Search results

This paper describes the first, critical steps taken to align the activities of a corporate information centre with organisational goals, recommending the incremental adoption of strategic marketing planning to a team of information professionals with little experience in marketing and operating in an organisation whose culture and strategy was undergoing fundamental transformation. It concludes that, by starting with the instigation of discussion with senior management to consider optimal methods of contribution to organisational success, the information professional demonstrates initiative and takes a further, important step towards proving value and improving status.

This study investigates the diverse career experiences of gig workers by looking at a sample of gig workers that are living a calling through online labor platforms (OLPs). Drawing from the systems informed positive psychology (SIPP) framework we examine the experiences and dynamics through which individuals can enact their calling through OLPs.

We conducted 34 semi-structured interviews with gig workers who are able to live their calling through OLPs. The interviews were analyzed by using a grounded theory approach.

Our findings reveal that gig workers sense of living a calling is rooted in the experience of being and feeling independent. Furthermore, we identify three dynamics of calling enactment through OLPs which are: (1) engaging in personal development, (2) constructing social fit and (3) stabilizing finances.

While many studies document the precarious nature of the gig economy, our paper offers rich insight into positive career experiences of gig workers. Through taking a systemic view on individuals’ ability to live a calling, we illustrate how individuals interact with different features of OLPs to enact their calling. Finally, we suggest that besides direct dynamics of calling enactment there are also indirect dynamics of calling enactment that play an important role in individuals’ ability to live a calling in the gig economy.

The purpose of this paper is to extend the People Value Stream concept further by developing a view of what the world would look like through the eyes of a positive psychology employee-centred lens. The authors hope to provide a frame for further discussion, research and practical application in this area.

In this conceptual paper, the authors draw on their collective 120 plus years of experience with Lean and Human Resource Management through leading, teaching, researching and consulting in the area.

The People Value Stream concept is extended here by ideating how the “Voice of the Employee” could be used to enhance the existing knowledge of Lean. Relying on a range of cognitive psychological theories, particularly Self-Determination Theory, the authors show how it might be possible to develop a highly engaged workforce primarily by unlocking their intrinsic motivation through a “Self-Development and Growth Cycle”. This cycle is the people-improvement version of the seminal Deming process-improvement PDCA cycle. It can be applied within a job crafting “Personal Cockpit”. The authors also highlight a range of outputs and wider implications that create a pull for team leaders and senior management wishing to move to a real Servant Leader model. It will also help those developing and supporting people-related policies and procedures both within organisations and in trade unions.

This paper turns the existing literature about people within Lean upside down. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, for the first time in an academic paper, it discusses what would be the implications for the Lean world if the authors truly started understanding and deploying the explicit “Voice of the Employee” rather than just the established Lean “Voice of the Owner”-led Hoshin Kanri approach. The authors show how a lack of knowledge in these areas by the Lean community is limiting Lean’s engagement of people and its sustainability.