Promoting work ability and well-being in hospital nursing: the interplay of age, job control, and successful ageing strategies

Previous research shows that work ability of nurses decreases with age. In our study we therefore addressed the following questions: Do successful ageing strategies at work in terms of selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) support the work ability of nurses? Does SOC mediate the relationship between job control (i.e., decision opportunities at work) and work ability? Does the mediation differ between age-groups? 438 nurses (Age Range 21-63 years) completed a questionnaire in the course of an employee survey. Results show that SOC is positively related with work ability. The positive effect of job control on work ability is significantly mediated by SOC. There are stronger mediating effects for elder nurses than for younger nurses. Results indicate that the interplay of job control and SOC at work helps to maintain the work ability of nurses in nursing care.     

IRENA as a glocal actor: pathways towards energy governmentality

For decades renewable energy has remained a “blind spot” within the sphere of international energy governance. The existing institutional network is highly fragmented, resulting in a myriad of international organizations, which all claim to deal with energy issues, yet do not focus on renewables on a global scale. Since 2009, IRENA, the International Renewable Energy Agency, seeks to fill up this vacuum, thereby creating a new (and maybe more Southern-led) political arena for governing renewable energy issues. This article focuses on IRENA’s role as a changemaker in the sphere of global energy governance by investigating IRENA’s governance practices and contributions to knowledge production.     

Organisation of new product development in Asia and Europe: results from Western multinationals R&D sites in Germany,India, and China

From research on Western new product development (NPD) practices a rich body of literature has emerged. However, the impact of country specific and cultural influences has not been examined in this context yet. This study is a first attempt to identify differences in NPD practices between Research and Development (R&D) subsidiaries in Germany, China and India within multinational companies. Data has been generated by qualitative interviews with R&D executives in those countries across multiple cases. The study samples strategic, organizational and operational aspects indicates definite differences in process coordination, rewarding systems, market orientation and the average age of NPD teams. Other aspects like strategic targets, the management involvement, etc. show rather slight differences across the countries. Hence, findings suggest that while some aspects are universally applicable across cultural frontiers, Western companies have to understand different expectations regarding NPD in India and China by adjusting practices accordingly.     

Human rights through the paradigm changes of the social communication theories

Human rights (HR), from the perspective of interest and thematic selection, are recognized in the topics of the communication. In general, there is considered to be a positive relationship between the media and its function of mediation with citizenship in reference to the declared general principles since inception in 1948. With this approach, the paper deals with providing an updated reflection of that connection and its main difficulties, such as the crisis of credibility in the information in the context of the European Union and within the framework of the paradigm changes that has derived in the knowledge society of the so-called third environment. The precepts of those recognized as generations of HR survive in the informational stories, of which, due to their current relevance in recent decades, those related to migratory movements, inequality, and poverty stands out. Moreover, the paper explores and discusses how a new generation derived from the implementation and intervention of technology gets involved as an essential characteristic in the relations between the members of society.     

Designing dynamic distributed cooperative Human-Machine Systems

The paper presents a new approach to the development of cooperative human-machine systems in the Transportation domain which is currently researched in the European project D3CoS. A necessary precondition for the acceptance of cooperative human-machine systems with shared control is the confidence and trust of the user into the system. D3CoS tackles this important issue by addressing the cooperative system as the object and the target of the system development process. This new perspective, along with corresponding innovative methods, techniques and tools, shall allow the identification of optimal task and authority sharing approaches supported by intuitive human-machine interaction and user interfaces at an early stage of system development. This will support powerful teamwork between humans and machines or between machines and machines that is transparent, intuitive and easy to understand. The paper describes the research dimensions for the development of the methods, techniques and tools as well as first results.     

State of scientific knowledge about the need of recovery time at specific workplaces and recommendations for further research

Research activities to determine the need of recovery time at work were mainly performed in the 1970s and 1980s. Previous studies were largely based on expert opinions or were generated within small and non-representative groups. Often, laboratory experiments were carried out with a low number of subjects. Especially during the last decade, only little additional scientific knowledge was generated on this topic. The very resource intensive development of more detailed results based on the existing level of scientific knowledge is assumed as one reason for this. In general, it seems to be reasonable to continue further research on the knowledge generated in previous studies, but implement larger samples and more representative groups. Besides, according to monotonous manual work, more research is especially needed regarding relative operating forces and operation frequencies taken grip conditions and hand/body position into account.