Proposal of Priority Schemes for Controlling Electric Vehicle Charging and Discharging in a Workplace Power System with High Penetration of Photovoltaic Systems

Using Electric Vehicles (EV) as Flexible Resources (FR) to increase surplus Photovoltaic (PV) power utilisation is a well-researched topic. Our previous study showed that EVs are viable as supplementary FRs in large capacity PV power systems, where EVs are likely to gather (i.e., workplaces). However, that study assumed all EVs to have identical arrival and departure times (availability), and battery capacities. As these characteristics may vary between EVs and affect their performance as FRs, this study expands the modelling of EVs to consider a variety of availabilities and battery capacities. To effectively utilise a variety of EVs as FRs, an Optimisation Electric-load Dispatching model is used to formulate priority schemes for charging and discharging the EVs based on their potential to contribute to the power system. The priority schemes are evaluated by simulating the annual operation of the power system both with and without the priority schemes, and comparing results. The power system is simulated using a Unit-Scheduling and Time-series Electric-load Dispatching model. The priority schemes reduced annual CO2 emissions by nearly 1%, compared to the case without the priority schemes. The performances of different EVs as FRs when the priority schemes are used and not used are also analysed.

Labour power, materiality and protests in Ghana’s petroleum and gold mines

We examine the role of resource materiality in extractive labour protests in Ghana. Focusing on petroleum and gold mining, we centre contestations as part of the resources’ socio-natural constituents. Research data was obtained from social conflict databases, newspapers and field interviews. The analysis focused on themes and discourses on protest emergence, mobilisation, negotiation and impacts. Findings show how petroleum labour protesters use passivity and chokepoints to impede gas supply to households. Ghana petroleum workers attempt to garner structural power through workplace power, albeit unsuccessfully. Conversely, gold mineworkers protest by actively reappropriating machinery and extraction spaces. They centre protests in mining towns to emphasise their work as lifeblood. The ‘landedness’ of gold and the introduction of surface mining reshaped such protest tactics. Thus, materiality can help excavate the relational and comparative logic, tactics and potentialities of labour power in resource extracting countries. We suggest extractive labour to forge stronger cross-class coalitions to align workplace exploitation with broader issues of accumulation by dispossession.

Power Values and Power Distance Moderate the Relationship Between Workplace Supervisory Power and Job Satisfaction

Person–job (or needs–supplies) discrepancy/fit theories posit that job satisfaction depends on work supplying what employees want and thus expect associations between having supervisory power and job satisfaction to be more positive in individuals who value power and in societies that endorse power values and power distance (e.g., respecting/obeying superiors). Using multilevel modeling on 30,683 European Social Survey respondents from 31 countries revealed that overseeing supervisees was positively associated with job satisfaction, and as hypothesized, this association was stronger among individuals with stronger power values and in nations with greater levels of power values or power distance. The results suggest that workplace power can have a meaningful impact on job satisfaction, especially over time in individuals or societies that esteem power.

The Sexual Harassment of Federal Employees: Gender, Leadership Status, and Organizational Tolerance for Abuses of Power

Theory and research suggest that sexual harassment is often a dominance strategy used to undermine women’s power, but the precise relationships between government employees’ workplace power, organizational climate, and vulnerability to particular types of sexual harassment remain under-specified. This study analyzes data from the 2016 US Merit Systems Protection Board survey of the federal civilian workforce (the most comprehensive and up-to-date national data on workplace sexual harassment) to test predictions about how employees’ workplace power and their agency’s efforts to mitigate abuses of power affect their likelihood of experiencing sexual harassment. Findings reveal that women in leadership positions report more sexual harassment than non-leaders, and that team leaders (i.e., those without formal supervisory authority) and executives (i.e., those with the most authority) report more sexual harassment than women in middle management. At the organizational level, sexual harassment occurs in workplaces with higher levels of non-sexual aggression and among employees who perceive their agency as less proactive in preventing and responding to social inequity. Taken together, findings suggest that sexual harassment is a dominance strategy not unlike other forms of aggression used to undermine women in power, and that workplace climates that are effective at mitigating abuses of power reduce the likelihood of experiencing sexual harassment. These results have implications for how government agencies can implement policies that not only prevent harassment but also promote democracy and equity among an increasingly diverse federal workforce.

Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, and the Impact of Workplace Power

Research on workplace discrimination has tended to focus on a singular axis of inequality or a discrete type of closure, with much less attention to how positional and relational power within the employment context can bolster or mitigate vulnerability. In this article, the author draws on nearly 6,000 full-time workers from five waves of the General Social Survey (2002–2018) to analyze discrimination, sexual harassment, and the extent to which occupational status and vertical and horizontal workplace relations matter. Results demonstrate important and persistent race, gender, and age vulnerabilities, with positive vertical (i.e., supervisory) and horizontal (i.e., coworker) relations generally reducing the likelihood of discriminatory and sexually harassing encounters. Interaction modeling further reveals a heightened likelihood of both gender and age discrimination for those in higher status occupational positions but uniform vulnerabilities across the occupational hierarchy when it comes to women’s experiences of sexual harassment and minority encounters with racial discrimination.

Gendered Help at the Workplace: Implications for Organizational Power Relations

One of the most thoroughly studied aspects of prosocial workplace behavior is organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Yet, the definition of OCB seems to overlook the fact that help-giving acts may be of different types with different consequences for both giver and recipient. The present research explores workplace help-giving behavior by investigating the importance of gender as a factor that facilitates or inhibits specific types of help that empower and disempower independent coping: autonomy- and dependency-oriented help, respectively. A pilot and two following studies were conducted. The pilot study empirically assessed which acts would be clearly perceived by participants as representing both types of help. Then, using the descriptions of these acts, Study 1 examined which type of help would be perceived as most likely to be given by a male or female employee to a male or female colleague in a sample of 226 participants (78% women). Study 2 explored which type of help participants perceived as one they would rather receive from a male or female helper in a sample of 170 participants (65% women). Our findings indicate that male and female respondents who rated men giving help were more likely to expect them to give autonomy-oriented help, especially to women. There were no significant differences in dependency-oriented help. Further, women preferred to receive more autonomy-oriented help than men did, regardless of the help-giver’s gender; no significant results were found for men. Implications for OCB and workplace power relations are discussed.

Extending the Duluth Model to Workplace Bullying: A Modification and Adaptation of the Workplace Power-Control Wheel

Workplace bullying (WB) is an increasingly prevalent topic in the nursing literature. Recently, a new concept has been introduced into WB research to explain the motivations of WB instigators using elements of the Power-Control Wheel (PCW). Initially, this wheel was designed to assist intimate partner violence (IPV) targets/victims identify patterns of abuse and intervene with male batterers/instigators. Research examining IPV and victims/survivors of WB demonstrate that targets often share common abusive experiences, including intimidation, coercion and threats, isolation, and economic and emotional abuse. This article demonstrates clear support for the Duluth Model and its application to WB target experiences. Applications of this model to identify WB and assist individuals to identify and describe experiences of abusive work environments are discussed.