scholarly journals The Value of Work-Related Uncertainty: Changes from Demands on Certainty to Finding Ways of Living in Uncertainty

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 372
Author(s):  
Michal Müller
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Entrepreneurial Activity ◽  
Working Relationships ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Current Crisis ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Employment Uncertainty

Given the negative consequences that excessive confrontation with uncertainty can have, its positive dimension is often forgotten. The aim of this article is to show that the uncertainty associated with work, working conditions and the context in which working relationships are formed can be considered as a positive value. This will be shown through four themes. The first theme concerns the economic system. It is important to show that a certain degree of insecurity is necessary not only for individual freedom in society, but also for society as a whole, as there is a relationship between economic and political freedom. The second theme concerns entrepreneurship. In this respect, the article reminds us that uncertainty is a prerequisite for entrepreneurial activity. The third area deals with employment. Uncertainty and the life experience associated with it is an opportunity for personal development and the search for innovative ways of coping and solving problems, moreover, it is related to a sense of freedom. The fourth theme deals with the positive role of uncertainty in the context of the current crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, this positive value will only emerge if human health is protected.

Discriminatory Aspects of Pre-employment Screening: Low-Back X-ray Examinations in the Railroad Industry

1979 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 197-214
Author(s):  
Paul H. Rockey ◽  
Jane Fantel ◽  
Gilbert S. Omenn
Keyword(s):  
Low Back Pain ◽  
Back Pain ◽  
Screening Program ◽  
Job Applicants ◽  
Radiation Hazard ◽  
Low Back ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Increased Risk

AbstractIn screening the majority of job applicants, most of this nation's railroads administer a low-back X-ray examination in an attempt to ascertain the likelihood that the applicant will sustain future work-related low-back pain or injury. Many applicants are rejected for employment on the basis of the X-ray findings. The railroads apparently perceive this screening program as a cost-effective means (1) of decreasing the incidence of compensation claims for work-related injuries, brought against the rail-roads under the Federal Employers' Liability Act (FELA), (2) of reducing the number of lost workdays resulting from low-back pain or injury, and (3) of protecting particularly susceptible workers from job-related hazards.The authors of this Article submit that low-back X-ray examinations are poor predictors of future low-back pain or injury. They assert that the railroads' use of such examinations misclassifies a substantial number of job applicants as being at increased risk for such pain or injury, and, in consequence, unfairly denies them employment. Furthermore, the authors claim, the screening program has other negative consequences. For example, applicants rejected for railroad employment on the basis of X-ray findings may as a result have difficulty finding jobs in other industries. In addition, they state, there is a potential radiation hazard to examinees. Moreover, both the railroads and those applicants accepted for employment may inappropriately be reassured by normal findings.On balance, the authors conclude, the screening program has a negative social value. The authors suggest that the program, in effect, erroneously labels many applicants as handicapped, and then denies them employment. Such persons might have legal recourse under federal and state statutes prohibiting employment discrimination against the handicapped.

Can the recruitment of ex-offenders enhance offender engagement? An assessment of the London Probation Trust’s engagement worker role

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nigel Hosking ◽  
John Rico
Keyword(s):  
Life Experience ◽  
Working Relationships ◽  
Service Users ◽  
Effective Strategy ◽  
Mutual Respect ◽  
Collaborative Relationships ◽  
Probation Service

Research has long established that the most effective strategy for reducing reoffending is to develop collaborative relationships with service users. Practitioners need to exhibit empathy, mutual respect, and an appreciation for the life, perspectives, and needs of service users. However, the balance between trusted confidante, and enforcer is a difficult one to achieve. With this in mind, the London Probation Trust (LPT) developed the role of engagement worker in order to provide practitioners with another resource to be utilised towards their attempts to establish successful working relationships with their service users. The engagement workers are former users of the Probation Service themselves - a life experience that allows them to successfully engage current service users, in a way that practitioners are not always able to do. Furthermore, in addition to supporting individuals to change, the experience of being an engagement worker may contribute to the engagement workers’ own desistance. Following a year of the engagement worker experiment, the project was evaluated by the LPT (now London CRC) research analyst. This chapter asks whether employing ex-offenders in this way can enhance engagement and improve outcomes.

