Behavior Of Workers Research Articles

Does sickness absence increase the risk of unemployment?

This paper examines whether a worker's sickness absence behaviour influences the risk of becoming unemployed. Swedish panel data are used to estimate the relationship between the incidence and the duration of sick leave and subsequent unemployment. The results indicate that an increase in the number of sick leaves as well as an increase in the duration of sick spells are associated with a higher risk of unemployment. An implication of the results is that less absence-prone workers are more likely to remain employed in a recession, which may partly explain the pro-cyclical pattern of aggregate Swedish sickness absence rates.

Collegiality and the Yada-Yada Trope

A Seinfeld episode that first aired on April 24, 1997, "The Yada Yada," draws its name from the frequent use of the phrase by George's girlfriend. At one point she says: "I went shopping; yada yada." George believes that she might be leaving out some significant details with her use of the phrase "yada yada." So, he gets her to fill them in; and discovers more than he wants to know, namely, that she was arrested for shoplifting. This episode names a common rhetorical ploy, "the Yada Yada" trope. Like George's girlfriend, its users employ empty words in statements and let their audiences "fill in the blank" with experiences they associate with the topic.1 A friend encourages you to see a film, which she thinks is one of the best films ever made. You oblige but find it disturbing and unnecessarily violent. The next time you see each other, she asks: what did you think? You say: it was very provocative. You use the empty word, provocative, without specifying the ways in which you found it so, hoping that she will fill them in with her experience of the film. The "yada-yada trope" depends for its effect on words that require you to "fill in the blank" in statements that omit the "significant details." The most obvious empty words are good, better, and best. They can be used to invite comparisons without stipulating any criteria whatsoever. Take, for example, the question: which is the best restaurant in Chicago? Without specifying the preparation of particular dishes (best restaurant for thin crust pizza), the person asked will probably suggest a restaurant that serves his or her favorite dish (Shaw's Crab House). Less obvious instances of the yada-yada trope depend upon words that have such a broad denotative range that they function as "filling in the blank" expressions. Consider the use of "excellence" in phrases such as—"we demand excellence from our staff." This statement could refer [End Page 80] to any aspect of a worker's behavior. As long as persons fill in the blank with a positive attribute that draws them to the business, it does not matter how they specify excellence. Like excellence, the word collegiality has been applied to so many general aspects of the relations among co-workers that it has been emptied of any specific reference. In "Does Collegiality Count?" (2001), Mary Ann Connell and Frederick G. Savage point out that legal scholars have cautioned administrators that "the subjective nature of collegiality permits its use as a pretext for discrimination."2 I take their comment about "the subjective nature of collegiality" to be a recognition ofan "empty" word. Since the term is empty, the courts have allowed universities to "fill in the blank" and consistently uphold their decisions when faculty have been released, fired, or not promoted because their behavior does not meet "the" standard of collegiality. In view of the implications of these legal precedents, we should examine the ways in which the term collegialityhas been deployed. The Uses of the Word, "Collegiality" First I take a snapshot of some of the ways in which the word comes into our purview already carrying conflicting meanings. Then, I take a second snapshot of the confusing ways in which the term is used in university documents. Historically, the term was used to stipulate the relations among members of the Roman senate. The elected magistrates were held in check by the virtue of collegiality: that is that each office had at least 2 officials with equal or similar power. The noted exception to this rule was that of the dictatorship which granted supreme imperium to a single man. All members of each particular office were of equal rank and could veto acts of other members and higher magistrates (Consuls) could veto acts of lower magistrates (Quaestors). ("The Executive Branch") In its inception as in institutional term, collegiality was understood to be shared power and authority vested among...

