Skills at work in the East Midlands, 1997-2006

This Report explains how several different aspects of work skill can be measured using the information gathered and examines the distribution of job skills among those in work. The Report also describes changes that have taken place over the last decade, by making comparisons across three separate, but comparable, surveys carried out in 1997, 2001 and 2006. The Report also compares work skills in the East Midlands with those found in England as a whole

Leeway for the loyal: a model of employee discretion

This article examines the factors underlying task discretion from an economist's perspective. It argues that the key axis for understanding discretion is the trade-off between the positive effects of discretion on potential output per employee and the negative effects of greater leeway on work effort. In empirical analysis using matched employer-employee data, it is shown that discretion is strongly affected by the level of employee commitment. In addition, discretion is generally greater in high-skilled jobs, although not without exceptions, and lower where employees are under-skilled. Homeworking and flexitime policies raise employee discretion. The impact of teamworking is mixed. In about half of cases team members do not jointly decide about work matters, and the net effect of teams on task discretion in these cases is negative. In other cases, where team members do decide matters jointly, the impact is found to be neutral according to employees' perceptions, or positive according to managers' perceptions. There are also significant and substantial unobserved establishment-level factors which affect task discretion

When the working day is through: The end of work as identity?

This article seeks to present a counter-case to the ‘end of work thesis’ advocated by writers such as Beck, Sennett and Bauman. It argues that work remains a significant locus of personal identity and that the depiction by these writers of endemic insecurity in the workplace is inaccurate and lacks empirical basis. The article draws upon case study data to illustrate how, across a range of workplaces, work remains an importance source of identity, meaning and social affiliation

Stimulating the innovation potential of 'routine' workers through workplace learning

Governments worldwide seek to upgrade the ‘basic skills' of employees deemed to have low literacy and numeracy, in order to enable their greater productivity and participation in workplace practices. A longitudinal investigation of such interventions in the United Kingdom has examined the effects on employees and on organizations of engaging in basic skills programmes offered in and through the workplace. ‘Tracking’ of employees in selected organizational contexts has highlighted ways in which interplay between formal and informal workplace learning can help to create the environments for employees in lower grade jobs to use and expand their skills. This workplace learning is a precondition, a stimulus and an essential ingredient for participation in employee-driven innovation, as workers engage with others to vary, and eventually to change, work practices. © 2010, SAGE Publications. All rights reserved

The Role of Entrepreneur-Venture Fit in Online Home-based Entrepreneurship: A Systematic Literature Review

Home-based businesses and their founders represent an important, but under-researched facet of entrepreneurship. Far from being small, hobby-businesses with little economic impact, home-based business make significant contribution to national economies in terms of both turnover and employment. Online home-based businesses have been recognised as an important and distinct sector of the home-based business domain, offering unique opportunity for innovation and business diversity. The paper presents a systematic literature review of extant research on online home-based entrepreneurs and their businesses. The findings of the review are structured and discussed using the theoretical lens of entrepreneur-venture fit. Use of this lens allows the study to bring coherence to previously fragmented extant studies, providing a basis for future research in this domain. The study also develops a novel model of entrepreneur-venture fit in the specific case of online home-based businesses. This allows us to suggest five positive interactions between entrepreneurial and venture characteristics. It also allows us to suggest a number of previously unidentified negative interactions, which may result in entrepreneurs becoming ‘locked-in’ and suffering multiple sources of stress

Giving Miss Marple a makeover : graduate recruitment, systems failure and the Scottish voluntary sector

The voluntary sector in Scotland, as across the globe, is becoming increasingly business like. Resultantly, there is an increasing demand for graduates to work in business and support functions. In Scotland, however, despite an oversupply of graduates in the labor market, the voluntary sector reports skills shortages for graduate-level positions; a leadership deficit was also reported in countries such as the United States. Through exploratory, mainly qualitative, case study and stakeholder research, this article proposes that one reason for this mismatch between the supply of and demand for graduates is a systems failure within the sector. Many graduates and university students remain unaware of potentially suitable paid job opportunities, in part because of the sector's voluntary label. To rectify this systems failure, thought needs to be given to the sector's nomenclature and the manner in which voluntary sector organizations attract graduate recruits, for example, through levering value congruence in potential recruits

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and International Business Travel: Mobility Allies?

Like forecasts about the paperless office, technological solutions to the problem of international business travel continue to be deferred. As with the increased use of office paper, international business travel is defying predictions of its decline. There is growing evidence to suggest that business sectors which seem ideally placed to substitute information and communication technology (ICT) for travel, are actually generating more physical travel than other sectors. This paper develops a case study of the Irish software industry to exemplify why international travel is not diminishing in importance how and the ICT and business travel relationship is changing in this sector. The paper presents research findings that suggest that a cycle of substitution, generation and modification relationships have occurred as mobility interdependencies have developed.Peer Reviewe

Non-traumatic Arm, Neck, and Shoulder Complaints in General Practice: Incidence, Course and Management

Non-traumatic complaints of arm, neck, and shoulder are common and can result in functional limitations in daily life and may sometimes lead to sickness absence. Reported symptoms are e.g. pain, tingling, stiffness, numbness, loss of hand coordination. When seeking medical care for these complaints, the general practitioner (GP) is usually the first person to consult. This thesis studies patients who consult their GP with a new non-traumatic complaint of arm, neck or shoulder, with a focus on incidence, course and management. The incidence study showed that a fulltime GP is consulted about 3 times every week for a new non-traumatic complaint of arm, neck, or shoulder, most frequently located at neck or shoulder. Six months after the first consultation with their GP, 46% of the patients in the cohort study reported no recovery. Next to several complaint specific variables, the psychosocial variables little social support and high score on somatization were predicitve of non-recovery at 6 months. Management upto 6 months after the first consultation most frequently consisted of prescribed analgesics and referral for physiotherapy. Specific and non-specific diagnostic subgroups differed in the frequency that corticosteroid injections were applied, and referrals to physiotherapy and to a medical specialist. In addition variables associated with five common management options within a few weeks after the first consultation were evaluated. Overall, besides diagnosis, most frequently long duration of complaints, more functional limitations but also several GP characteristics were associated with the application of a treatment option in non-traumatic arm, neck and shoulder complaints

Occupational sex-segregation, specialized human capital and wages: evidence from Britain

Female-dominated occupations are poorly paid, but there is disagreement about why. Sociological explanations argue that pay in such occupations is low because society undervalues 'women's work', while economic theory argues that this is due to scant requirements for specialized skills. This article sheds light over these debates by examining the impact of occupational feminization on wages in Britain and exploring the mechanisms that produce it, using innovative statistical models that account for both observable and unobservable skill. Results confirm that occupational sex-segregation explains a sizeable portion of the gender wage gap and that wages in female-dominated occupations are lower than wages in other occupations. Inconsistent with human capital theory, low pay in female-dominated occupations cannot be explained fully by low skill specialization or by observable or unobservable characteristics of their workers. Remaining wage penalties in such occupations are consequently taken as evidence of institutional devaluation of 'women's work'

The capitalist labour process : concepts and connections

The Conference of Socialist Economists (CSE) and Capital & Class were central in creating the conditions for a labour process debate. However, while the journal has continued to publish some articles on labour process issues, the debate has become associated primarily with the annual International Labour Process Conference. This article explores shifts in the nature and focus of debates, emphasizing continuity between the traditions as well as change. By contrasting early attempts in the journal to uncover 'immanent laws' of the capitalist labour process to more recent writings on core theory, contemporary trends in labour power and capitalist political economy are outlined and evaluated