Using unique data from East Germany, this study is the first to provide systematic evidence that employees in establishments with a works council experience more democracy at work than those in establishments without a works council. Employees in establishments with a works council perceive the organizational climate as being more open to discussion and feel to a higher extent that they have collective control over what happens at work (collective efficacy). Unionization plays an important moderating role in the link between works councils and experienced workplace democracy. The presence of a works council strengthens perceptions of an open organizational climate and collective efficacy to a larger extent for union members than for nonmembers. For union members, the presence of a works council even bolsters the perception that their individual engagement plays a role in what is going on at work (self-efficacy).
Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANETs) support the information dissemination among vehicles, Roadside Units (RSUs), and a Trust Authority (TA). A trust model evaluates an entity or data or both to determine truthfulness. A security model confirms authentication, integrity, availability, non repudiation issues. With these aspects in mind, many models have been proposed in literature. Furthermore, many information dissemination approaches are proposed. However, the lack of a model that can manage traffic incidents completely inspires this work. This paper details how and when a message needs to be generated and relayed so that the incidents can be reported and managed in a timely manner. This paper addresses this challenge by providing a traffic incident management model to manage several traffic incidents efficiently. Additionally, we simulate this model using the VEINS simulator with vehicles, RSUs, and a TA. From the experiments, we measure the average number of transmissions required for reporting a single traffic incident while varying the vehicle density and relaying considerations. We consider two types of relaying. In one series of experiments, messages from regular vehicles and RSUs are relayed up to four hops. In another series of experiments, messages from the regular vehicles and RSUs are relayed until their generation time reaches sixty seconds. Additionally, messages from the official vehicles are relayed when they approach an incident or when the incident is cleared. Results from the simulations show that more vehicles are informed with four-hop relaying than sixty-second relaying in both cases.
Abubakarr Jaye, Nigel Boachie Kumankumah, Chidera Biringa
et al.
Long-horizon reasoning is a key challenge for autonomous agents, yet existing benchmarks evaluate agents on single tasks in isolation. Real organizational work requires managing many concurrent long-horizon tasks with interleaving, dependencies, and reprioritization. We introduce Multi-Horizon Task Environments (MHTEs): a distinct problem class requiring coherent execution across dozens of interleaved tasks (45+, 500-1500+ steps) within persistent execution contexts spanning hours. We identify four failure modes that cause baseline CUAs to degrade from 16.7% to 8.7% completion as load scales 25% to 100%, a pattern consistent across three independent implementations. These failure modes are context saturation (O(N) vs O(1) growth), memory interference, dependency complexity (DAGs vs. chains), and reprioritization overhead. We present CorpGen, an architecture-agnostic framework addressing these failures via hierarchical planning for multi-horizon goal alignment, sub-agent isolation preventing cross-task contamination, tiered memory (working, structured, semantic), and adaptive summarization. CorpGen simulates corporate environments through digital employees with persistent identities and realistic schedules. Across three CUA backends (UFO2, OpenAI CUA, hierarchical) on OSWorld Office, CorpGen achieves up to 3.5x improvement over baselines (15.2% vs 4.3%) with stable performance under increasing load, confirming that gains stem from architectural mechanisms rather than specific CUA implementations. Ablation studies show experiential learning provides the largest gains.
La décentralisation de la fixation des salaires permet aux entreprises d’ajuster la structure des rémunérations, mais a des effets incertains sur les inégalités. Les auteurs estiment l’influence du niveau auquel se déroule la négociation collective sur les disparités salariales dans l’entreprise. Exploitant des données appariées employeur-salarié sur les revenus relatives à six pays (Allemagne, Belgique, Espagne, France, Royaume-Uni et Tchéquie) entre 2006 et 2018 – période de transformation économique –, ils constatent que cette influence varie considérablement au sein des pays et entre eux et qu’il n’existe pas de tendance temporelle commune. Leurs constatations remettent ainsi en cause les classifications simples des systèmes nationaux de négociation.
