Suchergebnisse

Shipbreaking in the Chittagong region of Bangladesh supplies metal to meet the needs of the nation's construction sector. The shipbreaking industry has received international attention for environmental contamination and workers' insecurity. However, these issues have been framed without considering the actors that produce them and their associated motives. This paper illuminates the conflicting discourses regarding the industry between two divergent groups of actors. On the one hand, national and international NGOs collaborate to enforce a discourse focused on negative localized impacts. On the other hand, yard owners, yard workers, and local community members forge a counter discourse, focused on positive localized impacts and raising doubts about the origin of the environmental pollutants and occupational standards setting. National and international actors have so far missed the conflicting perspective of workers, yard owners, locals and NGOs. We contend that these divergent discourses involve scalar politics, with one discursive frame focused on localized impacts in order to leverage global resources, while the other situates local communities in the global world system; this confounding of scale leads to ineffective policy formulation. This shipbreaking case study provides a valuable lesson on the importance of listening to and including stakeholders at multiple scales when seeking policies to address localized impacts of a globalized industry.

Based on a study of reliability consequences of New Public Management (NPM) reforms in Norwegian critical infrastructure sectors, this article suggests that the discourse of work found inNPMrenders essential aspects of operational work invisible—including practices that are known to be of importance for reliability. We identify two such organizationally 'invisible' characteristics of operational work: the ongoingsituational coordinationrequired for keeping a water supply system or an electricity grid running, and the aggregatingoperational historywithin which this happens. In the reorganized infrastructure sectors, these crucial aspects of operational work fit poorly in market oriented organizational models and control mechanisms. More generally, our analysis contributes to the understanding of how some types of work fit poorly within the discourse of work found inNPM.

This paper analyses the effects of investment in information technologies (IT) in the financial sector using micro‐data from a panel of 600 Italian banks over the period 1989–2000. Stochastic cost and profit functions are estimated allowing for individual banks' displacements from the best practice frontier and for non‐neutral technological change. The results show that both cost and profit frontier shifts are strongly correlated with IT capital accumulation. Banks adopting IT capital‐intensive techniques are also more efficient. On the whole, over the past decade IT capital‐deepening contribution to total factor productivity growth of the Italian banking industry can be estimated in a range between 1.3 and 1.8 per cent per year.

In the face of looming retirements in the federal service, retaining and motivating the next generation of workers has emerged as a critical concern for human resource professionals in federal agencies. While a growing body of work provides advice and strategies on making government work more inviting for the members of the Millennial generation, those born after 1982, not much is known about the turnover intentions of those already in public service. Do Millennial workers in the federal agencies resemble older workers in terms of their work motivations and turnover intentions? This study compares Millennial and older generation workers in U.S. federal agencies, in terms of their turnover intentions and work motivations. The analyses show that they are more likely than their older counterparts to report an intention to leave their jobs, and most work attributes do not matter more for Millennial workers' decisions to leave.

This article delves into the development of the guano industry in its most important location in Puerto Rico, Mona Island. The initial years of guano production were erratic; but the Spanish and Puerto Rican governments saw potential and continued to try to develop this possibly lucrative export. Initial attempts to export guano to the United States proved successful, but the industry lacked the expertise to greatly expand production. To solve this dilemma came a Canadian geologist and expert in guano extraction John G. Miller and his assistant Carlos Miguel Iglesias Mons. They were not only able to expand guano production, but also to use their expertise to prepare exports for different markets including those in Great Britain. Miller and Iglesias would lay the foundations for guano exports that would eventually flourish into Puerto Rico's third most important export a decade later. ; El artículo inquiere sobre el desarrollo de la industria del guano en su más importante sitio en Puerto Rico: la isla de Mona. Los primeros años de la producción de guano fueron erráticos. Pero las autoridades españolas y medios puertorriqueños percibieron el potencial y siguieron tratando de desarrollar esta exportación prometedora en términos lucrativos. Los primeros intentos de exportar guano a los Estados Unidos fueron exitosos, pero la industria carecía de la experiencia necesaria para expandir suficientemente la producción. Vino entonces un geólogo canadiense experto en guano de nombre John G. Miller, con su asistente Carlos Miguel Iglesias Mons. No solo fueron capaces de expandir la producción, sino también de usar su pericia en cuestión de exportaciones a diferentes mercados, incluyendo los británicos. Miller e Iglesias llegarían a sentar las bases para la exportación de guano que habría de florecer en Puerto Rico hasta convertirse una década después en el tercer artículo de exportación más importante.

