Work Study and Ergonomics

Mobilising postfeminism as an analytical device, this article re-examines how women business owners discursively engage with the identity of the mumpreneur. Drawing on interviews with women business owners, this article reconceptualises the compatibility between motherhood and entrepreneurship associated with the mumpreneur, in terms of a hybrid identity that interlinks feminine and masculine behaviours connected to home and work. Study data reveal the discursive practices present in interview accounts – choosing family and work, strategic mumpreneurship and enhancing the business without limits – which draw on postfeminist discourses to constitute hybrid entrepreneurial femininities associated with the mumpreneur category. The article contributes to the gender and entrepreneurship literature, in particular, the scholarship on mumpreneurship, by first, showing how engagement with the mumpreneur identity is implicated in the reproduction of masculine entrepreneurship; second, demonstrates how encounters with the mumpreneur contribute to the creation of a hierarchy of entrepreneurial identities which reinforces the masculine norm; and third considers how the mumpreneur as a hybrid identity mobilises entrepreneurship in children in gendered ways. While the emergence of the mumpreneur as a contemporary entrepreneurial identity has positively impacted how women’s entrepreneurship is viewed, the study demonstrates that it has not disrupted dominant discourses of masculine entrepreneurship or gendered power relations in the entrepreneurial field.

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Improving operational efficiency of iron ore logistics by rail using simulation

SIMULATION ◽

10.1177/00375497211023570 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 003754972110235

Author(s):

Hamed Mehranfar ◽

Morteza Bagheri ◽

S. Alireza Seyedvakili ◽

Melody Khadem Sameni

Keyword(s):

Operations Management ◽

Iron Ore ◽

Rail Transport ◽

Process Time ◽

Infrastructure Development ◽

Work Study ◽

Improve Performance ◽

Loading System ◽

In Transit ◽

Additional Income

This paper aims to identify and evaluate the bottlenecks and wastes in the loading, unloading, and in-transit processes of iron ore railcars using simulation. A field survey was conducted in one of the largest steel factories and a mine, and each process time was extracted using the work-study and time-study methods. The data for more than 34 thousand railcars were collected from the database of the steel company, Iran Rail Transport company, and a private rail transport company. Seven scenarios have been developed according to (a) operations management, (b) equipment procurement, and (c) infrastructure development. It was found that utilization of the automated loading system would improve performance by 20%. This causes a 24% increase in railcars’ turnover, which means obtaining US$10,000 additional income per railcar. It was expected, it would improve performance. Conversely, adding a railcar tippler and developing the tracks reduces performance.

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Work Study Volume 33 Issue 11

Work Study ◽

10.1108/eb048428 ◽

1984 ◽

Vol 33 (11) ◽

pp. 3-52

Keyword(s):

Work Study

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