The multi-dimensional space of the futures of work

Purpose The authors present nine dimensions to provide structure for the many Futures of Work (FoW). This is done to advance a more sociotechnical and nuanced approach to the FoW, which is too-often articulated as singular and unidimensional. Futurists emphasize they do not predict the future, but rather, build a number of possible futures – in plural – often in the form of scenarios constructed based on key dimensions. Such scenarios help decision-makers consider alternative actions by providing structured frames for careful analyses. It is useful that the dimensions be dichotomous. Here, the authors focus specifically on the futures of knowledge work.Design/methodology/approach Building from a sustained review of the FoW literature, from a variety of disciplines, this study derives the nine dimensions.Findings The nine FoW dimensions are: Locus of Place, Locus of Decision-making, Structure of Work, Technologies’ Roles, Work–Life, Worker Expectations, Leadership Model, Firm’s Value Creation and Labor Market Structure. Use of the dimensions is illustrated by constructing sample scenarios.Originality/value While FoW is multi-dimensional, most FoW writing has focused on one or two dimensions, often highlighting positive or negative possibilities. Empirical papers, by their nature, are focused on just one dimension that is supported by data. However, future-oriented policy reports tend are more often multi-faceted analyses and serve here as the model for what we present.

Promoting engagement with social fact-checks online

Social corrections, wherein social media users correct one another, are an important mechanism for debunking online misinformation. But users who post misinformation only rarely engage with social corrections, instead typically choosing to ignore them. Here, we investigate how the social relationship between the corrector and corrected user affect the willingness to engage with corrective, debunking messages. We explore two key dimensions: (i) partisan agreement with, and (ii) social relationships between the user and the corrector. We conducted a randomized field experiment with Twitter users and a conceptual replication survey experiment with Amazon Mechanical Turk workers in which posts containing false news were corrected. We varied whether the corrector identified as a Democrat or Republican; and whether the corrector followed the user and liked three of their tweets the day before issuing the correction (creating a minimal social relationship). Surprisingly, we did not find evidence that shared partisanship increased a user’s probability of engaging with the correction. Conversely, forming a minimal social connection significantly increased engagement rate. A second survey experiment found that minimal social relationships foster a general norm of responding, such that people feel more obligated to respond – and think others expect them to respond more – to people who follow them, even outside the context of misinformation correction. These results emphasize social media’s ability to foster engagement with corrections via minimal social relationships, and have implications for effective, engaging fact-check delivery online.

Another Person’s Peril: Peanut Allergy, Risk Perceptions, and Responsible Sociality

This article examines perceptions of health risk when some individuals within a shared space are in heightened danger but anyone, including unaffected others, can be a vector of risk. Using the case of peanut allergy and drawing on qualitative content analysis of the public comments submitted in response to an unsuccessful 2010 U.S. Department of Transportation proposal to prohibit peanuts on airplanes, we analyze contention over the boundaries of responsibility for mitigating exposure to risk. We find three key dimensions of proximity to risk (material, social, and situational) characterizing ardent claims both for and against policy enactment. These proximity concerns underlay commenters’ sensemaking about fear, trust, rights, moral obligations, and liberty in the act of sharing space with others, while allowing them to stake positions on what we call “responsible sociality”—an ethic of discernible empathy for proximate others and of consideration for public benefit in social and communal settings. We conclude by discussing the insights our case affords several other areas of scholarship attentive to the intractable yet timely question of “for whom do we care?”

A Statistical Model for Analyzing Anthropometric Data and Developing Clothing Sizing Systems for Libyan School Children

A garment sizing system is essential for effective clothing design and production. A sizing system classifies a specific population into homogeneous subgroups based on some key dimensions. Persons of the same subgroup have the same body shape characteristics, and share the same garment size. Anthropometric data plays important role in creating clothing sizing system. The current work represents the sixth step towards the overall goal of developing the Libyan children’s clothing standards system based on physical measurements of the human body of Libyan schoolchildren. The objective of the current work is to study the physical measurements of students aged 6 to 17 years in the stages of primary, secondary. The body measurements of school children in Benghazi were collected and analyzed using simple statistics methods to understand the body ranges and current of student in all stages to develop the system sizing. The measurements were collected from previous projects. Some measurements were collected to complement a work of 90 (male and female) students between 6, 7 and 8 years old from a school in Benghazi. ANOVA test was used to determine differences between age groups.

DEVELOPING GASTRONOMIC RESOURCES: PRACTICES OF UNESCO CREATIVE CITIES OF GASTRONOMY

The category of Cities of Gastronomy has been an integral part of UNESCO Creative Cities Network due to the importance of gastronomic experiences. Against this backdrop, this research aimed to synthesize the gastronomic practices among these member cities and develop a framework based on the synthesis for cities with long-standing gastronomic identities to incorporate gastronomic resources into their long-term planning for gastronomy tourism development. This research adopted thematic analysis to analyze 17 monitoring reports that were submitted by Cities of Gastronomy. The findings identified four key dimensions (infrastructure, attraction, organization, and education) encapsulating 13 sub-dimensions of developing gastronomic resources among these member cities.

