Is Social Innovation Fostering Satisfaction and Well-Being at Work? Insights from Employment in Social Enterprises Providing Long-Term Eldercare Services

Considering insights from socio-economics, work psychology, and occupational health, this study focuses on the job satisfaction and well-being of employees working in nonprofit social enterprises (SE). We question the idea suggested by the recent literature that working for a SE brings employees a high level of job satisfaction and well-being. We also investigate whether being involved in social innovation is associated with even higher job satisfaction and well-being. Indeed, understood as a manifestation of positive social change, social innovation is expected to improve outcomes such as the quality of life at work. However, because social innovation is an umbrella concept, it embraces different innovation-related concepts. Here we explore the distinction between service innovation and workplace innovation. This article applies a multivariate analysis to an original dataset covering 1134 employees working in the field of elder homecare in Wallonia. Its implications for social entrepreneurs and scholars are also examined.     

Breaking the outsourcing path: Backsourcing process and outsourcing lock-in

The objective of this paper is to develop research on backsourcing, which consists in recalling outsourced activities back in-house. We focus on the processes that firms follow to backsource these activities, particularly when they are locked into outsourcing. We refer to path dependence and path creation concepts to conduct this research. Using a case study methodology, we analyze the process related to the backsourcing of information technology activities in a telecommunications company. This paper highlights the negative effects of the need to control outsourced activities as it maintains outsourcing lock-in. Organizational crises and the perception of backsourcing as a success are two elements that enable significant mindful deviations from outsourcing practices and the development of a backsourcing path. The decision to backsource and its implementation can be facilitated by past successful integration experiences, internal productive capabilities, and capabilities to control activities. Changes in power relations within the firm can sustain the development of a backsourcing path. Our research contributes to research on organizational path breaking by studying the backsourcing process as an outsourcing path breaker. This paper complements studies on organizational practices such as outsourcing and backsourcing and their interplay.     

Do Social Networks Really Matter in Contentious Politics?

A considerable number of studies in the social movement literature stress that social networks are a key factor for those participating in political protest. However, since empirical evidence does not universally support this thesis, we propose to examine three core questions. Do networks really matter for participants in political protest? Are social networks important for all types of protest? Finally, what are social networks and in which ways are they important? By answering these questions this paper aims to provide three contributions to social movement literature: first, we want to put networks in their place and not reifying their influence on participation processes; second, we describe and explain variations of networks influence on protest participation; third, to pursue the theoretical reflection initiated by Kitts, McAdam, and Passy on the specification of network effect on contentious participation, that is, to disentangle the different processes at stake. Many scholars argue for empirical works analyzing the link between networks and cognition, but this remains a pious wish. Here, we propose to systematically examine the effect of social interactions on activists' cognitive toolkit.     

Direct and indirect impacts of environmental factors on migration in Burkina Faso: application of structural equation modelling

Population and Environment - In the prolific literature on the impact of environment on migration, direct and indirect effects are often mentioned but rarely estimated separately. We use structural...     

Farmers' Professional Dialogue Networks and Dynamics of Change: The Case of ICP and No‐Tillage Adoption in Burgundy (France)

In the research reported here, we studied three cereal‐growing areas in the French region of Burgundy, concentrating on the dynamics of change with regard to farmers' use of pesticides and new soil management practices on the one hand and on farmers' professional dialogue networks on the other. Our aim in this article is to show the link between the network types and the dynamics of change in their members' behavior. Three types of coalitional networks appeared. In the “mainly bonding” network, the roles of innovator and early adopter were the most highly shared among farmers. In the “mainly bridging” network, these roles were occupied by a single person holding a central position within the network. In the “bonding and bridging” structure, the roles of innovator and early adopter were held by different individuals. We further observed that the farmers developing integrated crop protection techniques occupied different positions from those implementing complete no‐tillage, which is not promoted by technical advisory services. A rivalry thus appears to emerge between these two orientations in which the farmers are engaged within the network.     

Confidence intervals for estimating the population signal-to-noise ratio: a simulation study

This paper considered several confidence intervals for estimating the population signal-to-noise ratio based on parametric, non-parametric and modified methods. A simulation study has been conducted to compare the performance of the interval estimators under both symmetric and skewed distributions. We reported coverage probability and average width of the interval estimators. Based on the simulation study, we observed that some of our proposed interval estimators are performing better in the sense of smaller width and coverage probability and have been recommended for the researchers.     

EMU and the dynamics of regional per capita income inequality in Europe

This paper analyzes the evolution of per capita income inequality among 197 European regions between 1977 and 2003, and seeks evidence of the relationship between the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and interregional income inequality. The conclusion is that overall interregional income inequality has decreased since 1977, owing to a decrease in between-country inequality. The panel analysis conducted in this paper suggests that the adoption of the common currency has, thus far, exacerbated regional inequality in poorer EU countries, while it has not significantly affected regional inequality within richer countries. Inequality in less advanced countries has also increased with the establishment of the convergence criteria and with the implementation of the Single Market.