Hamidreza Mehmankhah, Gholamreza Memarzadeh Tehran, Hamed Rahmani
et al.
Purpose: Managers' evaluation has always been considered as one of the key processes in organizations. However, this process comes with challenges and limitations that can affect its accuracy and effectiveness. In many cases, evaluations focus only on certain aspects of managers' performance and ignore other aspects, while these neglected aspects can play a decisive role in a comprehensive and accurate evaluation. The purpose of this study was to provide a model for assessing managers' competency based on cognitive tools.
Methodology: This research was applied in terms of purpose and mixed in terms of data collection method. This study collected its data through a qualitative meta-synthesis approach and used the seven-step method of Sandelowski and Barrso (2007) to analyze the data; the studies were coded using the content analysis method in MAXQDA 24 software. Then, to screen and localize the model, the fuzzy Delphi method based on the fuzzy triangle was used with the participation of sixteen theoretical and experimental experts who were purposefully selected.
Findings: The researcher's findings included six dimensions, twenty components, and 115 indicators. The results were categorized into six dimensions: decision-making, cognitive abilities, cognitive processes, problem-solving, interactive, and cognitive-behavioral.
Originality: Factors such as analytical thinking and problem-solving ability had already been studied in the use of cognitive tools, but other cognitive elements such as metacognition, social cognition, learning ability, memorization, retention of attention, decision-making, etc. had been overlooked. In this study, the researcher tried to expand and develop the existing tools.
Recommendations: By integrating cognitive tools into assessment centers, organizations can conduct more comprehensive evaluations of managers' performance in accordance with their specific cultural and contextual needs.
Economic growth, development, planning, Employee participation in management. Employee ownership. Industrial democracy. Works councils
The Bullwhip Effect, describing the amplification of demand variability up the supply chain, poses significant challenges in Supply Chain Management. This study examines how the COVID-19 pandemic intensified the Bullwhip Effect across U.S. industries, using extensive industry-level data. By focusing on the manufacturing, retailer, and wholesaler sectors, the research explores how external shocks exacerbate this phenomenon. Employing both traditional and advanced empirical techniques, the analysis reveals that COVID-19 significantly amplified the Bullwhip Effect, with industries displaying varied responses to the same external shock. These differences suggest that supply chain structures play a critical role in either mitigating or intensifying the effect. By analyzing the dynamics during the pandemic, this study provides valuable insights into managing supply chains under global disruptions and highlights the importance of tailoring strategies to industry-specific characteristics.
Accurately predicting the lifespan of critical device components is essential for maintenance planning and production optimization, making it a topic of significant interest in both academia and industry. In this work, we investigate the use of survival analysis for predicting the lifespan of production printheads developed by Canon Production Printing. Specifically, we focus on the application of five techniques to estimate survival probabilities and failure rates: the Kaplan-Meier estimator, Cox proportional hazard model, Weibull accelerated failure time model, random survival forest, and gradient boosting. The resulting estimates are further refined using isotonic regression and subsequently aggregated to determine the expected number of failures. The predictions are then validated against real-world ground truth data across multiple time windows to assess model reliability. Our quantitative evaluation using three performance metrics demonstrates that survival analysis outperforms industry-standard baseline methods for printhead lifespan prediction.
As the use of LLM chatbots by students and researchers becomes more prevalent, universities are pressed to develop AI strategies. One strategy that many universities pursue is to customize pre-trained LLM as-a-service (LLMaaS). While most studies on LLMaaS chatbots prioritize technical adaptations, we focus on psychological effects of user-salient customizations, such as interface changes. We assume that such customizations influence users' perception of the system and are therefore important in guiding safe and appropriate use. In a field study, we examine how students and employees (N = 526) at a German university perceive and use their institution's customized LLMaaS chatbot compared to ChatGPT. Participants using both systems (n = 116) reported greater trust, higher perceived privacy and less experienced hallucinations with their university's customized LLMaaS chatbot in contrast to ChatGPT. We discuss theoretical implications for research on calibrated trust, and offer guidance on the design and deployment of LLMaaS chatbots.
