Work Intensification Research Articles

Ni-Al Self-Propagating High-Temperature Synthesis Catalysts in Dry Reforming of Methane to Hydrogen-Enriched Fuel Mixtures

The worldwide increase in demand for environmentally friendly energy has led to the intensification of work on the synthesis of H2-containing fuel. The dry reforming of methane has become one of the most important avenues of research since the consumption of two greenhouse gases reduces the rate of global warming. A study of NiAl composite materials as catalysts for methane reforming has been carried out. Self-propagating high-temperature synthesis (SHS) has been used to produce NiAl catalysts. Comparative studies were carried out regarding the dry reforming and partial oxidation of methane, as well as catalysts prepared using the impregnation (IM) and SHS methods. A catalyst with 29% Ni and 51% Al after SHS contains the phases of NiAl and NiAl2O4, which are active phases in the dry reforming of methane. The optimal crystal lattice parameter (for the maximum possible conversion of CO2 and CH4) is 3.48–3.485 Å for Al2O3, which plays the role of a catalyst carrier, and 1.42 Å, for NiAl2O4, which plays the role of a catalyst. The aim of the work is to develop a new and efficient catalyst for the dry reforming of methane into a synthesis gas, which will further promote the organization of a new era of environmentally friendly energy-saving production methods.

Promoting blue-collar employees’ work ability: A qualitative study on occupational health practitioners’ perspective on feasible interventions

BACKGROUND: Work in the industrial sector underlies deep structural changes triggered by demographic and societal transformations. These developments require tailored measures for maintaining employees’ work ability by reacting to new demands and overcoming barriers in organizational implementation. Previous research lacks in considering practitioners’ perspective in terms of tailoring effective interventions to the workplace conditions of blue-collar employees. OBJECTIVE: This study aims to enrich the understanding of work ability by using the job-demands-resources (JDR)-theory and the work ability house concept as basis and considering aspects of organizational measures’ feasibility. METHODS: Data results from observations of the collaboration between occupational health professionals and supervisors on the shop-floor and n = 18 semi-structured interviews with different occupational health stakeholders. A participatory and qualitative approach characterizes this study. RESULTS: The study participants report on how increasing organizational demands of efficiency and uncertainty affect workability promotion of blue-collar employees. Furthermore, the findings imply aspects regarding feasible interventions. For designing effective interventions, specifically psychosocial aspects such as work intensification, job uncertainty, work-life-conflicts, and inter-personal trust need to be addressed. Measures need to be aligned better to the industrial setting with specific focus on decision-makers’ interests and intra-organizational collaboration. CONCLUSION: Further research should investigate interrelationships between relevant psycho-social job demands and resources. Moreover, additional aspects, which are related to measures implementation in the organizational sphere, need to be identified. Practical implications connect organizational sciences with the workability theory and the job-demands-resources (JDR)-theory by focusing more on psychological work design and intra-organizational collaboration.

“What about us?” Wellbeing of higher education librarians

Scant research has centred on the wellbeing of librarians. This paper seeks to answer how do librarians in the Higher Education sector describe their wellbeing, including what enables and impacts it? MethodAn Adapted Interactive Model of Research Design (AIRD) (adapted from Maxwell, 2009) was used together with Contributive Research Method (Puig et al., 2018). Data was collected during an online satellite event where 97 people from 34 institutions in three countries participated, from which 57 contributed data to the study through a workshop presentation on maintaining wellbeing. During the online interactive workshop, data was gathered in a contributory a manner, using embedded digital tools Mentimeter, and Hypothes.is. ResultsHigher Education librarians in the study aligned with Diener's (1984) conceptualisation of subjective wellbeing when defining wellbeing. Data also surfaced a shared understanding of subjective wellbeing, and identification of impactors and enablers to the wellbeing of librarians in the Higher Education Sector. The study surfaced two key findings: firstly six enablers to wellbeing were identified; and secondly, the wellbeing of Higher Education sector librarians is heavily impacted by work intensification. ConclusionsThe voices of librarians in the Higher Education sector have surfaced the need for inclusive wellbeing programs and strategies.

COVID-19-Related Health Literacy of School Leaders in Hong Kong: A Cross-Sectional Study.

