Work Values Research Articles

Pragmatic Strategies in Artistic Translation: Balancing Creativity and Cultural Adaptation

This study investigates the communicative-pragmatic aspects of artistic translation, focusing on how translators navigate the complexities of preserving the original text's artistic and aesthetic integrity while adapting it to a different cultural and linguistic context. Despite extensive research in translation studies, a systematic exploration of pragmatic motivations and strategies in artistic translation remains underdeveloped. This research addresses this gap by employing a comprehensive methodological approach that includes descriptive-analytical, semantic-stylistic, and literary analysis of original texts and their translations. The findings highlight the critical role of the translator's creative interpretation in maintaining the balance between fidelity to the original text and the need for cultural adaptation. The results demonstrate that pragmatic strategies significantly influence the translation process, particularly in how verbal-artistic information is transformed to resonate with the target audience. The study also suggests that these strategies are essential for achieving functional equivalence and preserving the artistic value of the original work. The implications of this research are significant for both translation theory and practice, emphasizing the need for enhanced training programs that focus on the development of creative and pragmatic skills in translators. Further research is recommended to explore the emotional and experiential dimensions of translation, as these aspects remain crucial yet underexplored in current literature.

The Contribution of Work Values, Career Adaptability, and Willingness to Compromise on Students' Work Readiness during the School-to-Work Transition

The Contribution of Work Values, Career Adaptability, and Willingness to Compromise on Students' Work Readiness during the School-to-Work Transition

Linkage between role stress and work engagement among specialty nurses: a cross-sectional study of China

ObjectivesSpecialty nurses play a significant role in improving patient care; however, little is known about the factors affecting their work engagement. This study aimed to explore the relationship between role...

Exaggerated frontoparietal control over cognitive effort-based decision-making in young women with anorexia nervosa.

Effortful tasks are generally experienced as costly, but the value of work varies greatly across individuals and populations. While most mental health conditions are characterized by amotivation and effort avoidance, individuals with anorexia nervosa (AN) persistently engage in effortful behaviors that most people find unrewarding (food restriction, excessive exercise). Current models of AN differentially attribute such extreme weight-control behavior to altered reward responding and exaggerated cognitive control. In a novel test of these theoretical accounts, we employed an established cognitive effort discounting paradigm in combination with fMRI in young acutely underweight female patients with AN (n = 48) and age-matched healthy controls (HC; n = 48). Contrary to the hypothesis that individuals with AN would experience cognitive effort (operationalized as N-back task performance) as less costly than HC participants, groups did not differ in the subjective value (SV) of discounted rewards or in SV-related activation of brain regions involved in reward valuation. Rather, all group differences in both behavior (superior N-back performance in AN and associated effort ratings) and fMRI activation (increased SV-related frontoparietal activation during decision-making in AN even for easier choices) were more indicative of increased control. These findings suggest that while effort discounting may be relatively intact in AN, effort investment is high both when performing demanding tasks and during effort-based decision-making; highlighting cognitive overcontrol as an important therapeutic target. Future research should establish whether exaggerated control during effort-based decision-making persists after weight-recovery and explore learning the value of effort in AN with tasks involving disorder-relevant effort demands and rewards.

“Working within broken systems”: Social workers bridge the fractures of U.S. healthcare: A qualitative inquiry on moral injury

Healthcare social workers (HSWs) in the United States are integral to interdisciplinary teams and health services. HSWs have a unique role in healthcare, as they care for their patients' psychosocial needs, through case management and clinical services. There is a gap in understanding how HSWs are impacted by their healthcare work. This study aims to understand the experience of moral injury, a marker of well-being, amongst HSWs in one state in the United States. Moral injury is the moral transgression (or boundary breaking) by oneself or someone in a position of power in high stakes situations and the negative outcomes of those experiences. Using a qualitative approach, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 HSWs in August of 2022. Thematic analysis was used to understand the lived experience of moral injury for HSWs. Three themes emerged: 1) HSWs’ definition and examples of moral injury; 2) HSWs situated in the “in-between” of policy and practice; and 3) upholding social work values within the medical model. These findings impact healthcare practice and policy, in delineating what falls within the bounds of social work, changing the workflow of health services, and creating further opportunities for interdisciplinary training, well-being initiatives, and systems-level changes. The findings from this work highlight the importance of understanding the moral impact of healthcare work on social workers, which should be further examined in depth not only amongst HSWs but also across the healthcare workforce.