Ecology and Nesting Behavior of Bombus atratus Franklin in Andean Highlands (Hymenoptera: Apidae)

The neotropical bumble bee Bombus (Fervidobombus) atratus Franklin is widely dis- tributed in South America ranging from tropical and subtropical lowlands to high altitudes in the Andes. Most of its biology is known from studies conducted in Brazilian lowland forests and almost nothing is known from other areas, especially at high altitudes. Here we provide data on the nest architecture, brood development, worker behavior, seasonal cycle and associated organ- isms from seven colonies of B. atratus observed above 2000 m of altitude in Colombia and Ecuador. Then, we compare them with those data from Brazil. All colonies found were located above the ground, in disturbed areas. Most of the nests either lacked a defined entrance or had a single entrance; a single nest had five entrances, one of them more active than the others. Nests had from 1 to 8 active queens and up to 80 workers indicating monogynous and polygynous cycles as reported from the lowlands. Nests initially lacked an involucrum covering the brood but even- tually developed an irregular involucrum of wax mixed with cardboard and carcasses of B. atratus and their associated beetles (Antherophagus sp., Cryptophagidae). Bees also built pollen pockets attached to larval clusters for feeding larvae. The average developmental time from egg to adult (29.6 days) and the percentage of cells with two pollen pockets (63.6%) were significantly greater than those previously reported. The maximum pocket diameter was significantly smaller, about half of the size, than those diameters observed in lowland colonies. The ecological siwcance of such reduction in size is still unclear but could explain the higher frequency of cells with two pockets in our colony. Nests maintained an internal nest temperature about 12°C warmer than external environmental temperature. Several workers were observed constantly scraping and cut- ting litter on top of one of the nests. Previously this behavior had only been known in Bombus (Fervidobombus) transuersalis (Oliver), a closely related Amazonian species. As in the lowlands, B. atratus colonies at high altitudes seem to be active year-round. The beetle Antherophagus sp. was found in two of the seven colonies observed. They are probably scavengers, but nothing is cer- tainly known about their role within tropical Bombus colonies. Resumen.-El abejorro neotropical Bombus (Fervidobombus) atratus Franklin estA ampliamente distribuido en Sur AmQica, encontrAndose desde las tierras bajas tropicales y subtropicales hasta las grandes altitudes en 10s Andes. Gran parte de su biologia es conocida de estudios realizados en las tierras bajas brasileras y casi nada se conoce de otras Areas, especialmente a grandes alturas. Aqui proporcionamos datos sobre la arquitectura de 10s nidos, ciclo de desarrollo, comportamiento de las obreras, ciclo estacional y organismos asociados de siete colonias observadas a mAs de 2000 m de altura en Colombia y Ecuador. Luego, nuestros datos son comparados con 10s datos de Brasil. Todas las colonias encontradas estaban sobre el suelo, en Areas perturbadas. La mayoria de 10s nidos carecian de una entrada definida o presentaban una sola entrada; un solo nido tenia 5 entradas, una de las cuales era mAs activa que las otras. Los nidos tenian de una a ocho reinas

Globalisation and the changing management of migrating service workers in the Asia pacific

The advance of globalisation depends in fundamental ways on the continued flows of transnational labour it has stimulated. For semi-skilled and unskilled service workers these flows are managed through numerous controls imposed by states, employers, labour brokers and even by the expectations of their families and communities of origin. This article concentrates on female service labour originating in Indonesia and the Philippines, destined for Hong Kong and Taiwan. It emphasises the collective (family and community-based) nature of the worker's entry into this type of work. It looks at multiple intersecting discourses that shape, construct and attempt to manage the worker's behaviour at different stages of the migration cycle. It gives particular attention to the receiving workplace: the household, and in some instances, the household-based enterprise. The article shows that workers placed in these households are simultaneously governed by contractual relationships and by historically and culturally derived rules reflecting the household's functions as a property-holding, administrative and patriarchal kinship unit. Globalisation has brought far-reaching changes to patterns of labour migration, but the household as a workplace retains important vestiges of these older patriarchal discourses, and ambiguities remain about the emergence of free labour in domestic work.

Innovative behaviour and job involvement at the price of conflict and less satisfactory relations with co‐workers

Although innovative behaviour is widely claimed to contribute to long term organizational effectiveness, the price that an individual worker may have to pay for taking an innovative approach has generally not been examined. The present study hypothesizes that a worker's innovative behaviour interacts with his or her job involvement in producing conflict and less satisfactory relations with resisting co‐workers who want to prevent innovative change. Moreover, conflict with co‐workers is hypothesized to mediate the interactive effect of innovative behaviour and job involvement on satisfaction with co‐worker relations. These hypotheses were supported in a survey study among 76 secondary school teachers based on supervisor ratings of the teachers' innovative behaviour and teachers' self‐report data of job involvement, conflict with co‐workers and satisfaction with co‐worker relations.

