Search results
1 – 10 of over 10000Aaro Hazak, Raul Ruubel and Marko Virkebau
This paper aims to identify which types of creative R&D employees prefer which daily and weekly working schedules.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to identify which types of creative R&D employees prefer which daily and weekly working schedules.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper builds on an original repeated survey of creative R&D employees from Estonia and presents multinomial logit regression estimates based on a sample of 153 individuals from 11 entities.
Findings
The probability of women preferring their weekly work to be concentrated in three to four days is 20 percentage points higher than in men, and the case is similar for less-educated creative R&D employees. The more educated prefer the standard five-day working week. Men have a stronger preference for their week of work to be dispersed over six to seven days. Sleep patterns appear to relate to working time preferences as morning-type individuals have a stronger preference for a working day with fixed start and end times. Those who sleep 7 h or more per day prefer the standard five-day working week more, while employees who sleep less than 7 h favour a working week of six to seven days. Employees who desire more creativity intensity at work have a stronger preference for irregular daily working hours, as do those with poorer general health.
Originality/value
The results indicate that individual characteristics have a significant impact on the preferences for working time arrangements. Similar working time regulations for all employees appear outdated, therefore, and may make work inefficient and harm individual well-being, at least for creative R&D employees.
Details
Keywords
Toyin Ajibade Adisa, Opeoluwa Aiyenitaju and Olatunji David Adekoya
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected women in unique gender-specific ways, particularly their traditional status as home managers. This study aims to draw on the role theory to…
Abstract
Purpose
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected women in unique gender-specific ways, particularly their traditional status as home managers. This study aims to draw on the role theory to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on women's work–family balance during the lockdown.
Design/methodology/approach
The current COVID-19 pandemic, which has altered the ways in which we live and work, requires specific methodological tools to be understood. The authors, therefore, opted for an interpretive–constructivist and constructivist–phenomenologist approach. The dataset, thus, comprises of semi-structured interviews with 26 working women in the UK.
Findings
The findings illustrate how the COVID-19 lockdown has intensified British women's domestic workload and has, thus, caused unbridled role conflict, which has further been exacerbated by structural and interactional roles undertaken by women, especially during the lockdown. Remote working has contributed to women's role congestion and role conflict and poses severe challenges to role differentiation. Furthermore, we found that the lockdown has facilitated the rediscovery of family values and closeness, which is connected to the decline in juvenile delinquency and low crime rate that has resulted from the lockdown.
Originality/value
Through the lens of the role theory, this study concludes that the cohabitation of work and family duties within the domestic space undermines the ability to achieve work–family balance and role differentiation due to the occurrence of inter-role conflicts. This study enriches our understanding of the effect of remote working on female employees' work–family balance during the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
Details
Keywords
Ke Zhang and Ailing Huang
The purpose of this paper is to provide a guiding framework for studying the travel patterns of PT users. The combination of public transit (PT) users’ travel data and user…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide a guiding framework for studying the travel patterns of PT users. The combination of public transit (PT) users’ travel data and user profiling (UP) technology to draw a portrait of PT users can effectively understand users’ travel patterns, which is important to help optimize the scheduling of PT operations and planning of the network.
Design/methodology/approach
To achieve the purpose, the paper presents a three-level classification method to construct the labeling framework. A station area attribute mining method based on the term frequency-inverse document frequency weighting algorithm is proposed to determine the point of interest attributes of user travel stations, and the spatial correlation patterns of user travel stations are calculated by Moran’s Index. User travel feature labels are extracted from travel data containing Beijing PT data for one consecutive week.
Findings
In this paper, a universal PT user labeling system is obtained and some related methods are conducted including four categories of user-preferred travel area patterns mining and a station area attribute mining method. In the application of the Beijing case, a precise exploration of the spatiotemporal characteristics of PT users is conducted, resulting in the final Beijing PTUP system.
Originality/value
This paper combines UP technology with big data analysis techniques to study the travel patterns of PT users. A user profile label framework is constructed, and data visualization, statistical analysis and K-means clustering are applied to extract specific labels instructed by this system framework. Through these analytical processes, the user labeling system is improved, and its applicability is validated through the analysis of a Beijing PT case.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Details
Keywords
Joanna Shapland and Jason Heyes
Recent changes in the UK to the regulation and modes of work in the formal and informal economies are considered. Research in this field has tended to remain in silos (treating…
Abstract
Purpose
Recent changes in the UK to the regulation and modes of work in the formal and informal economies are considered. Research in this field has tended to remain in silos (treating formal economy working conditions separately from research on the informal economy). The question is whether the means of work and benefits to the worker for formal and informal work are now as different as the former images of formal and informal economy work imply under a “jobs-for-life” economy. The purpose of this paper is to consider whether the current aim of government regulation of the informal economy – to formalise it – is actually of benefit to workers, as might be supposed.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper considers recent research findings on the formal and informal economy, using official government statistics for the UK and more detailed European studies on the informal economy.
Findings
This paper argues that formal employment in the UK is becoming more casualised, with less associated benefits to employees. Though it is still of benefit to the state to formalise informal work (to increase tax take), some of the links between formalisation and a good working environment for workers are being broken, which may lead to the informal economy becoming more popular and requiring different priorities in its regulation.
Originality/value
This paper argues that we need to change our assumptions and image of work in the formal economy, compared to that in the informal economy.
Details
Keywords
Andreas Wallo and Alan Coetzer
This study aims to explore how human resource (HR) practitioners conceive of their practice, reveal challenges they grapple with in daily work and generate a conceptual framework…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore how human resource (HR) practitioners conceive of their practice, reveal challenges they grapple with in daily work and generate a conceptual framework of HR praxis.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is based on interviews with HR practitioners in Sweden and a review of articles that examine aspects of HR practitioners' work.
Findings
The HR practitioners' work is fragmented and reactive, filled with meetings and affords few opportunities to work undisturbed. Operational tasks are prioritised over strategic work, and their work sometimes involves tasks that are not HR's responsibility. The nature of HR practitioners' daily work mimics the work of their main “customer”, i.e. managers within the organisations.
Practical implications
The HR practitioners were working mainly in the service of managers, which suggests that they have an internal focus. Consistent with current, prescriptive HR discourse, HR practitioners should adopt a multi-stakeholder perspective of human resource management (HRM) and a more external focus that is necessary to contribute to wider, organisational effectiveness. The findings could enrich what is taught in higher education by providing students with an account of the reality of HR practitioners' daily work.
Originality/value
The study provides a situated account of the daily work of HR practitioners, which is largely absent from the literature.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to address notions and practices relating to work–life balance for native German scholars and researchers who have migrated from the former Soviet…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address notions and practices relating to work–life balance for native German scholars and researchers who have migrated from the former Soviet Union (FSU). Issues will be explored from a cultural perspective, identifying culturally based interpretations of work–life balance.
Design/methodology/approach
Foregrounded in a diversity approach, this empirical study draws upon explorative interviews to discuss work–life balance in German academia. To overcome monocultural observations, 25 German scholars and 11 researchers originating from the FSU were interviewed, all of whom are highly skilled female scholars.
Findings
Findings demonstrate that individuals with diverse cultural backgrounds can perceive huge differences in identical working conditions. The study links meanings of work–life balance with individual practices and identifies key components of work–life balance within this population. It also discusses the decisions that scholars make about starting families or remaining childless for the sake of their careers.
Originality/value
This study is the first of its kind in Germany, and represents a strong implication for policies and their evaluation. It identifies the crucial role played by culturally rooted notions relating to work–life balance practices.
Details
Keywords
Abstract
Details