Navigating the New Normal: An S-O-R Perspective on Student Experiences of Environmental, Psychological, and Behavioral Changes During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Although higher education has weathered many past challenges, none can compare with the magnitude and velocity of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Although students continued their academic careers despite hardships, as yet little is known about how they experienced and adapted to various pandemic-induced changes to their academic and personal lives. We address this gap through a qualitative exploration of student experiences of navigating the new normal which they were abruptly thrust into near the end of the Spring 2020 semester. Using a guided introspection methodology and a Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) framework, we unearth a dynamic process of psychological and behavioral changes that students experienced in response to the environmental changes brought about by the pandemic. We theorize that environmental dissolution and displacement trigger psychological reorientation, causing students to undertake behavioral practices of restructuration and reconfiguration that, over time, result in a degree of psychological revaluation. Our overall framework represents a fluid conceptualization that is not only more descriptive of real-world student progress but also more parsimonious in its account of key dimensions of student experience during the pandemic. We conclude by noting the implications of our framework for marketing educators and administrators, especially given the growing popularity of remote working.

Beyond existential and neoliberal explanations of consumers’ embodied risk-taking: CrossFit as an articulation of reflexive modernization

This study analyzes CrossFit as a marketplace culture that articulates several key dimensions of reflexive modernization. Through this analysis, we illuminate a different set of theoretical relationships than have been addressed by previous accounts of physically challenging, risk-taking consumption practices. To provide analytic clarity, we first delineate the key differences between reflexive modernization and the two interpretive frameworks—the existential and neoliberal models—that have framed prior explanations of consumers’ proactive risk-taking. We then explicate the ways in which CrossFit’s marketplace culture shapes consumers’ normative understandings of risk and their corresponding identity goals. Rather than combatting modernist disenchantment (i.e., the existential model) or building human capital for entrepreneurial competitions (i.e., the neoliberal model), CrossFit enthusiasts understand risk-taking as a means to build their preparatory fitness for unknown contingencies and imminent threats. Our analysis bridges a theoretical chasm between studies analyzing consumers’ proactive risk-taking behavior and those addressing the feelings of anxiety and uncertainty induced by the threat of uncontrollable systemic risks.

11. The institutions of Economic and Monetary Union:

Since 1999, a subset of EU member states—known collectively as the euro area—has delegated exclusive competence for monetary policy to the European Central Bank (ECB), while giving limited powers to the European Commission, ECOFIN, and the Eurogroup in other areas of economic policy. The euro crisis provided the first major test of the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), as a sovereign debt crisis spread between member states and threatened to tear the single currency apart. The ECB and two new institutions—the European Stability Mechanism and Euro Summit—helped to keep the euro area together but at significant economic and political cost. EU institutions were better prepared for the initial economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the crisis still produced important institutional changes. The COVID-19 recovery fund Next Generation EU gives the Commission and Council a major new role in economic policy, albeit a temporary one for now. The EMU illustrates three key dimensions of EU institutional politics: the tension between intergovernmental versus supranational institutions, leaders versus followers, and legitimacy versus contestation. It also reveals the explanatory power of new institutionalism among other theoretical perspectives.

Labour in transition: A value-theoretical approach to renewable energy labour

This article analyses the conditions facing labour within the renewable energy (RE) accumulation strategies of electricity capital. We draw on value-theoretical perspectives developed within Marxist and feminist political economy to understand how labour is being reorganised within the transition to RE. We use value theory to identify key dimensions of RE labour across the exploitation of wage labour and the appropriation of labour-in-nature. We apply this lens to data from existing academic and policy studies on ‘employment’ and ‘environmental’ issues in RE value chains. We connect evidence on formal labour market issues such as employment numbers, job quality, and labour organising and state regulation, with research on the socio-ecological conditions of possibility for RE across materials, land and households. We argue that value theory reveals how distributive and sustainability outcomes of RE are a product of how labour is organised in the energy transition. We finish with considerations for union and social movement strategy regarding the scale and scope of green labour agendas within and beyond energy.

Placing equity at the heart of eHealth implementation: A qualitative pilot study

Background: There is a growing urgency to tackle issues of equity and justice in the implementation of eHealth technologies. Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with 19 multidisciplinary health professionals to explore the implementation and uptake of eHealth technologies in practice. Results were analysed using Nancy Fraser’s social justice framework to identify key dimensions and patterns of distribution, recognition, and participation in the implementation of digital health services.Results: Health professionals reported that eHealth offered their clients a greater sense of safety, convenience, and flexibility, allowing them to determine the nature and pace of their healthcare, and giving them more control over their treatment and recovery. However, they also expressed concerns about the use of eHealth with clients whose home environment is unsafe. Application of Fraser’s social justice framework revealed that eHealth technologies may not always provide a secure clinical space in which the voices of vulnerable clients can be recognised and heard. It also highlighted critical systemic and cultural barriers that hinder the representation of clients’ voices in the decision to use eHealth technologies and perpetuate inequalities in the distribution of eHealth servies.Conclusions: To facilitate broad participation, eHealth tools need to be adaptable to the needs and circumstances of diverse groups. Future implementation science efforts must also be directed at identifying and addressing the underlying structures that hinder equitable recognition, representation, and distribution in the implementation of eHealth resources.