To date, we know little about COVID-19-related health literacy among school leaders, particularly in East Asia. The present study aimed to assess the level of COVID-19-related health literacy and associated factors (vaccine hesitancy, self-endangering behaviour, and work satisfaction) among school leaders in Hong Kong. A cross-sectional study of 259 school leaders was carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic between April 2021 and February 2022. COVID-19-related health literacy using HLS-COVID-Q22, three subscales of self-endangering work behaviour scales (i.e., “extensification of work”, “intensification of work” and “quality reduction”), and two dimensions of Burnout Assessment Tool (BAT) (i.e., psychosomatic complaints and exhaustion) were used. The study employed independent sample t-test, ANOVA, and multilinear regression models. The findings show that more than half (53.7%) of school leaders had insufficient health literacy. Participants with insufficient health literacy scored significantly higher in the following factors: exhaustion related to work situation (p = 0.029), psychosomatic complaints (p < 0.001), attitude about vaccination (i.e., less agree with vaccination) (p < 0.001), level of informing on COVID-19 related information (i.e., felt less informed) (p < 0.001), and level of confusion about COVID-19-related information (i.e., felt more confused) (p < 0.001). In a linear regression model predicting attitude about coronavirus vaccination, age (β, −0.188, 95% CI, −0.024, −0.005, p = 0.002) and health literacy (β, −0.395, 95% CI, −0.716, −0.361, p < 0.001) were the negative predictors, F(5, 214) = 11.859, p < 0.001. For the linear regression model adjusted for sex and age for predicting health literacy, the model was insignificant. Despite being a highly educated group, this study reveals that one in two Hong Kong school leaders have insufficient health literacy. Inadequate health literacy was strongly associated with a negative attitude about vaccination, low information, and confusion about COVID-19-related information. Additionally, insufficient health literacy was associated with the two secondary symptoms of burnouts. The study highlights an urgent need to develop intervention programmes to promote the COVID-19-specific as well as overall health literacy of the school leaders.

Work Intensity as a Risk Factor for Burnout, Anxiety and Depressive Disorders in Various Occupational Cohorts: A Literature Review

Introduction: Under current conditions of work intensification and introduction of information and communication technologies, there arise risks of developing the syndrome of emotional burnout, anxiety and depressive disorders among workers in various occupational cohorts. Objective: To analyze scientific publications and to establish the prevalence of psychological and emotional problems among people working under conditions of increased work intensity in order to identify predisposing factors, determine occupational cohorts at risk, and prevent burnout, anxiety and depressive disorders. Materials and methods: A scientific review of studies published in 2005–2022 in the Russian and English languages was carried out using such information platforms and databases as eLIBRARY.ru, Web of Science, PubMed, and Scopus. The search terms included work intensity, burnout syndrome, anxiety disorders, and depression. We chose prospective studies, in which neuropsychic stress at the workplace was assessed as an occupational health risk. Of 282 search results, 51 publications on psychological and emotional ill-being posed by neuropsychic overstrain were found eligible for inclusion in this review. Results: We established a high prevalence of psychological and emotional problems among workers in various occupational cohorts, including nurses, medical doctors of various specialties, teachers, psychologists, journalists, athletes, policemen and penitentiary police officers, emergency service members. Features of clinical manifestations of burnout symptoms, anxiety and depressive disorders in workers experiencing increased tension were discussed. Our findings showed that psychosocial risk factors for burnout, anxiety and depressive disorders were role uncertainty, role conflict, role stress, stressful events, workload, and pressure at work, and that burnout was associated with various non-occupational diseases. Conclusion: We highlight the necessity of assessing psychosocial factors at workplaces and screening for psychological and emotional disorders of employees for early diagnosis of burnout and related conditions and elimination of their negative outcomes at the individual and societal levels. We propose introduction of the international COPSOQ tool (the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire) into domestic healthcare practice to conduct a comprehensive individual assessment of psychosocial factors and to facilitate timely and appropriate preventive measures at work.

