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The study aims to provide a critical review of the extent to which digital technologies are likely to replace human labour, the exponential rise in the amount of work to be done and how far distinctively human skills are future-proofed and therefore likely to be in short supply. It reviews the evidence for a permanent switch to home and remote working enabled by emerging technologies. It assesses the business, digital and labour strategies of work organisations and the promise and challenges from a dominant trend towards a digitally enabled flexible labour model.

A critical review of 1020 plus case studies and the extant literature was carried out.

The relationship between emerging technologies and work is widely misunderstood, and there are major qualifiers to the idea of an overwhelming tsunami of technology drastically reducing headcounts globally. Distinctive human skills remain valuable, the amount of work to be done is increasing exponentially and automation is becoming more a coping than a labour replacement mechanism. Moves to a hybrid digitalised flexible labour model are promising but not if short-term, and if the challenges they represent are not managed well.

The main limitation is that we are making projections into the future, though we are drawing on a lot of different sources and evidence and past data projected into the future.

The problem is not labour displacement but large skills shortages that will slow down the speed of technology adoption. Skills development is vital, as is the taking of long-term perspectives towards the management of hybrid, flexible working based on human-machine interactions.

Organisations need to revitalise their training and development and labour management models. Governments and intermediary institutions need to manage transition states if the skills required to gain economic growth are to be available, and to ensure that large labour pools do not get bypassed from not having requisite skills.

The study offers a more subtle and complex perspective on the emerging evidence about the future of technology and work.

Recent studies on contingent workers highlight their boundaryless and protean nature, and depict them as free agents who reject organisational forms of career support. Going beyond such current view, this paper aims to shed light on the career support provided by labour market intermediaries (LMIs) to skilled contingent workers (SCWs), the latter known as freelancers and consulting firms' employees.

Using a qualitative stance and an inductive approach, the authors draw on 33 interviews to grasp SCWs' discourses on the career support offered by LMIs, and their account managers. The thematic analysis reveals two main themes: the career support delivered by LMIs to SCWs, and the expectations of SCWs regarding potential additional forms of career support from LMIs.

The authors show that SCWs are supported by LMIs in their career via a number of career management practices and operational support, and account managers a likely to play a key role in the careers of SCWs by providing transactional and relational career support. Moreover, the authors stress that SCWs are free agents, yet seeking for forms of support from LMIs.

The present paper addresses the roles of LMIs regarding non-standard population of workers through the lens of SCWs, what has barely been undertaken in recent research. This paper also enriches current debates on the organisational support SCWs are willing to accept and benefit from, despite the idiosyncratic nature of their careers.

This study employs Stein Rokkan's methodological approach to analyse state formation in the Greater Middle East. It develops a conceptual framework distinguishing colonial, populist and democratic pacts, suitable for analysis of state formation and nation-building through to the present period. The framework relies on historical institutionalism. The methodology, however, is Rokkan's. The initial conceptual analysis also specifies differences between European and the Middle Eastern state formation processes. It is followed by a brief and selective discussion of historical preconditions. Next, the method of plotting singular cases into conceptual-typological maps is applied to 20 cases in the Greater Middle East (including Afghanistan, Iran and Turkey). For reasons of space, the empirical analysis is limited to the colonial period (1870s to the end of World War 1). Three typologies are combined into one conceptual-typological map of this period. The vertical left-hand axis provides a composite typology that clarifies cultural-territorial preconditions. The horizontal axis specifies transformations of the region's agrarian class structures since the mid-19th century reforms. The right-hand vertical axis provides a four-layered typology of processes of external intervention. A final section presents selected comparative case reconstructions. To the authors' knowledge, this is the first time such a Rokkan-style conceptual-typological map has been constructed for a non-European region.

The paper aims to provide an understanding of how the transfer of progressive human resource management (HRM) practices may or may fail to render multinational enterprises (MNEs) institutional entrepreneurs creating change in job quality and decent work to underprivileged workers in the low-pay retail sector in Japan.

The paper draws on survey questionnaire data and interviews with workers and management in a foreign retailer in Japan.

