Merits

Education and training are primary sources of individual human capital. We explored the relationship between education and off-the-job vocational training and the impact of training programmes on youth employment in Italy. We focused on three outcomes: employment probability, use of formal/informal job search channels, and skill matching. We identified programme effects by comparing the outcomes of treatment and control groups using propensity score matching with a robustness check to assess the potential bias due to unobservable characteristics. Individuals with vocational high school degrees are more likely to participate in vocational training programmes, but in southern regions, individuals with technical or generalist high school degrees also attend vocational training programmes. Vocational training programmes have positive effects on youth employment outcomes, reduce the use of informal job search channels, and improve skill matching, especially in the centre-northern regions. Full article

A part of diversity management is working to achieve gender equality and create a comfortable working environment for women. However, in many organizations, gender biases and stereotypes frequently occur, consciously or unconsciously, regardless of whether women take on leadership roles. In addition, women must overcome a variety of challenges when taking on leadership roles or aspiring to become leaders. Based on the above background, we review and integrate the literature on management and career studies related to the challenges that women face in the process of advancing to leadership positions in organizations. Specifically, we examine the external and internal factors that create the various obstacles that women who aspire to leadership positions in structured organizations face from a gender perspective. Based on the integrative review, we discuss the implications for practices to increase the number of female leaders. Full article

In Aotearoa New Zealand, teachers have signaled that they would like to further their development as classroom practitioners, as a way of improving their capabilities as professionals. They want to foster strengths-based authentic partnerships between themselves and their diasporic migrant communities. This article attends to Pacific education, the education in Aotearoa New Zealand of students with migratory links to one or more Pacific Island Nations through a strength-based lens. We report on a Professional Learning Development (PLD) research endeavor, Learning From Each Other, that focused on supporting partnerships between Pacific communities and teachers. We provide a window on the sense making of teachers as they listen to, and are challenged by, diasporic Pacific community voice. Particular emphasis is placed on how teachers explore and transform their approach to partnership by negotiating with habitual practice. The examples given, selected for their apparent ordinariness, relate to new understandings of space and time. The study provides lessons applicable to other situations where access to quality education is problematic for diasporic, migrant communities and where teachers need support for the re-thinking that is required for enhanced partnership arrangements of benefit to all. Full article

Workplace learning (WPL) is a complex phenomenon involving the intertwined processes of working and learning. Recent studies have shown the importance of sustainable perspectives in WPL situations. In the literature, sustainable development is still predominantly referred to environmental, economic and social sustainability. In this study, sustainable perspectives denote the widespread use of previous knowledge, the rapid application of new knowledge and the effects of this knowledge on well-being, thus leaning on human sustainability. The purpose of this study is to examine conceptions of WPL among Finnish police supervisors and to reveal whether sustainable learning perspectives manifest. Eight thematic interviews were analysed using phenomenographic and theory-driven content analyses. The analysis produced six main categories of WPL, and sustainable learning perspectives manifested in all categories. This study confirms previous findings regarding WPL and presents similarities in sustainable learning perspectives to those found in previous research. Learning outcomes can be improved by understanding WPL conceptions and sustainable learning perspectives; thus, the findings of this study can help organisations, supervisors and human resources better plan and implement sustainable WPL possibilities for employees and their careers. Full article

We extend prior research by empirically demonstrating employees’ attitude–behavior gap when sharing goods and services with coworkers using platform technology. We also integrate theories on psychological ownership and territoriality in organizations with the theory of planned behavior and the technology acceptance model to develop an individual-level framework for understanding employees’ adoption of organization-sponsored sharing platforms, or lack thereof. Specifically, our abductive analysis of interview data from a field study illustrates how psychological ownership attitudes, sustainable consumption norms, and technology usability perceptions influence employees’ sharing motivations and intentions. Our findings and framework provide organizations with a roadmap for increasing employee engagement and corporate social responsibility through coworker collaborative consumption. Managers should promote sustainable consumption in their organization and strengthen related employee norms to facilitate the sharing of goods and services among coworkers, which helps build community at work. Managers should also ensure that the chosen organizational-sponsored sharing platforms are easy to use so that employees perceive this technology as useful and feel confident using it. The implementation of these strategies should enable organizations to successfully extend the sharing economy to the workplace. Future research could also leverage our contextualized construct definitions to develop survey measures for quantitatively testing and refining our framework. Full article

