Testing the Group Task Demands-Resources Model among IT Professionals

Demands and resources of the work experience have been shown to be important antecedents to development of job burnout and exhaustion among individual workers, and a recent line of research has applied the demands-resources perspective to model pressures that can arise in group work. We conducted a study of the group task demands-resources model to extend testing from information technology (IT) student group settings—where the model was developed—to the context of group work among IT professionals. We find that most antecedents in the model are predictive of group work pressure or task performance satisfaction, however, several important differences emerged in findings between prior tests with IT students and the IT professionals we surveyed in this study

The Subjective Well-Being Challenge in the Accounting Profession: The Role of Job Resources

The main activity of the accountant is the preparation and audit of the financial information of a company. The subjective well-being of the accountant is important to ensure a balanced professional judgment and to offer a positive image of the profession in the face of the incorporation and retention of talent. However, accountants are subjected to intense pressures that affect their well-being in the performance of their tasks. In this paper, the job demands–resources theoretical framework is adopted to analyze the relationships between job demands, job resources, and the subjective well-being of a large sample of 739 accounting experts at the European level. Applying a structural equations model, the results confirm, on the one hand, the direct effects provided in the theoretical framework and, on the other, a new mediating role of job demands–subjective well-being relationship resources

The Effect Of Different Generations Psychosocial Work Climate On The Employees’ Work Performance

The main objective of this paper is to examine the psychosocial work environment factors that influence the employee’s work performance at difference generation

Aligning Best Practices in Student Success and Career Preparedness: An Exploratory Study to Establish Pathways to STEM Careers for Undergraduate Minority Students

Undergraduate minority retention and graduation rates in STEM disciplines is a nationally recognized challenge for workforce growth and diversification. The Benjamin Banneker Scholars Program (BBSP) was a five-year undergraduate study developed to increase minority student retention and graduation rates at an HBCU. The program structure utilized a family model as a vehicle to orient students to the demands of college. Program activities integrated best K-12 practices and workforce skillsets to increase academic preparedness and career readiness. Findings revealed that a familial atmosphere improved academic performance, increased undergraduate research, and generated positive perceptions of faculty mentoring. Retention rates among BBSP participants averaged 88% compared to 39% among non-participant STEM peers. The BBSP graduation rate averaged 93% compared to 20% for non-participants. BBSP participants were more likely to gain employment in a STEM field or enter into a professional study. This paper furthers the body of research on STEM workforce diversity and presents a transferrable model for other institutions

A Framework to Evaluate Software Developer’s Productivity The VALORTIA Project

Currently, there is a lack in companies developing software in relation to assessing their staff’s productivity before executing software projects, with the aim of improving effectiveness and efficiency. QuEF (Quality Evaluation Framework) is a framework that allows defining quality management tasks based on a model. The main purpose of this framework is twofold: improve an entity’s continuous quality, and given a context, decide between a set of entity’s instances on the most appropriate one. Thus, the aim of this paper is to make this framework available to evaluate productivity of professionals along software development and select the most appropriate experts to implement the suggested project. For this goal, Valortia platform, capable of carrying out this task by following the QuEF framework guidelines, is designed. Valortia is a platform to certify users' knowledge on a specific area and centralize all certification management in its model by means of providing protocols and methods for a suitable management, improving efficiency and effectiveness, reducing cost and ensuring continuous quality.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación TIN2013-46928-C3-3-

A Competency-based Approach toward Curricular Guidelines for Information Technology Education

The Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Society have launched a new report titled, Curriculum Guidelines for Baccalaureate Degree Programs in Information Technology (IT2017). This paper discusses significant aspects of the IT2017 report and focuses on competency-driven learning rather than delivery of knowledge in information technology (IT) programs. It also highlights an IT curricular framework that meets the growing demands of a changing technological world in the next decade. Specifically, the paper outlines ways by which baccalaureate IT programs might implement the IT curricular framework and prepare students with knowledge, skills, and dispositions to equip graduates with competencies that matter in the workplace. The paper suggests that a focus on competencies allows academic departments to forge collaborations with employers and engage students in professional practice experiences. It also shows how professionals and educators might use the report in reviewing, updating, and creating baccalaureate IT degree programs worldwide

