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This study aimed to investigate the sensemaking strategies employed by early-career employees working within organizationally constrained environments.

Grounded in the sensemaking-as-accomplishment framework, a longitudinal multi-case study was conducted, involving three early-career employees. These participants were interviewed multiple times concerning tasks they themselves identified as anomalous and ambiguous.

The study's findings illuminate how early-career employees utilize sensemaking strategies to accomplish anomalous-ambiguous tasks. These strategies are interwoven with deliberate efforts to mitigate organizational constraints that exist in the organization or arise during the execution of complex tasks.

Notable limitation pertains to the time gap between task completion and the interviews. Conducting real-time interviews concurrently with task execution or immediately afterward was not feasible due to constraints in participant availability. This research has implications for organizational learning initiatives, particularly those encompassing employee-driven self-learning components. Insights derived from studies like this can inform the development of effective self-learning schemes within organizations.

Previous sensemaking research focused on what takes place in high-reliability organizations. This study explored sensemaking strategies in workplaces that are organizationally constrained.

In the wake of a skills shortage in Australia and its impact on the economy, the need for students to complete their vocational education and training (VET) programmes and enter the workforce is critical. This study aims to identify to what degree student programme choice and perceived personal benefits as well as various confounders act as determinants of student satisfaction.

The study uses data from the Australian Student Outcome Survey to quantify the gain or loss in satisfaction conditional on whether a specific personal benefit was received from the training.

The results show that when students acquire personal benefits through their VET training, overall student satisfaction has a relationship with the nature of the personal benefit received. This may be a determinant of future enrolments and should thus be important to VET providers and policymakers for their planning and institutional priority setting.

To our knowledge, this paper is the first that quantifies the relationship between the satisfaction of graduates from VET and a variety of personal benefits received from vocational training.

The purpose of this study was to investigate work-related adaptive performance from a longitudinal process perspective. This paper clustered specific behavioral patterns following the introduction of a change and related them to retentivity as an individual cognitive ability. In addition, this paper investigated whether the occurrence of adaptation errors varied depending on the type of change content.

Data from 35 participants collected in the simulated manufacturing environment of a Research and Application Center Industry 4.0 (RACI) were analyzed. The participants were required to learn and train a manufacturing process in the RACI and through an online training program. At a second measurement point in the RACI, specific manufacturing steps were subject to change and participants had to adapt their task execution. Adaptive performance was evaluated by counting the adaptation errors.

The participants showed one of the following behavioral patterns: (1) no adaptation errors, (2) few adaptation errors, (3) repeated adaptation errors regarding the same actions, or (4) many adaptation errors distributed over many different actions. The latter ones had a very low retentivity compared to the other groups. Most of the adaptation errors were made when new actions were added to the manufacturing process.

Our study adds empirical research on adaptive performance and its underlying processes. It contributes to a detailed understanding of different behaviors in change situations and derives implications for organizational change management.

This project inquires whether transitioning to adopting sustainable practices involves emphasizing the significance of education and skill development that aligns with employees' knowledge. Additionally, this project explores whether soft skills can act as a means for effective communication, collaboration and ethical decision-making when addressing the intricate and socially interconnected nature of sustainability challenges. Thus, this research explores employee sustainability knowledge and soft skills to gain a more nuanced understanding to provide evidence-based recommendations to enhance organizational sustainability initiatives.

This study used a form of chain-referral sampling with two populations. A two-step cluster analysis with a log-likelihood distance measure and Schwarz’s Bayesian criterion was employed to identify communities of employees with different levels of sustainable practices and soft skills knowledge. A corresponding analysis was conducted to better understand different communities in terms of industry and managerial experience. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted using a covariance-based measurement model to establish measurement validity and reliability and to impute latent variables (i.e. constructs) scores.

Aligning human resource (HR) strategies with these identified knowledge communities enables organizations to strategically enhance comprehensive training programs promoting sustainable practices and soft skills. Tailored training and workforce development programs for each community are recommended, with the proposal of active training methods like Lego Serious Play to dynamically engage employees. As organizations increasingly invest in training, this research offers valuable insights for educators and industry professionals to better cultivate and apply soft skills to develop employee sustainability practices and enhance employee development.

Although this study’s findings are not generalizable to the population, they are useful when considering critical sustainability knowledge and soft skills necessary for employees in the hospitality industry. The convenience sample of this study could have been more robust, with participants with greater tenure in the industry or a better understanding of sustainable practices and soft skill competencies. This research used a Qualtrics survey to gather subject responses. This may have caused biases in responding to the survey, such as a central tendency, immediacy, the rater’s knowledge about each criterion or boredom with the survey length.

