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The workforce management model conceptualised for the effective management of the construction workforce was subjected to expert scrutiny to determine the suitability and applicability of the identified practices and their attributed variables to the construction industry. In achieving this, a Delphi approach was adopted using experts from construction organisations in South Africa. These experts comprised workforce management personnel and construction professionals in senior management positions. The data were analysed using appropriate statistical tools such as interquartile deviation, Kendell’s coefficient of concordance, and chi square to determine consensus among these experts. After a two-round Delphi, the seven constructs proposed in the conceptualised workforce management model were adjudged to be important and worthy of adoption by construction organisations seeking to improve workforce management in the current fourth industrial revolution era.

This study aims to investigate the impact of the 2013 privatization of Nigeria’s energy sector on the technical performance of the Benin Electricity Distribution Company (BEDC) and its workforce.

This study used a questionnaire-based approach, and 196 participants were randomly selected. Analytical tools included standard deviation, Spearman rank correlation and regression analysis.

Before privatization, the energy sector, managed by the power holding company of Nigeria, suffered from inefficiencies in fault detection, response and billing. However, privatization improved resource utilization, replaced outdated transformers and increased operational efficiency. However, in spite of these improvements, BEDC faces challenges, including unstable voltage generation and inadequate staff welfare. This study also highlighted a lack of experience among the trained workforce in emerging electricity technologies such as the smart grid.

This study’s focus on BEDC may limit its generalizability to other energy companies. It does not delve into energy sector privatization’s broader economic and policy implications.

The positive outcomes of privatization, such as improved resource utilization and infrastructure investment, emphasize the potential benefits of private ownership and management. However, voltage generation stability and staff welfare challenges call for targeted interventions. Recommendations include investing in voltage generation enhancement, smart grid infrastructure and implementing measures to enhance employee well-being through benefit plans.

Energy sector enhancements hold positive social implications, uplifting living standards and bolstering electricity access for households and businesses.

This study contributes unique insights into privatization’s effects on BEDC, offering perspectives on preprivatization challenges and advancements. Practical recommendations aid BEDC and policymakers in boosting electricity distribution firms’ performance within the privatization context.

The purpose of this literature review paper is to explore the concept of organization agility and its relevance in today's dynamic business environment. By conducting an in-depth review of existing academic and industry literature on organization agility, this study aims to identify the key factors that influence an organization's agility and the benefits and drawbacks associated with fostering agility.

Through the technique of bibliometric analysis, we provide the growth trajectory of the field by identifying the publication trends, prominent authors and countries and most prolific journal publishing in the concerned domain. We also provide the intellectual structure of the organization agility research by identifying the prominent themes that have been worked upon till date. In addition, with the backing of the theories, contexts, characteristics and methodology (TCCM) framework, we identify the most frequently applied theories, constructs and methods in organization agility research and provide new avenues for future research by analyzing the most frequently used theories, methods, constructs and research contexts.

With the ever-increasing ambiguity and need for change (why), organization agility serves as the organization's backbone. It acts as a springboard for the organization, an anchor point that remains constant while other functional aspects constantly fluctuate and change. Organization agility can be defined (what) as the ability of organizations to quickly respond to market needs by sensing, renewing, adapting and succeeding in a turbulent market. To summarize, organizational agility matters at three fundamental aspects (where): strategic level or the market capitalizing level, internal operational level and individual level.

This paper is unique in the sense that it is the first comprehensive literature review in the field of organization agility research to use a hybrid methodology (bibliometric review with TCCMs).

Organizational success in a dynamic environment demands leadership and agility. The extant literature on employee agility needs more empirical evidence and appropriate theoretical explanations. This study aims to contribute to the literature by bringing empirical evidence to understand the intervening mechanisms through which empowering leadership influences employee agility and to suggest alternate theoretical explanations.

The mediating role of knowledge-sharing behavior and psychological safety is examined using quantitative data from a sample of 924 employees working in India's information technology industry.

Findings reveal that empowering leadership contributes to psychological safety at the workplace, promoting employees' knowledge-sharing behavior and leading to employee agility. The findings are globally relevant and theoretically consistent.

The phenomenon is explained in two ways. Firstly, by combining the structural empowerment and motivation perspectives, and secondly, by combining the conservation of resources and social exchange perspectives.

The findings imply that psychological safety and knowledge-sharing behavior can be used as leading indicators to prepare the organization for success in a dynamic and volatile environment.

This study is one of the earliest attempts to explain the mediating mechanism between empowering leadership and employee agility using serial multiple mediations. Further, this study combines different theoretical perspectives to present the findings more logically.

