Developing a framework for assessing muscle effort and postures during computer work in the field: the effect of computer activities on neck/shoulder muscle effort and postures

The present study, a part of the PROOF (PRedicting Occupational biomechanics in OFfice workers) study, aimed to determine whether trapezius muscle effort was different across computer activities in a field study of computer workers, and also investigated whether head and shoulder postures were different across computer activities. One hundred twenty participants were measured continuously for two hours each while performing their own computer work. Keyboard activities were associated with the highest intensity of left and right trapezius muscle efforts, and mouse activities were associated with the smallest variability in left and right trapezius muscle efforts. Corresponding trends in head and shoulder postures included that the greatest head flexion and left and right shoulder internal rotation was observed during keyboard activities, and that the smallest variability in head flexion, head lateral tilt, and right shoulder internal rotation was observed during mouse activities. Identifying which muscle efforts and postures are different across computer activities is the first essential step for developing prediction rules for muscle efforts and postures, which can be used to link muscle efforts and postures to musculoskeletal symptoms in epidemiological studies.     

False alarms and incorrect rejections in an information security center: correlation with the frequency of incidents

This study examines the actions taken by operators aimed at preventing and combating information security incidents at a banking organization. The work utilizes the theoretical framework of ergonomics and cognitive psychology. The method is workplace ergonomic analysis. Its focus is directed towards examining the cognitive dimension of the work environment with special attention to the occurrence of correlations between variability in incident frequency and the results of sign detection actions. It categorizes 45,142 operator decisions according to the theory of signal detection (Sternberg, 2000). It analyzes the correlation between incident proportions (indirectly associated with the cognitive efforts demanded from the operator) and operator decisions. The study demonstrated the existence of a positive correlation between incident proportions and false positive decisions (false alarms). However, this correlation could not be observed in relation to decisions of the false-negative type (incorrect rejection).     

Accounting for the formation of scientific fields in organization studies

There are few qualitative organizational accounts that explore the constitution of scientific fields in management. We developed a methodology for understanding the academic modes of scientific knowledge production in management research from the perspective of the sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK) and actor-network theory (ANT). SSK and ANT offer a way to account for how scientific fields in organization studies are enacted. Key to this process are splitting and inversion of statements; credibility and network formation; and the concepts of credit, trajectory, and position. Specific statements making key knowledge claims (e.g., handbooks, special editions) are situated in academic practices that obscure those rhetorical strategies that enable the production of a network of knowledge that can act, organizationally, as a more or less unified sub-field. We take as a starting point a collection of texts, dated 2011, which sought to systematize the main currents of a disciplinary sub-field during the last decade, focusing on how statements are transformed into scientific certainty and how the question of credibility is established. The sub-field is that of organizational learning (OL). The particular language of OL relies on approaches that make its epistemic assumptions intelligible within a network. It is a language that tends to reify and naturalize specific practices that become accredited as organization learning. The material/textual artifacts that sustain these practices, instead of being reified, can be reframed as enacting a scientific field whose resignification acts upon the network that enabled its existence.     

Optimal income taxation with Kalai wage bargaining and endogenous participation

This paper characterizes the optimal redistributive tax schedule in a search–matching framework where (voluntary) nonparticipation and (involuntary) unemployment are endogenous and wages are determined by proportional bargaining à la Kalai. The optimal employment tax rate is given by an inverse elasticity rule. This rule depends on the global response of the employment rate, which depends not only on the participation (labor supply) responses, but also on the vacancy posting (labor demand) responses and on the product of these two responses. For plausible values of the parameters, our matching environment induces much lower employment tax rates than the usual competitive model with endogenous participation only. However, optimal employment tax rates are larger (in absolute value) when a given level of the global elasticity of employment is more due to search frictions and less due to participation responses.     

Distance,Transnational Arrangements,and Return Decisions of Senegalese,Ghanaian, and Congolese Migrants

This article examines the determinants of return of Senegalese, Ghanaian and Congolese migrants in Europe, and the extent to which their return decisions were linked to reasons and circumstances of their initial migration to Europe. We utilize the retrospective life history data collected by the MAFE Project in Senegal, Ghana and DR Congo and six European countries in order to understand whether and how changing conditions in both origin and destination countries, including policies, affect the migration dynamics between Sub‐Saharan Africa and Europe. The results show how the high cost entailed by this type of transcontinental long distance migration, reinforced by restrictive immigration policies, tend to delay and reduce return in comparison to shorter‐distance moves. In addition, brain circulation and transnational family arrangements seem to be at work and seriously question the dominant approach to admission and circulation policies in Europe.     

