‘Work-first’ (or ‘workfare’) activation policies severely restrict the choices of the unemployed. Can third-sector organisations (TSOs), with their person-centred mission, support long-term ...unemployed adults to make their own choices, given individual and societal constraints? Commentators often focus on ‘what works’ in supporting those with complex needs; others draw on the ‘capabilities approach’ (CA). With commentators often talking past each other, two key issues emerge. First, what constitutes real choice, and, second, how do we deal with the testimonies of programme users when those experiencing social deprivation may overstate the choices available to them? We argue that the CA’s dichotomisation of ‘true/real’ versus ‘constrained/no’ choice is problematic for a balanced assessment of choice possibilities across different programmes. Building on insights from current literatures, we develop a framework for researching choice possibilities. Using qualitative research, we apply this framework to a TSO employability programme in England, and find users have more control over their choices compared with UK workfare policy. The article contributes to international debates on the value of the CA, the links between programme form, user choice and well-being, and the scope for TSOs to deliver on their user-centred mission and prefigure better alternatives to workfare.
Research summary: This study examines whether companies employ corporate social responsibility (CSR) to improve employee engagement and mitigate adverse behavior at the workplace (e.g., shirking, ...absenteeism). We exploit plausibly exogenous changes in state unemployment insurance (UI) benefits from 1991 to 2013. Higher UI benefits reduce the cost of being unemployed and hence increase employees' incentives to engage in adverse behavior. We find that higher UI benefits are associated with higher engagement in employee-related CSR. This finding suggests that companies use CSR as a strategic management tool—specifically, an employee governance tool—to increase employee engagement and counter the possibility of adverse behavior. We further examine plausible mechanisms underlying this relationship. Managerial summary: This study examines whether companies employ corporate social responsibility (CSR) to improve employee engagement and mitigate adverse behavior at the workplace (e.g., shirking, absenteeism). We find that companies react to increased risk of adverse behavior by strategically increasing their investment in employee-related CSR (e.g., work-life balance benefits, health and safety policies). Our findings have important managerial implications. In particular, they suggest that CSR may help companies motivate and engage their employees. Hence, companies dealing with employees that are unmotivated, regularly absent, or engage in other forms of adverse behavior, may find it worthwhile to design and implement effective CSR practices. Further, our findings suggest that CSR can be used as employee governance tool. Accordingly, managers could benefit from integrating CSR considerations into their strategic planning.
Biased Humans, (Un)Biased Algorithms? Pethig, Florian; Kroenung, Julia
Journal of business ethics,
03/2023, Letnik:
183, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Previous research has shown that algorithmic decisions can reflect gender bias. The increasingly widespread utilization of algorithms in critical decision-making domains (e.g., healthcare or hiring) ...can thus lead to broad and structural disadvantages for women. However, women often experience bias and discrimination through human decisions and may turn to algorithms in the hope of receiving neutral and objective evaluations. Across three studies (
N
= 1107), we examine whether women’s receptivity to algorithms is affected by situations in which they believe that their gender identity might disadvantage them in an evaluation process. In Study 1, we establish, in an incentive-compatible online setting, that unemployed women are more likely to choose to have their employment chances evaluated by an algorithm if the alternative is an evaluation by a man rather than a woman. Study 2 generalizes this effect by placing it in a hypothetical hiring context, and Study 3 proposes that
relative algorithmic objectivity
, i.e., the perceived objectivity of an algorithmic evaluator over and against a human evaluator, is a driver of women’s preferences for evaluations by algorithms as opposed to men. Our work sheds light on how women make sense of algorithms in stereotype-relevant domains and exemplifies the need to provide education for those at risk of being adversely affected by algorithmic decisions. Our results have implications for the ethical management of algorithms in evaluation settings. We advocate for improving algorithmic literacy so that evaluators and evaluatees (e.g., hiring managers and job applicants) can acquire the abilities required to reflect critically on algorithmic decisions.
The Dynamics of Marginalized Youth Brzinsky-Fay, Christian; Holmes, Craig; Jongbloed, Janine ...