The findings suggest that even where MNEs may provide some measurable material improvements in job quality, in this case equal pay for equal work, the total outcomes are nevertheless shaped by institutional context and constraints. In this case, the improvement in pay was intertwined with flexibility demands that were possible to meet for some workers but not others. In particular, women with care responsibilities and competing demands on their time were not able to experience “decent work” in the same way as others.

The study had a relatively low response rate, due to lack of discretion over time experienced by workers in Japan, as well as limited data on program outcomes, with interviews conducted with a small number of participants.

The study suggests that spaces and opportunities exist for MNEs to diverge from dominant practices in given host country locations and exercise a level of agency as emissaries of decent work but successful outcomes require a very thorough understanding of individual worker experiences within the institutional constraints of given environments.

The study offers insights into the complexities of initiatives by MNEs to contribute to the provision of decent work, particularly for workers in underprivileged positions including women in low-pay sectors such as retail, as firm-level practices lead to variable outcomes when filtered through local institutions.

The study brings together a focus on firm-level practices that inform much of the international HRM and international management scholarship with an emphasis on the experiences of workers, which is pursued in the sociology of work, to investigate whether MNEs can be actors in the realising of the Sustainable Development Goals around decent work.

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence mechanism of new-generation construction workers (NGCWs)’ job satisfaction on the professionalization behavior in China, through theory of planned behavior (TPB), and find the key path to promote the professionalization behavior of China’s construction workers.

A theoretical model of influence mechanism was established through literature research and theoretical deduction based on TPB and structural equation model. The scale of variables was developed, and an empirical study was employed with a sample of 823 NGCWs in China.

The results indicate that job satisfaction can positively affect NGCWs' professionalization behavior. Subjective norm, attitude and perceived behavior control play mediating roles in the influence process. Job satisfaction is more likely to act on professionalization behavior through subjective norm and behavioral intention.

Research results sorely suggest a short-term law about the influence mechanism of NGCWs' job satisfaction on professionalization behavior through a questionnaire study from China’s construction industry. Future research ought to continue to use a longitudinal study to examine it over a considerable amount of time. The results also need to be verified using data from young construction workers in other nations.

This study provides a theoretical basis and feasible management reference for government and construction enterprises in China to promote NGCWs' professionalization behavior from the perspective of job satisfaction. Furthermore, the promotion of NGCWs' job satisfaction and professionalization behavior can do good to building industrialization, sustainable development and high-quality transformation of labor force in the construction industry.

This paper demonstrates the positive influence of job satisfaction on professionalization behavior of NGCWs and finds the most effective affecting path. It fills the research gap about the influence mechanism of job satisfaction on young construction workers' professionalization behavior and enriches the theoretical system of planned behavior of construction workers.

The paper explores the notion of worker voice in terms of its implications for supply chain justice. The paper proposes the value of the recognition perspective on social justice for framing workers’ experiences in global supply chains and identifies opportunities for the advancement of the worker voice agenda with recognition justice in mind.

The paper adopts a conceptual approach to explore the notion of worker voice in supply chains in terms of the recognition perspective on social justice.

Sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) scholarship has considered worker voice in terms of two key paradigms, which we term communication and representation. To address recognition justice for workers in global supply chains, the worker voice agenda must consider designing worker voice mechanisms to close recognition gaps for workers with marginalised identities; the shared responsibilities of supply chain actors to listen alongside the expectation of workers to use their voice; and the expansion of the concept of worker voice to cut across home-work boundaries.

The paper offers conceptual clarity on the emerging notion of worker voice in SSCM and is the first to interrogate the implications of recognition justice for the emergent worker voice agenda. It articulates key opportunities for future research to further operationalise worker voice upon a recognition foundation.

The objective of this study is to explore the concept of rural coworking in the scientific literature and examine how it generates community narratives based on the value of space and business practices. This study aims to contribute to the understanding of rural coworking as a driver of participation and relationships among diverse stakeholders.

To identify and analyse trends and categories in rural coworking studies, understand the concept of rural coworking and how community narratives have been focused, the authors carried out a systematic literature review following the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) tool. The review was performed using Scopus, obtaining 22 papers.

The findings reveal that rural coworking is on definition, but it emphasises the role of community as a main actor in its consolidation. On the other hand, rural coworking is seen as an opportunity to create impactful new business strategies through space regeneration and revitalisation. Management perspectives prevail in this research field, highlighting the role of public administrations, entrepreneurs and policymakers, and their capacities to build a business environment to enhance coworking activity.

