality identified by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) framework: physical health, mental health and human rights; income and benefits from employment; hours flexibility and work-life balance; employment security and social protection; social dialogue; skills development and training; and workplace relationships and motivation. The findings show that similar challenges face start-ups and university spin-offs, such as retaining talent while paying them lower wages, and motivating people to absorb high work pressure and expectations for sustained periods.

The briefing saves busy executives, strategists and researchers hours of reading time by selecting only the very best, most pertinent information and presenting it in a condensed and easy-to-digest format.

In an effort to position higher education institutions to survive in this fiercely competitive environment, the paper aims to identify the direct and indirect relationships between higher education institutional positioning and exogenous factors (student engagement, employability, technology adaptation, teaching quality, and moral values).

A cross-sectional data was collected from 1,015 students studying in the pre-final year of graduation or post-graduate course/program from various educational institutions that were shortlisted based on the Indian NAAC and NIRF rankings. Thereafter, robust assessment criteria of PLS-SEM were used for model assessment and computation of results.

The findings revealed that to develop the greatest platform for upcoming young talent, higher educational institutional positioning ought to be addressed as a priority, which in turn will result in better living standards for upcoming generations.

Framing strategies for urban students can never match those living in rural areas, as they are deprived of money due to their level of upbringing from childhood, which creates a high difference in the psychological mindset of students while choosing a career path.

The higher positioning of educational institutions clearly reflects the authentic learning environment, with professionalism leading to better student engagement with best industry practice.

Research novelty is highlighted as a more focused and streamlined approach to students’ career development and institution branding by reanalyzing and grouping various concepts of institutional positioning into a single model.

This study aims to investigates the contribution of the informal sector towards secure livelihoods. Using a case study design, the study focusses on Mandela park, situated in Khayelitsha Township, Cape Town, in the Western Cape province of South Africa. Khayelitsha is predominantly an old township established by the apartheid government using unjust segregation laws to foster spatial planning that isolated people of colour in areas with insufficient infrastructure and informal economic activities. Therefore, informal trading became a survival strategy in Khayelitsha, attracting an increasing number of informal traders in public spaces within the township in pursuit of livelihoods. Informal activities are generally conducted to generate income and secure sustainable livelihoods.

This study uses a qualitative research design, incorporating structured interviews instrumental in data collection and in-depth thematic analysis.

The study findings reveal that the informal sector positively contributes to the sustainable livelihoods of those involved in the informal sector and the relatives of those through income generation, family support, wealth creation, source of employment, business incubation and innovation and creativity.

The study concludes that given the increasing unemployment rate in South Africa, caused by the stagnant economic growth rate, policymakers should rethink their policies on the informal economy, acknowledge the sector's relevance and support the sector.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the attitudes of women and men in relation to gender‐appropriate domestic responsibilities and equal opportunities in the changing context of neo‐liberalism.

The authors draw on results from an empirical investigation involving 1,731 questionnaires investigating the attitudes of women and men in a town in the north of Sweden.

The tentative conclusions suggest that even if they appear to co‐exist in contradictory ways, ideas of gender‐appropriate domestic responsibilities and equality of opportunity are in the respondents' minds, alongside neo‐liberal notions of individualisation. The prevailing attitudes in respect of gender suggest that women and men make apparently free “choices”; the influence of age on attitudes to gender issues is also considered.

This paper considers neo‐liberalisation and its impact on gender equity in Sweden, a country with a strong reputation for gender equity and a tradition of collective, inclusive social democracy, somewhere we would be unlikely to find its embedded presence. Using a quantitative self‐reporting approach to attitudes relevant to the choices made by men and women, the study raises questions about gender‐appropriate domestic responsibilities and equality of opportunity in a country that has been and continues to be regarded as one of the most gender‐friendly in the world and likely to be resistant to the influence of neo‐liberalism. The implications are explored, with the evidence indicating the presence of neo‐liberalism co‐existing, albeit perhaps uneasily, with traditions of equality of opportunity and attitudes to gender.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of off-farm employment on the concentration of farmland via households’ land rental activities in rural China.

The paper uses Probit and Tobit models to estimate the effect of off-farm employment on land rental activities. Furthermore, the paper compares the degree of land concentration between pre-renting and post-renting in terms of Gini coefficients of farmland ownership at village level.

The authors find that off-farm employment has a positive effect on the renting out farmland, and insignificant effect on renting in farmland. Moreover, off-farm employment intensifies the concentration of farmland from small farms toward big farms by renting activities.

The authors believe that the results will contribute positively to the assessment of the effect of off-farm employment on land concentration in the context of the urbanization process in China.

Studies the introduction of individualised employment relations at the Bengalla Open Cut mining operation in the Hunter Valley coalfields of New South Wales, Australia. Describes and explains the “greenfield” strategy of the managing owner of the mine, the US multinational, the Peabody Group, and the reaction and counter‐strategy of the miners’ union, the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU). Argues that management’s greenfield strategy has provided some immediate benefits to the employer and rendered the CFMEU almost powerless to develop a delegate structure at the mine and bargain collectively with management. Yet the peculiar type of individualism, its justification and the CFMEU’s efforts to maintain a presence at the mine indicate that individualised employment relations may only be a transient phenomenon at the Bengalla mine.