Federated learning (FL) mechanisms typically require each client to transfer their weights to a central server, irrespective of how useful they are. In order to avoid wasteful data transfer costs from clients to the central server, we propose the use of consensus based protocols to identify a subset of clients with most useful model weights at each data transfer step. First, we explore the application of existing fluid democracy protocols to FL from a performance standpoint, comparing them with traditional one-person-one-vote (also known as 1p1v or FedAvg). We propose a new fluid democracy protocol named viscous-retained democracy that always does better than 1p1v under the same assumptions as existing fluid democracy protocols while also not allowing for influence accumulation. Secondly, we identify weaknesses of fluid democracy protocols from an adversarial lens in terms of their dependence on topology and/ or number of adversaries required to negatively impact the global model weights. To this effect, we propose an algorithm (FedVRD) that dynamically limits the effect of adversaries while minimizing cost by leveraging the delegation topology.
This article provides critical evaluation of the impact of Covid-19 on NHS employee perceptions of workplace well-being at The State Hospital (Scotland) during the global pandemic, focusing on lessons learned for NHS management during times of crisis. An exploratory case study qual→QUAL sequential dependent strategy was adopted, extracting themes from the NHS deployed Staff Well-Being Survey of summer 2020 (227 respondents, 35% of all staff) (qual) to inform thematic progression for 10 in-depth interviews with a range of NHS employees (QUAL). The Job Demands-Resources Model (JD-R Model) was adapted during the study to incorporate personal demands and resources (personal challenges and coping mechanisms at work and in wider life), providing a more holistic and detailed picture of working life during the pandemic for NHS workers. Three recommendations emerged to enhance employee well-being during periods of crisis around management development, workload issues and communication strategies.
Paula Fraga-Lamas, Tiago M Fernandez-Carames, Oscar Blanco-Novoa
et al.
Shipbuilding companies are upgrading their inner workings in order to create Shipyards 4.0, where the principles of Industry 4.0 are paving the way to further digitalized and optimized processes in an integrated network. Among the different Industry 4.0 technologies, this article focuses on Augmented Reality, whose application in the industrial field has led to the concept of Industrial Augmented Reality (IAR). This article first describes the basics of IAR and then carries out a thorough analysis of the latest IAR systems for industrial and shipbuilding applications. Then, in order to build a practical IAR system for shipyard workers, the main hardware and software solutions are compared. Finally, as a conclusion after reviewing all the aspects related to IAR for shipbuilding, it is proposed an IAR system architecture that combines Cloudlets and Fog Computing, which reduce latency response and accelerate rendering tasks while offloading compute intensive tasks from the Cloud.
Background & Purpose: Emerging of biological-viral crises in a wide range such as Covid-19 has made serious issues in the field of human capital management for the organizations. In such a situation, the development of leaders so as to effectively manage employees is of great importance. Thus, the current research aims to identify leadership development strategies and investigate the its effects on army's human capital management in bio-viral crises.Methodology: This research conducted based on a mixed approach (qualitative-quantitative) and during a descriptive-exploratory study. The statistical population for the qualitative stage includes experts (senior managers of deputy of human resources of headquarters and their four forces as well as expert professors of AJA organizational universities), and for the quantitative stage, employees of the mentioned deputy of human resources with at least a bachelor's degree. Data was collected by the purposeful method up to the theoretical saturation with the number of 15 people in the qualitative stage and by stratified random sampling with 169 people by calculating Cochran's formula in the quantitative stage. The data collection tool in the first stage includes a semi-structured interview and in the second stage includes a 50-item questionnaire to measure the relationships between research variables. Qualitative data analysis conducted by thematic analysis method and quantitative data was analyzed through structural equation modeling.Findings: The findings indicated that leadership development strategies in bio-viral crises include behavioral development strategy (i.e., improving self-awareness, interpersonal cooperation, perceptual skills, leadership thinking and recognition of contributions), structural development strategy (i.e., distribution of leadership structure, segmentation of talents, value architecture and organizational structure architecture) and contextual development strategy (i.e., forecasting and analyzing the environment, promoting risk-taking, expanding effective communication with other leaders, and environmental analysis). Besides, the effectiveness of behavioral, environmental, and structural development strategies were the most effective ones to affect Army’s human capital management respectively.Conclusion: It is concluded that in order to effectively manage human resources in the upcoming bio-viral crises, it is necessary and effectual to focus on the behavioral development of commanders and managers. The developmental strategies introduced in this study could be helpful in this issue.
