83 research outputs found
A Temporal Comparison of the Effects of Unemployment and Job Insecurity on Wellbeing
Analyses of individuals\' working lives make a variety of assumptions about the relationship between time, wellbeing and economic stress. Some assume that stress will accumulate in adverse environments, leading to chronic effects of, for instance, long-term unemployment or job insecurity. Other studies emphasize the acute effects of changes per se, and assume adaptation. This paper examines how employees respond both to acute and chronic job insecurity This paper will use two datasets. The first is from a survey of over 300 UK employees employed in 26 companies; this dataset included both qualitative and quantitative data, at both employer and employee levels. The second dataset consisted of longitudinal data from the British Household Panel Survey. It was found that the unexpected announcement of job insecurity can cause a sudden and marked spike in psychological symptoms. Looking at longer-term effect for prolonged periods of job insecurity, wellbeing (i.e. symptoms of anxiety and depression) continues to deteriorate for at least a year, with no sign of leveling off or recovery. This is in contrast to the findings on long-term unemployment, where there is evidence of adaptation and slight improvements in psychological wellbeing after six months. The reasons for these opposing patterns between job insecurity and unemployment are discussed in terms of the challenge for individuals attempting to cope with perceived future uncertainty during the prolonged recovery from the current recession.Job Insecurity, Recession, Wellbeing, Unemployment, Chronic Stress
The stigma of failure: An international comparison of failure tolerance and second chancing
It is commonly asserted that high rates of entrepreneurship and superior economic performance in the United States is linked to a higher cultural tolerance of business failure. After reviewing cross country patterns of entrepreneurship we develop in this paper a measure of cultural attitudes towards failure which has two components. We term these failure tolerance which captures attitudes towards the risk of a business failing and second chancing which measures the degree of agreement with the proposition that those who have failed should be given a second chance. Using a unique dataset on attitudes to failure for a sample of 9,500 individuals drawn from 19 economies for the year 2002 we show that respondents in the USA appear to have relatively high levels of failure tolerance. However, they are less willing to grant a second chance to those who have tried and failed. We find that having relatively high levels of failure tolerance is not positively correlated with GDP growth. Having a relatively positive attitude towards second chancing across countries is positively related to GDP growth. Taken together these results suggest there is a link between attitudes to failure and economic growth, but it is not the one conventionally assumed in current policy rhetoric which argues that relatively favourable attitudes towards second chancing in the USA explains its more entrepreneurial activity.Attitudes to failure, Entrepreneurship, Cross-country comparisons
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Communication in an "Officeless firm"
New technologies permit new types of organisations. This article describes and analyses one such organisation, an "officeless firm", where all employees work from their own homes and there is no central office. Drawing upon observations and interviews, the modes of communication and the nature of the interpersonal relationships that have permitted this organisation to succeed are described, along with the challenges that face this organisation in the future as it attempts to grow
Confirmation bias and the testing of hypotheses about other people
Critical reviews of the literatures on self-fulfilling
prophecies and self-confirming hypotheses uncovered several
weaknesses in key works on those topics. In particular two
important flaws were revealed. Hypotheses and expectations
were confused and confounded and the most important aspect of
these effects in person perception, changes in the perceiver's representation of the target, were ignored. Instead
these works either made inferences about the perceivers'
judgments from other individuals with different perspectives,
or claimed to have demonstrated the effect of manipulating
the hypothesis whereas their results were probably attributable
to manipulating expectancies instead. It was argued
that both of these types of inferences are invalid, and reanalyses
of data from empirical works showed that the claims
were not justified.
A series of experiments was conducted in an attempt to
find unequivocal evidence of self-confirming hypotheses.
Numerous reasons were found as to why the phenomenon was
highly unlikely to occur in social interaction. For
instance, the asking of biased questions was found not to
occur when perceivers generated their own questions to ask
instead of selecting from a list given to them. In addition,
subjects modified the questions they asked during the course
of social interactions in such a way as to eliminate any
possible bias in information search. Even when questions
searching for confirmatory evidence were asked there was
little evidence that interviewers' judgements were biased in
favour of confirming their hypotheses.
By contrast strong evidence was found for self-confirming
hypotheses when subjects used information from
their own memories to test hypotheses about aquaintances.