An Alternative Perspective on Retirement a Dual Economic Approach

1983 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 279-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jon Hendricks ◽  
Cathy E. McAllister
Keyword(s):  
Life Events ◽  
Research Agenda ◽  
Structural Model ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Economic Approach ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Economic Framework ◽  
Alternative Perspective ◽  
The Status

ABSTRACTA structural model for examining retirement is presented in the context of a political economy of ageing. Contemporary capitalist economies may be conceived of in terms of macro-level organisation which results in a monopolistic core and competitive peripheral sectors. In turn this configuration serves to colour individual life-experience. Data on differential worker- and work-related characteristics are presented as a means of explicating the need for an alternative perspective to explain later life events. A proposed research agenda based on a consideration of both the status attainment and dual economic framework is put forward.

Taking Forward Roger's Interest in the Relationship between the Early Modern Family, Demography, Economy and Government Policy

2020 ◽  
pp. 31-36
Author(s):  
Simon Szreter
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Government Policy ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Belief Systems ◽  
Early Modern Period ◽  
Modern Society ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Economic Productivity ◽  
Work Related ◽  
The Poor

This paper describes how Roger Schofield came to characterise the English social system of the early modern period as 'individualist-collectivist', in which individualism is located within a larger structure and context of collectivism. It discusses this in the context of his contributions to the book he co-edited with John Walter in 1989, entitled Famine, Disease and the Social Order in Early Modern Society. Roger's work related the evidence of demographic and epidemiological change not only to family structures, ideological belief systems and government policy, as saliently represented by effects of the poor laws, but also to economic productivity as a dependent variable. That was quite the opposite of the dominant orthodoxy of the post-war era, which was that demography and epidemiology were driven by economics, not vice versa. This has the implication for our own era that constructive government policy has repeatedly played an important positive role in the economic productivity of the nation and that tax-funded generous support for the poor is a central part of that, which citizens should positively support.

Work-Groups Conflict at PetroTech-Italy, S.R.L.

2013 ◽  
pp. 272-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelo Camillo ◽  
Loredana Di Pietro ◽  
Francesca Di Virgilio ◽  
Massimo Franco
Keyword(s):  
Work Groups ◽  
Negative Impact ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Work Place ◽  
Economic Downturn ◽  
Working Relationships ◽  
Global Context ◽  
Going Concern ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Multicultural Workforce

Field experts take numerous approaches to modeling how culture influences groups in dealing with interpersonal conflict and its dynamics. Researchers investigate cultural traits that may predict a range of cultural conflict behaviors. In addition, anecdotal evidence shows that researchers continue to take up a constructivist approach of identifying the centrality of cultural influence that causes work related conflicts. This study attempts to determine the different types and levels of conflicts within a multicultural workforce by considering various factors such as ethnicity and geographic and lingual diversities within the global context. The scope is to find possible solutions to reduce and/or eliminate group related and, to a certain extent, individual conflicts within the work place, which have become a matter of concern for any international organization. The findings reveal systematic conflicts between and within work-groups and suggest that regardless of type, relationship, and process, conflicts are detrimental to the operation and total outcome. Those conflicts have a negative impact on performance in the production, especially when they escalate. Displays of interpersonal hostility (yelling, name-calling, throwing things at people and making derogatory inferences about others’ own cultures) prevent productive work in all groups, which are inefficient and do not seem motivated to complete their tasks. Increased bickering and hostile behaviour inhibits talking about and working on the immediate task. To a certain extent, the situation could be described as a “toxic working environment.” A key finding reveals through interviews and participative and non-intrusive observations demonstrated that members of these work-groups are psychologically distressed when there are frequent arguments about interpersonal issues. Consequently, the intrinsic problems which escalate over a five year period, together with extrinsic economic problems due to the global economic downturn, cause the company to have high cost of labor and material. With less than expected sales and, operational destruction due to distress about going concern, PTI is put to challenge. Hence, PTI faces a serious test in solving the existing group conflicts. Failure to improve the working relationships could jeopardize the strategic going concern of the company.