Study of bond strength and electronic properties at the 6H-SiC/Al interface: Based on first-principles calculations

As the medium between the reinforcement and the matrix, the interface plays a critical role in the mechanical properties of silicon carbide particle reinforced aluminum matrix composites. This study used first-principles calculation methods to systematically analyze 14 different 6H-SiC/Al low-index interfaces, including atomic configuration, interface bonding strength, and electronic structure and bonding principles between interfaces. The adhesion work calculations reveal that the C-top-SiC(0001)/Al (111) and SiC(0001)/Al (100) interfaces have larger adhesion work values, specifically 5.09 J/m2 and 5.021 J/m2, respectively. Additionally, the rigid tensile testing confirms that the tensile stress values at the interfaces of C-top-SiC(0001)/Al (111) and SiC(0001)/Al (100) are higher, measuring 36.4 GPa and 32.5 GPa, respectively. The above results show that the interface bonding strength of these two configurations is the highest, the most stable, and most likely to appear in the 6H-SiC/Al interface configuration. The results of the analysis on charge density difference and partial density of states indicate that the interfaces of C-top-SiC (0001)/Al (111) and SiC (0001)/Al (100) are primarily composed of strong ionic and covalent bonds.

Teachers' Emotional Intelligence and Filipino Work Values

Teachers' Emotional Intelligence and Filipino Work Values

Research brief: A quantitative content analysis to explore work value portrayals among characters in Belgian adolescents’ favorite TV series

ABSTRACT Occupational portrayals are omnipresent in adolescents’ favorite television (TV) series. Insights regarding such portrayals remain largely lacking. This study aimed to fill this gap via a content analysis of 334 characters across six TV series that are popular among adolescents. This study specifically examined portrayals of work values – qualities that an occupation should satisfy (e.g. skill utilization, earning potential) – because work values are a crucial part of adolescents’ vocational identity that guide career choices and affect well-being. By examining the content of such portrayals, scholars can better understand the potential effects of exposure to such portrayals. Therefore, we examined the extent to which various intrinsic, extrinsic, social, and prestige work values were portrayed as being upheld, violated, or mixed (RQ1). Work values were most frequently portrayed as being upheld among characters with a notable focus on portrayals of extrinsic work values (e.g. the upholding of a safe work environment). Attention was given to differences in work value portrayals according to characters’ job type (RQ2), gender (RQ3), and ethnicity (RQ4). High-skilled white-collar workers, male characters, and White characters were most positively portrayed, with work values shown as upheld in their occupations.

Opportunities and limits: exploring young people’s views of staff care in residential alcohol and other drug services

ABSTRACT Young people in residential alcohol and other drug (AOD) services build meaningful relationships with workers during their stays. In this paper we use an ethics of care framework to explore what young people said about care, how it was delivered and what they valued about it. Drawing on three waves of longitudinal interviews conducted with 38 young people over 12 months, we discuss our findings according to two overarching themes – opportunities enabled by care and limits to care. Young people’s descriptions highlight the potential for care to challenge stigma, enhance self-worth and wellbeing, enable respectful staff-client relationships, and foster positive relationships crucial for maintaining engagement. At the same time, young people described challenges around providing both individual and collective care, coproducing care in structured environments, and facilitating care as young people transition out of residential services. These findings shed light on the delicate balance between care provision and contextual constraints within AOD settings. This emphasises the need for ethical relationships built on clear communication, mutual respect, and ongoing forms of care. Recognising the value of care work, especially in transitions out of acute treatment services, is essential for reshaping funding approaches to prioritise meaningful and continuing care.

Predicting work values: A psychology of working theory perspective

Drawing on the perspective of the Psychology of Working Theory, this study adopted a latent change score model to examine how changes in work volition and decent work during the COVID-19 pandemic related to post-pandemic work values. We conducted a three-wave longitudinal study with 276 Chinese working adults over nearly three years. We found that higher levels of and increases in work volition positively related to increases in decent work during the pandemic. Increases in decent work also negatively related to the work value of pay and positively related to the work value of relationships. Finally, higher levels of decent work during the early stages of the pandemic were positively related to three post-pandemic work values: autonomy, relationships, and altruism. Overall, we demonstrated that the Psychology of Working Theory explains work values, contributing to a deeper understanding of how work values were influenced by the work experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A method for evaluating ecosystem services that can be used for the management of nature-based solution projects: A case study of Shiosai-Nagisa in Tokyo Bay

