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This paper aims to examine the current quality of work-life (QWL) situation and the effectiveness of labor laws for promoting QWL in the context of Nepalese workplaces.

It uses a descriptive-interpretative-qualitative approach to analyze the responses. Information is gathered through discussions with 85 higher- and middle-level managers of large and medium-sized organizations.

The majority of Nepalese organizations accept safe and healthy working conditions, social relevance of work-life, social integration in the work organization, and work and total life space as the key aspects of QWL. They have become even more critical as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, they face challenges in providing employees with opportunities for continued growth and security, immediate opportunity to use and develop human capacities, adequate and fair compensation and constitutionalism in the work organization. QWL-related provisions in Labour Act, 2017, play a vital role in promoting the QWL situation. The QWL programs offer many benefits to employees’ private and working lives. The lack of such programs would undoubtedly have negative consequences for Nepalese companies. Compliance with labor laws will promote a better QWL situation at Nepalese workplaces.

Only managerial perspectives are considered for examining the current situation of QWL and the effectiveness of QWL-related provisions of the Labour Act, 2017. It excludes the views of union leaders.

This paper indicates that labor laws’ QWL-related provisions are effective. It also provides several policy measures for promoting a better QWL in Nepalese workplaces.

This study presents QWL-related legal provisions and the actual situation at the workplaces of Nepal. It also presents the key aspects of QWL in the context of Nepal.

Ergonomics usually reciprocate the study about people fitness toward working environment. In addition, financial distress refers a condition of organizations incompetency in generating sufficient revenues or incomes, which thereby refrain them to pay their financial obligations. This study aims to evaluate two independent organizational fields named as ergonomics in first phase and financial distress in manufacturing organization behavior in the second phase. The study presented a resiliency framework for operations and strategic management in the third phase based on various facts received from the distress organizations.

A questionnaire survey based on plant-visit is presented. The study embedded two segments to explicate its novelty. In the first segment, the plant-visit case study is presented and in the second segment, an exploratory data related to financial distress is presented. The study tried to communicate observations related to multiple decision-making fields in single umbrella, where multiple concepts like ergonomics and financial distress of organizations as well as employees are presented. DEMATEL-ANP integrated approach is used to represent the critical financial distress dimensions of employees and their ranking.

The study provided insights toward connecting two independent fields named as ergonomics and financial distress in single umbrella. The study can benefit practitioners in designing policies and procedures in their planning model to effectively achieve organizational goals. The study presented 14 financial distress drivers of employees and advocated the aggregation of ergonomics and financial distress toward developing a holistic framework for attaining organization goals for sustainability.

The study presented a comprehensive understanding about multiple organization decision-making fields toward developing a holistic approach from different aspects for attaining organizational sustainability. The study can be fruitful in stimulating cross-pollination of ideas between researchers and provides a good understandability of ergonomics and financial distress in single roof.

The purpose of this paper is to understand how digital interventions are mediating the identity work of community health workers (CHWs) in the context of two African countries.

This paper analyzes the everyday work of CHWs in two low- and middle-income country (LMIC) contexts (Uganda and Malawi) and seeks to understand changes in collective identity and the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in mediating this “identity work”. As CHWs conduct their everyday tasks of care giving, data reporting and maintaining social interactions, they play two primary roles. One is the care giving role oriented towards the community, and two, is reporting and administrative work by virtue of them being affiliated with the Ministry of Health, either in formal or voluntary capacity. The ambivalence which they experience as they move back and forth between these two worlds of work is significantly now mediated through ICTs. The paper analyzes these dynamics and identifies three key sets of ambivalence in identity work: (1) role embracing-institutional distancing; (2) conformist-resistant and (3) dramaturgical-transformative. The paper makes unique contributions to information systems (IS) and ICT for development (ICT4D) studies in that it focuses on a nonprofessional group, which plays a fundamental role in providing care to underserved populations and also conducts data work which provides the foundation of the national health information system. This contrasts with dominant research in the field which focuses on professional groups, largely based in Western business organizations.

The paper identifies identity related tensions that emerge with the mediation of digital technologies in the work world of CHWs. These include tensions of conformist-resistant; and (3) dramaturgical-transformative. These findings are relevant and unique to the field of IS and ICT4D studies in that it focuses on a nonprofessional group, which plays a fundamental role in providing care to underserved populations and also conducts data work which provides the foundation of the national health information system.

While acknowledging identity construction and negotiation is a function of both work and social lives, in this paper we could only focus on the work lives.

As digital interventions in the health sector of low and middle income countries is becoming increasingly widespread, often the focus is more on the supply side (the supply of the technology) rather than on the demand side (users experiences and aspirations). Identity becomes a lens to understand these demand side dynamics, which helps provides practical guidance on implementation approaches to ensure that the technology adds value to user work processes and there is a seamless and not a disruptive transition.

