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The first in a series of articles from University of Wales, Swansea on attitudes to drug users and their rehabilitation

The second study lifting the lid on negative attitudes towards drug users, from WIRED and the University of Wales, Department of Psychology.

This paper presents research on the managerial reasons for the relatively slow up‐take of teleworking. Different definitions for telework are contrasted. It is proposed that an isolationist conception of telework predominates in the early teleworking literature and that this perception, coupled with outdated labour legislation and managerial attitudes towards staff supervision contributed to the relatively slow up‐take of telework. New forms of team‐based organisation of labour supported by groupware technology are proposed as a progression from isolationist telework into telecooperation.

NEW British aircraft — like rare birds — are seldom seen in the sky today. The HS 1182 Hawk is, therefore, a welcome sight and long may she fly. It's not that the Hawk is a particularly exotic species — to the contrary she is rather plain. But what matters is the role that this aircraft is destined to play without being hedged in by expenditure of enormous sums of money. Any aircraft being produced at a fixed price makes it a ‘rare bird’ indeed, apart from making good sense to the taxpayer and a real asset to the Royal Air Force. In short, it represents value for money.

Research has shown that, when employees’ work-family conflict levels are reduced, performance in the workplace can increase. How to reduce these levels, however, is a complex task. The purpose of this empirical study was to investigate the differences in work-family conflict between full-time worksite employees and full-time teleworking employees (individuals who teleworked from home at least two days per week). Employees (n = 308) in seven for-profit companies in Minnesota were sampled and surveyed using a slightly revised version of the Carlson and Kacmar (2000) work-family conflict scale. The findings indicate that teleworkers had lower levels of overall work-family conflict as well as most of the other work-family conflict variables explored (i.e., strain-based, time-based, work interference with family, family interference with work)

Telework is becoming a viable and appealing work option in the accounting profession (Hunton, 2005). Many accounting firms have implemented telework arrangements to provide flexibility and support for employees who seek an acceptable balance between career and family. This form of work also supports business sustainability in the event of acts of terrorism or natural disasters. Increased reliance on various forms of telework gives rise to questions of appropriate ethical treatment of affected workers. The objectives of the present study are to examine the ethical implications of telework and identify policies for telework that might help organizations implement this type of work arrangement for their employees in an ethically informed manner. Our analysis draws upon a framework proposed by Yuthas and Dillard (1999) that combines postmodern ethics with stakeholder theory. Although this framework was developed to study the ethical design of information technology systems, we maintain that this structure is equally useful to study the ethical issues inherent with telework. Legislators, regulators, unions, and employers can use the telework policy considerations presented herein as guidelines as they deliberate, design, and implement ethical telework strategies.

Human resource managers are prime decision‐makers in the adoption of teleworking. This paper shows the results of an empirical study of the perceptions of HR managers about the feasibility of teleworking within their organizations. Teleworking feasibility is significantly explained by the percentage of tasks suitable to teleworking, the employees’ involvement in task design and programming, the percentage of salespeople in the workforce, the degree of work‐location sharing for teleworking, the use of information and communication technologies, and the degree of innovation. HR managers in small companies perceive a greater feasibility than HR managers in large companies.

Gender divisions are embedded in and essential to the structure of capitalist production. While most men and women in the United States both now work for wages, they rarely work together. Gender segregation has been identified as one of the major issues of the earnings gap between men and women. An explanation of the forces responsible for this has been difficult to achieve. Most theories fail to consider the contribution of demand‐side factors to gender segregation. Neo‐Marxist analysis of labour market segmentation and theories of the dual economy have provided new frameworks for investigating these structural or demand‐side features of industrial organisation. The pattern of blue‐collar segregation in US manufacturing industries is examined drawing on these theories. Employment data from the US census is used to identify how the levels of blue‐collar segregation in manufacturing industries are influenced by the industry's location within the core or peripheral sector of the US economy. Many of segregation's proposed remedies stress the role of supply‐side factors. These strategies focus attention almost exclusively on male and female workers and ignore the structure of the workplace. Strategies that ignore the dualistic nature of the US economy offer only partial solutions and may be counter‐productive. If forced to eliminate or reduce segmentation, employers may simply restructure their labour processes in a way that undermines rather than contributes to gender inequality. It is apparent that the pursuit of gender equality in the workplace is intrinsically related to and dependent on the broader efforts of workers to achieve greater control over production, both at the workplace and in the economy as a whole.

Advances in technology and changes in economic factors have resulted in a steady shift towards greater flexibility in working and employment patterns. Argues that this is not a new phenomenon, but the changes do mean that the human resource management function within an organization does need to recognize and implement the changes that are necessary to ensure that organizations and individuals get the support they need to cope with such change.