Safeguarding Health at the Workplace: A Study of Work Engagement, Authenticity and Subjective Wellbeing among Religious Workers

: Research in work and organizational psychology has paid little attention to religious workers, something certainly surprising as faith-based organizations play a key role in the welfare state of many countries. This research shows that religious workers in a Catholic order present a high degree of subjective wellbeing, both in terms of flourishing and satisfaction with life in general, and a positive balance of positive and negative feelings. More specifically, this study examines the relationship between authenticity and wellbeing amongst religious workers. Survey responses from 142 religious workers in Spain were analyzed using partial least squares path modelling. The results reveal that subjective wellbeing at work is positively related to authenticity. In addition, this relationship is mediated by their level of work engagement

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

La reestructuración de plantillas al amparo de la reforma laboral-2012: consecuencias sobre la cultura organizacional

La situación de crisis por la que atraviesa Europa desde hace años ha provocado un aumento considerable de los procesos de reestructuración empresarial, muchos de los cuales implican un redimensionamiento de plantillas al amparo de las nuevas oportunidades que ofrece la reforma laboral de 2012. Todo proceso de reestructuración perturba el sistema de valores asentado en el seno de la organización y, por consiguiente, provoca efectos telúricos sobre los cimientos que basamentan la cultura organizacional. Precisamente, en este trabajo se pone de manifiesto que las facilidades que ofrece la reforma laboral para acometer procesos de reestructuración y redimensionamiento de plantillas provoca consecuencias directas sobre los valores en los que se sustenta la cultura organizativa, afectando así a la posibilidad de aplicar ciertas prácticas orientadas al desarrollo de los recursos humanos en la empresa.The crisis situation that Europe is facing since several years ago has resulted in a significant increase in corporate restructuring processes, many of which imply downsizing. This is being accomplished under cover of the new opportunities provided by the 2012 labor reform. Every restructuring process disrupts the system of values within the organization and therefore causes telluric effects on the foundations that shape organizational culture. Precisely, this work reveals that the facilities the labor reform offers to undertake restructuring and downsizing processes it provokes direct consequences on the values that sustain the organizational culture, and hence, affect to the possibility of applying certain practices oriented to the development of the human resources within the company

SLAWS: Towards a Conceptual Architecture for SLA Enforcement

Current technologies in Service Oriented Computing (SOC) provide a solid framework to drive the interaction of organizations from a functional point of view. in order to introduce non-functional properties in this scenario, the concept of Service Level Agreement (SLAs) comes into play as a key element. SLAs can be seen as containers of the functional and non-functional properties that both parties (the service consumer and the service provider) agree specifying its rights and obligations during the interaction. However this SLAs represent an additional responsibility for the service provider since it motivates the need of a SLAEnforcement process in its infrastructure. A proper SLAenforcement implies optimized resource usage that meet SLAs established with consumer, making it possible to the provider afford a larger number of customers to maximize its benefits. Current approaches to SLA enforcement are domainspecific approaches and/or based on monolithic platforms (from a SOC point of view).In this paper we propose a conceptual architecture (SLAWs) for SLA enforcement. The main goal of the proposed architecture is to be used as a conceptual framework to build a flexible SLA enforcement layer. This layer could be integrated in a seamless way in the pre-existing provider infrastructure when is based upon the service oriented architecture principles

Rethinking the Galapagos Islands as a complex social ecological system: implications for conservation and management

The Galapagos Islands are among the most renowned natural sites in the world. Unlike other oceanic archipelagos, the ecological and evolutionary processes characteristic of Galapagos have been minimally affected by human activities, and the archipelago still retains most of its original, unique biodiversity. However, several recent reports suggest that the development model has turned unsustainable and that the unique values of the archipelago might be seriously at risk. In response to international concern, UNESCO added Galapagos to the list of World Heritage in Danger in 2007. Our goal was to provide new insights into the origins of the present-day crisis and suggest possible management alternatives. To this end, we re-examined the Galapagos situation from a broad systems perspective, conceptualizing the archipelago as a complex social-ecological system. Past, present, and possible future trends were explored using the resilience theory as a perspective for understanding the dynamics of the system. Four major historical periods were characterized and analyzed using Holling's adaptive cycle metaphor. The current Galapagos situation was characterized as a prolonged series of crisis events followed by renewal attempts that have not yet been completed. Three plausible future scenarios were identified, with tourism acting as the primary driver of change. The current tourism model reduces the system's resilience through its effects on the economy, population growth, resource consumption, invasive species arrival, and lifestyle of the island residents. Opportunities to reorganize and maintain a desirable state do exist. However, strong political and management decisions are urgently needed to avoid an irreversible shift to a socially and environmentally undesirable regime. Key measures to achieve a new sustainability paradigm for Galapagos include modifying traditional practices to produce a more adaptive resilience-based co-management model, adopting a more comprehensive approach to territorial planning, strengthening participative approaches and institutional networks, and promoting transdisciplinary research at the frontiers of social and biophysical sciences