The Impact of Union on the Compensation for Job Risks

This study examines the worker's behaviour in choosing their job risks and the role of trade unions in influencing the wage-risk trade-off. It also analyses the problem of sample selection and its effects on the estimated compensation for job risks. The empirical results provide a strong support for the efficiency of labour market in deriving the optimal risk level. They also imply that the unionists receive a higher compensation for work related risks than the non-unionists. Allowing for sample selectivity produces a downward bias in the estimated union wage differentials for deadly hazards. The estimated values of life and injury might he useful for policy makers, international agencies and researchers in evaluating the health projects in India.

From a unidimensional to a bidimensional concept and measurement of workers' safety behavior.

This study examines the concept and measurement of worker's safety behavior. It shows that the traditional concept of safety behavior centered on workers' carefulness or compliance with safety rules is limited and proposes that an additional dimension, namely, workers' safety initiatives, be taken into account. Confirmatory factor analyses were carried out for a random sample of 828 workers drawn from 9 manufacturing facilities located in the province of Quebec (Canada). A 2-correlated congeneric factor model gave parameters in the expected direction, but the overall model was unable to reach a good fit. Separate construct analyses showed that compliance with safety rules is not a consistent dimension. The safety-initiatives dimension achieved a good fit with a high composite reliability (p=0.85). Workers' compliance with safety rules was not structured as a unitary dimension; therefore a selective process of safety-rules compliance by workers is suggested. Each category of safety rules should be considered as 1 single dimension and measured by several specific indicators. Indicators for safety initiatives provide high reliability, and, since this dimension is an important predictor of effectiveness in accident prevention, the items tested provide a better measurement than those previously published.

Spatial relationships within nests of the ant Leptothorax unifasciatus(Latr.) and their implications for the division of labour

This paper investigates how the movement zones of all the ants in a colony are organized inside the nest. The workers in nine colonies of the ant Leptothorax unifasciatus(Latr.) were marked individually and their positions in the nest were recorded over 33 periods of observation spread throughout the year. Results from randomization tests demonstrated that the individual workers in L. unifasciatus colonies had movement zones of limited area. These are termed spatial fidelity zones (SFZs). SFZs were specific to individuals. They occurred with partial overlap, in a sequence from the colony centre to the colony periphery. The size of SFZs increased from the centre of the colony towards the periphery. The median size of SFZ in a colony varied with the time of year; they expanded gradually after hibernation with a peak in May and then contracted gradually until the following hibernation. The frequency of a worker's brood care behaviour was related to the amount of overlap between her SFZ and the spatial distribution of the brood. Individuals on the periphery of the colony were most likely to leave the nest. No clear segregation on the basis of age was observed. The division of labour in L. unifasciatus was flexibly organized along the continuum of SFZs where each worker performed the tasks within her spatial fidelity zone.

Production Control and Chronic Stress in Work Organizations

In modern work organizations, production control is aimed particularly at making more intensive (i.e., more effective and more efficient) use of the work capacity. Usually, performance standards are established and their deviations periodically measured. Following this, adjusting and sanctioning action may be taken. This cyclic process, so characteristic of control processes, may contribute to the development of chronic stress. Based on a rough division of working behavior, this article formulates propositions about the relationship between conditions in which production control "intervenes" in the various areas of working behavior and the development of chronic stress. Areas of working behavior are: direct production, socialization, division of work and allocation of resources, sanctioning, and power development. In formulating the propositions on the development of chronic stress, the author applies insights from organization theory and social-psychological and sociological explanations. In order to avoid undue complications, no systematic use is made of insights into the effects of adequate or inadequate coping behavior on the emergence of chronic stress, or illegitimate action by workers who feel the pressure of production control. To arrive at an explanation of chronic stress, an understanding is needed of both the worker's interpretation of threatening stimuli and the worker's behavior within the control system.

