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Article
Publication date: 7 February 2022

Anne Aidla, Eneli Kindsiko, Helen Poltimäe and Laura Hääl

This paper aims to compare employee well-being, information flow and relationships with co-workers and supervisors for people working at home and working in different office types…

1371

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to compare employee well-being, information flow and relationships with co-workers and supervisors for people working at home and working in different office types before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach

A nationwide study of 2,845 Estonian office workers in autumn 2019 and 2,972 in spring 2020 was carried out.

Findings

It was discovered that in normal circumstances, people at home had similar results to those in a cell office or activity-based office. Open-plan offices were found to be the worst in respect to the facets of work studied. However, in the context of the pandemic, the playing field became more level in some respects and worse in the case of activity-based offices.

Practical implications

When telework is well arranged both in terms of facilities and organising the necessary communication and information flow, then it is a viable alternative to working in an office. What is more, employers need to pay more attention to the physical and social work conditions in open-plan offices and also activity-based offices in the context of a pandemic.

Originality/value

Previous studies have only compared telework with working in an office in general. Comparing working at home with different kinds of offices gives valuable insights.

Details

Journal of Facilities Management , vol. 21 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1472-5967

Keywords

Open Access
Article
Publication date: 24 April 2020

Glenn Hampson

It's hard to envision a system more global and more integrated than research. Many stakeholders affect and are affected by changes in the research ecosystem; the ecosystem differs…

Abstract

It's hard to envision a system more global and more integrated than research. Many stakeholders affect and are affected by changes in the research ecosystem; the ecosystem differs in significant ways across the globe and between researchers, institutions and fields of study; and there are many questions that exclusive action can't address. There are also broad ecosystem-level questions that need answering. For these reasons alone, global approaches to reform are needed.

The first step in this exploration isn't to start looking for “solutions”, but to develop a better understanding of how our needs and interests overlap. By identifying the broad contours of common ground in this conversation, we can build the guardrails and mileposts for our collaborative efforts and then allow the finer-grained details of community-developed plans more flexibility and guidance to evolve over time.

What are these overlapping interests? First, the people in this community share a common motive – idealism – to make research better able to serve the public good. We also share a common desire to unleash the power of open to improve research and accelerate discovery; we are all willing to fix issues now instead of waiting for market forces or government intervention to do this for us; and we want to ensure that everyone everywhere has equitable access to knowledge.

There is also very broad agreement in this community about which specific problems in scholarly communication need to be fixed and why, and well as many overlapping beliefs in this community. OSI participants have concluded that four such beliefs best define our common ground: (1) research and society will benefit from open done right; (2) successful solutions will require broad collaboration; (3) connected issues need to be addressed, and (4) open isn't a single outcome, but a spectrum.

OSI has been observing and debating the activity in scholarly communication since late 2014 with regard to understanding possible global approaches and solutions for improving the future of open research. While the COVID-19 pandemic has made the importance of open science abundantly clear, the struggle to achieve this goal (not just for science but for all research) has been mired in a lack of clarity and urgency for over 20 years now, mostly stalling on the tension between wanting more openness but lacking realistic solutions for making this happen on a large scale with so many different stakeholders, needs and perspectives involved.

Underlying this tension is a fundamental difference in philosophy: whether the entire scholarly communication marketplace, driven by the needs and desires of researchers, should determine what kind of open it wants and needs; or whether this marketplace should be compelled to adopt open reform measures developed primarily by the scholarly communication system's main billpayers-funders and libraries. There is no widespread difference of opinion in the community whether open is worth pursuing. The debate is mostly over what specific open solutions are best, and at what pace open reforms should occur.

OSI has proposed a plan of action for working together to rebuild the future of scholarly communication on strong, common ground foundation. This plan – which we're referring to as Plan A – calls for joint action on studies, scholarly communication infrastructure improvement, and open outreach/education. Plan A also calls for working together with UNESCO to develop a unified global roadmap for the future of open, and for striving to ensure the community's work in this space is researcher-focused, collaborative, connected (addressing connected issues like peer review), diverse and flexible (no one-size-fits-all solutions), and beneficial to research. UNESCO's goal is to finish its roadmap proposal by early 2022.