Employee participation in management. Employee ownership. Industrial democracy. Works councils
Umme Ayman Koana, Francis Chew, Chris Carlson
et al.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the adoption of digital health solutions. This has presented significant challenges for software development teams to swiftly adjust to the market need and demand. To address these challenges, product management teams have had to adapt their approach to software development, reshaping their processes to meet the demands of the pandemic. Brighsquid implemented a new task assignment process aimed at enhancing developer accountability toward the customer. To assess the impact of this change on code ownership, we conducted a code change analysis. Additionally, we surveyed 67 developers to investigate the relationship between accountability and ownership more broadly. The findings of our case study indicate that the revised assignment model not only increased the perceived sense of accountability within the production team but also improved code resilience against ownership changes. Moreover, the survey results revealed that a majority of the participating developers (67.5%) associated perceived accountability with artifact ownership.
In recent years, the study of various models and questions related to Liquid Democracy has been of growing interest among the community of Computational Social Choice. A concern that has been raised, is that current academic literature focuses solely on static inputs, concealing a key characteristic of Liquid Democracy: the right for a voter to change her mind as time goes by, regarding her options of whether to vote herself or delegate her vote to other participants, till the final voting deadline. In real life, a period of extended deliberation preceding the election-day motivates voters to adapt their behaviour over time, either based on observations of the remaining electorate or on information acquired for the topic at hand. By adding a temporal dimension to Liquid Democracy, such adaptations can increase the number of possible delegation paths and reduce the loss of votes due to delegation cycles or delegating paths towards abstaining agents, ultimately enhancing participation. Our work takes a first step to integrate a time horizon into decision-making problems in Liquid Democracy systems. Our approach, via a computational complexity analysis, exploits concepts and tools from temporal graph theory which turn out to be convenient for our framework.
Arezo Shafi, Zeinab Gheisari, Zohreh Rezadoost
et al.
Background & Purpose: With the growth of societies, women nowadays are much more involved in organizations and jobs than ever before and are active as an influential workforce. Although there has been a lot of progress in the presence of women today comparing with the past, the structural and social barriers and pressures to create a glass ceiling for women continue to this day. The purpose of this research is to design a glass ceiling approach to break based on grounded theory analysis.
Methodology: This study is developmental in terms of result, exploratory in terms of the purpose, qualitative regarding methodology. Fifteen professionals including directors, officers, and professionals from different levels of the oil company took part in this study. The research data collection tool was interview and the data theory method was used to analyze the data. In the present study, the interviews were conducted in depth in the early stages, but because of the conceptual codes, the interviews were more purposeful and semi-open in order to properly conceptualize the topic.
Findings: The analysis of the research codes after performing open coding and axial coding revealed a total of 829 open source coding, 424 coding, 307 sub-themes, and 61 main themes.
Conclusion: Recognizing the causal factors, contextual and confounding conditions of the glass ceiling can increase the level of perception of women's empowerment as a basis for promotion and the level of organizational functions, both in human resource strategies and in enhancing the level of outcomes. This understanding can prepare the possibility to use the women’s abilities and promote gender equality in the organization.
Employee participation in management. Employee ownership. Industrial democracy. Works councils
Saeed zohrabi, Ahmad reza Kasrai, Tahmouress Sohrabi
Purpose: The purpose of this study is to present a comprehensive evaluation-based model for intelligent organizations.