Workplace gossip, a ubiquitous organizational behavior broadly defined as talking about an absent target in an evaluative way, has received increasing scientific attention over the past few years. The complexity and dynamism of the workplace gossip phenomenon create challenging research conditions such that studies focusing on the allegedly same type of workplace gossip can produce differential findings. To address this problem and better align theory and methodology, our manuscript first proposes a framework of workplace gossip that accounts for the interdependencies of the context-embeddedness and dynamism of workplace gossip. Guided by this framework, we systematically evaluate extant workplace gossip research, spanning a total of N = 104 empirical research articles. Highlighting current methodological challenges that indicate a neglect of the dynamic nuances and contexts of workplace gossip, we argue that previous organizational research painted an overly simplistic picture of workplace gossip. By looking beyond traditional organizational research designs, we derive recommendations to advance research on workplace gossip and, ultimately, to establish it as a complex and dynamic social interaction behavior. Full article

The surveying profession in the UK construction industry continues to be blighted by a skills shortage, and this continues to constrict growth. Therefore, it is suggested that this should make it easier for women and other underrepresented groups to be employed in the construction industry. While this is the case, barriers to entry have been well researched. This study aimed to identify what methods have been previously successful at increasing female engagement within the surveying profession in the UK. This study followed a mixed-method, complementary approach, combining quantitative and qualitative questions in an online questionnaire, which was distributed via social media (LinkedIn) and the researchers’ contacts, and achieved 44 responses over a period of six weeks. The target population was female UK residents employed in surveying roles. Quantitative data on both awareness and opinion of the methods used during previous initiatives to engage women with surveying underwent reliability analysis, descriptive statistical analysis, and a Spearman’s rank order correlation to assess the relationship between time in industry and opinion on the efficacy of the methods used in each initiative; however, no statistically significant relationship was found. To better understand the opinions of women already in the industry, the qualitative data underwent thematic analysis via inductive coding, the results of which then underwent descriptive statistical analysis. The study found a broad lack of awareness of previous initiatives, with most respondents having little or no awareness of the five initiatives examined. However, evidence suggested there was general support for the methods used in those initiatives, such as intervention at school age, increasing the visibility of women in surveying roles, and changes to workplace culture. There was no statistically significant link between time in industry and opinion on the efficacy of each initiative. Key themes included concerns regarding the implementation of current initiatives, and enthusiasm for intervention at school age as the best method to engage more women with the surveying profession. The findings have implications for both practice and future research. First, professional institutions, such as the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, should be aware of the limitations of the initiatives they put in place to encourage women into their profession. Second, the results have an impact on other professions. However, a cross-comparative study that examines initiatives by other professional institutions would be useful. Full article

The article explores the extent to which working conditions and health factors shape Millennials’ preferences to retire early in the European context. On the one hand, Millennials’ approach to life and work potentially implies a preference to retire early. Yet, on the other hand, the ongoing trend of tightening conditions and penalizing early retirement, as well as the expected decrease in living standards in old age for Millennial cohorts, restricts options and discourages early retirement. The results indicate that Millennials across Europe do not explicitly express a wish to retire early. This holds true most prominently for Millennials who are healthy and satisfied with their job. The analysis employs a classification decision tree model as the main method. Full article

The literature on careers is rapidly evolving, presenting relevant academic developments. Considering the volatility of the environment and the workforce and the search for sustainability, a new research avenue concerning sustainable careers is emerging. Sustainable careers are regarded as a complex mental schema represented by experiences and continuity patterns grounded on individual subjective evaluations, such as happiness, health and productivity. According to conceptual models, these are fundamental individual indicators that allow the attainment of a sustainable career. By following this theoretical proposal, the work tests the conceptual model using proxies for its indicators (job satisfaction, well-being and organizational citizenship behavior). We validate the use of these proxies by performing association, variance, and cluster analysis on data coming from a survey conducted on employees of a European energy company. The results corroborate our hypotheses and support the choice of the selected proxies as adequate operationalization of the indicators. This study contributes to theory and practice alike by validating measures to represent each indicator and their association with sustainable careers. The study contributes to the development of research on sustainable careers by providing a set of measures that can be used to profit from an existing theoretical model and operationalize it in future studies exploring its contribution to several other variables. There are managerial implications that arise from our results and may help human resources managers contribute to the sustainable careers of their employees. We acknowledge the study’s limitations at the end of the paper and offer future directions for research. Full article

Globally, adolescents and young adults are calling for action from governments on global humanitarian crises, taking on leadership roles that have contributed to redefining leadership in terms of behavior and action rather than qualities and status. However, there is a significant gap with regard to the conceptual and theoretical understanding of how adolescents and young adults experience leadership. In this paper, we present the results of two qualitative studies that examined the phenomenon of leadership among adolescents and young adults. Study 1 involved interviews with young adult leaders to analyze the fit between traditional leadership theories and their experience of leadership. Following this, Study 2 utilized the results from Study 1 to design a diary study of adolescents attending a leadership program. Both studies revealed that leadership is experienced as a pathway that involves three mechanisms of transferability: sensemaking, action and reflection. The findings of the studies are contrasted with traditional models of leadership that underrepresent the developmental nature of leadership and the transferability of leadership skills across different environments. Full article