For a full discussion of OSI's common ground recommendations, please see the Plan A website at http://plan-a.world.

Details

Emerald Open Research, vol. 1 no. 13
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2631-3952

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 September 2023

Maria Giovanna Bosco and Elisa Valeriani

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate if, given personal, supply-related features, and labour demand-related variables, there is a difference in the share of women finding more…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate if, given personal, supply-related features, and labour demand-related variables, there is a difference in the share of women finding more stable jobs with respect to men, in an eight-year time span.

Design/methodology/approach

Fragmentation leads to a lower probability of transitioning into more certain, full-time work positions. The authors analyse a rich cohort of dependent workers in Emilia-Romagna to investigate whether part-time jobs lead to full-time jobs in a “stepping-stone” fashion and whether this happens with the same probability for men and women. The focus is on the cost of part-time jobs rather than the contrast between permanent and temporary jobs, as often observed in the literature. The authors also evaluate the transition between part-time job formulae and open-ended work arrangements to determine whether women's transition to full-fledged, stable work positions is slightly rarer than their male counterparts. Even if the authors allow for the fact that part-time contracts can be a choice and not an obligation, these contracts generate more flexibility in managing the equilibrium between private and work life and create more uncertainty than full-time contracts because of the fragmentation associated with these arrangements.

Findings

The authors find that women have a more fragmented working career than men, in that they hold more contracts than men in the same time span; moreover, the authors find that part-time jobs act more as bottlenecks for women than for men.

Originality/value

The authors use a large administrative dataset with over 600,000 workers observed in the 2008–2015 time span, in Emilia Romagna, Italy. The authors can disentangle the number of contracts per worker and observe individual, anonymise personal features, that the authors consider in the authors' propensity score estimate. The authors ran a robustness check of the PSM estimates through coarsened exact matching (CEM).

Details

International Journal of Manpower, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-7720

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 2 January 2024

Raunaque Mujeeb Quaiser and Praveen Ranjan Srivastava

This research aims to identify the key factors affecting Outbound Open Innovation between Startups and Big organizations using the multiple criteria decision-making analysis…

Abstract

Purpose

This research aims to identify the key factors affecting Outbound Open Innovation between Startups and Big organizations using the multiple criteria decision-making analysis (MCDM) approach. The MCDM technique ranks the four key factors identified from the literature study that can help to improve collaboration opportunities with Startups.

Design/methodology/approach

Identification of key factors affecting Outbound Open Innovation between Startups and big organizations based on extant literature. A questionnaire is prepared based on these four identified key factors to gather views of the startup's employees, from the designer level to the startup's founder. MCDM techniques are used to evaluate the questionnaire. The ensemble technique is used to rank the key factors coming from three different MCDM methods.

Findings

The findings from the MCDM approach and Ensemble techniques give insight to the big organizations to facilitate outbound Open Innovation effectively. It also provides insight into the requirements of the startups and the kind of support they seek from the big organizations. The ranking can help the big organization close the gaps and make an informed decision to increase the effectiveness of the collaborations and boost innovation.

Originality/value

This is a unique research work where the MCDM approach is used to identify the ranking of key factors affecting outbound open innovation between startups and big organizations. The MCDM technique is followed by the ensemble method to rationalize the findings. Technology Relevance ranks highest, followed by Innovation Ecosystem, Organization commitment and Knowledge Sharing.

Details

Management Decision, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0025-1747

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 September 2023

Smitha Girija, Devika Rani Sharma, Thorani Yeediballi and Chudamani Sriramneni

Co-working spaces bundle all real estate services into a package and leverage shared economy trend to create new opportunities for growth. This sector is anticipated to expand…

Abstract

Purpose

Co-working spaces bundle all real estate services into a package and leverage shared economy trend to create new opportunities for growth. This sector is anticipated to expand significantly due to changes in mobility and office design driven by the development of remote or hybrid work settings. The current study attempts to identify key motivating factors for users in emerging economies in choosing co-working spaces.

Design/methodology/approach

Using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) methodology and the self-determination theory framework, a total of 4 criteria-level factors, along with 13 sub-criteria level factors were identified as key motivators for adapting to co-working spaces.