CHWs are the most neglected cadre in the health system of low and middle income countries, even though they provide the cutting edge in care provision work to the most marginalized populations, living in rural and underserved areas. By focusing on how technologies can be more effectively implemented to support these care processes, the paper provides important social implications both for practice and research.

Analysis of identity construction and negotiation of informal groups in the unorganized sector of low and middle income countries has not received adequate attention in IS research. The paper seeks to fill this important gap.

Policy for women's entrepreneurship is designed to promote economic growth, not least in depleted rural areas, but very little is known about the contributions of rural women entrepreneurs, their needs or how the existing policy is received by them. Using a theoretical framework developed by Korsgaard et al. (2015), the authors analyse how rural women entrepreneurs contribute to rural development and discuss the implications for entrepreneurship policy. This paper aims to focus on the aforementioned objectives.

The authors interviewed 32 women entrepreneurs in rural Sweden representing the variety of businesses in which rural Swedish women are engaged. The authors analysed their contributions to rural development by analysing their motives, strategies and outcomes using Korsgaard et al.’s framework of “entrepreneurship in the rural” and “rural entrepreneurship” as a heuristic, interpretative device.

Irrespective of industry, the respondents were deeply embedded in family and local social structures. Their contributions were substantial, multidimensional and indispensable for rural viability, but the policy tended to bypass most women-owned businesses. Support in terms of business training, counselling and financing are important, but programmes especially for women tend to miss the mark, and so does rural development policy. More important for rural women entrepreneurs in Sweden is the provision of good public services, including for example, schools and social care, that make rural life possible.

Theoretically, the findings question the individualist and a-contextual focus of much entrepreneurship research, as well as the taken-for-granted work–family divide. How gender and how the public and the private are configured varies greatly between contexts and needs contextual assessment. Moreover, the results call for theorising place as an entrepreneurial actor.

Based on the findings, the authors advise future policymakers to gender mainstream entrepreneurship policy and to integrate entrepreneurship and rural development policy with family and welfare state policy.

The paper highlights how rural women respond to policy, and the results are contextualised, making it possible to compare them to other contexts. The authors widen the discussion on contributions beyond economic growth, and the authors show that policy for public and commercial services and infrastructure is indeed also policy for entrepreneurship.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the reintegration process of Wounded, Injured or Sick Employees (WISE) of the Dutch Military Armed Forces.

The research method is an exploratory, qualitative case study. A purposive sampling was drawn, including 10 WISE, and 6 reintegration stakeholders. A total of 16 interviews were conducted to explore the individual, organisational and socio-environmental factors that influence reintegration of WISE.

Findings show the importance of involvement and participation of members of the social environment in the reintegration process. Findings show that the complexity of the plethora of WISEs' injuries and disabilities requires a more person-centric reintegration approach with personalized-customized provisions, rather than a policy-driven approach to the reintegration, in order to enhance the reintegration experience and to arrive at beneficial individual and organisational reintegration outcomes.

This cross-sectional study on a limited sample of WISE and reintegration stakeholders does not allow for making inferences about the long-term effects of the reintegration process on reintegration outcomes of the wider population of WISE. Future longitudinal research, encompassing a larger sample, could examine the long-term career, organisational and societal implications of reintegration of WISE within and outside the Military Armed Forces.

This paper presents a “Wounded Warrior Workplace Reintegration Program”, aimed at deriving beneficial outcomes for all stakeholders involved in the reintegration trajectory.

This paper contributes to the literature by presenting a Model of Occupational Reintegration of WISE that considers the factors at an individual, social-environmental, and institutional level as determinants of successful reintegration.

Refugees and asylum seekers worldwide face numerous barriers in accessing health systems. The evidence base regarding who and what helps refugees and asylum seekers facilitate access to and the navigation of the health system in the UK is small. This study aims to address this gap by analysing 14 semi-structured, in-depth interviews with refugees and asylum seekers of different countries of origin in the UK to identify where, when and how they came into contact with the health-care system and what the outcome of these interactions was.

Semi-structured, in-depth interviews were chosen as the key method for this study. In total, 14 individual interviews were conducted. A trauma-informed research approach was applied to reduce the risk of re-traumatising participants.

The paper identifies key obstacles as well as “facilitators” of refugees’ and asylum seekers’ health-care experience in the UK and suggests that host families, friends and third-party organisations all play an important role in ensuring refugees and asylum seekers receive the healthcare they need.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first qualitative study in the UK that looks at comprehensive health journeys of refugees from their first encounter with health services through to secondary care, highlighting the important role along the way of facilitators such as host families, friends and third-party organisations.

The purpose of the article is to outline the insights provided by Alan Fox in Man Mismanagement in relation to the rise of the New Right political economy and the spread of unitarist managerialism. The article assesses the contemporary work and employment relations implications of mismanagement arising from a “second wave” of the New Right ideology from 2010 in the UK.

