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1 – 10 of over 29000Bruce Kirkcaldy, Adrian Furnham and Robert Levine
This study looked at seven attitudinal and three personality variable correlates of three measures of pace of life. Pace of life was operationalised as three distinct measures;…
Abstract
This study looked at seven attitudinal and three personality variable correlates of three measures of pace of life. Pace of life was operationalised as three distinct measures; walking pace, postal service speed, and clock accuracy. Correlational and multiple regression analyses revealed that achievement motivation and competitiveness were highly predictive of general pace of life which is consistent with previous work. Moreover, linear discriminant analysis showed distinct differences in work attitude profiles between low, medium, and fast‐paced nations, the difference being significant for competitiveness, achievement motivation and attitudes towards savings. These nations also differed with respect to GDP, cost of living, energy (consumption of kg coal equivalent per head), and family size though nations did not differ in terms of economic growth and inflation rates. Overall, pace of life represents a simple, unobtrusive measure which is useful, subtle and a cheap indicator of national culture and economic progress.
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David J. Maume and David A. Purcell
Little is known about temporal trends in the intensification of work in America, or its determinants. This study analyzed two representative samples of the American labor force…
Abstract
Little is known about temporal trends in the intensification of work in America, or its determinants. This study analyzed two representative samples of the American labor force, and found that the pace of work increased significantly between 1977 and 1997. In a decomposition analysis, two-thirds of the increase in work intensification was attributable to objective economic changes, in particular job complexity and the length of work schedules. Future research should further explore the role of technology in quickening the pace of work, but not ignore the possibility that the demands of family life also affect perceptions of work intensification.
Carrie Anne Platt, Renee Bourdeaux and Nancy DiTunnariello
This study investigated how college students’ pace of life and perceptions of communication technologies shape the choices they make when engaging in mediated communication with…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigated how college students’ pace of life and perceptions of communication technologies shape the choices they make when engaging in mediated communication with their parents.
Methodology
We conducted 21 interviews to explore how students’ understandings of various communication technologies, the rules and patterns of technology use in their families, and the circumstances surrounding their use of technologies while at college influence the number and type of media they use to communicate with their parents.
Findings
We found that perceived busyness and generational differences played a large role in limiting technologies used, with environmental factors, the purpose of communication, and complexity of message also contributing to technology choices.
Originality
This study extends media multiplexity theory by investigating media choice and relational tie strength in an intergenerational context.
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Katarina Katja Mihelič, Nada Zupan and Ajda Merkuž
At the dawn of a new decade, as ever more corporations are pursuing sustainable working conditions and advocating employee well-being, employees are increasingly tending to feel…
Abstract
Purpose
At the dawn of a new decade, as ever more corporations are pursuing sustainable working conditions and advocating employee well-being, employees are increasingly tending to feel fatigued and drained by their work, which compromises their performance. Drawing on the job demands–resources model and social acceleration debate, the authors test a moderated mediation model. Specifically, the authors hypothesise that unreasonable tasks raise perceptions of emotional exhaustion when the pace of work is increased and investigate the moderating role of psychological detachment.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used a sample of 245 employees from Europe, all knowledge workers, to test the hypotheses.
Findings
Apart from unreasonable tasks being directly related with emotional exhaustion, this relationship was mediated by the perceived work pace. In addition, the authors establish psychological detachment as a relevant moderator for the mediating effect.
Practical implications
Managers and HR practitioners are equipped with a better understanding of the effects of an increasing speed of work, the conditions leading to it and the individual and organizational resources that may help to create healthy and meaningful job positions, which facilitate employee efficiency.
Originality/value
Our study expands the literature on contemporary stressors and adds to what is known about the ‘dark side’ of job demands that affect the organizational bottom-line, as well as the resource-based mechanism that can buffer the negative effects.
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This chapter explores the multifaceted present-day social and cultural constructions of adolescence in a Nordic Atlantic society, the Faroe Islands. Based on young people’s…
Abstract
This chapter explores the multifaceted present-day social and cultural constructions of adolescence in a Nordic Atlantic society, the Faroe Islands. Based on young people’s perspectives and narratives, this chapter delves into the transition from youthhood to adulthood in the context of a small-scale, family-oriented society in shift. Drawing on sociological theoretical writing about “waiting” and “waithood” in relation to the (often temporally extended or delayed) transition from adolescence to full adulthood in a globalizing world, as well as social anthropological studies of future-making, my aim is to outline the new futural orientations of contemporary adolescence with focus on aspirations for work and family life. Young people, the chapter argues, are waiting and navigating in a society with multiple parallel temporalities: When to marry? When to get children? When to earn your own money and have your own home? These and many other questions define waithood in contemporary society, which is characterized by an increasingly precarious avenue toward promising futures resonating the socially accepted ways of performing adulthood. In the Faroe Islands, an island society with roughly 54,000 inhabitants, young people’s waiting is very often also a question of staying or leaving, that is, mobility and migration strategies. The waiting entails pace as a strategy for the future (Eisenstein, 2021). Adolescent islanders aim to “hit the right pace” in their future imaginaries. This chapter contributes to sociological discussions on the social construction of adolescence with focus on the meaning of time and temporalities. It relies on empirical material from extensive qualitative studies in the Faroe Islands.