This study aims to examine the effects of various maternity leave support on the quiet quitting behaviors and mental health conditions of working mothers across industries during the post-pandemic period. Through an empirical survey method of 310 valid responses from a panel data, the study results indicated that working mothers who took maternity leave were less likely to adopt quiet quitting behaviors when they returned to work after childbirth and showed better mental health at work compared to their peers who did not take maternity leave because of childbirth and/or childcare. Additionally, paid maternity leave was not found to have a significant effect on quiet quitting behaviors and mental health of working mothers across industries, but the duration of maternity leave was found as a significant factor in impacting working mothers’ quiet quitting behaviors and their mental health conditions. Moreover, peer workers’ quiet quitting behaviors and supervisors’ support for childcare (e.g., flexible work schedule) were found significantly to improve working mothers’ quiet quitting tendencies at work. Lastly, there exist significant differences in age and race in the working mothers’ quiet quitting behaviors at work. Full article

The COVID-19 pandemic upended countless lives all over the world. Considerable research has shown that women’s career progression has been more negatively impacted by the pandemic than men’s, especially in the wake of school closures and increased childcare responsibilities. In order to understand more deeply the impact of the pandemic on women’s careers, a large mixed-method survey was conducted in Utah, a western state in the United States. This article reports on the responses of 2564 respondents to one of three open-ended questions taken from the overall survey, namely: “How has the pandemic impacted your career advancement experiences and opportunities over the short term and longer term?” The article frames the findings of this question by outlining workplace conditions and structures that contributed to women not advancing prior to the pandemic and applies the lenses of identity theory and systems psychodynamic theory to illustrate tendencies for workers and organizations to maintain the gendered dynamics that impede women’s career advancement. Findings included 59.1 percent of respondents who described a negative effect on their career advancement caused by the pandemic. Overarching themes and sub-themes were identified from these negative effects. Overarching themes included: (1) “Everything is on hold”; (2) “Lost or relinquished opportunity”; (3) “Reevaluation of Career”; and (4) “Experiences by Characteristics.” The latter theme highlighted unique experiences women faced versus men and manifested the gendered dynamics identified by identity and psychodynamic theories. Findings highlighted the importance of making workplace changes such as more flexible work and/or hybrid work arrangements, improved leave policies, the provision of childcare and other support services, and government policies that eliminate gendered barriers to women’s career advancement. Full article

Purpose: With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, employees suddenly had to work remotely and realize all work-related social interaction in virtual formats. The sudden shift to the virtual format came with new workplace stressors. To understand the stressors of remote work and videoconferences, we present two qualitative studies. The aim of this study is to better understand the stress associated with remote work and videoconferencing, with an emphasis on how workers cope with the added stress. Methodology: We applied thematic analysis to open-ended survey data from employees in the US (n = 349) and in-depth telephone interviews of 50 meeting leaders from the US and Germany. Findings: We identified the work–home interface, technology, and communication issues as key challenges of remote work. Further, we found camera usage, early meeting phases, and multitasking to be central stressors of videoconferences. Finally, we identified individual- and team-level coping strategies to reduce the impacts of virtual meeting stressors on employees. Originality: Our research contributes to the emerging field studying the effects of virtual work and videoconferences on employees. We provide an overview of the challenges of remote work at the early stages of the pandemic, and we present an overview of the stressors that emerge in virtual meeting environments. We discuss insights into why videoconferences may fatigue employees. Including German and US samples, our research allows a cross-cultural comparison of videoconferencing stressors. Finally, we present actionable practical recommendations to improve videoconferences. Full article

Extrinsic structural inequities, such as historical biases against women in certain professions, their delegation to lower-paying jobs, gender, racial, and other discrimination, and additional systemic factors have been extensively studied as barriers to women entering and advancing in leadership positions in the workplace. Yet, the intrinsic individual characteristics of successful women leaders, including self-awareness, self-respect, self-esteem, self-confidence, self-acceptance, and resilience, that have facilitated their success in obtaining and retaining leadership positions despite these barriers have received far less attention in the literature. Resilience, in particular, is an important intrinsic characteristic that facilitates women’s ability to navigate the often-difficult terrain of organizations, including facing disrespect by supervisors and colleagues. This study investigated the critical factors that contributed to the development of resilience among 24 successful women leaders in the United States which allowed them to be effective when experiencing disrespect in the workplace. Participants identified four categories of disrespect commonly experienced in the workplace, including: (1) not being listened to; (2) not being respected; (3) not being acknowledged; and (4) condescension. Factors that helped them develop the resilience to succeed despite these experiences included early developmental influences, circumstances they successfully overcame in life, and experiences in their youth that shaped how they responded as adults to disrespect or a lack of respect from their supervisors and colleagues. Participants also highlighted the importance of respect, the flip side of disrespect, in motivating them and enhancing their engagement in their work. The reported study is significant in that it identified factors that can be inculcated in women to help them develop resilience, and it highlighted the critical importance of creating a post-pandemic workplace that fosters mutual respect and does not tolerate disrespect. Full article

