European Journal of Workplace Innovation

Editorial

Richard Ennals — 2023-10-31

An Obituary for Morten Levin

Olav Eikeland — 2023-10-31

In this text we pay our respects, both professionally and personally, to Morten Levin who passed away this last April 9^th, at 76 years of age. We who write this knew Morten from different periods, professional, and geographical distances. Our common ground is our mutual interest in action research and work life research and change, concerns that occupied Morten for decades.

We who write this are: Roger Klev, Davydd Greenwood, Ann Martin, Johan Ravn, and Olav Eikeland, all engaged, as Morten was, in practices related to work life, action research, and relevant educational and extension programs at Masters and PhD-levels. These are the threads that brought us into Morten´s orbit.

We each have stories to tell that illuminate Morten’s life and contributions, and this shapes the narrative of our tribute. Following a summary of his career, we offer our separate accounts of Morten’s gifts to us and his extraordinary professional accomplishments.

An Obituary for Olav Eikeland

Richard Ennals — 2023-10-31

Obituary of Olav Eikeland

Exploring the challenges and facilitators that impact the experiences of being an older female worker in the European labour market

Shruti Raghuraman — 2023-10-31

Older women make a significant contribution to the labour market yet still experience negative workplace impacts. We undertook a rapid review of literature to assess the current experiences of older female workers in the European labour market with the aim to inform policy innovation and service development that improves the working lives of older women in Europe.

Electronic databases including Business Source Complete, Social Policy and Practice and PubMED were searched. 4797 records were identified, of which 24 full-text reports were included.

Compared to men, older women were found to experience more adverse health impacts as a result of work-related stress. Older women bear a greater share of caring responsibilities which has a negative impact on their health. A lack of support for menopausal symptoms in the workplace often prompted early retirement for older female workers. Income and role disparities between men and women were identified, with women having relatively discontinuous employment histories and lower pension funds due to a higher burden of unpaid, domestic labour throughout their life course. This has a cumulative effect on their income, their role and position at work, and their ability to retire. Older women also reported experiencing workplace discrimination, and lack of autonomy and job control, and less training and developement opportunities. Flexible working was found to be contested terrain, with it being a means to support older women to maintain careers but also resulting in poorer career outcomes.

Work environment development using cognitive work analysis’ decision ladders.

Abdulqadir Mohamad Suleiman — 2023-10-31

The study aimed to create decision-making content for workplace work environment development, followed by a limited evaluation to determine the perception of the importance of the identified content in different sectors. Enforcement/administrative orders in workplace inspection reports were used as empirical infor-mation on workplaces. This information was used to design decision ladders, which form the second phase of cognitive work analysis, the activity analysis. The decision ladders, which support decision-making, cov-ered work functions identified in an earlier work domain analysis study, i.e., exposure prevention, organisa-tional management, competence realisation, workers’ empowerment, psychosocial work environment man-agement, and administration. Specified content of decision ladders for each function was used to prepare a questionnaire for evaluating the content validity for work environment development.

Altogether, 29 items were identified as the content for work environment development. Statistical analysis of the limited evaluation showed no significant difference between the different sectors in their perceptions of the importance of the content in developing work environments. Similar sectoral perceptions' trends support the content utility and validity in work environment development.

The procedure formulation step of the decision ladders, with the phrase “What steps are needed to...” applied preceding the identified content constructs, provides practical activities regarded as essential for work environment development.

Using enforcement inspection reports as the basis for work environment development is a novel approach to addressing workplace safety and health management challenges. Further, the universal utility of the content allows for its implementation across sectors, allowing for workplace-specific decision-making on management measures.

Employee Participation, Digital Sophistication and Innovation Performance

Tuomo Alasoini — 2023-10-31

The results of the Finnish MEADOW survey of 2021–2022, comprising responses of management from 1,106 companies, show that nearly half of Finnish companies employing ten or more people had produced a new or significantly improved product or service during the last two years. Of these companies, almost half had produced products or services new also to the market. Both the level of digital sophistication and the extent of employee participation in development are positively associated with the company’s innovation performance after all other factors in the multinominal regression analysis are controlled. The odds ratios in the regression models are higher for innovations new to the market than innovations new only for the company. Broad employee participation shows the highest odds ratios of all variables included in the regression models for both types of innovation. As also companies’ cooperation networks and customer involvement can play a role in innovations, we analysed the combined effect of the above four factors on innovation. A clear positive combined effect for both innovations new to the market and new only for the company was detected, suggesting that it is difficult for companies to build innovation superiority based on technological ability alone – or any other single factor – and that broad employee participation in development is an essential part of the portrait of an innovative company also in the digital age.

The approach to and challenges in measuring innovation in China

Yuxin Li — 2023-10-31

In China and elsewhere, innovation features strongly in government policy as a key driver of economic development. Being able to measure innovation performance is therefore important. This paper analyses China’s approach to measuring the country’s innovation performance. In doing so and using documentary analysis, it evaluates the conceptualisation and data collection that underpin and support that measurement. The findings show that China focuses on a science and technology approach to measuring innovation. The weaknesses of this approach are identified: first, the conceptual scope is too narrow due to its exclusion of non-technological innovation; second, relatedly, data gathering is limited quantitatively and qualitatively in its coverage of types of innovation; and, third, the sample population is biased, acting to excluding a significant number of firms and employees. These weaknesses undermine understanding of innovation performance in China. With this analysis, this paper provides the first evaluation of China’s innovation conceptualization and measurement and, based on the findings, provides suggestions to address these weaknesses and improve the measurement of innovation performance and which have applicability beyond China. For China and other countries such as those which are members of the OECD and EU, the evidence provided in this paper suggest that there is a pressing need to adopt this broader policy approach and support it through the development of appropriate measures and data collection.

Leveraging a Diverse Collaboration in Tertiary Education to Develop Capability for Workplace Innovation

Thomas Carey — 2023-10-31

Recent developments in tertiary education are demonstrating teaching and learning methods to develop students’ capability for employee-led Workplace Innovation. In this article, we describe an international collaboration to develop shared learning resources and activities in workplace innovation for adaptation in diverse tertiary education contexts. We are intentionally seeking out additional collaborating institutions that differ in mission, size, location and student demographics, to leverage our team’s diversity and encourage innovation.

When shared learning resources and activities are to be used in a diverse contexts, some core principles underlying instructional success must also be shared in order to ensure adaptations do not remove key properties. We outline four instructional principles underlying the learning design and illustrate how these principles are applied in our current learning resources.

We then describe some of the ways that these shared resources have been adapted for different tertiary education environments. We also discuss some of the benefits emerging from the collaboration, including how the inclusion of new resources targeting specific work domains and the transfer of new teaching and learning ideas across contexts.

We conclude by describing some of the ways we are also collaborating with workplace partners, to ensure that our graduates have the capabilities needed to contribute to workplace innovation practice and to help advance the workplace innovation capability of their own employees.

News on Workplace Innovation

Frank Pot — 2023-10-31

Learning from Differences: Workplace Innovation, Digitalisation and Working Lives in South Korea

Peter Totterdill — 2023-10-31

Workplace Innovation

Richard Ennals — 2023-10-31

The article reviews two new books in the context of the wider literature.

Gender Inequality

Richard Ennals — 2023-10-31

The review article considers three books by Tutchell and Edmonds

Special issue: Call for Papers

Kenneth Abrahamsson — 2023-10-31

Not necessary