The major challenges in nature-based solution projects are evaluating the various ecosystem services and managing the projects in a sustainable manner while also considering various social issues. Here, we propose a method that can simultaneously evaluate multiple ecosystem services of nature-based solution projects (e.g., environmental improvement projects) and their sustainability, and we apply this method to Shiosai-Nagisa in Tokyo Bay. This method has three steps: (1) scoring each ecosystem service based on field data, (2) estimating the permissible economic value (i.e., the acceptable cost in monetary terms) of public works for each service in the reference value condition (service score = 100 points), and (3) calculating the economic value of each ecosystem service by using the service score and the permissible economic value of public works. Service scores are calculated from the present status and the likely near-term future status. This future status is obtained from a trend score and pressure and resilience scores, the latter of which represent environmental factors that can positively or negatively impact services. Since the service scores are related to environmental factors, the economic value obtained by this method is also related to environmental factors. Sustainability scores can also be evaluated using the likely near-term future status. As a test case, the method was applied to the management of an actual environmental improvement project. For ecosystem services with a negative sustainability score, we identified the environmental factors that contribute to negative sustainability and confirmed that improving those factors would improve the service index, sustainability score, and economic value. These results suggest that this method can be used to compare various project values and help project managers and stakeholders to better understand and visualize ecosystem services.

Work values and productivity among female seafarers

Work values and productivity among female seafarers

The impact of studying abroad in a socioeconomically different country on work related values: Evidence from cypriot workers who were educated in the UK

This paper analyses changes in work related values in individuals that studied in a country that is relatively more economically developed, more individualistic, less uncertainty avoiding and with a lower power distance score compared to their home country. This is done by comparing the responses of Cypriot workers who studied in the UK with other Cypriots that did not study abroad on a work values questionnaire and by interviewing workers who studied in the UK. Results suggest that workers who studied abroad consider intrinsic job characteristics such as challenging work, freedom to adopt own approach to the job and training opportunities as more important than locally trained employees whereas locally trained employees consider extrinsic characteristics such as pay, security and fringe benefits as more significant. The process of change in the workers who studied abroad seems to involve primarily dissonance and internal accountability. The main theoretical contribution of this research is the proposition that educational experiences abroad in a country with different socioeconomic characteristics compared to the home country can influence work related values and that this change takes place through a process of observing values differences and adjusting one’s values. Practical implications include that organizations are likely to become more diverse in terms of employees’ values because of education of employees in different cultural contexts and that this may have significant effects on management.

Discourse Analysis and the Newly Qualified Social Worker: Liberty Protection Safeguards and Beyond

This article explores the application of Critical Discourse Analytic methods learnt during a (Social Work) Master’s degree, in the author’s first year of practice as a newly qualified social worker. The focus is the Liberty Protection Safeguards and how the discourse analytic techniques utilised may be translated into specific practice learning. An extract from the author’s Critical Discourse Analysis of the Liberty Protection Safeguards factsheets is presented before further exploration of analytic methods in the context of both literature and personal practice reflections. Specifically, the four issues addressed are: A. Considering how language signals a certain (ethical, social, political, moral) position. B. How language helps construct and reconstruct practice. C. What it means for social work practice to remain open to the consequences of language. D. Considering writing as a form of social work practice. Discourse analytic methods may complement social work values, considering the ethical stance that underpins our work. It is argued that critical discourse analytic tools and the learning arising from them can have a direct influence on social work practice through encouraging practitioners to remain open to language and questioning of the role of power in communication.

Integrated developmental and green social work field education to control fall armyworm Infestation in maize crops in Malawi

In Malawi, fall armyworm (FAW) infestation in maize crops is a problem of public importance as it reduces maize yields and exacerbates household food insecurity. In addition to pest resistance, the use of synthetic pesticides to control FAW negatively affects the health of farmers and the environment. Biochemical pesticides from plants contain naturally non-toxic chemotypes and are effective in controlling pests. Tephrosia vogelii plants contain these bioactive phytocompounds that have pesticidal properties. Geographical location and plant species influence the occurrence of phytocompounds in Tephrosia vogelii. Farmers in Sub Sahara-Africa are using Tephrosia vogelii as a pesticide but there are mixed research findings regarding its effectiveness in controlling FAW pests. This study was informed by developmental and Green Social Work frameworks to compare the effectiveness of Tephrosia vogelii leaves extracts, Belt 480 SC, and soap solution in controlling FAW in maize gardens. The study employed a randomized complete block design with four replication gardens and was conducted from November 2022 to March 2023. A social work field education student was assigned to coordinate the project. The study affirmed that the sampled Tephrosia vogelii leaf extracts contained pesticidal chemotypes. The results of field gardens suggest that Tephrosia vogelii leaf extracts have similar potency to Belt SC 480 chemical pesticide. It has been identified that Boom detergent soap is not as effective as Tephrosia vogelii leaf extracts. The study has social work field education implications for empowering practicum students to gain community mobilization skillsets, to participate in environmental justice advocacy, and to uphold social work values.

