Fake News Explosion in Portugal and Brazil the Pandemic and Journalists’ Testimonies on Disinformation

Orchestrated manipulations spread lies and can create an environment of uncertainty in society, leading to concerns from politicians, scholars, educators, and journalists, among others. In this paper we explore what the emergence of fake news (understood as false news) represents for journalists, trying to answer the following question: Does false news pose a threat to the credibility of good journalism, causing a disruption of the traditional work? To answer it, we interviewed a sample of journalists from various media organizations in Portugal and Brazil. Among the main findings, journalists are aware that fake news is a problem to be faced, as the blame for the dissemination of false news erroneously lies with the profession. They are conscious that something must be done and agree that the best way to fight against fake news is to invest in media literacy. Most of the journalists of our sample think they must be also more cautious to check sources for veracity and for political motivations. The results show that there is a resolve to reinforce the role of journalism in society.

Lightweight and Anonymous Mutual Authentication Protocol for Edge IoT Nodes with Physical Unclonable Function

Internet of Things (IoT) has been widely used in many fields, bringing great convenience to people’s traditional work and life. IoT generates tremendous amounts of data at the edge of network. However, the security of data transmission is facing severe challenges. In particular, edge IoT nodes cannot run complex encryption operations due to their limited computing and storage resources. Therefore, edge IoT nodes are more susceptible to various security attacks. To this end, a lightweight mutual authentication and key agreement protocol is proposed to achieve the security of IoT nodes’ communication. The protocol uses the reverse fuzzy extractor to acclimatize to the noisy environment and introduces the supplementary subprotocol to enhance resistance to the desynchronization attack. It uses only lightweight cryptographic operations, such as hash function, XORs, and PUF. It only stores one pseudo-identity. The protocol is proven to be secure by rigid security analysis based on improved BAN logic. Performance analysis shows the proposed protocol has more comprehensive functions and incurs lower computation and communication cost when compared with similar protocols.

Exploring Blue- and White-Collar Employees' Well-Being at Work System

The aim of this study was to examine occupational group-related differences in well-being at work (WBW) indicators ranging from real accidents, absences and retirement to experienced pleasure at work. Occupational group included two categories: blue- and white-collar employees. The study is based on analysing national statistics or ones of various industrial sectors (Study 1), or bases on findings of questionnaires in Finnish case companies (N=7) (Studies 2 and 3). WBW questionnaires answered by 3500 employees. Analysis utilised data that employees of two occupational groups, or company and national statistics revealed about WBW. Analysis was based on factors related to employee, task, tool, organisation and work environment (traditional work system (WS)), psychosocial factors, and information and communication within WS. The biggest and statistically significant differences were emphasised in results and discussion. Although two groups' roles and tasks provide reasons for many differences, the ones should be measured, thoroughly discussed and consciously managed.

Positive Financial benefits on the Iraqi Economy in Light of COVID-19 - with Reference to the Education Sector

In view of what has also been achieved by the telecommunications sector, electronic industries, the pharmaceutical industry, sterilizers, health and medical supplies, health care, e-commerce companies (telemarketing) and other rapid development and progress during the period of covid 19, as well as the savings achieved by countries as a result of dealing with members of their community through networks The Internet, which saves the costs of performing the services that countries bear, as well as the case for members of society in the conduct of their business and administrative transactions via the Internet, and the costs and expenses that individuals bear as a result of their daily traditional work, transportation costs to their places of work, and other expenses. Emphasis was placed on the most important positives that can be achieved in the short and long term as a result of this shift in the way of life, work and other things, taking into account Iraq to ensure the positives that can be achieved as a result of the anomaly that it was exposed to, and we will focus on specific economic sectors in our study, the education sector and the telecommunications sector. Finally, it is not possible to overlook the great negative effects that the world has been exposed to as a result of COVID-19 and what the world has done in confronting it, but we will look at this from its other side that may be positive and try to use it to face these crises.

Contemporary Conflicts in Perspectives on Work Hours across Hierarchical Levels in Public Accounting

Socializing personnel into accepting work hour norms has been fundamental to how accounting firms function, but is now challenged by contemporary work perspectives. Using 40 semi-structured interviews of personnel across hierarchical levels at a national firm and an international firm, we show how strangeness and contradiction expressed in work hour perspectives across different levels within both firms are reconstructed as compatible and complementary. Highlighting various firm adaptations, including alternative work arrangements, offshoring, and technological tools, our interviews suggest a major shift in firms’ approach toward work hours. This shift is fueled by work perspectives embraced by younger generations desiring work life balance and purposeful work, and enabled by technology supporting remote work and increasing work efficiencies. The question remains whether firms are evolving to genuinely embody work perspectives of younger generations or restructuring to rely on a smaller workforce willing to accept traditional work hour norms, or some combination thereof.