Personality and boredom at work: the mediating role of job crafting

2019 ◽  
Vol 24 (4) ◽  
pp. 315-330
Author(s):  
Bogdan Oprea ◽  
Dragos Iliescu ◽  
Vlad Burtăverde ◽  
Miruna Dumitrache
Keyword(s):  
Job Crafting ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Mediating Role ◽  
Cross Sectional Design ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Relationship

Purpose Boredom at work is associated with negative consequences, therefore it is important to investigate whether employees engage in job crafting behaviors that reduce boredom and what are the individual differences associated with these behaviors. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire study was designed to examine the mediating role of job crafting in the relationship between conscientiousness and emotional stability and boredom among 252 employees (Study 1) and in the relationship between Machiavellianism and psychopathy and boredom among 216 employees (Study 2). Findings The results showed that conscientiousness is negatively related to work-related boredom. This relationship is mediated by job crafting. Neuroticism and psychopathy are positively associated with boredom at work, but these relationships are not mediated by job crafting behaviors. Research limitations/implications The study was based on self-reported measures, which might raise questions of common-method bias, and the research samples contained mostly women and young employees, which raises questions about generalizability of our findings. At the same time, the cross-sectional design does not allow causal inferences. Practical implications Organizations can select employees based on their personality for jobs that predispose to boredom and give them enough autonomy to be able to craft them. Moreover, they can identify employees who need support to manage their boredom and include them in job crafting interventions. Originality/value Traditionally, boredom at work has been considered as resulting from characteristics of tasks and jobs. The findings indicate that some employees can make self-initiated changes to their work in order to reduce their boredom and possibly its negative consequences.

scholarly journals Do stays abroad increase intercultural and general competences, affecting employability?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Petia Genkova ◽  
Lisa Kruse
Keyword(s):  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Personal Development ◽  
Cultural Intelligence ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Research Question ◽  
World Market ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Host Country Nationals ◽  
Personal Skills

Abstract With a globalized and growing world market, companies and educational institutions are getting more and more ambitious to re-orient their work patterns to the international level. Universities reacted to the demands of the globalized economy for flexibility and adaptability by the internationalization of their study programs. Research question: Do stays abroad and therefore intercultural experiences of students actually promote occupational competences and personal development? Design: In order to investigate this relationship, an online survey was employed, and a sample of N = 367 students, who had spent at least one semester abroad before, was recruited. The questions were aimed at measuring characteristics of the participants’ stays abroad, as well as occupational engagement, resilience, intercultural competence personality characteristics related to job performance. Results: The findings suggest that experience abroad can partly enhance employability by serving as an additional job qualification. The results reveal that people who have experienced a stay abroad show higher work and study commitment and are more ambitious regarding their work. Furthermore, people with experience abroad show higher levels of resilience. They are more active concerning problem solving and have higher abilities to maintain emotional distance to work. Additionally, people show the more cultural intelligence the longer they stay abroad. Regarding the manifestation of cultural intelligence, the contact quality with the host country nationals played a significant role. It was evinced that higher contact quality is associated with higher values of cultural intelligence. Regarding occupational performance capacity, the results highlight that participants with a stay abroad are more dominant in an occupational context, i.e., they are more oriented towards superiority above others. Value: The present study contributes to the understanding of relevant personal skills and characteristics in intercultural contexts and of how personality might affect the process of becoming more competent. By demonstrating that stays abroad can increase certain work-related competences for students this study indicates that companies and educational institutions should spend more recourses on fostering experiences abroad of students and workers, in order to stay in tune with the requirements of globalization.

