Search results

This descriptive qualitative study explores how working conditions impact the health of taxi drivers in Toronto, Canada.

Drivers were recruited between September 2016 and March 2017. A total of 14 semi-structured qualitative interviews and one focus group (n = 11) were conducted. Transcripts were analyzed inductively through a socioecological lens.

The findings of this study are as follows: drivers acknowledged that job precariousness (represented by unstable employment, long hours and low wages) and challenging workplace conditions (sitting all day and limited breaks) contribute to poor physical/mental health. Also, these conditions undermine opportunities to engage in health-protective behaviors (healthy eating, regularly exercising and taking breaks). Drivers do not receive health-enabling reinforcements from religious/cultural networks, colleagues or their taxi brokerage. Drivers do seek support from their primary care providers and family for their physical health but remain discreet about their mental health.

As this study relied on a convenience sample, the sample did not represent all Toronto taxi drivers. All interviews were completed in English and all drivers were male, thus limiting commentary on other experiences and any gender differences in health management approaches among drivers.

Given the global ubiquity of taxi driving and an evolving workplace environment characterized by growing competition, findings are generalizable across settings and may resonate with other precarious professions, including long-haul truck operators and Uber/Lyft drivers. Findings also expose areas for targeted intervention outside the workplace setting.

Health management among taxi drivers is understudied. A fulsome, socioecological understanding of how working conditions (both within and outside the workplace) impact their health is essential in developing targeted interventions to improve health outcomes.

The study aims to explore and validate the revised psychological contract scale in this new normal era.

To serve the purpose, four studies were conducted. Study 1 was conducted for item generation through the extant literature review and phenomenological study. Study 2 highlighted the expert review. Study 3 explained the confirmatory factor analysis. At the end of study 3, the new psychological contract content had 14 items along with 15 traditional psychological contract content items. The nomological study validated the scale with the help of antecedent, i.e. supervisor's support, and outcomes, i.e. well-being and innovative behavior.

The revised psychological contract was bifurcated into two categories: new and traditional. Further, the revised psychological contract scale was having two dimensions: content and breach/fulfillment. The new content was the outcome of changes in perceived obligations due to pandemic. The nomological study found that supervisor support had a positive impact on the content of the psychological contract and fulfillment/breach of the psychological contract. Further, it was found that the new content of psychological contract was impacting more on well-being and innovative behavior than the traditional psychological contract.

In the new normal era, the working style and patterns have changed. Thus, it was important to capture changes in perceived obligations and employees' perception regarding to which extent their organizations were able to meet these altered perceived obligations. The study has direct implications for the practitioners as the revised psychological contract scale enlisted the perceived obligations of the employee and the extent to which these obligations were fulfilled by the employer. The study is also helpful in developing new normal HR policies and practices in the organization.

The study is original as it creates a new scale to measure the content of psychological contract and fulfillment/breach of psychological contract during new normal.

The purpose of the current research is to examine the impact of psychological contract fulfillment on work outcomes i.e. organizational commitment and job satisfaction during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also aims to check the mediating role of co-worker support and work engagement on organizational outcomes.

The current study has adopted a quantitative approach and a cross-sectional research design has been used with a snowball sampling technique. Data were collected via a structured questionnaire through Google Docs from 926 respondents working at different capacities in the service sector. The study includes those respondents who are working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic situation. The hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM).

Results indicated that psychological contract fulfillment was positively impacting work outcomes i.e. organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Co-worker support and work engagement positively mediated the relationship between psychological contract fulfillment and work outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic situation. Multi-group analysis proved that there was a difference in opinion regarding the impact of psychological contract fulfillment on organizational commitment and job satisfaction amongst males and females.

The novel contribution of the study is integrating social exchange theory, organization support theory and social information processing theory during the pandemic situation. The results highlighted meticulous empirical evidence, which answers the question as to how the met expectations cause an advantageous effect on the employees as well as the organizations in this COVID-19 pandemic situation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the influence of the generational category that managers in India belong to on their job satisfaction and on their satisfaction with organizational communication; the authors defined organizational communication as the communication that occurs in interactions between employees. The authors wanted to see whether there would be differences between the generations in the attitudes to and expectations of organizational communication, and whether this, in turn, would influence their job satisfaction.

A total of 400 managers working in public and private listed companies in India were surveyed using a questionnaire over the period of a year, from August 2016 to July 2017. This resulted in 334 responses. The questionnaire measured the respondents’ choice and comfort with communication media, their satisfaction with the communication at their workplace and the type of interactions that took place. It also measured the respondents’ job satisfaction. The study was inter-disciplinary in nature, in that it drew on several theories of communication, e.g. accommodation theory and media richness theory, alongside the findings from empirical studies that have looked specifically at intergenerational differences.

The authors found that organizational communication was positively related to job satisfaction, and also that generational category moderated the relationship between these two factors. In addition, the results show that Gen Y managers in particular were the least satisfied generation at work, and that they frequently used avoidance while communicating with older adults. The conclusion is that job satisfaction may be enhanced, by focusing on the development of a positive communication environment; in addition, employees who belong to different generations may define what constitutes a positive communication environment in very different ways.