The paper establishes conceptual categories and research trends in the rural coworking literature, and how its actors have a strategic importance in defining their own practices and narratives. The interrelationship between coworking activity and local business development is continually seen as an opportunity for growth, so this paper will have value for rural coworking planners and consultants in non-urban areas.

Managerial discourses tend to portray work-related mobility practices in a positive light, presenting mobility assignments as a place of stimulus and differentiation. A conception of mobility as an opportunity, may contrast, in specific economies and business settings, with lived personal experiences. This article reports the results of a three-year study, aimed to question how multinational companies (MNCs) located in a small and developing European economy (Portugal) are building talent pools for expatriate assignments. Interaction effects, as proposed by the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, are considered as lens to understand the interplay of company expatriate policies, willingness profiles and psychological contracts of expatriates. By using a Portuguese sample, the study examines whether prior findings in mature economies and consolidated MNCs can be generalized to less developed international business settings.

A three-year study, encompassing 24 expatriate cases observed in five multinational firms born or located in Portugal. Two techniques of empirical data collection were used: statistical sources and documental analysis and in-depth interviews. A total of 37 interviews were conducted, both in-person and remotely, of which 13 were with company managers and representatives, and 24 with expatriates (as defined and referred like this by the companies under study).

Heterogeneous company policies, ranging from juvenile, functionalist to more dynamic and flow-based approaches, are presented as qualifying resources of willingness levels and psychological contracts of expatriates. Observed interaction effects between policies, willingness and psychological contracts, empirically mirrored in three profiles (conformist, protean and disrupted expatriates) suggest that incentive effects (emanating from company policies) and job demand-resource balance, factored as terms of social and economic trade, are non-linear and asymmetric, influencing firm propensity to succeed while using international work to support company expansion goals. As job resources, expatriate policies are presented as operating as pull or push factors: functionalist HR approaches seem to act as push factors generating more conformist or compelled willingness profiles.

Generalization of study's outcomes has limitations. Future studies are encouraged to use comparative and longitudinal research designs. Furthermore, future research should include business expatriates with entry-level positions, and increase the number of interviewees, as results can also be considered as limited by sample size.

It is suggested that further strategic work is needed to present expatriation development value, formally screen and consider willingness level as selection criteria, and enlarge the pool (from internal to external) of candidates, in peripheral economic settings such as Portugal. A shift to more dynamic and job resource-dense policies are suggested as beneficial, as pathway to optimize social and economic value from expatriation assignments and work experiences.

By putting the interplay between macro and micro-level processes into perspective, the study provides empirical evidence on how company expatriate policies have come to promote unforeseen differentiation of employee willingness and psychological contracts at the heart of MNCs. This is particularly relevant in developing economies such as Portugal, challenging the need to build talent pools for international work assignments. Empirical data illustrating company policies interactive effects with different willingness profiles and psychological contracts of expatriates is provided.

This study addresses the COVID-19 infection and its relationship with the city’s constructive intensity, commuting time to work and labor market dynamics during the lockdown period.

Microdata from formal workers in Recife was used to adjust a probability model for disease contraction.

The authors' results indicate that greater distance to employment increases the probability of infection. The same applies to constructive intensity, suggesting that residences in denser areas, such as apartments in buildings, condominiums and informal settlements, elevate the chances of contracting the disease. It is also observed that formal workers with completed higher education have lower infection risks, while healthcare professionals on the frontlines of combating the disease face higher risks than others. The lockdown effectively reduced contagion by limiting people’s mobility during the specified period.

The research shows important causal relationships, making it possible to think about public policies for the health of individuals both when commuting to work and in living conditions, aiming to control contagion by COVID-19.

The lockdown effectively reduced contagion by limiting people’s mobility during the specified period.

It is also observed that formal workers with completed higher education have lower infection risks, while healthcare professionals on the frontlines of combating the disease face higher risks than others.

The authors identified positive and significant relationships between these urban characteristics and increased contagion, controlling for neighborhood, individual characteristics, comorbidities, occupations and economic activities.