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This study examines the effects of firm-level collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) on workers’ welfare within Spanish firms, focusing on the trade-off between wage inequality and mean wage levels within firms. Results indicate that while firm-level CBAs contribute to increased intra-firm wage inequality, they also significantly enhance intra-firm average wage levels, with these positive effects being consistently observed across firm types and employee skill levels. Most notably, the increase in mean wages tends to offset the adverse effects associated with wage disparities, thereby leading to an overall improvement in workers’ welfare within firms. These findings provide crucial policy implications, advocating for tailored approaches in supporting effective collective bargaining practices that can foster equitable wage growth and enhance workers’ welfare, particularly in smaller firms and those employing low-skilled workers. Our results underscore the importance of firm-level negotiations in shaping equitable and prosperous labour market outcomes in contemporary economic settings.

Designing effective business analytics (BA) platforms that visualise data, provide deep insights and support data-driven decision-making is a challenging task. Understanding the elements shaping BA platform design is crucial for success. The purpose of this study is to explore the impact of visualisation on usability (UI) and user experience (UX) while emphasising the importance of insights understanding in BA platform design.

This paper presents a case study following a startup’s journey as it undergoes two redesign phases for its BA platform. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods is used to assess UX/UI and insights understanding of the platform. Indicatively this included semi-structured interviews, observations, think-aloud techniques and surveys to monitor runtime per task, number of errors, users’ emotions and users’ understanding.

Our findings suggest that modifications in aesthetics and information visualisation positively influence overall usability, UX, and understanding of platform insights – a critical aspect for the success of the startup.

Our goal is not to make a methodological contribution, but to illustrate how companies, constrained by time and pressure, navigate platform changes without meticulous design and provide learnings on important elements while designing BA platforms.

This paper concludes with suggested methods for assessing BA platforms and recommends practical practices to follow. These practices include recommendations on important elements for BA platform users, such as navigation and interactivity, user control and personalisation, visual consistency and effective visualisation.

This study contributes to practice as it presents a real-life case and offers valuable insights for practitioners.

Given its ability to improve user interaction and labor productivity, ease human workloads and cut maintenance costs, public sectors are using AI-based robotic technology (AI-RT) at an accelerated rate. There is, however, little knowledge about the variables affecting citizens' participation when services backed by AI-RT are offered. In order to better understand the elements that influence AI-RT citizens' involvement and the moderating function of trusts in governmental organizations, this article draws on ideas from the Consumer Value Theory.

Out of 500 survey forms that were distributed to Indonesian people who had experience in using AI-RT devices in public service hall (e.g. airport’s Auto Gate), 367 returned the completed feedbacks. Data analysis used a step-by-step hierarchical moderated regression examination using SPSS 24 version.

Citizens’ involvement is positively correlated with esthetics and customization and adversely correlated with period expended using the AI-RT. Additionally, the findings imply that citizens who have greater levels of faith in governmental institutions are more likely to benefit favorably from the customization and esthetics of AI-RT.

The AI-RT must be capable of customizing the distribution of the appropriate materials to the appropriate individual at the appropriate moment, and public managers should guarantee that it is esthetically pleasing. Additionally, they ought to place a high priority on winning the trust of the populace in order to increase citizens’ involvement.

This paper was among the initial efforts that discover the determinants of citizens’ involvement in the AI-RT and the moderating effect of trusts in governmental organizations on the links between predictors and predicted variable, especially in an emerging country such as Indonesia.

The purpose of this study is to explore the interplay between electronic service quality, user experience (UX) and overall customer satisfaction. Additionally, it aims to assess the suitability of E-S-QUAL and UX metrics within the cultural context of Greece.

Data were collected from 310 Internet users based on their last online purchase from an e-retail website. To evaluate the conceptual model, the authors used partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM).

The findings of this study validate the scales' reliability and validity in the realm of electronic commerce (e-commerce) in Greece. The findings also emphasize the favorable association between e-service quality and UX with overall satisfaction, while indicating that e-service quality plays a partial mediating role in the relationship between UX and customer satisfaction.

The authors' study enhances the existing theory by introducing a new multi-dimensional conceptual framework that illuminates the relative importance of the dimensions within the scales. Additionally, it offers valuable insights into the impacts of e-service quality and UX on overall satisfaction, providing managers and practitioners with a tool to evaluate the quality of their electronic services and make necessary adjustments to meet the needs of their customers.

Labor-related risks resulting from layoffs may pique auditors’ scrutiny. Although previous research has enriched the understanding of the economic consequences of layoffs, the authors know relatively little about the relationship between layoffs and audit fees. This study aims to investigate whether auditors are concerned about corporate layoff events and their pricing decisions under the influence of the events.

This study examines the effect of layoff storms on audit fees using news reports from mainstream financial and economic media in China about layoffs in listed companies. Based on whether the company is reported to have layoffs by the media in a fiscal year, this study collects data on 204 layoff storms in A-share listed companies from 2008 to 2022. Then, this study uses propensity score matching to reduce the interference of basic company characteristics.