This book aimed to conceptualise a construction workforce management model suitable for effectively managing workers in construction organisations. To this end, this chapter presents the conceptualised model, which consists of seven workforce management practices with their respective measurement variables. Drawing from existing theories, models, and practices, the chapter concludes that a construction organisation that will attain its strategic objectives in the current fourth industrial revolution era must be willing to promote effective recruitment and selection, compensation and benefits, performance management and appraisal, employee involvement and empowerment, training and development, as well as improving workers emotional intelligence and handling external environment pressure. These practices can promote proactiveness, participation, and improved skills and can lead to effective commitment, better quality, and flexibility within the organisation.

The importance of humans to the successful delivery of construction projects has led to the emergence of research attention on construction workforce management. As such, this chapter uncovers emotional intelligence (EI) and the external environment as critical aspects of workforce management practices that have not gained substantial attention in past workforce management studies. While some theories and models (existing outside the construction domain) have considered the external environment, none of these models is specific to the construction industry. Furthermore, EI has received less attention within existing workforce management models. Through a review of related studies and theories, this chapter noted that the EI of construction workers and their senior management is crucial to the performance of these workers and the ultimate performance of their organisations. In the same vein, since construction organisations do not operate in silos, the external environment significantly influences the operations of organisations in the construction industry. The environment exact pressures that can influence workforce management practices and technological innovations construction organisations adopt.

The current era of the fourth industrial revolution has attracted significant research on the use of digital technologies in improving construction project delivery. However, less emphasis has been placed on how these digital tools will influence the management of the construction workforce. To this end, using a review of existing works, this chapter explores the fourth industrial revolution and its associated technologies that can positively impact the management of the construction workforce when implemented. Also, the possible challenges that might truncate the successful deployment of digital technologies for effective workforce management were explored. The chapter submitted that implementing workforce management-specific digital platforms and other digital technologies designed for project delivery can aid effective workforce management within construction organisations. Technologies such as cloud computing, the Internet of Things, big data analytics, robotics and automation, and artificial intelligence, among others, offer significant benefits to the effective workforce management of construction organisations. However, several challenges, such as resistance to change due to fear of job loss, cost of investment in digital tools, organisational structure and culture, must be carefully considered as they might affect the successful use of digital tools and by extension, impact the success of workforce management in the organisations.

This first chapter provides a general overview of the book. The chapter describes workforce management and the lack of adequate attention to this concept within construction organisations. In the fourth industrial revolution era, where emerging technologies have continued to change how business functions, the need for an effective approach towards managing the construction workforce becomes crucial. Having a construction workforce management practice model was deemed vital at this point, where technological advancement is rapidly changing the construction environment, and skill shortage is evident in the construction industry of most countries around the world. As such, this chapter establishes that the development of a construction workforce management model that will help improve the management of construction workers serves a critical value of the book.

The dynamics of work have increased the importance of work conditions and job demand in the corporate environment. This has exposed the high predominance of work overload among employees and managers in social organisations. This study aims to investigate the contemporary determinants of workaholism (organisational culture, financial well-being and career development) and quality of work-life (QWL) in Nigeria’s information technology (IT) sector.

To synthesise an understanding of factors that are responsible for workaholic behaviour among employees in the IT industry, this study used a cross-sectional research design to investigate the phenomenon that accounts for such hysteric conditions. This study administered an inventory battery of scales to obtain data from the study population on a random sampling technique to measure the established constructs responsible for workaholism and QWL. This study surveyed 644 samples of IT professionals in Nigeria and used structural equation modelling and artificial neural networks to examine the data obtained from the IT professionals.

The outcome of this study was significant as proposed. This study demonstrated that compulsive work approach adversely affects employee QWL in Nigeria’s IT industry. Also, excessive work adversely affects employee QWL in Nigeria’s IT industry. This study further discovered that organisational culture and management pressure significantly affect the QWL in the Nigerian IT industry. The results of this study showed that financial well-being significantly affects the QWL in the Nigerian IT industry. Lastly, it established that career development significantly affects the QWL in the Nigerian IT industry. This study concluded that if working round the clock is not completely removed from Nigeria’s IT cultural system, the industry will not be a safe environment and will not attract employees anymore. It has enabled many Nigerian workforces to quit working in Nigeria and migrate to international organisations.

This study has shown a meaningful dimension by discovering that workaholism is inherently in the cultural values and DNA of Nigerian IT institutions and not work addiction in itself for the employees. The novelty of this research has indicated that workaholism has not been documented much in the Nigerian IT sector.