ОСНОВНІ ПЕРЕВАГИ ТА НЕДОЛІКИ ТЕХНОЛОГІЙ ТА ФОРМ ДИСТАНЦІЙНОГО НАВЧАННЯ ІНОЗЕМНІЙ МОВІ У ТЕХНІЧНОМУ ЗАКЛАДІ

The paper presents innovative forms and methods of distance learning in teaching a foreign language in technical universities. The advantages and disadvantages of forms and methods of distance learning are analyzed. Distance learning tools are increasingly being introduced into the education process. Therefore, the search for innovations in the development of methods and technologies for such activities is considered a priority. The article gives an example of the processing by scientists of innovative forms and methods of distance learning in teaching a foreign language in the following areas: increasing the intensity of classes; expansion of content; building individual trajectories for each student, taking into account his abilities and motivational value sphere of the personality; intensification of independent work of students. Among them: innovative information educational technologies, interactive teaching methods, the role of the teacher, who is the driver of innovative activity in a higher educational institution. The types of interaction between the student, teacher and educational materials are also considered. The features of the introduction of innovative and information technologies in the educational process of the university are determined, the main qualities and criteria for the technological effectiveness of the educational process in universities are characterized. The features of distance learning as a form of implementation of innovative and information technologies in the educational process of the university are studied and scientifically substantiated, methods and means of forming professional competencies are considered. It has been established that the main content of the activity of a higher educational institution should be the design of an innovative educational environment. It has been established that distance learning improves the quality of education through the use of the latest technologies and digital libraries.

Algorithms and the future of work.

An algorithm refers to a series of stepwise instructions used by a machine to perform a mathematical operation. In 1955, the term artificial intelligence (AI) was coined to indicate that a machine could be programmed to duplicate human intelligence. Even though that goal has not yet been reached, the use of sophisticated machine learning algorithms has moved us closer to that goal. While algorithm-enabled systems and devices will bring many benefits to occupational safety and health, this Commentary focuses on new sources of worker risk that algorithms present in the use of worker management systems, advanced sensor technologies, and robotic devices. A new "digital Taylorism" may erode worker autonomy, and lead to work intensification and psychosocial stress. The presence of large amounts of information on workers within algorithmic-enabled systems presents security and privacy risks. Reliance on indiscriminate data mining may reproduce forms of discrimination and lead to inequalities in hiring, retention, and termination.Workers interfacing with robots may face work intensification and job displacement, while injury in the course of employment by a robotic device is also possible. Algorithm governance strategies are discussed such as risk management practices, national and international laws and regulations, and emerging legal accountability proposals. Determining if an algorithm is safe for workplace use is rapidly becoming a challenge for manufacturers, programmers, employers, workers, and occupational safety and health practitioners. To achieve the benefits that algorithm-enabled systems and devices promise in the future of work, now is the time to study how to effectively manage their risks.

Take-off, turbulence and turnaround

PurposeThe aim of this paper is to explore the evolving nature of the work of cabin crew in a Scandinavian carrier in three eras, drawing on theories of gender and emotional labour.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on ethnographic data from fieldwork, interviews and documents.FindingsFrom being a feminized and temporary occupation for young, upper- and middle-class women in the 1970s, the occupation became a full-time job and with greater diversity of cabin crew. Today there are signs of the job becoming a precarious and temporary one of demanding and devalorized work in a polarized and class-divided labour market. Changing circumstances impact on the emotional labour requirement and terms and conditions at work.Research limitations/implicationsA limitation is that the research design was not initially longitudinal in the sense that the author does not have exactly the same kind of data from each era. The author has, however, been involved in this field for two decades, used multiple methods and interacted with different stakeholders and drew on a unique data material.Practical implicationsThe development in aviation is contributing to new discriminatory practices, driving employee conditions downwards and changing the job demands. This development will have practical consequences for the lives and families of cabin crew.Social implicationsThe analysis illustrates how work ‘constructs' workers and contributes in creating jobs that are not sustainable for the employees. Intensification of work, insecurity and tougher working conditions also challenge key features in the Nordic model such as proper pay, decent work and a life-long employment. Much indicates that the profession is again becoming a temporary one of demanding work with poor working conditions in a polarized and class-divided labour market.Originality/valueThe research contributes to the literature on emotional labour, gender and the evolving nature of the work of cabin crew. The unique data material, the longitudinal aspect of the research and the focus on a single network carrier are good in charting changes over time.