2022, 20220328, 2022-03-29, Letnik:
1
eBook, Book
Odprti dostop
This book studies young people who are Not in Education, Employment, or Training (NEET); a prime concern among policymakers. Moving past common interpretations of NEETs as a homogeneous group, it ...asks why some youth become NEET, whereas other do not. The authors analyse diverse school-to-work patterns of young NEETs in five typical countries and investigate the role of individual characteristics, countries’ institutions and policies, and their complex interplay. Readers will come to understand youth marginalization as a process that may occur during the transition from school, vocational college, or university to work. By studying longitudinal analyses of processes and transitions, readers will gain the crucial insight that NEETs are not equally vulnerable, and that most NEETs will find their way back to the labour market. However, they will also see that in all countries, a group of long-term NEETs exists. These exceptionally vulnerable young people are sidelined from society and the labour market. The country cases and cross-national studies illustrate that policies intended to help long-term NEETs to find their way in society are very limited. The book provides useful theoretical and empirical insights for scholars interested in the school-to-work transition and marginalized youth. It also provides helpful insights in vulnerability to policymakers who aim to combat youth marginalization.
Denise Kasparian’s Co-operative Struggles provides an in-depth study of two worker co-operatives in the Buenos Aires area today to reveal how co-operatives emerge, are governed, and disappear. She ...successfully confronts people’s implicit assumptions about co-operatives with observations from everyday realities of working in Argentinian worker co-operatives in the 2000s and 2010s. Her research thereby puts several dominant myths about the co-operative economy into perspective. During these decades, there was a boom in worker co-operatives in Argentina thanks to a combination of successful workers’ struggles and new co-operative-friendly legislation. Her first example is a hotel company that went bankrupt and was subsequently recuperated by workers and adapted into a co-operative business. Through the sustained occupation of the hotel, workers took possession of the building as a recuperated business, but afterward, a difficult process commenced of reconciling the financial and social tensions involved in managing a profitable yet self-managing co-operative. Her second case study is an unemployed workers’ organization in a poor and environmentally degraded neighborhood in the greater Buenos Aires area. Through the Argentina Works Program, the municipal government and social organizations collaborated with local unemployed women to form a worker co-operative that focuses on local improvement works, like cleaning up the polluted river that flows through the neighborhood.
The purpose of this article is to examine whether and by what means traditional unions and other labour-oriented organisations engage in solidarity activities in favour of precarious workers and the ...unemployed. Our findings derive from qualitative data analysed from 10 in-depth interviews per country conducted as part of a large collaborative project with participants sampled from trade unions and other labour-oriented solidarity organisations based in three European national contexts: Greece, Poland, and the UK. Our aim here is to discern common features and differences in the strategies and answers given, within the three national contexts. To this end, we examine the actors engaged in labour solidarity; the value frames upon which these actions draw; the beneficiaries of their solidarity actions; the type of activities adopted mainly in favour of precarious workers and the unemployed; and their engagement in transnational labour solidarity activities.
This article investigates the responsiveness of women’s labor supply to their husband’s job loss—the so-called added worker effect. The authors contribute to the literature by taking an explicit ...internationally comparative perspective in analyzing the variation of the added worker effect across welfare regimes. Using longitudinal data from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) survey covering 28 European countries from 2004 to 2013, they find evidence of an added worker effect, which, however, varies over both the business cycle and the different welfare regimes in Europe. The latter result might be explained, in part, by differences in the design of the unemployment benefit system across countries, which create different incentives for the labor supply of wives of unemployed men.
Uncertainty and isolation have been linked to mental health problems. Uncertainty surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to trigger mental health problems, which include anxiety, stress, ...and depression. This paper evaluates the prevalence, psychological responses, and associated correlates of depression, anxiety, and stress in a global population during the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) pandemic. A cross-sectional study design was adopted. 678 completed forms were collected during the COVID-19 quarantine/lockdown. An online questionnaire was designed and DASS-21 was used as the screening tool. A non-probability sampling technique strategy was applied. 50.9% of participants showed traits of anxiety, 57.4% showed signs of stress, and 58.6% exhibited depression. Stress, anxiety, and depression are overwhelmingly prevalent across the globe during this COVID-19 pandemic, and multiple factors can influence the rates of these mental health conditions. Our factorial analysis showed notable associations and manifestations of stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. People aged 18–24, females, and people in non-marital relationships experienced stress, anxiety, and depression. Separated individuals experienced stress and anxiety. Married people experienced anxiety. Single and divorced people experienced depression. Unemployed individuals experienced stress and depression. Students experienced anxiety and depression. Canada, the UK, and Pakistan are all countries that are experiencing stress and depression as a whole. An extended number of days in quarantine was associated with increased stress, anxiety, and depression. Family presence yielded lower levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. Lastly, lack of exercise was associated with increased stress, anxiety, and depression.
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