Authenticity and Subjective Wellbeing within the Context of a Religious Organization

Although authenticity has a long history as a philosophical and psychological idea, this concept has received scarce attention in the business literature until very lately. Nevertheless, scholars belonging to a broad array of disciplines have pointed out the escalation in the individuals’ search for authenticity within developed societies. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to assess the link between authenticity and subjective wellbeing within the rarely explored context of faith-driven organizations, where the management of emotions attains a particular significance. Specifically, this study links authenticity with subjective wellbeing among the distinct groups that shape a large international Catholic organization. This study uses Partial Least Squares (PLS) to test our research model and hypotheses. This paper covers two noteworthy research gaps. On the one hand, it provides evidence of the relationship between authenticity and subjective wellbeing within the context of religious organizations. On the other hand, our results suggest that this relationship is not homogeneous among the distinct groups that shape the organization. Implications of the research are finally discussed

Green innovation, indeed a cornerstone in linking market requests and business performance

Many studies uphold market orientation as a key factor in creating and sustaining a firm’s competitive advantage. This research aims to explore this topic further by including within the model the concept of green innovation. In particular, this paper empirically tests the mediating role of green innovation performance in the relationship between market orientation and organizational performance. This study relies on a sample of 145 firms belonging to the Spanish automotive components manufacturing sector. The results obtained by applying Partial Least Squares (PLS) path-modelling, a variance-based structural equations modelling technique, reveal that market orientation exerts a direct impact on organizational performance. Subsequently, we observe how the green innovation performance construct partially mediates the market orientation-organizational performance link. The paper brings some theoretical conclusions and implications for research and practice

Assessing the links between organisational cultures and unlearning capability:evidence from the Spanish automotive components industry

Within the current business environment, knowledge management, organisational learning and unlearning mechanisms are becoming critical factors in the process of reaching lasting competitive advantages. Our research model employs the competing values framework (Cameron and Quinn, 1999) to empirically assess the influence of the firm's own cultural typology on organisational unlearning. Our hypotheses are tested using a sample of 145 firms drawn from the Spanish automotive components manufacturing sector. The relationships between the constructs are assessed through the use of partial least squares (PLS) path-modelling, a variance-based structural equation modelling technique. The outcomes reveal that certain types of culture exert a higher influence on unlearning than others. This suggests in turn that some cultural typologies are better positioned to face the current turbulent situation than others

An Elasticity Framework for Smart Contracts

Smart contracts provide computation facilities to blockchains, enabling many application scenarios where au tomatic analysis and complex transactions can be performed. However, in situations where the flow of information is variable and there are time, quality, and/or cost constraints imposed, smart contracts do not usually offer enough performance. In this article, we describe an elasticity framework that enables dynamic adaptation of smart contracts with respect to used resources, analytics quality, and incurred costs in a transparent manner for both smart contract developers and users. We validate our framework in an Internet of Things and Smart City scenario where several analytics are computed using Elas tic Smart Contracts that dynamically adapt the appropriate elasticity variables.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación RTI2018101204-B-C21 (HORATIO)Junta de Andalucía APOLO (US-1264651)Junta de Andalucía EKIPMENT-PLUS (P18-FR-2895

Elastic Smart Contracts in Blockchains

In this paper, we deal with questions related to blockchains in complex Internet of Things (IoT)-based ecosystems. Such ecosystems are typically composed of IoT devices, edge devices, cloud computing software services, as well as people, who are decision makers in scenarios such as smart cities. Many decisions related to analytics can be based on data coming from IoT sensors, software services, and people. However, they are typically based on different levels of abstraction and granularity. This poses a number of challenges when multiple blockchains are used together with smart contracts. This work proposes to apply our concept of elasticity to smart contracts and thereby enabling analytics in and between multiple blockchains in the context of IoT. We propose a reference architecture for Elastic Smart Contracts and evaluate the approach in a smart city scenario, discussing the benefits in terms of performance and self-adaptability of our solution.Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades RTI2018-101204-B-C21 (HORATIO)Junta de Andalucía APOLO (US-1264651)Junta de Andalucía EKIPMENT-PLUS (P18-FR-2895