Virtualization of the Brazilian Nursing Week in the COVID-19 pandemic: the novelty and the tangible

ABSTRACT Objective: to report the virtualization experience of the 81st Brazilian Nursing Week of a public university in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Methods: an experience report with descriptive approach on the planning and virtual operationalization of a traditional nursing event, which took place in May 2020. Results: the event had 543 entries and 39 activities were offered, 3 panels with the presence of international guests, 1 national conference, 3 thematic roundtable discussions, 9 roundtable discussions involving projects and extension leagues, 5 cultural activities and 17 activities in social networks (lives and videos). Final considerations: the virtualization of the 81st Brazilian Nursing Week brought the learning and appropriation of new ways of debating nursing in times of physical isolation, which will contribute to an immediate future in social and work relations as well as to the collaborative construction of knowledge.

Crowdsourcing historical photographs: autonomy and control at the Copenhagen City Archives

This study of crowdsourcing practices at Kbhbilleder.dk at the Copenhagen City Archives provides a rich description of how motivation and work relations are situated in a wider infrastructure of different tools and social settings. Approximately, 94% of the work is here done by 7 of the 2,433 participants. The article contributes insights into how these super-taggers carry out their work, describing and placing images on a map, through an extensive discursive effort that takes place outside the institution’s more limited interface in private discussion forums with over 60 000 participants. The more exploratory qualitative work that is going on in different discussion groups does not fit within the archive’s technical framework. Instead, alternative archives are growing within privately owned networks, where participants’ own collections merge with images from public archives. Rather than focusing on the nature of participants’ motivation, the article suggests a relational perspective on participation that is useful for analyzing a systems’ support for participation. Pointing out how people’s motivation in citizen science correspond with relational and intra-relational aspects enables an approach to system design that potentially supports or counteracts these aspects.

Beyond technological determinism: revitalising labour process analyses of technology, capital and labour

Technological determinism is a recurrent feature in debates concerning changes in economy and work and has resurfaced sharply in the discourse around the ‘fourth industrial revolution’. While a number of authors have, in recent years, critiqued the trend, this article is distinctive in arguing that foundational labour process analysis provides the most effective source of an alternative understanding of the relations between political economy, science, technology and work relations. The article refines and reframes this analysis, through an engagement with critical commentary and research, developing the idea of a political materialist approach that can reveal the various influences on, sources of contestation and levels of strategic choices that are open to economic actors. A distinction is made between ‘first order’ choices, often about adoption at aggregate level and ‘second order’ choices mainly concerned with complex issues of deployment. This framework is then applied to the analysis of case studies of the call centre labour process and digital labour platform, functioning as illustrative scenarios. It is argued that the nature of techno-economic systems in the ‘digital era’ open up greater opportunities for contestation.

Working on Digital Platforms

This study aims to discuss work on digital platforms. Therefore, it addresses labor relations in the information society; explains the “new” figures that emerged with parasubordination; and it explains what is conventionally called uberization, emphasizing the uncertainty and instability to which workers are exposed. For the development of this research, as a methodology, we opted for bibliographical research carried out on legislation, doctrines, articles and other academic research that could add knowledge to the subject under analysis, allowing us to conclude that the flexibility observed in work developed on digital platforms almost always implies in precariousness of work relations. There are no guarantees and no right guaranteed to the worker who starts to receive for what he produces, which creates insecurity and discouragement. However, it is believed that this is a trend that is here to stay. Maybe it’s a way to alleviate unemployment, but there is no doubt, in terms of rights, it implies serious setbacks.

Teleworking: the challenge of work in the post-pandemic world

Since 2019, humanity has been affected by one of the most serious pandemics in recent history, caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The number of cases and deaths scalation in Brazil and the significant socioeconomic challenges have led organizations around the globe to recommend isolation and social distance, to mitigate the pandemic impacts. In this context, organizations are looking for alternatives to the temporary interruption of business activities through teleworking. As it proves to be temporary, it begins to take on perpetuity contours, with companies announcing the sale of buildings and the extinction of their offices. The study identified whether initiatives presented elements of precariousness in the work relationship. To this end, the theoretical framework addressed the situation of work relations with the pandemic from the home office. The research method was based on a descriptive study with a qualitative approach and bibliographic design. The discussion showed that, after twelve months since the first confirmed case of Covid-19 in Brazil, it is necessary to regulate teleworking activities, with formalization by means of a contractual amendment, as well as checking if there is any expenditure of extraordinary resources by employees due to the new type of work. It was concluded that all world leaders should be engaged in combating precarious work and this extends to the context of the pandemic, to prevent the atypical modality from facilitating the loosening of labor relations

Management in Man’s Environment: How Universal and yet Under-Observed

Every university course is developed, taught and learned in the expectation that it will ultimately prove useful to the learner economically or in promoting personal understanding of, and adaptation to the natural and social environments of living and work relations. Management is no exception to this rule. However, because of the general ration that the course management is simple but scarily be sufficiently understood, let alone be made sufficiently relevant today –to – day life and work, the need exists for course lecturers in particular to be adequately equipped to negate these notions and to rather render the course understandable, enjoyable and useful. This paper provides some readily applicable working understandings of and applicative hints on the main branches of management. As an enrichment effort, the meaningful application of some selected information science, or information system – related tertiary level branches of management are also treated to pave the way for the more specially focused paper presentation.