Going Agile, a Post-Pandemic Universal Work Paradigm - A Theoretical Narrative Review

Due to digital transformation, technology advancements, telework, we can no longer pretend that traditional work offers high incentives and efficiency, but on the contrary, traditional work falls behind each year, deeming organizations and individuals to adopt the agile work. Rapid technological developments have altered the way businesses operate, with the goal of producing viable solutions in an environment fraught with unpredictability. This paper is a theoretical narrative review on the general topic of agile work. The present paper addresses the issue of determining the best international practices for implementing agile methodology at work, carrying out a theoretical narrative review. Basing on literature on present-day theory the authors make an attempt to explain the implications of implementing agile methodologies into organizational culture, summarize existing approaches to classifying the main effects on implementing agile methodologies at work, consolidate and document best international practices for agile methodologies development among employers. After defining the concepts of agile method tailoring and agile maturity, the data obtained in the theoretical narrative analysis reveal that the implementing agile methodologies have a direct impact on management style, on teams, on learning environments, and on employee’s mental health. An overall conclusions and discussions section is presented along with the personal opinion of authors. This work is intended to open a post-pandemic agile work research methodology, since there are no systematic approaches to this topic.

Ukrainian regulatory policy’s target priorities to ensure decent working conditions in a platform economy

The article explores and reveals the key trends in the system of social and labor relations related to the impact of digitalization and the platform economy. These include individualization, increased competitiveness, lack of personal connections and traditional work teams, one-time, short-term and informal relationships. These trends generate a number of challenges and threats to traditional mechanisms for implementing public policy in the social and labor sphere, which are based – at the core – on the fundamental inconsistency of the institutional framework for the functioning of traditional regulatory mechanisms in the field of labor and employment (which are focused on long-term formal employment and stable labor collectives) and the system of social and labor relations, which is formed by the platform economy (which is characterized by informality, short duration and individualization of social and labor relations that arise). That is, the platform economy does not create those subjects on which the traditional system of implementation of state policy in the social and labor sphere is based. The article reveals the essence of the main problems for the traditional regulatory mechanisms of state policy for the development of social and labor spheres that have emerged in the context of the spread of the platform economy. The main emphasis is on transformational changes in the system of social and labor relations; on the problems and opportunities for the formation of mechanisms for representing the collective interests of platform workers and employers; on the regulatory and legal uncertainty of the status and unregulated activities of labor platforms; on the "erosion" of jurisdiction on transnational labor platforms, etc. The main target priorities for ensuring balanced social and labor development in the conditions of platform economy spreading are substantiated. They are: updating the existing system of contractual and state regulation of the social and labor sphere; implementation of modern systems and mechanisms for representing the collective interests of platform workers and employers; implementation of the National Platform for Social Dialogue and Socially Responsible Partnership; ensuring a comprehensive regulatory framework for platforms, development and implementation of policies of state and contractual regulation for the harmonization of socio-economic, labor, digital, neo-industrial and sustainable development in modern conditions.

Bureaucratic routines and error management in algorithmic systems

This article discusses how an analogy between algorithms and bureaucratic decision-making could help conceptualize error management in algorithmic systems. It argues that a view of algorithms as irreflexive bureaucratic processes is insufficient as an account of errors in complex public sector contexts, where algorithms operate jointly with other organizational work practices. To conceptualize such contexts, the article proposes that algorithms could be viewed as analogous to more traditional work routines in bureaucratic organizations. Doing so helps clarify that algorithmic irreflexivity becomes problematic when the coordination of routine work around automation fails. Thus, also the challenges of error management come to concern the wider context of organized work. This argument is illustrated using known examples from the critical literature on algorithms. Finally, drawing on recent studies in routine dynamics, the article formulates empirical research directions on error management in algorithmic systems.

Home Office and Its Influence on Employee Motivation

There are several variants and various modifications of forms of work outside the office. Some companies use, enable or even prefer working from home in the form of a home office. In practice, we often encounter different views on this form of work, both in terms of positive benefits and negatives and risks. In practice, there is probably no uniform view of this issue, both on the part of employers and management and employees. Working from home in the form of a home office shows certain specifics and places specific and different demands on both employees and employers compared to "traditional" work in the office or in another place designated by the employer to perform work. The problem may be not only the decision itself whether to allow and whether to use work from home for employees, but also the decision on which job positions and with what job description are suitable for the mentioned form of work performance. The place of work most likely has a significant effect on the motivation of employees and management. The question is whether and under what conditions positive motivation prevails, or negative motivation, i.e. demotivation. In the presented work, we focus on the advantages and disadvantages, i.e. the risks of the mentioned type of work, especially in the area of employee motivation. In this paper we summarize the development and current theoretical information on this issue and then compare it with current practice. In the following practical part, we will examine the perception of differences in employees, between working in the office and home office, focusing on the mentioned area of motivation. Keywords: Demotivation, Home Office, Leadership, Management, Motivation.

Influence of Working From Home During the COVID-19 Crisis and HR Practitioner Response

The pandemic has changed the way people work, and more and more people are choosing to work from home (WFH). Unlike traditional work patterns, this approach has limitations and has had a significant impact on both organizations and individuals. It also brings many challenges to the work of HR practitioners. HR practitioners, as key players in strategic human resource management, need to take advantage of management innovations under the crisis to improve employees’ work flexibility and effectively address the impact of working from home. This study aims to address the need for employee skill improvement, psychological stress relief, work-family balance, and company culture reinforcement from an HRM perspective because of the impact of WFH work patterns during the COVID-19 crisis.