Teachers' Performance Improvement Planning and Learning Optimization

Improving teacher performance is the upstream of the success of the learning process, and outstanding students are downstream of the process. This study aims to describe planning for improving teacher performance and optimizing learning. This type of research belongs to the category of qualitative approach with literature study method. Study analysis materials and data sources were obtained from internet-based searches with credible pages, such as Google Scholar, DOAJ, Moraref, and SINTA. The data materials in question include books, scientific articles, proceedings, and student final assignments. Furthermore, the validity or validity of the data is checked using data materials (scientific). The results of this study indicate that planning for improving teacher performance and optimizing learning through the stages of greedy organization, work intensification, performativity, and understanding organizational strengths.

Imprinting Interrupted? Examining the Role of Remote Onboarding onNewcomers’ Work Socialization

Socialization of new employees, involving the imprinting of workplace norms and practices, has long been recognized as a driver of organizational performance through mechanisms such as employee-workplace fit. Yet the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered a rapid, and potentially long-run, move to remote working practices for organizations that has interrupted the well understood processes of socialization that occur through face-to-face onboarding. Drawing on unique interview data (n= 30) from employees who started a new role during the pandemic, we build an inductive model of the effects of remote onboarding on newcomer socialization experiences. We explore a multi-stage model of how a lack of early physical and social immersion in the workplace triggers processes of individualization and reduced workplace identification for newcomers. Further, we highlight how these processes are driven by the degree of digital mediation, and attenuated by organizational investments in technology, the initial resources provided to the new employee, and the employee’s prior experience of remote work. We find that in contexts of high digital mediation newcomers experience reduced access to both formal and informal resources, such as opportunities to shadow colleagues or to form social connections. The absence of these resources heighten experiences of work intensification and lead to a reduced orientation of the employee to their new workplace. We discuss the implications of these insights for the research on imprinting and socialization, as well as the practice of remote onboarding.

Women Managers’ Experiences of Work: Precarity and Overworking Under Neoliberalism

To answer the question ‘does work have a future?’ we must first understand the economic, political and social contexts of its recent past. We argue since the 1990s there has been a perceptible rise in employment precarity across professions, industries and economies, including for managerial grades. We contend this results from a neoliberal economic agenda promoting deepening career uncertainty amid a context of radical corporate restructuring and transformative digital innovation. Among the effects of such occupational, organizational and technological change have been managers experiencing longer working hours, greater work intensification, and worsening work-life balance –effects which we argue have been particularly acute for women managers, and notably under the coronavirus pandemic. Presenting information from three qualitative, interview-based, studies (conducted in 2002-2006, 2015-2019, and 2020-2021) we discuss the nature of women managers’ work experiences since the millennium to frame discussion of their likely work prospects going forward. We claim, under neoliberalism, the enduring interaction of career precarity, organizational restructuring and technological surveillance will continue to effect, in adverse ways, the equilibrium between women managers’ personal lives and professional work – notably given many confront increasing demands of technological connectivity and corporate availability whilst simultaneously managing significant responsibilities for parenting and care.

Servant Leadership and Team Performance: A Moderated Serial Mediation Model

Draw on social learning theory and job crafting research, we examine how and when servant leadership can affect team performance. A two-wave and multi-source survey was conducted with 101 teams (comprised 486 employees and 101 team leaders) in a manufacturing company in China. The results showed that servant leadership was positively related to approach-oriented relational job crafting, and servant leadership was positively related to team performance via increased team approach-oriented relational job crafting and increased work engagement serially. Further, high team work intensification was shown to strengthen the positive effect of servant leadership and team relational job crafting. Theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

‘Stretched very thin’: the impact of COVID-19 on teachers’ work lives and well-being

ABSTRACT The spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19) across the globe has had a significant impact on teachers and teaching with countries around the world closing schools in an effort to slow the spread of the virus. Such a mass cessation of traditional face-to-face teaching has required schools and teachers to move rapidly to remote and, primarily, online learning and teaching. In this paper, we draw on a study conducted in Australia during the period of June–July 2020 to examine the impact of this shift to remote teaching on teachers’ work lives and well-being. Using an ecological framework to guide the study, we collected data from 137 Australian teachers via an online questionnaire. The findings reveal the multiple challenges teachers faced as they sought to implement quality teaching and learning for their students. The challenges facing teachers included an intensification of work; managing caregiving responsibilities while teaching remotely; being the subject of media debate; and learning new technologies and ways of working. We argue that given both the dynamic nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the skills developed by teachers, there exist opportunities to enact change at both an individual and systemic level to support more equitable practices and foster teacher well-being.

