Time and Work–Life Balance: The Roles of ‘Temporal Customization’ and ‘Life Temporality’

This article poses a challenge to the orthodox binary, conceptualization of work–life balance only made possible by relying on the widespread ‘clock time’ worldview, which understands employment practices in terms of the basic time = money equation. In particular, it is the balance metaphor which relies on a quantification of both work and life in order to make sense and can therefore be seen to be based on an understanding of time as a measurable and value‐able unit. This article seeks to begin the exercise of examining the concept of work–life balance through a broader concept of the temporal dimension than simply limited quantitative notions. Two temporal themes are reported from a study which identified employees who had customized their working pattern to suit the various and multi‐dimensional facets of their lifestyles and thereby successfully improved their work–life balance. Participants in this study demonstrated that an improved work–life balance is more about a mind‐set that refuses to be dominated by a work temporality and is determined to create ‘me time’ rather than e.g. simply choosing a four day week or a part‐time job. It is argued that the notion of work–life balance is more usefully conceptualized within a broader notion of ‘livingscapes’ which contain both elements of work and life and that as researchers, our challenge must be to reflect the complexity of this weave within our analyses of individuals’ work–life balance.     

《长生殿》叙事结构探析

依据李渔关于戏剧叙事应以“一人一事”为剧情枢纽的“立主脑”理论,可以认定洪《长生殿》中杨贵妃一人,“密誓”一事,是其“主脑”,可见李渔“立主脑”的结构理论是符合戏剧艺术的叙事规律的。     

Dynamic Assignment of Flexible Service Resources

Resource flexibility is an important tool for firms to better match capacity with demand so as to increase revenues and improve service levels. However, in service contexts that require dynamically deciding whether to accept incoming jobs and what resource to assign to each accepted job, harnessing the benefits of flexibility requires using effective methods for making these operational decisions. Motivated by the resource deployment decisions facing a professional service firm in the workplace training industry, we address the dynamic job acceptance and resource assignment problem for systems with general resource flexibility structure, i.e., with multiple resource types that can each perform different overlapping subsets of job types. We first show that, for systems containing specialized resources for individual job types and a versatile resource type that can perform all job types, the exact policy uses a threshold rule. With more general flexibility structures, since the associated stochastic dynamic program is intractable, we develop and test three optimization‐based approximate policies. Our extensive computational tests show that one of the methods, which we call the Bottleneck Capacity Reservation policy, is remarkably effective in generating near‐optimal solutions over a wide range of problem scenarios. We also consider a model variant that requires dynamic job acceptance decisions but permits deferring resource assignment decisions until the end of the horizon. For this model, we discuss an adaptation of our approximate policy, establish the effectiveness of this policy, and assess the value of postponing assignment decisions.     

The Never‐ending Shift: A feminist reflection on living and organizing academic lives during the coronavirus pandemic

This article offers a feminist reflection written as a nocturnal stream of consciousness exposing the embodied, emotional and professional experience of living and working during a pandemic outbreak. Framed within a feminist approach, this personal narrative provides an example of the effects of such unexpected and unprecedented circumstances on personal and professional academic lives. Developed during the first stage of the (inter)national coronavirus pandemic, my reflections address issues of privilege; emotional labour; the virtual invasion of the home space within the current increasingly ambiguous space of ‘the workplace'; workload; and wellbeing. Further, I consider how the newly enforced flexible work measures based on online tools have turned current work–life dynamics into a ‘Never‐ending Shift'.     

基于数量柔性契约的双源应急物资采购定价模型

针对灾害事件发生的不确定性以及灾害发生后应急物资需求量的爆发式增长，本文设计了一个政府主导的基于数量柔性契约的双源应急物资采购模型。在存在一个现货市场的情况下，政府除了常规采购外，还会与供应方签订一份数量柔性契约，用以建立政企联合储备应急物资的合作关系。通过数理推导，本文发现灾害事件发生概率，政府自身储备量，现货市场采购价格会对双方决策产生重要影响，并给出三个影响因素在满足不同条件时政企双方的最优决策，同时进一步分析了这三个因素对政府采购成本与供应方利润的影响。最后，通过数值模拟的方式对所得结论进行了验证。本文的研究为政府与企业构建联合储备应急物资的合作关系提供了指导与依据。     

文献语言词类活用修辞功能试说

援引信息理论以为借鉴,尝试分析了文献语言中一些典型的词类活用的用例,认为它们不仅是语法现象,也是修辞手段,往往具有多方面的修辞功能,如改善信息接收状态、提高信息的传递效率、在接收的环节上酿出新信息等等。因此,如能从修辞功能的角度加以研究,一定会使我们的古代汉语的教学工作和科研工作都爆出新的亮点。     

我国弹性退休年龄制度设计——基于美国相关制度的实践

弹性退休制度允许劳动者自由选择是否工作以及是否领取养老金。这一制度有着诸多优点。从美国的实践情况来看,该制度既鼓励了劳动者多劳多得,又使社保基金增收节支;既遏制了养老金领取者的贫富差距扩大,又确保老龄劳动者与年轻人展开公平竞争。当前,我国可以对达到退休年龄以后继续工作的劳动者采取中性政策,对延迟领取养老金的劳动者予以鼓励。     

高校柔性管理模式下辅导员工作的思考

要真正实现管理的“柔性化”,辅导员必须重新思考和探索新的教育思路和工作方法。从分析辅导员工作面临的挑战和存在的问题入手,探讨辅导员工作的原则和改进途径。     

Flexible parametric estimation technique for a competing risks model with unobserved heterogeneity: a Monte Carlo study

We analyse a flexible parametric estimation technique for a competing risks (CR) model with unobserved heterogeneity, by extending a local mixed proportional hazard single risk model for continuous duration time to a local mixture CR (LMCR) model for discrete duration time. The state-specific local hazard function for the LMCR model is per definition a valid density function if we have either one or two destination states. We conduct Monte Carlo experiments to compare the estimated parameters of the LMCR model, and to compare the estimated parameters of a CR model based on a Heckman–Singer-type (HS-type) technique, with the data-generating process parameters. The Monte Carlo results show that the LMCR model performs better or at least as good as the HS-type model with respect to the estimated structure parameters in most of the cases, but relatively poorer with respect to the estimated duration-dependence parameters.     

我国特殊工时制度存在的问题及完善对策

我国现行特殊工时制度,即综合计算工时工作制和不定时工作制,存在规定笼统、标准不一,监管缺位、制约不足,职工利益难以保障,刚性过强等弊端。文章通过对该制度现实状况和法律属性的分析,借鉴部分国家、地区的相关制度,提出以突出劳资协商和保护劳动者权益为重点、弱化行政管制、对特殊工时制加以改革的完善建议。