Information and communication technology demands at work : the association with job strain, effort-reward imbalance and self-rated health in different socio-economic strata

PURPOSE: The use of information and communication technology (ICT) is common in modern working life. ICT demands may give rise to experience of work-related stress. Knowledge about ICT demands in relation to other types of work-related stress and to self-rated health is limited. Consequently, the aim of this study was to examine the association between ICT demands and two types of work-related stress [job strain and effort-reward imbalance (ERI)] and to evaluate the association between these work-related stress measures and self-rated health, in general and in different SES strata. METHODS: This study is based on cross-sectional data from the Swedish Longitudinal Occupational Survey of Health collected in 2014, from 14,873 gainfully employed people. ICT demands, job strain, ERI and self-rated health were analysed as the main measures. Sex, age, SES, lifestyle factors and BMI were used as covariates. RESULTS: ICT demands correlated significantly with the dimensions of the job strain and ERI models, especially with the demands (r = 0.42; p < 0.01) and effort (r = 0.51; p < 0.01) dimensions. ICT demands were associated with suboptimal self-rated health, also after adjustment for age, sex, SES, lifestyle and BMI (OR 1.49 [95 % CI 1.36-1.63]), but job strain (OR 1.93 [95 % CI 1.74-2.14) and ERI (OR 2.15 [95 % CI 1.95-2.35]) showed somewhat stronger associations with suboptimal self-rated health. CONCLUSION: ICT demands are common among people with intermediate and high SES and associated with job strain, ERI and suboptimal self-rated health. ICT demands should thus be acknowledged as a potential stressor of work-related stress in modern working life.

Gender theory and the family business

Gender Theory started in understanding and explain women's role in society and are also now including men and masculinities, Gender Theory has recently been adapted to family business research. This chapter will briefly introduce Gender Theory and its development, before reviewing how it has been used in family business research. Arguing that the family business context is suitable in studying gender phenomena, the chapter outlines several ways through which Gender Theory could yield new insights into issues, of how family business structures, settings and practices produce relations of power or asymmetry. A common approach so far to the study of gender in family business situations is to consider ‘gender as a variable’, which maintains the categorisation of women and men as a relevant and unproblematic variable. Many analyses of family businesses that also address gender focus on feminist ‘standpoint positions’, giving voice to women´s unique experiences. Often in family business research, the dominant approach is to conceive gender in terms of limited male/female distinctions rather than by reframing family business through critical positions, with the aim of reflection and sensitivity towards gender issues in terms of the socially constituted patterns that are produced through male/female, masculine/feminine distinctions. Concluding, the chapter suggests a possible methodology for capturing gendered processes and proposes how family business research could offer new insights into Gender theory.

Comply-or-explain in Sweden : A study on the quality of non-compliance explanations

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of the comply-or-explain principle in Sweden to determine if the flexible approach is functioning as in-tended. Research design: This paper scrutinizes the quality of the explanations with respect to the Swedish Corporate Governance Code. A quantitative research with a cross-sectional design has been performed and the data collection covers 241 companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm for the fiscal year of 2014. The secondary data has been gathered from corporate governance reports of the researched companies and analysed by using a tax-onomy of explanations. Findings: The report demonstrates that the comply-or-explain principle in Sweden is effective. A clear majority of the explanations, 71,8%, were deemed as informative, mean-ing that a large proportion of the Swedish firms are utilizing the flexible approach in an effective manner. However, one out of four explanations were classified as insufficient and we have thus provided recommendations in order for the code to become even more effective. Contribution: Our findings provide insights on how the comply-or-explain principle works in a country that is supposed to be a leading example of how the comply-or-explain approach should be implemented. This study should be of significance for policy makers considering that we have outlined how the principle works and provided recommenda-tions on how the Swedish Corporate Governance Code can be improved. Value: Our findings demonstrate that companies listed on Nasdaq OMX Stockholm pro-vide high quality explanations that can serve as an inspiration for companies listed in other countries. Furthermore, the results indicate that managers are likely to act within ethically desired norm. Considering the social implications, as Swedish firms are informative in terms of explanations, it minimizes the risk of firms acting dishonestly.

En jämförelse av upplevd produktivitet samt arbetstillfredsställelse mellan aktivitetsaserade och traditionella kontor.

Purpose: The aim with this study is to compare perceived productivity and job satisfaction between activity based offices and traditional offices. The goal is to investigate, through a quantitative comparison, productivity and job satisfaction between the office types, and if generations perceive this differently. Method: The method used in this study is a quantitative method, in form of a questionnaire. The questionnaire used was taken from a study made by Sahlström and Severin (2015) at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm. The same questionnaire was taken because it had already been quality assured and had good content for the survey. Four IT companies were included in the study. Two of them had activity based offices and two of them had traditional office type. Literature review has also been a method in order to get a deeper understanding of the subject. Findings: The results of the study show that there are differences between the two office types in perceived productivity and job satisfaction. The traditional office type showed the best results. However, this result can be discussed since the two traditional offices differed widely in their responses. The results also show that there are differences between the generations experiencing productivity and job satisfaction of the various offices. The elder generation, Baby boomers, shows better results on the traditional office type and the younger generation, Generation Y, shows better results on the activity based offices. Implications: One conclusion to be drawn from this is that employees at traditional offices are more satisfied with their working place and experience increased productivity than employees on activity based offices. However, these results may be due to other factors than how the office environment affects the employees. Therefore, these results will not be recommended. Another conclusion is that the Baby boomers are experiencing higher productivity and job satisfaction of traditional office and Generation Y experiences higher productivity and job satisfaction on activity based office. These results can be recommended. Limitations: The limitations of this study are to examine only IT companies in Sweden with a maximal amount of employees of 150 persons. The results are, apart from the scattered results in the first issue, generally valid and can be applied to other IT companies. To succeed fully applicable results, a survey with more companies involved had been better. Then, detections of anomaly would easier have been discovered and possible disregards of certain results could have been done. Keywords: Perceived productivity - Self-rated assessment of employees on their own productivity. Traditional offices - In this work traditional offices includes cell offices and shared rooms. Activity based offices - Office where employees have no fixed work place and there are often zones to support different types of working.