Hyvinvointi taustamusiikin kokemuksissa

Well-being in background music experiences: views of service sector employees on working with music Salespeople, waiters, security guards, and hotel workers hear an average of eight hours of music during their workday. In most cases, they do not get to choose the music themselves. According to companies providing and purchasing background music services for service sector workplaces and commercial spaces, the rationale behind its use is to increase sales. However, music is also a spatial element to ”work with”. In this article, we ask what it is like to work with music in service jobs and how employees see the contribution of music to well-being at work. Our material is a ”Background music in the workplace” questionnaire (747 answers) and a form interview material of employees of the Koskikeskus shopping center in Tampere, Finland (66 answers). Respondents report, among other things, whether they feel the music in the workspace is for a particular group of people; who chooses the music; and whether discussions and negotiations concerning music use take place, with other employees or with customers. We analyze the material, emphasizing the respondents’ statements about well-being as expressions of coping, well-being, strain, and satisfaction. We discuss the results with a qualitative study of the topic that emphasizes music as a social and spatial element in the sales situation (Payne et al 2017, Kontukoski & Uimonen 2019). Our data shows that well-being at work and perceived musical agency interact. Occupational well-being plays an important role in looking specifically at work-related well-being and background music. The workspace changes the meanings of music to those of professionality, rendering the employees’ personal relationships to music secondary.

State of Crop Landraces in Arcadia (Greece) and In-Situ Conservation Potential

Genetic erosion of landraces is increasing worldwide, however there are still regions rich in landrace biodiversity, such as islands and mountainous isolated areas. Defining the reasons of landrace abandonment in these areas, as well as collecting and preserving landraces, is of outmost importance. In this context, the Agricultural University of Athens organized missions in 53 villages of Arcadia, a prefecture rich in floral biodiversity and variable climatic conditions and topography. The aim was to collect samples of the on-farm (in-situ) conserved annual crop landraces and record the location of perennial crop local varieties. Since traditional knowledge and practices have been playing a vital role in the survival of landraces and local varieties, information was obtained through personal interviews with locals using semi-structured questionnaires. Even though the number of accessions collected from Arcadia has been reduced (141 samples) compared to previous collections and genetic erosion is advancing dramatically for cereals and pulses, a significant number of landraces is still cultivated by the locals. The reasons of landrace abandonment were other sources of occupation than agriculture, such as public service jobs, mechanization, and commercialization of agriculture. Gastronomic and agro-tourism along with European Union trademarks and policies can support locals in landrace/local varieties in-situ conservation.

Gender and Legitimacy in Personal Service Occupations: The Case of End-of-Life Doulas and Death Midwives

The emerging occupations of end-of-life doula and death midwife are part of a growing sector of personal service jobs. Designed to support, educate, and empower dying people and their loved ones, these new roles entail both the commodification of women’s unpaid labor and a repositioning of the paid work typically done by marginalized women. This study examines the identity talk of 19 occupational pioneers and focuses on the relationship between gender, class, race, and efforts to secure occupational legitimacy. Findings suggest that, in an effort to mitigate tensions stemming from the professionalization of feminized work, these pioneers strategically embrace a feminine occupational identity in ways that code their labor as White and middle class.

The Motherhood Penalty in Context: Assessing Discrimination in a Polarized Labor Market

Prior research provides important insights into employer discrimination against mothers but has focused exclusively on college-educated mothers in professional and managerial occupations. As a result, we lack evidence about whether less-educated mothers navigating the low-wage labor market experience similar disadvantages and whether the mechanisms underlying discrimination vary across contexts. These gaps are important because more- and less-educated mothers increasingly possess distinct resources and face unique demands both at home and at work, which may impact employer perceptions of conflicts between motherhood and job performance. This study reports results from an original field experiment in which 2,210 fictitious applications were submitted to low-wage service and professional/managerial job openings across six U.S. cities, experimentally manipulating signals of motherhood status. Findings provide causal evidence that employers in both contexts discriminate against mothers relative to equally qualified childless women. However, within labor market segments, distinct job demands listed in job advertisements are associated with stronger discrimination: time pressure, collaboration, and travel in professional/managerial jobs and schedule instability in low-wage service jobs. These findings have important implications for our understanding of the mechanisms underlying mothers' disadvantages in an increasingly polarized labor market.