Despite receiving some attention in other contexts, such as in the family, the impact of intergenerational differences in the workplace has not been widely investigated. A few studies do exist on the influence of generational differences on work outcomes and on attitudes and behaviors, but much still remains to be done. In addition, while there have been many studies on job satisfaction, as well as on levels of attrition in workplace settings, very few have looked specifically at non-Western contexts such as India. The present study attempts to contribute to this debate, by providing a comparison of the workplace communication preferences and experiences within multi-generational organizations in India.

The present study apotheosises on the relationship between blockchain and fintech and its impact on the financial services sector. It then gauges into the various aspects that have been included in the published literature by the authors all across the world.

Post-pandemic, technology has led to tremendous opportunities in the financial sector, and the customers have started assessing financial services in online mode, thus enabling companies to innovate their business strategies. The present chapter aims to explore the areas where blockchain is benefitting the financial sector.

The objectives of this study were achieved through systematic review of literature performed with the help of bibliographic analysis. Further, a PRISMA model was developed, and the networks were derived with the help of Scopus analyser software and VOSviewer Version 1.6.15.

It is observed that since the introduction of the term and development of the first blockchain, a lot of work has been performed in the said domain, but it is still at a nascent stage. It is thus discovered that the string specific research documents got published in Scopus database from 2016 onwards, and a considerable amount is being performed by authors from China, the United States and India.

The present chapter exhibits the various dimensions in which a lot has to be yet explored and needs to devise innovative and full proof strategies which will enable to overcome the challenges, thus strengthening the position and working of the companies in Industry 5.0.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possibility of whether more representation of gendered scholarship could enrich the traditional framework of consumer behaviour – a discipline that lacks consensus on epistemology and is also starved of theory building – by means of critical introspection leading to new managerial solutions, new methods and theory building.

The quantitative approach involved a content analysis of three leading journals in the consumer behaviour discipline from 2006 to 2010: the Journal of Consumer Research, the Journal of Consumer Psychology and the Journal of Consumer Affairs, in order to ascertain how much research represents a gendered perspective. The qualitative approach involved analyzing the papers from a gendered perspective, to see if the papers were more conceptual or based on applied research, and to gauge the type of methodologies used.

From 2006 to 2010 it was found that only an average of 2.4 per cent of 369 abstracts in JCR, 4 per cent of 224 abstracts in JCP and 5.8 per cent of 138 abstracts in JCA are from a gendered perspective. Approximately 25 per cent of the papers are steeped in applied research, while 75 per cent verify existing theories or expand to them.

The authors’ qualitative analysis brings forward new results, namely that the very feministic perspective that has the potential to bring forth greater introspection in the consumer behavior research, namely feminist postmodernism, is in fact the least represented, with only one such paper out of 731, which is a possible wake‐up call for feminist scholars. The authors conclude that the scope of the traditional paradigm can be enlarged by gendered scholarship.

The paper represents a major effort to present the importance of including gendered perspective articles in marketing journals, to provide an analysis of the lack of a gendered perspective in papers published by three leading consumer‐based journals, and to determine whether a gendered perspective can enrich the traditional framework.

This study aims to develop a model for coordination and communication overhead in distributed software development through case study analysis in the Indian outsourcing software industry. The model is based on business knowledge, which can be classified as domain, regulatory, strategic, business process and operation process knowledge as per existing literature.

Double case study method was used to verify an existing knowledge–management framework of software development from the literature. The stakeholders of both the cases were interviewed, and project documents were verified to reach conclusions.

The findings supported the business knowledge classification from the literature. The concept can be used to analyze the software project in a distributed environment.

The research work findings are based only on two case studies. The study findings cannot be generalized and should be used as a learning tool. There can be large variations of project characteristics with differences in business knowledge requirements. The research shows the importance of business knowledge transfer in global software development.

Projects managers in the distributed software development environment can use the findings in project planning and work allocation for better control over cost and schedule, etc.

There is little research works attempted to study the business knowledge classification in the global software industry making the research novel.

This study aims to explore and validate the antecedents of employer branding (EB) and assess their impact on EB measures taken by Indian information technology firms while promoting themselves as an employer of choice.

Through the method of content analysis of the EB literature published between 2010 and 2020, a total of 77 research articles that were published in various eminent sources, including papers 11 papers from Elsevier, 28 from Emerald, 12 from Taylor and Francis, 8 each from Wiley and Sage and finally 10 from Springer, were chosen for the final analysis. The results were confirmed through confirmatory factor analysis using structural equation modelling.

The analysis revealed the significant themes of the content: the primary antecedents of the EB, i.e. compensation and benefits, career opportunities, work–life balance, work environment and corporate social responsibility. The findings proposed that the employees working in the IT firms are more concerned about the compensation package, work–life balance and work environment. The study also suggested that employees love to work for organizations that benefit society and the environment.

The study emphasized the identification of the antecedents which are vital in impacting the organization’s EB strategy. The study suggested that corporate social responsibility, compensation and benefits and work–life balance are a few of the important antecedents that play a crucial role in engaging and retaining the existing talented employees in IT firms. Through the EB strategy, the firms can differentiate themselves from their competitors.