This study finds that audit fees are higher after firms experience layoff storms. Higher internal control quality and pay advantage in the industry weaken the positive relationship between layoff storms and audit fees, while higher political uncertainty strengthens this positive relationship. Further tests show that companies with proactive layoffs, persistent layoffs and media disclosures of layoff numbers face more audit fees, but the type of corporate response to the layoff does not influence audit pricing.

This study contributes to the literature on audit pricing and the economic consequences of layoffs by emphasizing the impact of labor-related risks on audit fees.

The common language behind vernacular architecture only seems to be maintained in societies that preserve a traditional way of life. Changes in these societies can threaten their cultural heritage, while research may be a tool for its conservation and enhancement. In this paper, the habitat of a Mossi community is therefore studied as a first stage in analysing the possibilities of its maintenance.

After a previous study, data collection from a stay in Baasneere (Burkina Faso) and the analysis of 32 traditional residential units were completed. The research showed some common features which, when compared against the bibliography reviewed, could be defined as characteristic of the traditional architecture of this culture.

The home for a family unit consisted in an enclosure formed by the grouping of adobe constructions around a courtyard. As the family grew so did the compound, in a relationship directly linking the scales of architecture and the levels of kinship. The main daily activities took place in the courtyards while the individual interior spaces were understood as private shelters. Other typologies such as granaries, kitchens, warehouses and sheds were also analysed.

Some features of Mossi architecture already described in the existing bibliography were verified in the Baasneere case studies, showing that this tradition is still preserved. With a multidisciplinary approach, the house was examined not so much from the perspective of construction, but of its cultural configuration.

This paper seeks to understand how a new elite, known as the cork aristocracy, emerged in the Bordeaux wine field, France, between 1850 and 1929 as wine merchants replaced aristocrats. Classic class and status perspectives, and their distinctive social closure dynamics, are mobilized to illuminate the individual and organizational transformations that affected elite wineries grouped in an emerging classification of the Bordeaux best wines. We build on a wealth of archives and historical ethnography techniques to surface complex status and organizational dynamics that reveal how financiers and industrialists intermediated this transition and how organizations are deeply interwoven into social change.

In this paper, we investigate the current conditions as well as possibilities of a better interaction between architects and user–clients in the Belgian single-family housing context. We specifically focus on issues around client learning and knowledge sharing of architectural services.

Following the research through design methodology, we report on a co-design process converging towards a multi-layered journey map tool. We analyze the discussions held between architects and user-clients during “Ideation & Design” workshops that led to this specific tool idea, within a broader co-design process context.

In terms of client learning and knowledge sharing, there is a need for (1) sharing the process knowledge, (2) clarifying responsibilities and missions of both parties and (3) considering different levels of engagement of user-clients. Current ways of interaction around these issues are mostly based on verbal exchanges during meetings and written explanations in contracts. In terms of future expectations, it has been revealed that both parties are in favor of (1) keeping the relationship trustworthy but informal, (2) using visual ways of representing the architectural journey and (3) providing additional “pedagogical” support when needed.

Our work not only discusses current practices regarding client learning and knowledge sharing of architectural services but also highlights the future-oriented aspirations of architects and user-clients. It proposes actionable design criteria and a multi-layered journey map tool to support the relationship between architects and user-clients, both transferable to architectural education.

Regarding industrial sports products, there is sometimes a dual sport and health meaning intended by designers. Appearances of sport products are often quite opposite to health products. Design choices made by designers can thus be misunderstood by users. This paper aims to deeper understand the perception gap between designers and users within earlier stages of the design process to limit this confusion and help designers.

The authors propose an approach to help designers defining the perception of a new dual and hybrid product field. The first step is to collect designers’ perception through interviews combined with card sorting. The second step is to compare the perception of designers with that of users. Comparisons are based on an agreement measure.

The approach provides a first step to evaluate the perception of a dual hybrid product field. It allows designers to extract trends and perceptions to be considered for the design of products, to consolidate and confirm their intuitions regarding the intended dual meaning.

The main contribution of this paper is to evaluate the perception of a new and non-defined hybrid product field presenting a duality in appearance. This approach can be used by designers either to identify trends to be considered, reinforce the intended meaning, or validate their intuitions while designing products with dual meanings before.

The purpose of this study is to understand user perceptions and misconceptions regarding security tools. Security and privacy-preserving tools (for brevity, the authors term them as “security tools” in this paper, unless otherwise specified) are designed to protect the security and privacy of people in the digital environment. However, inappropriate use of these tools can lead to unexpected consequences that are preventable. Hence, it is significant to examine why users do not understand the security tools.

The authors conducted a qualitative study with 40 participants in the USA to investigate the prevalent misconceptions of people regarding security tools, their perceptions of data access and the corresponding impact on their usage behavior and data protection strategies.

While security vulnerabilities are often rooted in people’s internet usage behavior, this study examined user’s mental models of the internet and unpacked how the misconceptions about security tools relate to those mental models.

Based on the findings, this study offers recommendations highlighting the design aspects of security tools that need careful attention from researchers and industry practitioners, to alleviate users’ misconceptions and provide them with accurate conceptual models toward the desired use of security tools.