Simultaneous interpreting : walking a tightrope

Several phenomena associated with the differences in the performance of novice interpreters and semi-professionals have been discussed in the paper. Particular emphasis was placed on the occurrence of imported cognitive load which strongly influenced the performance of the subjects also in places where no intrinsic difficulty had been detected. Nevertheless, too little evidence was provided to establish a more detailed pattern of imported cognitive load, which was due to the limited number of participants in the study. It would be possible to obtain more detailed data and comments from the participants by means of interviews conducted individually with the participants. It would allow asking detailed questions to the participants, which might be a more reliable method than the immediate retrospective accounts. Moreover, in the present study such variables as gender differences, age differences and the possible influence of other foreign languages were not taken into account. Perhaps these variables might shed some light on the issue of the management of cognitive resources. Also, the corpus gathered for the present study may be used for the investigation of other aspects of the SI performance

Long hours and stress in the UK's IT profession: has the European Union's Working Time Directive offered relief?

Only a small amount of research thus far has investigated the relationship between the working conditions of those employed in technical professions, such as Information Technology (IT), and the implications for their well being (Sonnetag et al., 1994). In particular the IT profession in the UK appears to be at risk from a culture characterised by long working hours (Kodz, 2003). In addition to the established links between long-term computer use and upper extremity musculoskeletal disorders (Punnett & Bergqvist, 1997), previous research has also positively linked working for excessive hours as potential stressor to the mental health of employees (Sparkes et al., 1997; Spurgeon, Harrington & Cooper, 1997). A prevalence of mobile computer technologies has also meant the erosion of traditional boundaries between work and home (Venkatraman, Tanriverdi & Stoke, 1999). Furthermore IT professionals have faced a proliferation of complicated methodologies, a growing guilt reaction to a failure to keep pace with ever-changing technological advancements, and the pressure to develop and deliver software in shorter time scales (Perlow, 1998; Stokes, 1996). These very personal issues associated with the quality of working life also have serious organisational implications in terms of increased costs related to absenteeism, recruitment and training; impaired decision making; job dissatisfaction and low morale (Coolican, 2001). The UK's Working Time Regulations (WTR), implemented in 1998, provide a current, normative representation of reasonable working time. This research paper compares the working patterns of a cluster of IT professionals within a large financial services organisation against this model in order to ascertain their position relative to this tolerable standard. The relationship between the subtleties in the way time is ordered and the reported perceptions of the affect of the WTR and other Human Resource initiatives to reduce the culture of long working hours are studied. Whilst it is acknowledged that individual characteristics are important in determining an affinity and ability to work long hours and cope with stress, they are by no means the overriding aspects. Previous researchers such as Moore (1998) have cited adverse organisational factors as more significant in the etiology of work exhaustion than individual factors. This research examines some of those organisational factors and the perceived value of formal initiatives in reducing incidences of long working hours and concomitant pressures. The perceptions of stress and the efficacy of these formalised schemes are examined by observing and questioning those directly affected with regards to their working time, job stressors and work-life balance. The findings indicate that although the organisation in question has made some high-profile attempts to promote a healthy balance between work and home, the efficacy of these efforts is questionable. The working limits set by the WTR are regularly exceeded and long hours are still entwined, and indeed often subtly promoted, within the organisation. Managers and the Human Resources (HR) department appear to send out confusing and contradictory messages. IT professionals, and their partners, are often publicly rewarded for working long hours while others are penalised for doing the same. The performance management system values those working on high-profile projects, with work on these projects often a key factor in gaining promotion. Yet due to the nature of the profession, the organisational sub-culture, and poorly considered workplace design, this work invariably requires the commitment of sustained long hours amid difficult circumstances. As HR try to drive through the principles of the WTR formally, or informally through initiatives such as Work Smarter Not Harder and Go Home On Time days, the unanticipated consequences of their actions and inactions present IT professionals with a stress-laden dichotomy

Establishing Processing Priorities: Recommendations from a 2017 Study of Practices in US Repositories

Building upon archival scholarship and previous solutions addressing backlog collections, this study seeks to identify a comprehensive, integrated, and effective strategy to establish and maintain processing priorities. This study is based on supporting research, which includes the results of a survey of archivists and the findings of five focus group discussions about processing priorities. Using these findings, the authors (a) consider whether this focus on an old problem has motivated archivists to find innovative solutions; (b) determine whether archivists are using these tools; (c) consider whether and how archivists have changed processing priority practices and policies; and (d) seek to clarify current metrics to establish overall processing priorities