The notion of the “older worker” is frequently used in the organizational literature, in organizational practice, and in society, but so far, no research has investigated why people consider someone to be an older worker at a certain age. In the qualitative part of this study, we examined potential reasons for considering workers to be “older” at a certain age. In the quantitative part of this study, we investigated demographic characteristics (i.e., age, sex, education), job characteristics (i.e., job level, typical age in a job), and beliefs (i.e., perceived remaining time at work, motivation to continue working after retirement, positive and negative age stereotypes) as predictors of people’s conceptions of “older worker age”.” Data were provided by 269 employees from various jobs and organizations. The mean age at which participants considered someone to be an “older worker” was approximately 55 years. The most frequently stated reasons for considering workers to be “older” at a certain age were retirement age and age-related decline. Results of a regression analysis showed that participants’ age, sex, and perceived remaining time predicted “older worker age”. These findings provide first insights into the psychological construction of the “older worker”. Full article

Working women forced to quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown often faced additional unpaid care responsibilities, requiring a “second or even a third shift”, such as educating their children in addition to caring for them while working. The purpose of this study was to gain a deeper understanding of the experiences of a sample of working women with care responsibilities in order to derive recommendations for post-COVID working structures and arrangements. The study explored the unique experiences of four women from the United States, Latin America, and Africa, across a range of personal and organizational contexts. The study employed Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) to understand and interpret the lived experiences and meaning-making of these women during the pandemic lockdown. The IPA was supplemented by the visual data gathering techniques of “a special object” and “the River of Experience” to give voice to participants’ more metaphoric thinking. The study concluded that participants’ experiences reflected the superordinate themes of: (1) a deep sense of loss of “the normal”; (2) psychological reboot and seeing the world with new eyes; (3) emerging women’s community and connection; and (4) redefining the world of work for women. Each superordinate theme was supported by several subthemes. Recognizing that the 9-to-5 work world has been remodeled to a certain extent, the participants recommended more flexible work arrangements and more support for human needs by employers and society as essential elements of the postpandemic workplace. Full article

Encouraged by the perceived success of new public management (NPM) in other nations globally, the Abu Dhabi government adopted this system of management after 2010. To date, limited research has investigated the advantages and disadvantages of NPM for both the organization and the employee. Thus, the purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which NPM influences employee behaviors, particularly focusing on any possible negative effects of NPM on employee work–life balance. An exploratory, inductive, qualitative research method was adopted, which involved a total of 42 semi-structured interviews, conducted in two rounds with 21 public sector managers in Abu Dhabi. It was found that the strategic objective of maximizing customer satisfaction increased the workload of most managers, and one-third of our research participants perceive that their work–life balance has deteriorated since NPM was adopted. However, removing levels from organizational hierarchies and increasing individual responsibilities were generally reported as motivating. Although studies undertaken in other countries have suggested a link between NPM and worsening employee work–life balance, this link does not always hold true among our participants. Indeed, most individuals reported high levels of loyalty toward their organization and high levels of organizational citizenship behaviors. The reasons for these positive outcomes are explained. Full article

Over the past 30 years, the workplace has witnessed significant changes. The fast growth in the use of information and communication technologies and changes in working hours and agreements radically changed the nature of the job. One such change is flexible employment schemes, which can provide alternatives for employees with disabilities and health problems, giving incentives to increase their productivity and job satisfaction. This study examines the relationship between those schemes and labour outcomes, such as job satisfaction, job quality and absenteeism in this group of people. Furthermore, the objective is to explore the role of flexible employment for carers of people with impairments. The empirical analysis relies on the European Working Conditions Survey from 2000 to 2015. The findings show that employees with disabilities and health problems working under flexible employment schemes are more likely to report higher levels of job satisfaction and lower absenteeism rates than their counterparts working under fixed employment schemes. Moreover, carers’ job satisfaction and organisational loyalty are significantly improved when flexible employment schemes are in place. The policy implications suggest efficient implementation at the state and corporate levels of flexible employment systems that can promote job satisfaction, reduce turnover intentions and, thus, increase productivity. Full article