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The purpose of this paper is to examine skill underutilization and collective turnover in a large professional service firm (PSF). The authors hypothesize that skill underutilization is positively related to collective turnover, that skill underutilization is greater among professionals than nonprofessionals, and that the positive relationship between skill underutilization and collective turnover is stronger for professionals than for nonprofessionals.

Using survey data from a large PSF, the authors test these predictions across 191 groups (professional and nonprofessional) in 80 offices. Collective turnover rates were taken from company records one year after the survey was administered.

The authors find support for the prediction that skill underutilization is positively related to collective turnover. In addition, skill underutilization is greater among professionals than nonprofessionals within a PSF. However, the relationship between skill underutilization and collective turnover did not differ between professionals and nonprofessionals.

While the authors find that skill underutilization is positively related to collective turnover, future research is needed to measure the group processes that occur among group members and lead to collective turnover. Limitations of this study include the inability to validate the aggregation of data from the individual level to the group level, and the generalizability of findings to other PSFs or to involuntary turnover situations.

Understanding the antecedents of collective turnover is of particular concern to PSFs, as they are composed of highly skilled, intrinsically motivated professionals, who generate value for the firm. These findings are particularly timely, given the significant levels of underemployment in countries throughout the world.

In addition to extending skill underutilization and collective turnover research to the occupational group level, the findings highlight the importance of providing development opportunities for employees during difficult economic conditions in order to minimize collective turnover.

In order for Black children to assimilate into the dominant culture in different countries, historically, their cultural values have been minimized or, in some cases, attempts have been made to altogether separate them from their cultural group. This process of cultural assimilation or alienation has had a devastating effect on Black children's educational opportunities around the globe, particularly as it relates to the loss of their identity and to the underutilization of their human potential. This chapter provides an overview of the similarities of the historical experiences of Black populations globally that have led to the assimilation process of Black children where the majority population is non-Black (e.g. Australia, Great Britain, and the U.S.A.) and discusses how Black children's loss of identity has led to the underutilization of their potential. The chapter concludes with the necessity of rethinking the assimilation paradigm as one way to impact on the poverty of Black populations.

This article has two inter‐related themes. First there is the process of displacement of labour from the subsistence or peasant sector through the impact of mechanisation ‐ which creates a “surplus population”. The second theme is that of labour absorption in the subsistence and market sectors and labour underutilisation. The magnitude of the underutilisation problem suggests that growth in the developing countries has followed an uneven profile.

The study reported here sought to provide a type of analysis more detailed than aggregate investigations but more generalisable than case studies. The extent to which upgrading and downgrading characterised US manufacturing industries in the 1960s, and the extent to which downgrading exacerbated underutilisation among production workers are examined. Special attention is then paid to determining whether mechanisation has an effect on the skills requirements of jobs.

In the recent two decades, a model of the labor market formed in Russia; it differs from the model that is peculiar for most developed countries. Its specific feature consists in the fact that adaptation to the fluctuations of the economic situation takes place by means of changes in the labor price, not by means of changes in employment and unemployment.

Such model ensures high and stable level of employment and low level of unemployment with significant pro-cyclic fluctuations of wages. Changes that take place in the sphere of employment of population in labor markets and gradual implementation of collection of information in view of the forms of labor activities into the practices of different countries led to the necessity for reconsidering the previously adopted international standards.

This is due to the fact that the normative documents present the treatment of unemployment without the criterion “job search,” and new indicators of measuring potential labor force and incomplete employment were adopted. The authors analyze the situation of labor underutilization, which is important for characterizing a region of the Russian Federation by the indicator of unmet need for employment.

The offered information could be used for wider monitoring of the labor market, studying the volume and tendencies in the sphere of unemployment, evaluating the problems of integration in the labor market, studying the connection between employment and poverty and forecasting the tendencies.

To determine healthcare utilization issues for low-income Hispanic immigrants who have both excess weight and chronic pain.

Community health workers conducted at-home interviews with 101 middle-aged and older Mexican Americans (aged 40-79 years, M=52.1±8.8) associated with a community agency in southern California to evaluate healthcare underutilization and reported reasons for not using medical or pharmaceutical care.

Almost all participants (91 percent) reported having received at least some medical care in the year preceding the study interview. However, at some point during the prior year, 62 percent had not seen a doctor when it was needed and 45 percent had not taken a prescribed medication. While the primary reason for underutilization was financial, communication, and trust reasons were also reported.

Although cross-sectional and geographically restricted, this study lays the foundation for additional research on reasons for underutilization of recommended healthcare and lack of pain management in low-income Hispanic immigrants who are overweight and have chronic pain.

Policy implications include the urgent need for health insurance.

Implications for providers include the need for accurate pain assessment and better communication about medication to prevent non-adherence in this population.

The current study highlights the existence of healthcare underutilization among overweight and obese Mexican Americans with chronic pain and identifies specific barriers to care, care seeking, and pain management.