Responding to the Special Issue on Alan Fox, the article focuses on Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, considering industrial relations developments arising between the 1st (1974b) and 2nd (1985) editions relating to the political rise of the New Right. It reviews various literature that illustrates the contemporary IR relevance of the book and Fox's insights.

The New Right’s ideology has further fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collective industrial relations institutions, and macho mismanagement praxis is even more commonplace, compared to when Fox wrote Man Mismanagement. The stripping away of the institutional architecture of IR renders the renewal of pluralist praxis, like collective bargaining and other forms of joint regulation of work, a formidable task.

The value of the article relates to the identification of dramatic historical industrial relations events and change in the UK in Alan Fox's book Man Mismanagement, most notably relating to the rise to power of the Thatcherite New Right in 1979. Originality is evidenced by the authors’ drawing on Fox's ideas and assessing the implications of the “second wave” of the New Right in the contemporary industrial relations (IR) context of the 2020s under the conceptual themes of fragmented work, disjointed labour rights and undermined collectivism.

This paper aims to explore the implications of algorithmic management on careers and employment relationships in the Nigerian gig economy. Specifically, drawing on labour process theory (LPT), this study provides an understanding of the production relations beyond the “traditional standard” to “nonstandard” forms of employment in a gig economy mediated by digital platforms or digital forms of work, especially on ride-hailing platforms (Uber and Bolt).

This study adopted the interpretive qualitative approach and a semi-structured interview of 49 participants, including 46 platform drivers and 3 platform managers from Uber and Bolt.

This study addresses the theoretical underpinnings of the LPT as it relates to algorithmic management and control in the digital platform economy. The study revealed that, despite the ultra-precarious working conditions and persistent uncertainty in employment relations under algorithmic management, the underlying key factors that motivate workers to engage in digital platform work include higher job flexibility and autonomy, as well as having a source of income. This study captured the human-digital interface and labour processes related to digital platform work in Nigeria. Findings of this study also revealed that algorithmic management enables a transactional exchange between platform providers and drivers, while relational exchanges occur between drivers and customers/passengers. Finally, this study highlighted the perceived impact of algorithmic management on the attitude and performance of workers.

The research presents an interesting case study to investigate the influence of algorithmic management and labour processes on employment relationships in the largest emerging economy in Africa.

Recent scholarship has explored higher education institutions’ (HEIs) role in transitioning to a sustainable society, but empirically, questions remain regarding their impact on the sustainability of surrounding areas. This study aims to examine the correlation between HEIs’ sustainability actions and local sustainability performance.

This study uses a linear regression model and principal component analysis to examine the sustainability performance of 105 US metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) using the US cities sustainable development goal (SDG) index, which hosts 427 HEIs known for sustainability efforts. The weighted HEI sustainability performance score is calculated based on the QS sustainability universities ranking.

The correlation between MSA and HEI sustainability performance exhibits a mix of positive and negative associations, with individual and interlinked SDGs serving as proxies. These correlations encompass a wide range of goals, from economic aspects of SDG 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, social aspects of SDG10 and 16, to socio-environmental aspects of SDG12.

Further exploration is needed to identify the causal mechanisms behind associations between SDG measures and HEI sustainability performance, whether influenced by the institution, the individual or both.

This study suggests that HEIs are already associated with some aspects of community sustainability, but greater contributions to a broader array of sustainability measures are possible.

The correlation found between HEI sustainability actions and SDG10, 12 and 16 index performance in an MSA highlights a connection between HEIs and the attainment of societal goals.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to examine the correlation between HEI and MSA sustainability performance in the US through individual and interlinked SDG proxies. It provides novel empirical evidence that demonstrates an association between HEI and some aspects of community sustainability performance.

Online food delivery service has evolved swiftly and stretched the bounds of the catering business. In the gig economy, being a food delivery rider draws employees with the promise of flexibility and independence. To this end, the purpose of this paper is to explore the main themes shared in online reviews by food delivery riders and which of these themes are linked to positive and negative ratings.

The authors used 729 employee reviews posted on the Glassdoor website. In addition, they used content analysis to examine reviews of Uber Eats online food ordering company shared by food delivery riders on an online platform.

The results of this study include seven main themes: “earning,” “customers,” “orders,” “tips,” “car,” “flexible schedule” and “app” (navigation). Positive concepts are associated with “earning,” “orders,” “tips” and “flexible schedule.” Negative themes are linked to the “app” (navigation), “car” and “customers.”

Management should consider online reviews as employees’ opinions and voices. Specifically, management should provide financial support to employees for car maintenance, offer insurance for income stability and arrange training programs to enable them to use several tip-enhancing behaviors.

No research has been conducted using online reviews from an employment search engine to investigate employees’ experiences of online food delivery. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is one of the first attempts using user-generated content from an employment search engine to explore employees’ experiences.