Cognition and Behavior in Normal‐Form Games: An Experimental Study

This paper reports experiments designed to study strategic sophistication, the extent to which behavior in games reflects attempts to predict others’ decisions, taking their incentives into account. We study subjects’ initial responses to normal‐form games with various patterns of iterated dominance and unique pure‐strategy equilibria without dominance, using a computer interface that allowed them to search for hidden payoff information, while recording their searches. Monitoring subjects’ information searches along with their decisions allows us to better understand how their decisions are determined, and subjects’ deviations from the search patterns suggested by equilibrium analysis help to predict their deviations from equilibrium decisions.     

Investigating the Substantive Aspect of Construct Validity for the Satisfaction with Life Scale Adapted for Children: A Focus on Cognitive Processes

The objective of this study was to investigate the substantive aspect of construct validity of the Satisfaction with Life Scale adapted for Children (SWLS-C; Gadermann et al. in Soc Indic Res 96:229–247, 2010). Specifically, the study examined the cognitive processes of children when responding to the items of the SWLS-C to find out how they interpret and respond to the items. Think-aloud protocol interviews were conducted with 55 students in grades 4–7 (58% girls, mean age of 11 years, ranging from 8.8 to 12.8 years) and content analysis was used to analyze the data. The findings indicate that most children had no difficulty in understanding the items, and used mainly two strategies for responding to the items: (1) an absolute strategy, in which children used absolute statements to indicate the presence or absence of something that is important for their judgment of their satisfaction with life, and (2) a relative strategy, in which children used relative or comparative statements. In the absolute statements, children primarily referred to social relationships, personal characteristics, time use, and possessions. In the relative statements, the children primarily compared what they have to (a) what they want (b) what they had in the past, (c) what other people have, and (d) what they feel they need. Furthermore, most children considered it important that information on their life satisfaction is obtained. The results are discussed with regard to multiple discrepancies theory (Michalos in Soc Indic Res 16:347–413, 1985) and previous empirical findings. The results provide insights into children’s cognitive processes when responding to items on life satisfaction and provide validity evidence that the SWLS-C is an appropriate measure to assess life satisfaction in children of this age.     

The Management of Redundancies in Europe: The Case of Denmark

The paper presents the findings of comparative and interdisciplinary legal and economic study on managing labour redundancies in seven EU member countries. It is structured for comparability between the systems examined. The introductory section contains an account of the evolution of the Danish labour market, with special reference to redundancy trends, of the features of the programmes for managing redundancies, of the roles of firms and the ‘external environment’ in handling workforce adjustments. The second section presents a map of policies that work to prevent labour redundancies (preventive measures) such as flexibility, training etc. Next, the instruments for handling temporary labour redundancies (retentive measures) are examined (e.g. short-time working, temporary layoffs etc.). The following section is devoted to instruments and programmes involved in the management of permanent labour redundancies (expulsive measures), e.g. collective dismissals, severance pay etc. The final section provides an overall assessment of the Danish system for managing labour redundancies, and briefly discusses the national debate on the prospects for reform, in light of the principles and policies of convergence set forth by the European Union.     

Micro-Flexibility and Macro-Rigidity: Some Notes on Expectations and the Dynamics of Aggregate Supply

ABSTRACT: The high macro supply elasticity experienced by industrialised countries during the second post-war boom is not explainable as the aggregate effect of current variations of companies’output in response to current variations of demand. A firm cannot adapt rapidly its output to higher demand unless it has decided fairly in advance to expand its productive capacity. Macro elasticity depends thus on the existence of ex ante excess capacity, built on the basis of expectations. The post-war boom is thus explained in terms of a virtuous sequence expectations-decisions-events. This approach helps in understanding the inversion of the expansionary phase to one of stag-flation, the failure of Keynesian policies and the subsequent industrial restructuring which gave rise to the present employment squeeze. Flexibility is something which depends on the relationships between individual expectations and decisions and their systemic results; the presently pursued micro-flexibility is at high risk of producing increasing macro-rigidity.