Methodology: The research was applied-developmental in terms of purpose, descriptive-exploratory in terms of method and quantitative-qualitative in terms of data collection approach. To determine the factors affecting intelligent organizations, the Fuzzy Delphi technique was applied. The statistical population of the study at this stage was consisted of all Iranian organizational managers as well as some academicians, from among of whom 27 individuals were selected by purposive sampling. At the next stage, the Social Security Organization was studied and the components of the intelligent organization were classified through exploratory factor analysis. Confirmatory factor analysis, analysis of variance and Bonferroni post hoc test were used to analyze the data.
Findings: The results of Fuzzy Delphi analysis revealed 40 factors, the most important of which are: intelligent foresight, intelligent management and intelligent technological infrastructure. The results of the second phase of the research revealed ten general categories which, according to their priority, are as follow: strategic intelligence, structural intelligence, technological intelligence, knowledge management, information technology, competitive intelligence, environmental intelligence, cultural intelligence, social intelligence and human intelligence.
Originality: Intelligent organization is an important part of the e-government strategic plan. The practical result of this research is a comprehensive model that can be used to evaluate similar organizations and to make intelligent decisions.
Implications: Regarding the fact that strategic intelligence significantly affects other types of intelligence, taking it into special consideration is recommended. The role of technological intelligence is vital for the intelligent organization, unlike the traditional organization. With reference to the weight of structural intelligence, restructuring is of great importance at this age of information.
Economic growth, development, planning, Employee participation in management. Employee ownership. Industrial democracy. Works councils
In early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic forced employees in tech companies worldwide to abruptly transition from working in offices to working from their homes. During two years of predominantly working from home, employees and managers alike formed expectations about what post-pandemic working life should look like. Many companies are currently experimenting with new work policies that balance both employee- and manager expectations to where, when and how work should be done in the future. In this article, we gather experiences from 17 companies and their sites, covering 12 countries. We share the results of corporate surveys of employee preferences for working from home and analyse new work policies. Our results are threefold. First, through the new work policies all companies are formally giving more flexibility to the employees with regards to working time and work location. Second, there is a great variation in how much flexibility the companies are willing to yield to the employees. The variation is related both to industry type, size of the companies, and company culture. Third, we document a change in the psychological contract between employees and managers, where the option of working from home is converted from an exclusive perk that managers could choose to give to the few, to a core privilege that all employees feel they are entitled to. Finally, there are indications that as the companies learn and solicit feedback regarding the efficiency of the chosen strategies, we might see further developments and changes of the work policies with respect to how much flexibility to work whenever and from anywhere they grant. Through these findings, the paper contributes to a growing literature about the new trends emerging from the pandemic in tech companies and spells out practical implications onwards.
Background & Purpose: Many organizations have outsourced their human resources processes due to their management considerations over the years, hoping to take advantage of this approach. The purpose of this study is to design a comprehensive and coherent framework for managing the outsourcing of human resource processes. Methodology: The method of the present research is paradigmatic in terms of interpretation and qualitative and meta synthesis in terms of data collection. The data collection tool is a library method based on document review, including articles, books, conferences, and authoritative scientific databases from 1937-2020. The data analysis was performed through content analysis. Findings: This framework includes the sections of evaluation and measurement, design and development, implementation and management, improvement and improvement, and organizations can use the results of this framework to manage processes in a comprehensive and macro-strategic way. Conclusion: Using this framework and the prevailing considerations in each stage of it, organizations can manage their outsourcing process scientifically and professionally and benefit from its benefits. This issue will also provide a platform for future research on the specialization of each activity, at each stage and for each organization and different groups.
Employee participation in management. Employee ownership. Industrial democracy. Works councils
Liquid democracy has a natural graphical representation, the delegation graph. Consequently, the strategic aspects of liquid democracy can be studied as a game over delegation graphs, called the liquid democracy game. Our main result is that this game has bicriteria approximation guarantees, in terms of both rationality and social welfare. Specifically, we prove the price of stability for $ε$-Nash equilibria is exactly $ε$ in the liquid democracy game.