Laura Cortellazzo and Selma Vaska
This study aims to explore the human resource management (HRM) practices related to training and feedback in the app work industry, specifically in online food delivery service…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore the human resource management (HRM) practices related to training and feedback in the app work industry, specifically in online food delivery service, and investigate the emotional and behavioral responses of gig workers.
Design/methodology/approach
This study adopts a qualitative approach by interviewing 19 gig workers from six food delivery firms operating in different countries.
Findings
The results show limited training and feedback opportunities are provided to app workers, although the complexity of training and delivery methods differ across platforms. To address this shortage, app workers developed response strategies relying on social interaction.
Research limitations/implications
This study adds to the research on HRM practices in the gig economy by portraying the way in which training and feedback unfold in the food delivery app ecosystem and by disclosing the gig workers’ emotional and behavioral responses to it.
Practical implications
This study shows that the way training activities are currently designed may provide little value to the ecosystem and are likely to produce negative emotional responses in gig workers. Thus, platform providers may make use of these findings by introducing more transparent feedback and social learning opportunities.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first empirical studies on online delivery gig workers addressing specific HRM practices. It reveals significant insights for training and feedback, suggesting app economy characteristics strongly affect training and feedback practices for app workers.
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Laura-Maija Hero and Eila Lindfors
Collaboration between universities and industry is increasingly perceived as a vehicle to enhance innovation. Educational institutions are encouraged to build partnerships and…
Abstract
Purpose
Collaboration between universities and industry is increasingly perceived as a vehicle to enhance innovation. Educational institutions are encouraged to build partnerships and multidisciplinary projects based around real-world open problems. Projects need to benefit student learning, not only the organisations looking for innovations. The context of this study is a multidisciplinary innovation project, as experienced by the students of an University of Applied Sciences in Finland. The purpose of this paper is to unfold students’ conceptions of the learning experience, to help teachers and curriculum designers to organise optimal conditions and processes, and support competence development. The research question was: How do students in higher professional education experience their learning in a multidisciplinary innovation project?
Design/methodology/approach
The study took a phenomenographic approach. The data were collected in the form of weekly diaries, maintained by the cultural management and social services students (n=74) in a mandatory multidisciplinary innovation project in professional higher education in Finland. The diary data were analysed using thematic inductive analysis.
Findings
The results of the study revealed that students’ understood the learning experience in relation to solvable conflicts and unusual situations they experienced during the project, while becoming aware of and claiming their collaborative agency and internalising phases of an innovation process. The competences as learning outcomes that students could name as developed related to content knowledge, different personal characteristics, social skills, emerging leadership skills, creativity, future orientation, social skills, technical, crafting and testing skills and innovation implementation-related skills, such as marketing, sales and entrepreneurship planning skills. However, future orientation and implementation planning skills showed more weakly than other variables in the data.
Practical implications
The findings suggest that curriculum design should enable networked, student-led and teacher supported pedagogical innovation processes that involve a whole path from future thinking and idea development through prototyping to implementation planning of the novel solution. Teachers promote deep comprehension of the innovation process, monitor and ease the pain of conflict if it threatens motivation, offer assessment tools and help in recognising gaps in individual competences and development needs, promote more future-oriented, concrete and implementable outcomes, and facilitate in bridging from innovation towards entrepreneurship planning.
Originality/value
The multidisciplinary innovation project described in this study provides a pedagogical way to connect higher education to the practises of society. These results provide encouraging findings for organising multidisciplinary project activities between education and working life. The paper, therefore, has significant value for teachers and entrepreneurship educators in designing curriculum and facilitating projects. The study promotes the dissemination of innovation development programmes in between education and work organisations also in other than technical and commercial fields.
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Laura Ripoll Gonzalez and Fred Gale
This study aims to explore whether adopting a sustainability narrative in city branding and urban development strategies results in more inclusive governance arrangements…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore whether adopting a sustainability narrative in city branding and urban development strategies results in more inclusive governance arrangements (process) and a more pluralistic approach to generating sustainability value (outcome), in line with the triple bottom line approach advocated by the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The authors argue that a necessary step to enable meaningful sustainable urban development is to rethink the way in which “value” and “value creation” are being interpreted in urban development policies and city branding narratives.
Design/methodology/approach
Mixed-methods case study of New York City’s (NYC) urban development and city branding strategies (2007–2019) combining analysis of academic and grey literature on NYC’s urban development and city branding, value hierarchies in NYC urban development strategic plans and local media reports covering NYC’s development and branding processes.
Findings
Despite claiming commitment to urban sustainability, NYC’s urban development and branding narratives reveal a clear dominance of interpreting “value” primarily as “exchange value”, thus prioritising economic growth.
Research limitations/implications
In the authors’ view, a systemic, systematic and structured approach to generating “sustainability value” is necessary if city branding is to become a governance tool to support sustainable urban development. A “tetravaluation” approach is recommended as a practical, structured framework that can bridge across the ideas of “sustainability value” and “pluralistic governance”, ensuring effective implementation. Further investigation in additional urban contexts is required.
Originality/value
The research contributes to current scholarly debates towards more balanced and pluralistic conceptions of “value” and place branding as a more holistic, participatory and democratic governance model for sustainable urban development.
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Andrei Novac and Robert G. Bota
How does the human brain absorb information and turn it into skills of its own in psychotherapy? In an attempt to answer this question, the authors will review the intricacies of…
Abstract
How does the human brain absorb information and turn it into skills of its own in psychotherapy? In an attempt to answer this question, the authors will review the intricacies of processing channels in psychotherapy and propose the term transprocessing (as in transduction and processing combined) for the underlying mechanisms. Through transprocessing the brain processes multimodal memories and creates reparative solutions in the course of psychotherapy. Transprocessing is proposed as a stage-sequenced mechanism of deconstruction of engrained patterns of response. Through psychotherapy, emotional-cognitive reintegration and its consolidation is accomplished. This process is mediated by cellular and neural plasticity changes.
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Kevin Celuch, Bryan Bourdeau, Mohammed Khayum and Leslie Townsend
The purpose of this paper is to present an adaptation of a program that is at the intersection of two dynamic force fields. The first relates to imperatives impinging upon and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to present an adaptation of a program that is at the intersection of two dynamic force fields. The first relates to imperatives impinging upon and inherent in higher education. The second ties to the concept of ecosystems as spaces for aligning actors and resources to create value.
Design/methodology/approach
Tables I-III present pre-test and post-test means and p-values for the paired sample t-tests for the measures.
Findings
As expected, post-test means are consistently significantly higher (or lower depending on item wording) for a shift in beliefs away from self-censoring and prejudging ideas during ideation and more toward greater openness in the ideation process.
Originality/value
The paper examines the outcome of an educational program.