Work-related suicide

2013 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 148-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie-Line Germain
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Occupational Accident ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Study Approach ◽  
Work Related ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
Bureau Of Labor Statistics

Purpose – For the past 50 years, the research literature has shown that employment can contribute to an individual's personal development. Yet, it has also shown that it can become a life-threatening stressor. Reported occupational suicides increased by 22.2 percent between 1995 and 2010, becoming a leading cause of death in the USA. The purpose of this paper is to present the results of six US government reports on employee suicides between 1995 and 2012. Design/methodology/approach – Through an interpretive case study approach (Yin, 2003), this study undertook a document analysis of key US government reports examining occupational suicides. Specifically, an analysis of three US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports was undertaken along with other documents, identifying key themes and facts. Findings – The analysis of the US government reports reveals a dim legal recognition of employee suicide as an occupational accident. The paper presents the characteristics of suicides as an occupational accident as well as the profile of a typical US occupational suicide victim. Finally, the paper discusses the main causes of employee suicide. Practical implications – Organizations have a “duty of care” to their employees, both physical and psychological. Human resource (HR) professionals ought to create preventive policies to minimize work-related suicides and have clear crisis management systems in place, should an employee commit suicide or threaten to do so. Originality/value – Occupational distress is not typically apparent or obvious and is not the subject of many studies in the field of HRs. Yet, because of its rampant increase in today's organizations, its direct connection with employee suicide and its impact on organizational revenues, psychological distress in the workplace merits closer attention. This paper is unique as it provides insights for HR professionals based on the analysis of US government reports on work-related suicides.

The Significant Life Experiences (SLEs) of Humane Educators

2007 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacquie Lewis
Keyword(s):  
Online Survey ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Age And Gender ◽  
Significant Life ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Significant Life Experiences

AbstractThis study provides evidence of the significant life experiences (SLEs), which influence advocates for nonhuman animals to develop sensitivity toward animals. Thirty-nine humane educators participated in an online survey. Findings indicate that having a relationship with a companion animal in adulthood is the most important life experience, followed by having a childhood experience with an animal, being exposed to a positive role model in childhood, and reading about animals and animal issues. The study did not find age and gender related differences in life experiences. This paper compares the results from this study to two previous studies. The first study examined the SLEs of animal advocate leaders through analysis of autobiographies, biographies, oral histories, and written interviews. The second study examined the SLEs of animal rescuers through an open-ended survey. This paper discusses similarities and differences among these three groups.

Personal development review (PDR) process and engineering staff motivation

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (6) ◽  
pp. 827-847 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Baldwin ◽  
Jose Arturo Garza-Reyes ◽  
Vikas Kumar ◽  
Luis Rocha-Lona
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
Manufacturing Industry ◽  
Current Knowledge ◽  
Research Approach ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Development Review ◽  
Staff Motivation ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Engineering Staff

Purpose – The academic literature and motivational theory recognise the positive role of motivation on organisational performance and considers personal development as a key motivational factor. In practice, most organisations employ a personal development review (PDR) process to drive and plan the development of their staff. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the interrelation and impact of the PDR process, and its elements, on staff motivation. Design/methodology/approach – The study is based on a case study research approach carried out in two large manufacturing-engineering departments of a world-class manufacturing organisation. A survey questionnaire was designed, validated and distributed to the engineering staff and its results were analysed using descriptive statistics. Findings – The study's results indicate that in most of the cases, a PDR process does not by itself motivate staff. But it argues that a poorly designed and conducted PDR process may make motivation, through personal development, difficult to achieve. Practical implications – This paper provides manufacturing managers with an opportunity to understand whether a common business process (i.e. PDR), and the elements that comprise it, can be employed as a method to aid in the motivation of their staff. Originality/value – This research expands the current knowledge on motivational and manufacturing management theory by performing an initial and exploratory study that establishes the impact of the PDR process on staff motivation. It is among the very first investigations that correlate the PDR process and motivation, especially in the manufacturing industry.

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