Professional and clinical challenges to protection of children

Out-of-home placement decisions in residential care are complex, ambiguous and full of uncertainty, especially in cases of parental neglect. Literature on this topic is so far unable to understand and demonstrate the source of errors involved in those decisions and still fails to focus on professional's decision making process. Therefore, this work intends to test a socio-psychological model of decision-making that is a more integrated, dualistic and ecological version of the Theory of Planned Behavior's model. It describes the process through which the decision maker takes into account personal, contextual and social factors of the Decision-Making Ecology in the definition of his/her decision threshold. One hundred and ninety-five professionals from different Children and Youth Protection Units, throughout the Portuguese territory, participated in this online study. After reading a vignette of a (psychological and physical) neglect case toward a one-year-old child, participants were presented with a group of questions that measured worker's assessment of risk, intention, attitude, subjective norm, behavior control and beliefs toward residential care placement decision, as well as worker's behavior experience, emotions and family/child-related-values involved in that decision. A set of structural equation modeling analyses have proven the good fit of the proposed model. The intention to propose a residential care placement decision was determined by cognitive, social, affective, value-laden and experience variables and the perceived risk. Altogether our model explained 61% of professional's decision toward a parental neglect case. The theoretical and practical implications of these results are discussed, namely the importance of raising awareness about the existence of these biased psychosocial determinants.

The role of worker's behaviour and accomplishment in the prevention of accidents and injuries

The role of worker's behaviour and accomplishment in the prevention of accidents and injuries

Work postures and strain of workers in nordic forest work: A selective review

In this paper, ergonomic characteristics of forest work and particularly the strain related to work postures are reviewed. Both in manual and mechanized forest work, working postures play an important role, separately and combined with other strain factors. The combined effect mmay be worse than those of single factors. Examples of such combinations include bad work postures in conjunction with heavy lifting while cutting or during maintenance of machines and whole-body vibration and repetitive steering work while operating machines. The situation becomes even more complicated when the whole work environment is taken into consideration. Work postures often contribute to strains that have far-reaching effects, but have no immediate impact on the worker's behaviour or injury rates. Even in highly mechanized forest work, problems still exist despite extensive development of cabs. Some new technical and design solutions have recently been introduced.

Neurotoxic concerns of human pesticide exposures

While the human effects of acute pesticide poisoning are well known, significant data gaps exist with regard to what is known about some of the chronic effects, particularly neurotoxic and behavioral aspects of organophosphate exposures. The extent of this concern is particularly high in Europe where these issues are being addressed by the World Health Organization and the United Nations Development Programme. These agencies are sponsoring a ten-nation, international study of chronic neurologic and neurotoxic sequelae. In the United States, evidence for chronic neurologic effects have come from case studies, clusters of neurologic disease, or from specific epidemiologic studies. For both toxicologic and epidemiologic reasons, it is essential that the neurobehavioral potential of low-level, prolonged exposure to pesticides and pesticide mixtures be more thoroughly investigated. Workers exposed to pesticides are one of the largest occupational populations at risk in the world. The effects of these occupational exposures on the worker's nervous system and behavior are just beginning to be investigated.

A Model System for Worker's Daily Travel Behaviour Based on Disaggregate Model

Since middle 1970's, many studies have been carried out on disaggregate travel demand models. However, applications of those models to transportation planning are limited: they are usually applied to the local and short-term transportation planning, or they are used in the frame of traditional 4-step travel demand forecasting models by replacing some of those steps. That is, there have been few attempts to develop and apply disaggregate travel demand model systems for predicting travel demand in metropolitan areas.This paper develops a disaggregate model system for the travel demand of workers during a day in a metropolitan area.Daily travel pattern by an individual consists of visits to one or several destinations in trip chainnings that are movements away from his base (home or work place). We assume that these decisions during a day are not independent each other but there exist some relationships among trips that make up tours. Therefore, it is important to represent these relationships among trips in modeling the daily travel demand.In this study, by using the concept of utility maximization of base-to-base trip chainnig, we attempt to develop a set of models for predicting trip generation type, trip purpose, destination, mode choices in each trip on the way from work to home. The structure of travel demand model is represented by using nested logit model so that we avoid a simultaneous model's complexity caused by a large number of alternatives that a traveler faces in making his travel decision, while the model represents simultaneous decision-making process. The model incorporates the concept that decisions of a trip in a trip chain depend on decisions of trips conducted theretofore and decisions of trips planned thereafter, as well as on current trip conditions.The estimation of the model parameters was carried out by using a sequential approach. Empirical examinations of the model system for Nagoya metropolitan area show encouraging results.