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Breffni M. Noone, Sheryl E. Kimes, Anna S. Mattila and Jochen Wirtz
Restaurant operators can process a greater number of customers and increase revenues by reducing service encounter duration during high demand periods. Actions taken to reduce…
Abstract
Purpose
Restaurant operators can process a greater number of customers and increase revenues by reducing service encounter duration during high demand periods. Actions taken to reduce duration may be experienced by customers as an increase in the pace of the service encounter. While achieving a reduction in duration may be appealing from a revenue perspective, will customers' perceptions of the resulting pace of the service encounter negatively impact their satisfaction? The aim of this paper is to propose that, in the context of restaurant experiences that are hedonic and extended in nature, the overall relationship between perceived service encounter pace and satisfaction follows an inverted U‐shape.
Design/methodology/approach
Respondents were asked to recall a recent (i.e. within the last three weeks) restaurant experience, write a description of that experience, and then complete scales that measured their perceptions of pace and satisfaction with the experience.
Findings
The relationship between perceived pace and satisfaction has an inverted U‐shape. This holds both at the level of the overall service encounter and by service stage within the encounter. The effect of perceived pace on satisfaction is moderated by service stage, with a greater tolerance of a faster pace during the post‐process stage than during the pre‐process or in‐process stages.
Practical implications
The results of this study have implications for the application of revenue management strategies for duration control. Management need to consider the negative effect that service encounter pace can have on consumer satisfaction. Service stage should also be factored into strategy development for duration control.
Originality/value
This paper extends the wait time literature, demonstrating that as the perceived pace of the service encounter increases, satisfaction increases, but only up to a point, beyond which it decreases as perceived pace continues to increase.
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This chapter presents some basic concepts on time studies and discusses what a temporal approach can offer for higher education research. Being an invariable constituent of life…
Abstract
This chapter presents some basic concepts on time studies and discusses what a temporal approach can offer for higher education research. Being an invariable constituent of life, time structures and organizes activities and processes in higher education, covering all of its levels and functions. Furthermore, the current policy agenda that emphasizes the need for higher education to accelerate innovation flows, and to speed up the production of new knowledge and workers, accentuates the importance of the temporal perspective. The chapter examines the dominant, taken-for-granted conception of time – clock time – which involves a linear, quantitative, cumulative, homogenized, abstract and decontextualized conception of time. The core features of clock time are described by the four Cs put forward by Barbara Adam: creation, commodification, colonization and control of time. It is argued that, in the current digital, post-modern era, social acceleration reshapes and transforms the nature of clock time, which results in compression of time, shrinking future and extended present, all manifest in the overall speeding-up of life. In addition, a temporal lens for analysing higher education is presented, with examples from empirical studies on time and temporalities in academic work and identity building.
The centrality of time to the quality and experience of our lives has led scholars from a variety of disciplines to consider its social origins, including temporal differences…
Abstract
The centrality of time to the quality and experience of our lives has led scholars from a variety of disciplines to consider its social origins, including temporal differences among social collectives. Consistent across their accounts is the acknowledgment that time is co-constructed by people via their communicative interactions and formalized through the use of symbols. The goal of this chapter is to build on these extant socio-historical accounts – which explain temporal commodification, construction, and compression in Western, industrialized organizations – to offer a perspective that is grounded in communication and premised on human agency. Specifically, it takes a chronemic approach to interrogating time in the workplace, exploring how time is a symbolic construction emergent through human interaction. It examines McGrath and Kelly's (1986) model of social entrainment as relevant to the interactional bases of time, and utilizes it and structuration theory to consider the mediation and interpenetration of four oft-cited practices in the emergence of a Westernized time orientation: industrial capitalism, the Protestant work ethic, the mechanized clock, and standardized time zones. Surrounded by contemporary workplace discussions on managing the demands of personal–professional times, this analysis employs themes of temporal commodification, construction, and compression to explore the influence of these socio-historical developments in shaping norms about the time and timing of work.
The paper aims to look into the implications of urban informality in Chris Abani's Graceland as represented in slum life and urban poverty as products of over urbanization and…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to look into the implications of urban informality in Chris Abani's Graceland as represented in slum life and urban poverty as products of over urbanization and globalization, seeking to unravel multi-layers of the human side of the slum.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper examines slum life from a descriptive approach to highlight how people survive under poverty. The study of the culture of slums entails an analysis of the survival techniques and everyday practices of slum dwellers, the relations and patterns of behavior and the outcomes of the interplay between place, culture and power relations in such communities.
Findings
The urban slum dwellers utilize everyday forms of resistance which comprise a number of “low-profile techniques” to subvert state-imposed power structures and break the cycle of poverty.
Research limitations/implications
Despite the relevance of a post-colonial approach to the texts, this paper is limited to the study of the impact of urban poverty on individuals.
Practical implications
The margin, represented in the urban poor, is brought into focus and perceived in a new light of empowerment which challenges alienating discourses.
Social implications
The multidimensional vision of Nigeria in Abani's text highlights the cultural and economic impacts of multiculturalism, neocolonialism and globalization on the urban poor.
Originality/value
The paper formulates a framework for understanding the culture of the slum as a space of a peculiar nature, seeking to deconstruct a fixed view of slum life and poverty culture.
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