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This paper aims to explore narratives of insecurity to understand how the casualisation of the employment relationship makes life more fragile and precarious. The authors engage in an inquiry about how multinational enterprises (MNEs) structure precariousness for workers in emerging economies. The authors attempt to understand how workers analyse their experiences of precariousness and what form their resistance takes as a result of their analysis.

The authors engage with the narratives of eight Indian workers/trade union activists working in different marginal spaces of the Indian economy to uncover a commons where we are the multitude. By commons, the authors imply shared forms of property, which stand against the concept of private property that is central to the social relations of capitalism. The authors are performing the data of workers by interspersing them in an analysis of angst and hope.

Workers understand their experiences of precariousness as emerging from a complex political economy structured by MNEs, which involves multiple fronts of marginalisation. Workers realize that they need to engage in comprehensive forms of resistance to undo the regimes of precariousness. Workers create shared universes of grief to relate to each other’s experiences of precariousness. The unfreedoms experienced by workers lead to a sharing of the social relations of commons where workers can resist by expressing solidarity with each other.

The authors contribute to practice by arguing that workers’ collectives should not accept the naturalisation of precariousness. By staging a dialogue about the injuries of precariousness, they can craft a politics of resistance that begins the process of commoning.

Workers’ politics of resistance can significantly democratise the global political economy in important ways by advancing the potential for commons.

The authors make an original contribution to the study of precariousness in the context of international business by arguing that the experience of precariousness can lead to a commons where workers resist structures of injustice.

This paper aims to show that the experience of workers on the margins of international business is akin to the funeralesque. The funeralesque is understood as the appropriation of the value generated by workers across the production networks of international business.

Drawing from the engagement with crematorium workers, the narratives of workers are articulated, describing the insecurities and injustices experienced by them. The authors draw from six-month-long qualitative engagement with seven workers in a crematorium in Ahmedabad, India.

The experience of marginal subjects provides important insights into how international business, in conjunction with states, structures inequality for marginal subjects. Precariousness, social exclusion, low wages and subjectivities of humiliation are the experiences of marginal subjects. The reproduction of marginality in globalising cities is an important element of the funeralesque through which extraction and re-distribution of value across international networks is legitimised.

In understanding international business as the funeralesque, the authors demystify the power relations constituted by it. The authors provide a metaphor for dethroning the legitimacy of international business and indicate that its modern practices are similar to the practices of value appropriation that occur in a funeral.

The authors develop the metaphor of the funeralesque to gain insights into the experiences of workers on the margins of international business. The authors are, thus, able to theorise the underbelly of globalising cities in a poetic, subversive way.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the phenomenon of burnout during early career among knowledge workers in information technology (IT) services industry in India.

The grounded theory research design was used to explore the research phenomenon. The study was based on the analysis of 43 in-depth interviews from the employees, managers and human resource professionals in IT services industry in India. Purposeful and theoretical sampling designs were used to locate the participants for the study. Grounded theory analytical procedures – open, axial and selective coding – were used to analyze and interpret the interview narratives. Atlas ti version 5.0. was used for qualitative data analysis.

The analysis of the interviews with the young knowledge workers reveal the following as the reasons for their burnout during early career: poor integration with the job and the organization at large, underemployment, stressful job and exhausting work environment, fear and insecurity of replacement of talent and downsizing. Strategies are discussed to deal with burnout situations among the young knowledge workers for individual and organizational well-being.

The findings of the study are applicable to organizations such as the IT services industry and thus the research outcome cannot be generalized. The study includes lived experiences of employees only during their early career.

The findings are relevant and useful in the practice domain as they are grounded in field reality. It provides directions for managerial and organizational practices in preventing burnout in early career among knowledge workers.

The paper is original and the present study is among the first attempts to investigate the nature of burnout through qualitative inquiry.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the factors involved in the success of a ‘first-time first-line Manager’ (FTFLM), and establish a model for the success of a FTFLM using these identified factors.

Methods: Empirical factors influencing the success of a first-line manager were gathered through the literature review and an experience survey of managers. Based on these factors, a questionnaire for primary research was developed and used for the survey. An exploratory factor analysis of the collected data yielded a nine-factor model which was validated using confirmatory factor analysis.

Findings: A major portion (74%) of the FTFLM’s success factors are under the direct control of the FTFLM. The remaining portion (26%) are influenced by the organization’s procedures and policies for grooming the FTFLM and the attitude and behaviour of management towards the FTFLM.

The dispute resolution process in the construction industry is known for delays in settlement, with some cases even escalating to complex arbitration and litigation. To avoid conflicts turning into disputes, the parties need to be proactive in identifying and resolving conflicts in their nascent stages. It is here that innovative lean construction practices can potentially act as a game-changer to avoid disputes, and this study aims to attempt to understand this phenomenon empirically.

A questionnaire-based empirical study, followed by semi-structured interviews, is conducted to understand the relevance of key tenets of lean principles in dispute avoidance.

Although stakeholders agree on the usefulness and practicality of lean principles in dispute avoidance, the extent of agreement is lesser when it comes to its implementation practicality. Moreover, there is a demographic influence observed on lean tenets such as “open communication”, “stakeholder collaboration” and “constraint identification”.

The results point towards an approach that combines contractual mandate, training and awareness creation to iron out the differences in the usefulness and practicality of lean approaches to avoid disputes.

Lean implementation is widely discussed in many construction contexts, such as sustainability, productivity improvement and planning. However, a discussion on lean philosophy’s role in dispute avoidance is muted. Therefore, this study assumes significance.

Micro-finance self-help groups empower caregivers to indulge in productive activities based on the local availability of resources to reduce their financial burden. The purpose of this paper is to assess the need for and feasibility of initiating micro-finance groups for the caregivers of persons with mental disability in a rural socio-economically backward community of Karnataka, India.

