This study introduces a methodology to quantify knowledge flow in Spanish manufacturing firms, utilizing data from the Enterprise Strategy Survey (ESEE). A composite index is created through a structural equation model (SEM) featuring latent variables, which removes any subjectivity in weighting the dimensions. The analysis encompasses seven critical dimensions concerning innovation, R&D, work organization, and the Internet. Results indicate that dimensions linked to R&D significantly influence knowledge flow and, consequently, business productivity. The combination of R&D investment and the implementation of new organizational approaches in the workplace shows a positive and statistically significant correlation with enhanced productivity. These findings emphasize companies' need to embrace strategies that merge technological advancement with organizational innovation. In this regard, the knowledge flow index highlights the importance of incorporating both elements. This method provides a statistically sound tool for evaluating business competitiveness, emphasizing the necessity of integrating technology and organizational innovation within corporations’ strategies.
This article examines various economic and sociopolitical perspectives on reducing working hours in the current context. Six main approaches are analysed: the income-leisure choice of neoclassical economics, the distributive conflict of Marxist political economy, the optimization of production processes, the centrality of reproductive work in feminist economics, ecological considerations, and post-work theories. The article shows how these perspectives, often complementary but sometimes contradictory, offer a complex and multifaceted view of the issue. It concludes that the confluence of factors such as technological changes, environmental concerns and new conceptions of work is driving a renewed debate about reducing working hours, posing challenges and opportunities for transforming work organization in contemporary society.
The acceleration of climate change we are seeing is triggering one of the deepest and most threatening global crises to ensure a fair and livable planet for the more than 8 billion inhabitants and for the biosphere. The climate crisis is so significant and severe that climate emergency is already being discussed. We are in a global context in which the trespassing of planetary boundaries, particularly those related to climate emergency, has clear effects on our daily lives, especially in an uneven and unfair manner. Organizations, across their diversity, cannot circumvent the necessary debate on how they must adapt to the new climate emergency context and how they can contribute effectively to mitigation and adaptation, without falling into greenwashing. New metrics, beyond current green certifications, that can capture and incentivize the decarbonization and ecological transition of organizations will need to be found. Obviously, this requires a profound change in the continuous economic growth logic that transcends the individual wills of organizations and requires profound social, cultural and political-economic change in the priorities we have as a society.
We start with the Brundtland Report’s (1988) definition of the concept of sustainability to analyze key aspects and look at the essence of human nature. We realize that the way to meet people’s needs is key to optimizing their quality of life, integrating us back into nature and achieving the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The strategy that must be followed is the cooperation between the interested parties by bringing the places of residence, work and consumption closer to being able to have meeting spaces in the proximity of neighborhoods, but also within companies, public administrations and non-profit entities. Given that the purpose is to meet basic human needs in the consumer society we have built, we identify the quality of life indicators that allow us to analyze the sustainability of organizations and products throughout their lifecycle. The application of the quality of life indicators can be essential in our individual and collective decisions of everyday purchasing, both public and private, to raise awareness and to build a strong path towards sustainability. It will also help us design sustainable public policies, including public procurement.
The trend toward (new) ways of working in Spain after the Covid-19 pandemic shows a deployment of extensive organizational flexibility for dealing with any environment. The focus is on project-based organization, workers’ overall health, implementing systems to monitor performance and two pending tasks: innovation and digitalization. The article describes a study by the Spanish Association of People Management and Development (AEDIPE) during the last quarter of 2021 and the first of 2022, gathering the opinion of 527 CEOs and Human Resources managers of prominent Spanish companies. The results show eight main ideas that enable companies to develop flexibility and reorganization as a means for their stability. 1) More than 35% of workers will consolidate their partial work from home. 2) Companies are looking for performance monitoring tools that give them support for control and trust. 3) The wellbeing of employees is central in the post-Covid-19 era. 4) Innovation and digitalization continue to be pending issues. 5) There are significant differences between the coping strategies of large and small companies. 6) Workspaces tend to become collaborative and sustainable. 7) Project management displaces departmental management in organizational structures. 8) Recruitment and selection are of increasing concern to human resources professionals.
The difficulties in work-life balance has become greatly important in the societies of the 21st century. An evergrowing number of organisations are interested in promoting and encouraging this approach, with the objective of improving the well-being and quality of life of their male and female workers in addition to attracting and fostering talent, improving productivity and, ultimately, becoming more competitive. In this context, one of the most used measures for achieving such objectives is teleworking. This article analyses, from the point of view of female teleworkers, if this labour system constitutes an efficient strategy for the work-life balance. The methodology used has been qualitative, specifically working with indepth interviews and discussion groups. The sample was composed of women teleworkers with some form of family dependents. The principal results show that teleworking for these female workers is a labour system which goes far beyond work-life balance. This is a kind of logic or mechanism which redefines the unfolding practices and which leads to the creation of new meanings in the realm of work and in compatibilisation with domestic, family and personal life. By practising teleworking, these women are producing a critical discourse with the prevailing labour model, characterised by their long working days which exclude the possibility of a life at the margin of the world of work. They use the possibilities of flexibility which teleworking provides them in order to reclaim their roles as professionals and as mothers, and as a result do not give up either of these roles, making use of teleworking as a tool for revealing a labour market which excludes all that is related to the sphere of care.
Occupational health is an important issue in people's lives. Having healthy companies that contribute to maintaining and improving the health of their workers and their environment also has direct effects on the performance, productivity and benefits of organizations. The effects on workers of the implementation of different healthy company programmes are analysed. Three different and complementary models are presented so that professionals responsible for people in organizations can choose which model best suits their needs. The models of healthy companies are proposed by the ENWHP, created with the support of the European Union, by AENOR, through which a Healthy Company certificate can be obtained, and by the WONT team at the Universitat Jaume I, which has a clear psychosocial focus. Fulfilling the specifications of any of these models will allow an affirmative answer to the question posed.
Social media play a relevant role as the basis to most processes related to information transfer as well as knowledge creation and transfer. In order to optimise those processes in organisations, knowledge management needs to take into account essential functions of social media. In this article, we describe some of the specific mechanisms by which a social media structure influences the effectiveness of information transfer and knowledge creation and transfer. Based on this, we put forward some considerations on the most suitable features of social media to meet organisational objectives. Knowledge management must be able to use existing social media and, if possible, to have those media adopt the most adequate structure.