OPTIMAL STRATEGIES FOR WORKERS ON TEMPORARY LAYOFF

In this paper we analyze the worker's behavior when faced with job offers which include possible temporary layoff spells of varying (known) durations. We show that of the three strategies which can be optimal, two involve search in all or part of the layoffs. We also show that the duration of any particular spell plays no role in determining which strategy is optimal to pursue. And finally, we develop an index for evaluating jobs with different wage and layoff probabilities and show that the worker's reservation wage monotonically increases, decreases or remains constant during the course of a layoff.

Why Workers Want Unions

Why is it that some workers want unions to represent them and other workers do not? The question is basic to our understanding of union growth and behaviour. The answer must depend on what workers think unions can and will do for them and on how much particular workers value such union accomplishments. There are a number of potential points where a worker's preferences about unions could be observed: in a worker's decision to vote for having a union at the workplace; in the worker's decision to join an existing union in an open shop; in the worker's decision to take a job in a unionised firm; and in a worker's political behaviour toward the leadership and policies of his or her union. Unfortunately, the decision about the union is complicated by other potentially confounding decisions such as the undesirability of being a “free rider” in an open shop, the “tied sale” of taking a job and joining a union, and the array of interests which may determine the formation of political coalitions in unions.

Worker Behavior and Reinforcement

Worker Behavior and Reinforcement

A Clash in Perspective? A Study of Worker and Client Perceptions of Social Work

This study explores in a small sample of a worker's own clients whether clashes in perspective occur between clients and social worker, and how this is linked with satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Dissatisfied clients did not share a framework with the worker, but felt blamed and criticized by her, and the worker's own behaviour at the contract setting stage contributed to this. In contrast, satisfied clients and the worker appeared to have a positive shared perspective of the treatment process.

The use of sociogram data in staff supervision

Clinicians have long recognized that the quality of social interaction between a therapist and his client is an essential component of treatment. However, the literature gives little information as to which therapist characteristics encourage therapeutic interactions except for studies on factors influencing the success of individual psychotherapy with adults (Truax, 1963; Truax & Carkhuff, 1967). This lack of guidance poses a problem for supervision of front-line staff working with groups of children in a day care or residential setting. Child care work supervision tends to be based on data obtained by observing the staff member's behavior with the children. If, in the eyes of the supervisor, the worker's behavior looks supportive, the supervisor assumes that the child finds interactions with this staff member positive, and therefore therapeutic. This may not be so since such an observation fails to take into account the child's actual perception of the interaction. As Skinner (1953) points out it is necessary to make a distinction between topography and function when observing social interaction. Topography refers to structure--what the behavior looks like. Two topographically different behaviors, such as a smile and a pat on the back, may both be rewarding to the receiver. Function refers to the consequences of a behavior; either the consequences the behavior produces that serve to maintain the function, or the consequences the behavior has on the environment. If a temper tantrum and catatonic posturing are both maintained by the same consequence--for example, attention--they are classified as func*Requests for reprints should be sent to Gillian Doherty, Children's Mental Health Services, 15 Overlea Boulevard, Toronto, Ontario M4H, 1A9, Canada. The present team leader in House 19, Russ Daniels, has continued to use the sociogram method and has conducted research in this area. Further information may be obtained by writing to Russ Daniels, Team Leader House 19, Thistletown Regional Centre, 11 Farr Avenue, Rexdale, Ontario, Canada M9W, 1P1.

An Empirical Study of Formula Income Transfers and the Work Decision of the Poor

The problem of estimating the changes in work effort which might be expected from the introduction of one of the new programs of income maintenance is the focus of this article. Utilizing information on work behavior contained in a cross-section sample of low-income workers and assuming that worker preferences are structured in a particular manner, one can draw conclusions regarding possible changes in work effort and income. A finding of the study is that a worker's behavior in response to the introduction of a formula transfer program depends critically on his response to changes in property income and the wage rate. The results indicate that little change in work effort may be expected on the part of the population as a whole from the introduction of a low rate formula plan.