The design of the study was a cross-sectional survey, with mixed methodology design out of the eight localities where the Mental Health Public Health Centres (PHC) were running successfully in Konandur area, Thirthahalli Taluk, Karnataka, one PHC was selected using simple Random Sampling Design and a 5 kms radius from Konandur town was selected as the area of the survey (190 households). During door-to-door survey, if the family indicated that a particular member is mentally unwell, the GHQ-5 and Symptoms and Others checklist were administered on him/her and the women caregiver was interviewed using qualitative needs assessment schedule and Perceived Social Support Scale.

Ten persons/households with mental illness (5.26 per cent) were identified in the community. Themes of financial needs, capacity of the caregiver, community resources, need for the microfinance self-help groups, informational needs, social support, burn out, and stigma elicited in the interview were depicted in the form of a conceptual framework to understand the inter-connectedness between the various themes.

This study is the first initiative in the field of micro-finance self-help groups for the persons with mental illness and families. The design of the study was a cross-sectional survey, which is found globally to be the most suited in conducting prevalence studies, as it provides accurate results for future studies as well as it is the first step to obtain accurate baseline values to later plan a prospective follow up study. The study used mixed methodology design. Though the sample size was small, the information collected from the participants in qualitative and quantitative method was triangulated and conceptual frameworks were developed. As this study is one of the first of its kind in the country, the results of this study from the stated sample can be considered as an important pilot for future longitudinal and cross-sectional studies to be planned in the community.

There is hardly any scientific literature which talks about the need for Micro-finance self-help groups for Persons with Disability, especially with person with mental disability. In order to initiate any Micro-finance SHG activities, it is essential to first undertake the need for and feasibility of initiating such micro-finance group activities in any given area. This study will be an important milestone in initiating any self-help group activity for caregivers of persons with mental disability, as it would help us understand the financial needs of the community, based on which a draft proposal to initiate micro-finance self-help group activities can be drawn up.

Extant literature shows that employee voice has ambiguous effects on organizational outcome. Especially because employee voice challenges the status quo, it can attract retaliation and lead to silencing of the employee. Thus, rather than producing change, employee voice can lead to increase in workplace tensions. On the other hand, employee voice also has positive consequences such as building a partnership-based culture between supervisors and employees. The purpose of this article is to reconcile these contradictory findings by reinforcing voice as having a deliberative dimension which fosters a harmonious dialogue around workplace issues.

We surveyed 628 managers working in organizations across different industrial relations contexts in India. Managers working in different sectors were chosen so that we could examine the consequences of employee voice across contexts with differing trade union strengths. We adopted a Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) approach to test the effect of employee voice on environment for innovation.

We find that trust in senior management and relationship between employees and their supervising managers mediate the relationship between employee voice and environment for innovation. The findings in the article do reconcile an important dilemma about employee voice. Earlier studies have argued that employee voice is a mechanism for engaging with the dissatisfaction that employees may have in their workplaces. Our study indicates that when deliberative elements are incorporated into employee voice it is no longer merely a means for addressing dissatisfaction but constructively contributes to positive organizational outcomes such as environment for innovation.

The effects of employee voice on environment for innovation can be understood more clearly by adopting a longitudinal research design. The findings of this article are limited by the cross-sectional frame of research design adopted. The scale that is developed for employee voice needs more validation in other international contexts.

This study provides a framework through which employee voice can be shifted from adversarial frames of reference to harmonious and partnership-based forms of engagement. This also has the potential to transform the role of trade unions inside organizations and build a more collaborative edifice between multiple stakeholders. Another implication is that when voice is seen in a deliberative fashion it can lead to improved environment for innovation.

The purpose of this study is to contribute to reconceptualization of employee voice by contending that deliberative issues are an important part of transforming the status quo. Consequently, the patterns of deliberation structure constructive partnerships between different organizational stakeholders who may be perceived as having hostile relationships with each other. This study reconciles previous findings which suggested that employee voice can have negative consequences such as retaliation by suggesting that positive consequences of employee voice are contingent on its deliberative component.

This paper aims to examine the role of information and communication technology (ICT) in the knowledge creation practices adopted by a health care organization. The organization is delivering care to patients of a genetic disorder, called the sickle cell, in tribal communities. The paper identifies how ICT intermediates knowledge creation practices across the organizational boundaries wherein tribal patients, front-line counselors and expert physicians interact, which then produces context-specific, evidence-based medicine (EBM).

The knowledge-in-practice approach is adopted to conduct an ethnographic study of sickle cell care practices in a non-profit health care organization in Western India. The analysis focuses on ICT-mediated interactional practices among the physicians, front-line counselors, tribal patients and their families, for more than a year-long observation. These are supplemented with informal and formal interviews, archival records and vignettes based on several episodes to explicate the key knowledge creation practices.

Technology-mediated informative interactions at organizational boundaries can bridge socio-linguistic and interpretive barriers between actors, while also providing a generative structure that leads to the creation of longitudinal clinical evidence about a rare genetic disorder. Three specific ICT-entwined knowledge creation practices emerge, namely, knowing the community, increasing interactional engagement and constructing gradients of socio-clinical history. These practices generate organization-wide knowledge about the social and clinical dimensions of the genetic disorder. The findings are presented through vignettes and a novel conceptual framework.

This study identifies various useful knowledge creation practices in health care delivery for resource-constrained emerging economy contexts. Further, the study suggests that the involvement of local front-line actors and ICT can become important resources in the delivery of health care in these settings.

A novel framework is developed which demonstrates knowledge creation at organizational boundaries wherein the actors use ICT-based practices for effective delivery of health care. The proposed framework may be used by health care organizations in similar contexts providing care to marginalized communities.