The practical implications drawn from this study’s findings offer actionable insights for organizations seeking to enhance sustainability practices within their workforce. As one navigates the diverse landscape of employee categories, including sustainable champions, emerging learners and skillful initiators, it becomes evident that a one-size-fits-all approach to training and workforce education is not conducive to cultivating a sustainable culture. In this section, some possible practical strategies tailored to each employee category are suggested, ensuring that organizations can effectively harness the unique strengths and development needs within their workforce.

Using a social cognitive theoretical lens (Bandura, 1977), sustainable catalysts' elevated knowledge levels make them influential contributors to the organization’s sustainability goals, while their adeptness in soft skills positions them as effective communicators, collaborators and leaders in fostering a culture of sustainability. Figure 1b displays this idea. As such, sustainable catalysts were present four times in the effectiveness of the top five soft skills, meaning these sustainable catalysts should be the area of primary focus as they can assist organizations by educating other employees due to their enhanced soft skills and level of sustainability knowledge.

Rooted in social cognitive theory, this study investigated how HR practices can effectively shape sustainability-related workforce development in the workplace. The results identified distinct knowledge communities – sustainable catalysts, skillful initiators, emerging learners and sustainable champions – aligned with quadrants of sustainable practice effectiveness. Aligning HR strategies with these identified knowledge communities enables organizations to strategically enhance comprehensive training programs promoting sustainable practices and soft skills.

The goal was emancipatory, to characterise and dislodge oppressive management practices, to allow for the possibility of seeking an alternative organisational construction free of postcolonial/subaltern subordination and discrimination in a local, well-documented narrative.

The study was informed by a postcolonial/subaltern perspective and drew on the employment experience of an Aboriginal woman, Canada’s first Indigenous Dean of a law school. The researcher employed a combination of case study and critical discourse analysis with the aim of advancing rich analyses of the complex workings of power and privilege in sustaining Western, postcolonial relations.

The study made several conclusions: first, that the institution, a medium-sized Canadian university, carefully controlled the Indigenous subaltern to remake her to be palatable to Western sensibilities. Second, the effect of this control was to assimilate her, to subordinate her Indigeneity and to civilise in a manner analogous to the purpose of Indian residential schools. Third, that rather than management’s action being rational and neutral, focused on goal attainment, efficiency and effectiveness, it was an implicit moral judgement based on her race and an opportunity to exploit her value as a means for the university’s growth and status.

Through a postcolonial/subaltern perspective, this study demonstrated how management practices reproduced barriers to the participation of an Indigenous woman and the First Nations community that an organisation was intended to serve. The study demonstrated how a Western perspective – that of a university’s administration, faculty and staff – was privileged, or taken for granted, and the Indigenous perspective subordinated, as the university remained committed to the dispossession of Indigenous knowledge and values.

This article problematizes the concept of freedom rooted in liberalism, examining the detention of historian Ilan Pappe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) at Detroit Airport in the United States as an emblematic case study.

The research adopts a methodological triangulation approach, based on an analysis that combines data about the event and theories about the concept of freedom, problematizing authors who focused on the relationship between the individual and society in a liberal context, where individualism serves as the basis for specific conceptions of social relations.

Through the use of authors such as John Stuart Mill and John Locke, as well as the contributions of authors like Norbert Elias, it is argued that true freedom is relational, rooted in social interdependencies and the social construction of an individuality that is not individualistic but intrinsically linked to collective aspects.

Pappe’s case illustrates the tensions between individual freedom and collective interests, highlighting the need to reassess freedom of expression in complex political and social contexts.

This article proposes a more inclusive and interconnected view of human freedom, where individual and collective interests are negotiated within a dynamic web of social relations.

Work overload has become a relevant issue in the Information Technology (IT) industry, with negative effects for individuals and organizations alike. This study aims to analyse the role of personal resources in a broad model regarding the effects of work overload on performance and well-being for the particular case of IT professionals. Considering the specificities of the IT industry, three personal resources were included in this study: one stable personality variable (conscientiousness) and two more malleable variables (work-life balance and psychological detachment).

To test the model, the authors use a sample of 144 IT Portuguese professionals. The authors collected data through an online questionnaire shared in social networks and IT social network communities. The authors use partial least squares (PLS) for data analysis.

The results show that work overload negatively impacts on employees’ life satisfaction, psychological detachment, work-life balance and task performance. Conscientiousness is positively related with two positive outcomes: task performance and life satisfaction. Work-life balance has a mediating effect in the relationship between work overload and life satisfaction.

These findings emphasize the need to promote conscientiousness in IT professionals, as well as reduce workload and promote family-friendly working environments to foster work-life balance and life satisfaction.

By testing this model, the authors aim to contribute to the current knowledge on the role of personal resources in the Job Demands-Resources model, which is still unclear and under-researched.