A Metaphorical Exploration of Landscape Writing in Literature: Transformations and Claims from Natural Scenery to Mindscapes

He is an important writer in modern Chinese literature, and a special writer who showed a different path of creation when revolutionary literature dominated the world in the 1930s, and his research has been increasing in the academic circles since the 1980s. In this paper, we take the writer's representative regional world, namely the world of Xiangxi, as the center, and introduce the principle of "landscape" of Japanese scholar Kojin karatani to explore the inevitability of his creation against the trend from the three aspects of discovery, construction, and the demands behind the landscape. By analyzing this kind of landscape writing as a metaphor, this paper aims to reveal the literary pursuits and national sentiments behind it, to provoke readers to think about the possibility of an alternative path of rural development in the 1930s, and to enrich the imagination of modern Chinese literature about the landscape of writing in the 1930s. This study not only helps us to recognize the unique value and contribution of those non-mainstream literary works more comprehensively, but also provides an important perspective for refining how modern Chinese literature has integrated into the world literary landscape and contributed to the unique "Chinese experience".

Time-antiperiodic and space-periodic boundary value problem for one class of semilinear partial differential equations

Abstract In this work, a time-antiperiodic and space-periodic boundary value problem for one class of semilinear partial differential equations is studied. The theorems on existence, uniqueness and nonexistence of solutions of this problem are proved.

Living on Pea-nuts: Gissing, Fiction, Subsistence

Abstract This essay considers the three major novels George Gissing published between 1889 and 1893: The Nether World, New Grub Street, and The Odd Women. These Long Depression novels, as they could be called, demonstrate the constant pressure exerted by the need to earn money to hold starvation at bay, to achieve an always precarious subsistence or survival. Gissing depicts circular, inescapable patterns in which one writes to earn money in order to survive just long enough to write more to buy more—never enough—food. His novels insistently ponder, and seem to try to literalize in reflexive ways, the question of what it means to “live on” one's writing as a late nineteenth-century author. In so doing, this article suggests, these novels participate in the transformation of hunger from a troubling Malthusian fact of nature to be managed by political economy into both a biopolitical tool of the state, seen as a positive good in its spur to labor, as well as a central topos of an emerging modernist style of fiction that reflects, draws attention to, and critiques those biopolitical mechanisms. Notwithstanding his criticisms of a society that leaves artists hungry, Gissing seemed to personally believe that his own experiences of having “looked starvation in the face,” having passed through “circumstances of hunger” and converted them into art, were part of what gave his work value and meaning.

“This place does a lot more than produce milk”: a reflexive thematic analysis of staff experiences of supporting prison dairy workers

ABSTRACT Correctional practice has seen a proliferation of prison animal programmes over the last two decades, but scant attention has been paid to the impact of prison farm animal work. Five members of prison dairy farm staff in the UK were interviewed about their experiences of supporting prison workers, including their perceptions of its potential impact for supporting rehabilitation from offending. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to identify three overarching themes: the positive human-bovine relationship; strengthening interpersonal skills and intrapersonal benefits. This paper suggests that prison dairy work has the potential to support desistance from further offending by facilitating the transition towards a non-offending identity, cultivating and enabling compassionate behaviour, and improving wellbeing. Future research could include: an analysis of the recidivism data of prison farm livestock workers; qualitative explorations of prison livestock workers’ experiences (including those working with cows and other food/production animals); and research with a specific focus on the transferability of compassionate and caring attitudes towards self and others away from the farm setting. Findings from this exploratory study inform debate about the value and transferability of prison farm animal work and should be used to contribute to a larger body of work on this topic.

University-community Partnership Contribution Towards Rural Sustainability: Participatory Action Research in the Rice Farming Community of Paipayales, Ecuador

Abstract Rice cultivation is the main economic livelihood for many families around the world. This activity represents several challenges for farmers and community members for rural sustainability, a cross-cutting element of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations (UN). In response, the Polytechnic University (ESPOL), fulfilling its mission of linking with society, implemented a community program where students and professors interact and collaborate with rice farmers in the rural community of Paipayales, located in the Santa Lucia canton, Guayas province. This article explores the impact of university-community projects through the Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach in order to evaluate them as a tool for contributing towards rural sustainability in communities. As a result, it was determined that the main problems faced by most of the farmers of the “Dios con Nosotros” Association are the availability of water in the wells and the commercialization of paddy rice. Considering these problems, the wells were geolocated and a board was designed for proper water management; at the same time, water quality was studied and recommendations were presented according to the problems encountered. Two proposals were also presented to create a rice husker and a rice separator to increase their profit margin by selling rice directly to retailers and wholesalers. As relevant conclusions, the importance of implementing links and relationships between the university community and society was highlighted, guaranteeing the value of working in transdisciplinary teams and achieving a comprehensive intervention that would lead to significant improvements in the community.