Self-service libraries (SSLs) have been regarded as an effective approach to provide convenient book services to the enormously large populations of China’s cities. These SSLs are in fact automatic book service machines, which provide a combination of services, including reading card issuing, book lending and returning, and book reservations and collection. However, despite acclaimed success, SSL services are not well received by patrons and are underutilised. The purpose of this paper is to identify and understand the causes of the underutilisation of SSL services in Chinese cities.

This study adopted an inductive approach and a case study research design. The SSL services in Wuhan, the capital city of Hubei Province, were adopted as the case study, in which 20 public librarians, SSL workers and managers, and library patrons were approached and interviewed using semi-structured question scripts. The interview data were analysed using a thematic analysis approach.

The analysis pointed to 13 causes in three main themes: management problems, service limitations, and the implicit role of government. Further conceptualisation of the findings revealed that the underutilisation of SSL services has resulted from the absence of a patron-centric perspective and the negligence of patrons’ needs and requirements. Therefore, to increase the popularity and usage of SSLs, it is necessary to develop patron-centric management mechanisms through which patrons’ needs and requirements can be effectively understood and responded to.

This study aims to develop specific suggestions to improve the usage of SSLs. Furthermore, although this study focuses on SSL development in China, this research can provide useful suggestions and implications that can be shared across international borders.

The construction industry’s daily processes demand heavy data usage and communication between project participants to meet client requirements. Thus, the application of information technology in project implementation has been increasing in the construction sector (CS) lately. However, the same cannot be seen in public sectors responsible for implementing government projects in South Africa. This study aimed to investigate the causes and effects of the underutilisation of information communication technology (ICT) in the building section of a public sector in a municipality in South Africa.

A qualitative approach was adopted for the study, using a public sector in one of the municipalities as a case study. Face-to-face interviews were conducted among the building unit workers, using unstructured interview questions. The data collected were analysed using the ATLAS.ti software.

The findings indicate a lack of understanding of existing and newly available ICT software and hardware technology among staff within the building technology due to lack of digitalisation in construction projects implementation, inadequate system upgrades, lack of adequate ICT resources, lack of financial resources for internet and software application subscriptions and lack of ICT training leading. The issues mentioned above have led to the outsourcing of projects professionals, slow pace of electronic emails, untrained professionals, usage of different and unlicensed software, resulting in the underutilisation of ICT within the whole building section. This change also adversely affects all officials, especially the junior officials who have graduated using the most recent ICT technology during their studies.

The building department of only one public sector was used for the study; therefore, the findings may not be generalisable. The case study public sector’s name is withheld for confidentiality purposes.

Adequate change management and continuous development, combined with the allocation of proper resources, would be necessary for all staff members. Enormous investments had to be made in the ICT equipment by providing a sufficient budget in the building section of the public sectors. The building section within public sectors should provide change management to all aged skills staff by attending seminars to learn new ICT technology applied within its work environment.

The study established the causes of the underutilisation of ICT in the CS, especially in the public work departments and municipalities, and how this contributes to service delivery.

Not only is multifunctionality regarded as an indispensable design feature of team‐based work, being multifunctional is allegedly beneficial for employees, and it is presumed to increase job satisfaction and commitment. In this article we argue that multifunctionality also has its downsides and propose a framework in which multifunctionality is associated with ineffective utilisation of human resources. We incorporate examples from the empirical literature to depict sources of ineffective utilisation in teams. Depending on the managerial policies in force and the social dynamics within teams, multifunctionality can lead to both underutilisation of skills and overutilisation of capacity (task overload). By drawing on a range of literature, this article gives reason for more scepticism concerning the alleged universal benefits of multifunctionality, and suggests a framework as a starting point for further research.

The purpose of this paper is to examine managerial efficiency of the whole population of petrochemical firms in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). It also identifies the root causes of inefficiencies and proposes measures to overcome these.

The paper uses the data envelopment analysis approach to measure the managerial efficiency in context of various returns-to-scales. To glean further insights into the sources of inefficiency, the study investigates the extent of utilization of resources by comparing target inputs vis-à-vis the actual inputs used. This provides the authors information about the degree of underutilization of resources as well as an insight into the sources of inefficiency, e.g., those stemming from the managerial or scale of operations.

The findings reveal a great amount of inefficiencies in Saudi petrochemical sector. These inefficiencies arise from both the underutilization of resources as well as the inability of petrochemical firms to run their operations at optimal scales.

The findings of the study allude toward measures that managers might adopt to overcome the issues of inefficiency. They ought to ensure better utilization of resources by running operations of the firms at optimal scales of production. The firms operating under the sub-optimum scales of operations need to revisit their marketing and production strategies. These might take up the form of boosting marketing efforts to win more orders from customers and increasing production volumes that could allow these firms to take advantage of economies of scale.

This paper is a first attempt to measure efficiency of petrochemical sector in KSA which stands as the key contributor to the national exchequer. Since the study consists of the whole population of petrochemical firms in KSA, it measures the “true” managerial efficiency of petrochemical firms in the sector. Further, being a pioneer study on managerial efficiency of petrochemical sector, it extends original contribution to the literature on efficiency of firms, combined with rich insights into sources of inefficiencies.