Findings

The study highlights a few factors and their relative importance, which could help firms/organizations to start or offer co-working spaces within emerging economies.

Originality/value

The study contributes to literature by advancing the understanding of key motivators for users of co-working spaces within the ambits of emerging economies. In the process, the authors enlist a few factors vis-à-vis their relative importance, which could help firms/organizations to start or offer co-working spaces within emerging markets.

Details

Property Management, vol. 42 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0263-7472

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 November 2023

Xubu Ma, Yafan Xiang, Chunxiu Qin, Huigang Liang and Dongsu Liu

With the worldwide open government data (OGD) movement and frequent public health emergencies in recent years, academic research on OGD for public health emergencies has been…

Abstract

Purpose

With the worldwide open government data (OGD) movement and frequent public health emergencies in recent years, academic research on OGD for public health emergencies has been growing. However, it is not fully understood how to promote OGD on public health emergencies. Therefore, this paper aims to explore the factors that influence OGD on public health emergencies.

Design/methodology/approach

The technology–organization–environment framework is applied to explore factors that influence OGD during COVID-19. It is argued that the effects of four key factors – technical capacity, organizational readiness, social attention and top-down pressure – are contingent on the severity of the pandemic. A unique data set was created by combining multiple data sources which include archival government data, a survey of 1,034 Chinese respondents during the COVID-19 outbreak and official COVID-19 reports.

Findings

The data analysis indicates that the four factors positively affect OGD, and pandemic severity strengthens the effects of technical capacity, organizational readiness and social attention on OGD.

Originality/value

This study provides theoretical insights regarding how to improve OGD during public health emergencies, which can guide government efforts in sharing data with the public when dealing with outbreak in the future.

Details

The Electronic Library , vol. 42 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0264-0473

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 26 December 2023

Paula Viviana Robayo-Acuña and Odette Chams-Anturi

This study aims to analyzed the development of open innovation research knowledge and its application in the tourism sector during the past 17 years, with the aim of understanding…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to analyzed the development of open innovation research knowledge and its application in the tourism sector during the past 17 years, with the aim of understanding the scientific activity and impact of existing research. In addition, this research identifies trending thematic lines and provides recommendations for future research on this topic.

Design/methodology/approach

A bibliometric analysis was carried out from the Scopus database, in which 110 studies related to open innovation in tourism were identified. The analysis of the papers was done with the Bibliometrix and Vosviewer tools.

Findings

The results show that there is a recent and growing interest among academics, especially since 2017. Moreover, four main lines of work were identified: overtourism and sustainability, value cocreation, open innovation and competitive advantage and its impact on organizations belonging to the hotel sector and the relationship between external knowledge and internal sources in innovation management and open innovation performance.

Originality/value

The relationship with other stakeholders involved in the customer experience value creation in the tourism sector depends to a large extent on the joint offer that hotels, restaurants, tour operators and tourist offices, can provide in a tourist destination. Therefore, having external sources to innovate from will improve their innovative and organizational performance. However, there are no bibliometric analyses on the application of the open innovation paradigm in this sector. Thus, this research contributes to fill this gap, as well as to identify the most recurrent themes that show how open innovation is developing in tourism, providing academics and researchers with guidelines for future research.

Details

International Journal of Innovation Science, vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1757-2223

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 18 September 2023

Stephanie Sheamar, Gayan Wedawatta, Maheshi Tennakoon, Roshani Palliyaguru and Maxwell Fordjour Antwi-Afari

Cost overrun is a significant issue in construction, an undesirable feature the industry has long been associated with. Poor procurement practices are often blamed for subsequent…

Abstract

Purpose

Cost overrun is a significant issue in construction, an undesirable feature the industry has long been associated with. Poor procurement practices are often blamed for subsequent cost overruns in construction, especially with conventional procurement methods leading to outrageous cost overruns. The purpose of this study is to review the features of the new models of construction procurement (NMCP) and assess their potential to reduce cost overruns in construction projects.

Design/methodology/approach

A literature review was conducted to identify the issues of procurement leading to cost escalations. Primary data were obtained through exploratory, semi-structured interviews using a case study approach.