These findings were discussed in the light of other
paradigms within social psychology. Reasons why social
cognition has, at times, so underestimated human rationality
were considered and several conclusions were made including
the need for greater caution in attempting to emulate and
understand social processes in a laboratory setting
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Do active labour market policies reduce the harmful effects of job insecurity? Evidence for flexicurity from the EWCS and ESS
Conclusions:
The relationship between job insecurity and psychological wellbeing seems to be remarkably unpredictable between countries, independent from their level of claimed or actual flexicurity policies.
This calls into doubt one of the important claimed benefits of flexicurity â ameliorating the threat associated with job loss.
Why?
â Lack of knowledge about active labour market policies, etc?
â Psychological attachment is with current job, not "employability"
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The Social Consequences of Job Insecurity in the European Union
The relationship between job insecurity and psychological wellbeing seems to be unpredictable between countries, independent from their level of claimed or actual flexicurity policies.
This calls into doubt one of the important claimed benefits of flexicurity â ameliorating the threat associated with job loss.
Why?
â Lack of knowledge about active labour market policies, etc?
â Psychological attachment is with current job, not "employability"
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Job quality in Europe
Promoting job quality and gender equality are objectives of the European Employment
Strategy (EES) in spite of a downgrading of the attention given to both in the
revised employment guidelines and the re-launch of the Lisbon Process. However,
advances on both of these objectives may be important complements to the employment
rate targets of the EES, as access to good quality jobs for both sexes is likely to
help sustain higher employment rates. While the European Commission has a broad
view of the concept of job quality in practice, it relies on a selection of labour market
type indicators that say little about the quality of the actual jobs people do. Using
data from the 2005 European Working Conditions survey, we analyse job quality
along three dimensions: job content, autonomy and working conditions. We conclude
that gender and occupational status, along with other job characteristics such as
working time and sector, have more influence on an individualâs job quality than the
country or ânational modelâ they are situated in. Our results also demonstrate the
value of developing indicators of job quality that are both gender sensitive and
derived at the level of the job rather than the labour market in order to advance EU
policy and academic debate on this topic
Gig Rights & Gig Wrongs:Initial Findings from the Gig Rights Project: Labour Rights, Co-Determination, Collectivism and Job Quality in the UK Gig Economy
Attempts to investigate working conditions and labour rights in the UK gig economy have been hampered by the hard-to-reach nature of this population. Most existing studies have overcome this difficulty by using a qualitative research design where sample size is less important. When UK quantitative studies have been undertaken they have either been weakened by relatively small and potentially biased samples or undertaken with the support of platform companies with important questions relating to labour rights not being asked.1 The Gig Rights Project sought to fill this void by generating a novel non-probability sample of gig workers by advertising our survey directly to UK gig workers active on Internet platforms.2 The result is a unique sample of 510 UK workers that we believe spans the diversity of the gig economy. Our diverse sample allows us to investigate the degree to which a broad range of factors influence work experiences and shape views towards labour rights, including whether the work is undertaken remotely or in local proximity to the customer, workers are migrants or UK-born, male or female, younger or older, or more or less educated
NHS Reforms and the Working Lives of Midwives and Physiotherapists
From 2000 the NHS was subjected to a series of far reaching reforms, the purposes of which were to increase the role of the primary care sector in commissioning and providing services, promote healthier life styles, reduce health inequality, and improve service standards. These were seen as requiring a greater leadership role from health professionals, closer and more cooperative working between health professionals, and between health professionals, social services, and community and other service providers. The project surveyed a random sample of midwives and physiotherapists to investigate their perceptions of the effectiveness of the reforms, and their effects on working lives. The predominant perception was that NHS reforms had negatively affected the funding of their services; and had done little to improve service quality, delivery or organisation. Although the potential existed for the reforms to improve services, the necessary resources and required staffing were not made available and the objectives of the reforms were only partially secured by intensifying of work. The downside of this was a deterioration of the socio-psychological wellbeing of midwives and physiotherapists, especially the former, exacerbating the shortage of skilled and experienced. Shortage of staff and the associated increased work burdens were demoralising and demotivating; morale and job satisfaction declined, and job insecurity and labour turnover increased.Professional work, midwives, physiotherapists, Britain, public sector reforms, job satisfaction and morale
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