Work intensification: Towards mapping the study field and defining a research agenda

Work intensification can be defined as the increase in energy expenditure by the worker in the exercise of his current occupations. Given the complexity of the phenomenon, this study aimed to analyze the scientific literature on work intensification to map the field and propose a research agenda. Three approaches were developed from 98 articles extracted from the Web of Science, namely bibliometric, scientometric, and content analyses. The findings reveal that the scientific production on the subject had a significant increase between 2010 and 2019; predominant themes are work-family conflict, repetitive strain, and teleworking, among others. Furthermore, the research agenda reveals rich possibilities for gaps and future studies.

The entrenchment of the ideal worker norm during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence from working mothers in the United States.

We study shifts in the ideal worker culture as experienced by working mothers across organizations in the United States during the COVID‐19 pandemic. Experiences of 53 interviewees who attended to increased responsibilities across both work and family domains revealed an entrenchment of the ideal worker culture across nearly all organizations and professions. This manifested in three levels: as (1) a reinforced ideal worker culture in the workplace through work intensification, increased competitiveness, and surface‐level support; (2) the reinforcing of organizations' ideal worker norms at home, with gendered division of space and labor; and (3) experienced internalized ideal worker norms in the expectations working mothers maintained for themselves. These findings offer insight into the lives of working mothers during the COVID‐19 pandemic and the challenges which have pushed many mothers to reduce work hours or leave the workforce. Highlighting the intricate nature of the entrenchment of the ideal worker culture informs implications for theory of gendered organizations and for organizational practice.

Job demands and well‐being in universities in the pandemic: A longitudinal study

AbstractConcerns about work intensification within universities have been an issue over the past decade and the Covid‐19 pandemic may have accelerated any trend toward excessive job demands associated with work‐related stress. This paper reports a longitudinal study conducted in two English universities based on observations at 11 time points from March 2020 to February 2021, covering academic and nonacademic workers. The results show that four measures of job demands increased during the period and that blended learning has contributed to these increases. Various measures of well‐being are negatively associated with work intensity, while work–nonwork conflict is positively related to it and mediates the demands–well‐being relationship. The study also shows that the use of a variety of methods of accommodating the increased demands—increasing total hours, working at weekends, extending the work day and forsaking breaks, normal holidays and exercise—are associated with increased work intensity. The policy implications of the study are that interventions aimed at employee well‐being should be focused on the causes of stress and, particularly, job demands, rather than coping with stress and that future decisions about homeworking should take account of these causes and not simply the satisfaction or performance levels of homeworkers.

Routine politics of production in post-Fordist manufacturing

This article presents a theory of routine politics of production, which was inductively developed based on a case study of 22 supplier factories in the USA, including in-depth interviews with 31 managers and 52 workers. All factories had implemented lean production. The findings show that (i) some managers prioritise the qualitative upgrading of organisational capabilities over quantitative work intensification, (ii) this includes objective forms of worker empowerment, and (iii) many workers resist or are hesitant about these forms of empowerment (while being committed to their work). The majority of workers from this convenience sample described either no work intensification under lean or ‘positive intensification’, which by their own assessment reduces monotony and/or makes the work more challenging. The first necessary condition for routine politics of production to obtain is that managers prioritise qualitative upgrading over quantitative effort levels. The second necessary condition is worker reticence or resistance toward managerial attempts to change routines. The article eschews theories of control and consent in favour of a classical Marxist framework emphasising labour process contradictions. Managers face conflicting pressures between deskilling and upskilling labour. Workers develop a contradictory orientation of alienated commitment. They are committed to being productive workers, in an attempt to realise a purpose in response to their alienation. Yet, in another manifestation of their alienation, experiences of bad management result in scepticism toward management. They embrace their work and Fordist conceptions of efficiency, wanting to see their organisation succeed, yet they contest managerial attempts to upgrade routines, which they deem inefficient.

