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This article aims to link discussions of the role of earnings-related pension measures with time in Hong Kong (HK) and the United Kingdom (UK). It presents a new conceptual “time-based framework” to explore two related types of government response to the way people accumulate pension incomes through participation in paid work. The first is to consider governments' perceptions of appropriate time in work and retirement. The second is to consider how governments use pension measures to influence the connection between the amount of time people spend in paid work and retirement.

This is a conceptual paper. The time-based framework is developed using literature concerning discretionary time and the social construction of time. To explore the empirical significance of this framework, the authors discuss how it can be applied to the analysis of earnings-related pension measures in HK and the UK.

The evidence generated from the discussion of the earnings-related pension measures in HK and the UK shows that pension policies can serve both as a financial and time instrument. At the same time as influencing the connection between the amount of time people spend in paid work and the pensions they can accumulate, pension policies can be used to convey the government's views on important time issues, namely the appropriate length of time in work and retirement, and the relative value of the time spent in paid work and providing informal care.

A new framework is developed to explore the connection between the studies of earnings-related pension measures and time, which is an understudied area.

In India, one in 500 people (Balaji, 2019) are diagnosed with ASD. Around 40 non-governmental organizations cater to Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) children; out of that, a few organizations focus on adults providing them vocational training to make them employable. One such exercise was initiated by SAP Labs India, a leading software company, and Enable India, an Indian NGO where they developed a focused training program for people with ASD and placed them in vital technical jobs in SAP Labs India (Karwa, 2016). First, we peek into the lifestyles of a few successful neurodiverse rock stars in India and their journey from becoming aware of their profile to establishing a career and becoming a role model to other people with ASD. Second, we present the autism landscape in India. Third, we explore the organizations that have hired people with ASD, their policies connected to neurodiversity, and the organizations that give training and support. Fourth, we present the potentials and the challenges people with ASD face. Fifth and final, we cover the role of different stakeholders to foster support and up-skill people with ASD for better community development.

Using two years of ethnographic fieldwork and 17 in-depth interviews, I examine a college gaming group's identity work. Stigmatized as social isolates, gamers employed oppositional identity work to construct themselves as “communal gamers.” Gaming Council members signified an identity counter to prevailing stereotypes by collaboratively coding “communal” to promote member interaction, affirming communality through joking and member recognition, and policing to enforce proper identity presentations. This study contributes to identity work research by furthering our understanding of identity work as group process and how groups manage identity dilemmas.

The aim of this paper is to outline the collaborative approach used to craft national learning standards for tertiary programs in the field of environment and sustainability in Australia. The field of environment and sustainability is broad and constituted by diverse stakeholders. As such, articulating a common set of learning standards presents challenges.

The authors developed and used a staged collaborative curriculum design methodology to engage more than 250 stakeholders in tertiary environmental education, including discipline scholars, students, professional associations and employers and other environmental educators. The approach was adaptive, to ensure underrepresented stakeholders’ perspectives were welcomed and recognised. The project was commissioned by the Australian Council of Environmental Deans and Directors (ACEDD) and funded by the Federal Government’s Office for Learning and Teaching.

The collaborative approach developed and used for this work facilitated an inclusive process that valued diversity of perspectives, rather than marginalise diversity in favour of a perspective representing a minimum level of agreement. This is reflected in the standards themselves, and is evidenced by participant feedback, piloting of the standards and their subsequent application at multiple universities. Achieving this required careful planning and facilitation, to ensure a democratisation of the stakeholder consultation process, and to build consensus in support of the standards. Endorsement by ACEDD formalised the standards’ status.

Collaborative curriculum design offered the opportunity to foster a shared sense of common purpose amongst diverse environmental education stakeholders. This approach to curriculum design is intensive and generative but uncommon and may be usefully adapted and applied in other contexts. The authors note one subsequent instance where the approach has been further developed and applied in transforming a generalist science program, suggesting the methodology used in this case may be applied across other contexts, albeit with appropriate adjustments: the authors offer it here in the spirit of supporting others in their own complex curriculum design challenges.

This study is the maiden attempt to understand the influence of four specific sources of employee support (SES), on the life insurance agents’ retention (AR) with the mediation of felt obligation (FO) in the context of the life insurance industry.

This study adopted a quantitative methodology and used the partial least squares-structural equation modelling to test the hypotheses of the study. Using convenience sampling method and a web-based questionnaire, this study gathered data from agents (n 265) of life insurance companies located in the central region of Malaysia.

The results reveal a positive relationship between all SES and AR. This means when agents perceive higher levels of support from their supervisors, peers, technology and mentors, they are more likely to remain in the industry. Contrary to the expectations, FO does not mediate the relationship between SES and AR, indicating that SES directly influences AR without the involvement of FO.

This study is the first to explore how an integrated model of SES influences AR within the Malaysian life insurance industry. The model takes a comprehensive approach, incorporating various SES including the less studied perceived technological support in influencing AR through the framework of social exchange theory.