Findings

Clients’ lack of knowledge was highlighted as a key issue in procurement that interlinks with many factors causing cost escalation. The findings suggest that the features contained within the NMCP, such as early contractor involvement and collaboration throughout the project team, have the potential to make a positive contribution to addressing cost escalation in construction.

Research limitations/implications

The primary research was undertaken as an exploratory study and presents the contractor's perspective. Further research is therefore suggested, with multiple organisations representing all key stakeholders in a construction project, including clients, consultants, sub-contractors and suppliers.

Practical implications

The study recommends awareness of the NMCP be raised throughout the industry, and simplified information must be made available to help widen uptake of these contemporary procurement methods.

Originality/value

Addressing the dearth of research concerning the use of NMCP within the industry, this study makes a niche contribution to the body of knowledge on construction cost management by illustrating the potential offered by these new procurement methods for addressing cost escalation. For an industry where collaboration is accepted with reservations, this case study demonstrates how novel collaborative strategies such as open book costing, project bank accounts and shared pain and gain mechanisms can be implemented as part of the procurement strategy and how such strategies can contribute towards minimising the cost escalation inherent in construction projects.

Details

Journal of Financial Management of Property and Construction , vol. ahead-of-print no. ahead-of-print
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1366-4387

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 13 February 2024

Yanghong Li, Yahao Wang, Yutao Chen, X.W. Rong, Yuliang Zhao, Shaolei Wu and Erbao Dong

The current difficulties of distribution network working robots are mainly in the performance and operation mode. On the one hand, high-altitude power operation tasks require high…

Abstract

Purpose

The current difficulties of distribution network working robots are mainly in the performance and operation mode. On the one hand, high-altitude power operation tasks require high load-carrying capacity and dexterity of the robot; on the other hand, the fully autonomous mode is uncontrollable and the teleoperation mode has a high failure rate. Therefore, this study aims to design a distribution network operation robot named Sky-Worker to solve the above two problems.

Design/methodology/approach

The heterogeneous arms of Sky-Worker are driven by hydraulics and electric motors to solve the contradiction between high load-carrying capacity and high flexibility. A human–robot collaborative shared control architecture is built to realize real-time human intervention during autonomous operation, and control weights are dynamically assigned based on energy optimization.

Findings

Simulations and tests show that Sky-Worker has good dexterity while having a high load capacity. Based on Sky-Worker, multiuser tests and practical application experiments show that the designed shared-control mode effectively improves the success rate and efficiency of operations compared with other current operation modes.

Practical implications

The designed heterogeneous dual-arm distribution robot aims to better serve distribution line operation tasks.

Originality/value

For the first time, the integration of hydraulic and motor drives into a distribution network operation robot has achieved better overall performance. A human–robot cooperative shared control framework is proposed for remote live-line working robots, which provides better operation results than other current operation modes.

Details

Industrial Robot: the international journal of robotics research and application, vol. 51 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0143-991X

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 12 December 2022

Paul Di Gangi, Robin Teigland and Zeynep Yetis

This research investigates how the value creation interests and activities of different stakeholder groups within one open source software (OSS) project influence the project's…

Abstract

Purpose

This research investigates how the value creation interests and activities of different stakeholder groups within one open source software (OSS) project influence the project's development over time.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors conducted a case study of OpenSimulator using textual and thematic analyses of the initial four years of OpenSimulator developer mailing list to identify each stakeholder group and guide our analysis of their interests and value creation activities over time.

Findings

The analysis revealed that while each stakeholder group was active within the OSS project's development, the different groups possessed complementary interests that enabled the project to evolve. In the formative period, entrepreneurs were interested in the software's strategic direction in the market, academics and SMEs in software functionality and large firms and hobbyists in software testing. Each group retained its primary interest in the maturing period with academics and SMEs separating into server- and client-side usability. The analysis shed light on how the different stakeholder groups overcame tensions amongst themselves and took specific actions to sustain the project.

Originality/value

The authors extend stakeholder theory by reconceptualizing the focal organization and its stakeholders for OSS projects. To date, OSS research has primarily focused on examining one project relative to its marketplace. Using stakeholder theory, we identified stakeholder groups within a single OSS project to demonstrate their distinct interests and how these interests influence their value creation activities over time. Collectively, these interests enable the project's long-term development.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 36 no. 7
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 20000