CLUSTER AS A MEANS OF INNOVATIVE DEVELOPMENT OF GRAIN CROP GROWING IN UKRAINE

Introduction. Natural and climatic conditions and factors of production intensity are important in increasing the efficiency of growing cereal crops. In order to provide the population of the country and its regions with food on a scientifically sound basis based on the deepening of specialization, concentration and interregional exchange of agricultural products, raw materials and food, it is necessary to take into account the existing regional division of labor in agricultural production and the placement of production of certain types of products by using the natural potential of agriculture, the ratio volumes of production and consumption, which depend on the volumes of commodity resources for export or the need for their import. Methods. The following methods and techniques were used to implement the tasks: monographic – for a comprehensive study of the current state of agricultural production, assessment of the organizational and economic conditions of grain crop production by agricultural enterprises and determination of factors affecting the efficiency of activities; selective – for a detailed survey of agricultural commodity producers in the production of cereal crops; comparison – to compare economic phenomena in different time periods in order to identify a cause-and-effect relationship; abstract and logical, calculation-constructive and optimization - when substantiating directions of production specialization in agricultural enterprises. Results. It has been proven that the following are the priority areas of the grain production cluster development strategy: increasing the efficiency of infrastructure organizations based on a higher level of investment attractiveness of the region; stimulation of innovative activity in the cluster; intensification of work on the development of cooperative relations in the cluster, which is based on the formation of special programs to strengthen relationships between its participants; development and implementation of measures to activate missing functions in the grain sub-complex. Discussion. The development of grain production clusters in the future will ensure the formation of specialized zones for the cultivation and processing of grains of grain crops, which will ensure the improvement of their efficiency and the satisfaction of the internal needs of the population of Ukraine. A promising direction of further research is solving the problem of increasing efficiency by introducing innovative products into the technological process of production and processing of grain crops within the territorial specialized cluster in order to create added value in the conditions of the export-oriented post-war economy of Ukraine. Key words: specialization, concentration, cluster, specialized zones, cultures.

FACILITATIVE TECHNIQUES AS AN EFFECTIVE MEANS ADJUSTMENT OF GROUP DISCUSSION

The article reveals the practical effectiveness of facilitation. The main methods of the facilitator work are singled out. Facilitation mechanisms are proposed, which are focused on individual motivation, comfortable work in a group, providing the opportunity to express one's opinion, and improving approaches through discussion. The main tasks of the facilitator are defined and recommendations on intensification of group work are given. It is proved that the key to facilitating the communication process is the organization of space, attracting and promoting the potential of individual students and the group as a whole, as well as supporting participants in achieving their goals. The effectiveness of the transition to facilitative methods in order to effectively establish group discussion and increase the efficiency of any group on the way to achieving goals.

Leaders’ intensified job demands: Their multi-level associations with leader-follower relationships and follower well-being

ABSTRACT To study the ever-increasing pace of work practices, we investigated leader experiences of intensified job demands (IJDs) and their effects on followers. Based on the challenge-hindrance approach, different kinds of job demands may produce either negative or positive work-related outcomes. Using this perspective, we investigated the leaders IJDs against their followers’ satisfaction with them as leaders, follower evaluations of the leader-member exchange (LMX) relationship quality, and their personal well-being (burnout and work engagement). Of the four IJDs, (1) work intensification and (2) career-related planning demands were conceptualised as negative hindrances for leaders, whereas (3) job-related planning/decision-making and (4) knowledge/skill-related learning demands were conceptualised as positive challenges. The data included 236 leaders and 990 followers, analysed with multilevel modelling. Leader feelings of increasing pressure to autonomously plan their job associated positively with followers’ satisfaction. These job planning demands also associated with lower burnout and higher work engagement among followers. Contrary to expectation, leaders’ career planning demands were positively associated with follower engagement. Our findings contribute to leadership literature by providing novel evidence of the role of IJDs in leadership, not only as strenuous work demands, but also as positive challenges that can be beneficial for leader-follower relationships and follower well-being.