Family small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent a substantial part of many economies. In these organizations, close and informal relationships between employers and employees often foster a mutual understanding of each other’s needs, facilitating the negotiation of idiosyncratic deals (i-deals), special employment conditions tailored for individual employees. However, research on how i-deals are negotiated in family SMEs, especially regarding power dynamics and influence, remains limited. This study aims to identify the types of i-deals negotiated in family SMEs and explore the role of power and influence in these negotiations.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 45 employees and 15 employers from Spanish family SMEs. Data were analyzed using ATLAS.ti 8, and thematic analysis was performed.

The study concludes that task, flexibility, financial and development i-deals are particularly negotiated in family SMEs. It identifies that referent and expert power play an important role in initiating these negotiations. Furthermore, rational tactics are generally employed for negotiating work performance, soft tactics for employment-related aspects and hard tactics for work flexibility. Additionally, the study identified gender differences in the negotiation of i-deals.

This study enhances i-deal literature by highlighting the distinct characteristics of family SMEs and their impact on i-deal negotiations. The findings suggest that power dynamics and influence tactics in family SMEs differ from those in larger firms. Moreover, certain i-deals may encounter resistance due to concerns about organizational performance and economic implications. Understanding these factors is essential for developing effective negotiation strategies in family SMEs.

This study offers a dual perspective, analyzing the power and influence tactics used by both employees and employers in family SME i-deal negotiations and highlighting gendered dynamics in these processes.

Purpose – To describe the use of the software platform, TechScaffold, for use in teacher education to provide pre-service and in-service teachers with decision-making heuristics to select apps based on formulation of their instructional purposes for using those apps; participate in a community designed to foster knowledge and experience about effective, purposeful uses of apps; and share project reports to illustrate the use of apps to achieve certain learning objectives.

Design – The authors draw on research related to decision-making associated with purposeful uses of apps as well as analysis of the limitations of similar instructional design tools to develop features for TechScaffold. They sought to scaffold teachers’ decision-making through users formulating open-ended responses to queries with responses matched against a database of apps identified according to platform, purpose, grade level, difficulty, and cost, as well as ways for users to participate as members of a community to share projects illustrating uses of apps. The authors also obtained feedback regarding the potential usability and value of TechScaffold.

Findings – Given research indicating the importance of scaffolding decision-making processes regarding uses of apps, feedback from users indicated that they perceive TechScaffold as a useful tool within the context of teacher education as well as for professional development in schools to foster effective decision-making associated with purposeful uses of apps.

Practical Implications – Teacher educators can employ scaffolding activities to help pre-service and in-service teachers make decisions regarding productive uses of apps through their open-ended formulation of certain purposes through use of a tool such as TechScaffold.

Mental health champions (MHCs) and young health ambassadors (YHAs) are two innovative public health interventions. MHCs are practitioners who work in schools and other youth settings and aim to be the “go to” person for mental health in these settings. YHAs are a linked parallel network of young people, who champion mental health and advocate for youth involvement, which was co-produced with young people across all stages of development implementation. This paper aims to identify the potential benefits, barriers and facilitators of these interventions.

Semi-structured qualitative interviews (n = 19) were undertaken with a purposive sample of n = 13 MHCs, and n = 6 YHAs, between June 2021 and March 2022. Interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed, anonymised and then analysed following a thematic approach. Ethical approval was granted by Newcastle University’s Faculty of Medical Sciences Ethics Committee.

The findings are organised under five key themes: motivating factors and rewards for MHCs and YHAs; outcomes for children and young people (CYP) and others; impact on youth settings and culture; facilitators of successful implementation; and implementation challenges and opportunities.

These findings are intended to be of relevance to practice and policy, particularly to those exploring the design, commissioning or implementation of similar novel and low-cost interventions, which aim to improve mental health outcomes for CYP, within the context of youth settings.

The interventions reported on in the present paper are novel and innovative. Little research has previously been undertaken to explore similar approaches, and the individual experiences of those involved in the delivery of these types of interventions.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the conversation activities of design teams to negotiate task conflict and reach consensus.

Four case studies were conducted to analyse the conversation activities that teams use in the course of design projects.

The conversation activities that teams used to negotiate conflict and bring about consensus were identified. These conversation activities are associated with collaboration, communication and social skills enabling teams to engage in the high level of information exchange and negotiation that is required to manage task conflict. How they were used to negotiate conflict and help reach consensus is also discussed.

The findings from this research are based on a small number of participants; hence, it cannot be generalised without further study with larger groups. However, the questions this paper has raised can be generalised to other design tasks and groups.

The findings have implications for the management of design teams and teams working on complex unstructured problems both in industry and education. They highlight how conflict can be constructively managed to bring about consensus that integrates the knowledge and perspective of all team members.

The benefits of task conflict have been disputed in the literature. This research has identified the conversation activities that facilitate the constructive management of task conflict to bring about consensus that integrates the perspectives and knowledge of a team.