Architecture for A Post-Work World

47% to 80% of today’s jobs can be automated in the next twenty years. Most people continue to work in low skill, low wage, manual and service jobs. Only a small number are engaged in high-skilled, high wage, non-routine, cognitive jobs. What will happen to the surplus population- the workers who are most at risk of being replaced by automation? If left at the current trajectory, the private sector, via technological means, will take over traditional public services including: health, environment, and sovereignty. A dystopic condition will emerge in which governments are dissolved and the working class is exterminated. This thesis attempts, via the use of critical architecture, to challenge the hegemonic order of capitalism and align the future toward a post-work condition. The devised semiotic code is an innovative signifier for a new truth - a new language of rebellion against the established hierarchies of contemporary architecture.

Architecture for A Post-Work World

47% to 80% of today’s jobs can be automated in the next twenty years. Most people continue to work in low skill, low wage, manual and service jobs. Only a small number are engaged in high-skilled, high wage, non-routine, cognitive jobs. What will happen to the surplus population- the workers who are most at risk of being replaced by automation? If left at the current trajectory, the private sector, via technological means, will take over traditional public services including: health, environment, and sovereignty. A dystopic condition will emerge in which governments are dissolved and the working class is exterminated. This thesis attempts, via the use of critical architecture, to challenge the hegemonic order of capitalism and align the future toward a post-work condition. The devised semiotic code is an innovative signifier for a new truth - a new language of rebellion against the established hierarchies of contemporary architecture.

Motivation and decision in choosing civil services as a career of fourth-year students at Chiang Mai University due to the COVID-19 pandemic

Background: The COVID-19 epidemic is affecting the work of people around the world including students who have to graduate and to decide in choosing a civil servant career. The aim of the study: to explore the motivating factors influencing the decision for the 4th year students of Chiang Mai University to enter the civil service during the COVID era. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted among fourth-year students at Chiang Mai University. The sample in this study consisted of 362 people. Multiple regression analysis was used to find a linear equation that expressed the relationship between motivating factors and decision-making. Results: The findings of this research showed that choosing civil services as a career of fourth-year students at Chiang Mai University during the COVID-19 outbreak was high with an average of 3.60. According to hypothesis testing, the factors affecting levels of favorable decision in choosing a civil service career were statistically significant at the 0.05 level in descending order as follows: security, compensation and benefits, values, career path and job characteristics. The influence of personal factors on choosing civil service jobs were not significantly different at the 0.05 level, except the family income factor that influences choosing civil service jobs. Conclusions: It was found that personal factors which consisted of gender, domicile, grade point average and average family income per month affecting different government career choices and factors in motivation in deciding to choose a government career containing job characteristics, compensation factor and welfare factors career advancement factors, security factor and value factors had a negative effect on the level of decision-making on the choice of civil service careers.

Robotics and AI in Food Security and Innovation: Why They Matter and How to Harness Their Power

From strawberry-picking robots to satellite remote sensing and GIS techniques that forecast crop yields, the integration of robotics and AI in agriculture will play a key role in sustainably meeting the growing food demand of the future. But it also carries the risk of alienating a certain population, such as smallholder farmers and rural households, as digital technologies tend to be biased toward those with higher-level skills. To ensure that digital technologies are inclusive and become a driver for development, countries should make technology affordable and invest in institutions and human capital, so that everyone can participate in the new digital economy. Digital agriculture also represents an opportunity for young people as agriculture value chains can be developed to create new service jobs in rural areas, making agriculture an attractive sector for youth.

Producing Difference

This chapter shows how management structures a socially divided workplace from the back office. Chefs and dining room supervisors at Match, Terroir, and The Neighborhood channel workers into distinct types of service jobs based on socially coded ideals, and subject each group of workers to divergent supervisory practices. I argue that management’s strategic decisions regarding hiring, service protocols, and workplace policies adhere to an overarching logic of upscale service packaged with powerful race, class, and gender assumptions, as well as strategically differentiated service brands that nuance how each workplace is organized. Wilson shows how service brands shape the kinds of social relations and labor prospects that workers encounter.