Mit dem aktuellen Beginn eines neuen Jahrzehnts entsteht auch ein tiefergehendes Verständnis dafür, dass gesellschaftlicher Wandel nicht mehr aufzuhalten ist. Denn der wirtschaftliche Fortschritt und das soziale Wohlergehen einer Wirtschaft beruhen vermutlich auf der Fähigkeit, sich anzupassen und auf Veränderungen zu reagieren. Diese Veränderungen lassen sich grob als technologische Innovationen, digitale Fortschritte und Automatisierung im persönlichen und beruflichen Bereich zusammenfassen. Inmitten des anhaltenden technologischen Optimismus und anderer sozioökonomischer Veränderungen werden sich die Volkswirtschaften auch der Notwendigkeit bewusst, sich auf die Zukunft der Arbeit (Future of Work – FoW) vorzubereiten. Dabei liegt der Schwerpunkt auf der Steigerung der Beschäftigung mit der zugrunde liegenden Annahme, dass Hochschulbildung wesentlich zum wirtschaftlichen Wohlstand der Nationen beitragen und kompetente Arbeitskräfte zur Verfügung stellen kann. Das Konzept der Beschäftigung steht heute auch im Mittelpunkt der Hochschulpolitik. Obwohl Beschäftigung als "objektiver Begriff" definiert wurde, der anhand der Anzahl der nach dem Studium beschäftigten Personen gemessen werden kann, hat sie auch eine "subjektive" Bedeutung in Bezug auf den Wert der Arbeit für den Einzelnen und das mit der Arbeit verbundene lebenslange Lernen etabliert. Dieser Artikel konzentriert sich auf diese subjektive Dimension der Beschäftigung, welche die individuelle Motivation, das soziale Lernen und die Anpassungsfähigkeit im digitalen Zeitalter umfasst. Es wird argumentiert, dass der Einzelne nun mehr kognitive, kreative und soziale Fähigkeiten am Arbeitsplatz benötigt, um einen reibungslosen Übergang in die Zukunft der Arbeit zu ermöglichen. Die "Positional conflict theory" wird in der Folge dazu verwendet, den Zusammenhang zwischen Hochschulbildung, Beschäftigungsfähigkeit und Zukunft der Arbeit in einer sich wandelnden Zeit zu kontextualisieren. ; With the advent of a new decade, there is a reasonable understanding that change is here to stay. The economic progress and social wellbeing of an economy are believed to be resting upon the ability to adapt and respond to the changes. The changes can be broadly categorized as technological innovations, digital advancements, and automation in personal and professional spaces. Amidst the ongoing technological optimism and other socio-economic changes, the economies are also deliberate about preparing for the future of work (FoW). The emphasis is on increasing the employability with an underlying assumption that higher education can significantly contribute towards the economic welfare of the nations and prepare a competent workforce. The concept of employability is now central to higher education policy. Although employability has been defined as, an 'objective term' that can be measured in terms of the number of individuals employed after post-graduation, it also has a 'subjective' meaning in terms of the value of work to individuals and lifelong learning attached with the work. This article focuses on the subjective dimension of employability, involving individual cognition, social assets, and adaptability in the digital era. It argues that individuals will now require more cognitive, creative and social skills at work for a smooth transition into the future of work. Positional conflict theory is used to contextualize the nexus between higher education, employability and future of work in the changing times.

The U S television industry has often been labeled as being highly concentrated This article attempts to measure levels of seller, buyer, and "additional" concentration in the television station industry and then relates the findings to the Justice Department proposal to examine possible divestiture of the network owned and operated stations An oligopoly schema is used to test the hypothesis that, even when consideration is given to the three national networks in a measured value of concentration, the television industry is not a highly concentrated industry, i e , it would not be classified as a concentrated, type / oligopoly The measures support the conclusion that the television station industry does not have high seller and buyer concentration But, when consideration is given to an "additional" measure (the product representative function of the networks, i e , their networking functions involving program and advertisement sales), the industry was found to be highly concentrated The owned and operated stations, however, do not appear to enjoy a monopoly market situation, and based on this finding, it is suggested that the networks' divestiture of their owned and operated stations would do little to alleviate the problems of increased network revenues and program control