Job satisfaction and 'welfare-to-work' : is any job a good job for Australian mothers?

This exploratory study sought to assess the job satisfaction of employed Australian single mothers who had mandatory employment participation requirements. In particular, we sought to identify the characteristics of the job and the individual that were closely associated with participant’s job satisfaction. Self‑report data on job satisfaction, employment characteristics and parenting stress were collected from 155 employed single mothers. Participant job satisfaction was compared to female Australian population norms and linear regression analyses determined the job‑related and individual predictors of single mothers’ job satisfaction. Findings from this exploratory study revealed that single mothers involved in a mandatory welfare‑to‑work program experienced significantly lower job satisfaction than the Australian female population. The individual variable, parental distress, negatively predicted each of the six job satisfaction domains while being employed on a casual basis was inversely associated with three domains (job security, work hours and overall job satisfaction). The Australian government purported that making the transition from welfare to work would improve wellbeing for program participants, under the assumption that ‘any job’s a good job’. However, the relatively low levels of job satisfaction experienced by single mothers in the current study provide little support for this assumption.

Polyandry in a marine turtle : females make the best of a bad job

The female perspective on reproductive strategies remains one of the most active areas of debate in biology. Even though a single mating is often sufficient to satisfy the fertilization needs of most females and the act of further mating incurs costs, multiple paternity within broods or clutches is a common observation in nature. Direct or indirect advantage to females is the most popular explanation. However, the ubiquity of this explanation is being challenged by an increasing number of cases for which benefits are not evident. For the first time, we test possible fitness correlates of multiple paternity in a marine turtle, an organism that has long attracted attention in this area of research. Contrary to the wide-spread assumption that multiple mating by female marine turtles confers fitness benefits, none were apparent. In this study, the environment played a far stronger role in determining the success of clutches than whether paternity had been single or multiple. A more likely explanation for observations of multiply sired clutches in marine turtles is that these are successful outcomes of male coercion, where females have conceded to superfluous matings as a compromise. Thus, multiple matings by female marine turtles may be a form of damage control as females attempt to make the best of a bad job in response to male harassment.

GLOA : a new job scheduling algorithm for grid computing

The purpose of grid computing is to produce a virtual supercomputer by using free resources available through widespread networks such as the Internet. This resource distribution, changes in resource availability, and an unreliable communication infrastructure pose a major challenge for efficient resource allocation. Because of the geographical spread of resources and their distributed management, grid scheduling is considered to be a NP-complete problem. It has been shown that evolutionary algorithms offer good performance for grid scheduling. This article uses a new evaluation (distributed) algorithm inspired by the effect of leaders in social groups, the group leaders' optimization algorithm (GLOA), to solve the problem of scheduling independent tasks in a grid computing system. Simulation results comparing GLOA with several other evaluation algorithms show that GLOA produces shorter makespans.

The influence of organisational commitment, job involvement and utility perceptions on trainees’ motivation to improve work through learning

Workplace training is a key strategy often used by organisations to optimise performance. Further, trainee motivation is a key determinant of the degree to which the material learned in a training programme will be transferred to the workplace, enhancing the performance of the trainee. This study investigates the relationship between several components of the Revised Human Resource Development (HRD) Evaluation and Research Model. This model provides a framework for diagnosing and understanding the causal influences of HRD intervention outcomes on training effectiveness. Data were obtained from an online questionnaire completed by 105 employees of various organisations. Findings revealed that affective organisational commitment, job involvement and utility perceptions are predictors of motivation to learn and transfer learning. An interaction effect was found, with increased affective organisational commitment predicting greater motivation to learn when training was of lower perceived utility. These findings suggest that the design and delivery of training should emphasise the relevance and utility of the programme in order to encourage greater trainee motivation and maximise return on investment. Additionally, implementing strategies aimed at promoting organisational commitment would appear beneficial.

Influence of high performance work systems on employee subjective well-being and job burnout: empirical evidence from the Chinese healthcare sector

Over the last two decades, high performance work systems (HPWSs) research has been dominated by examining the effects of these systems on firm performance. Research on the impact of HPWSs on employees has been marginalised. This study examines the impact of HPWSs on two psychological outcomes for employees, namely, subjective well-being (SWB) and workplace burnout, by utilising data collected from 1488 physicians and nurses in 25 Chinese hospitals. It also examines the moderating effects of employees' organisational based self-esteem (OBSE), as an individual intervention and physician–nurse relationships, as an organisational intervention, on the relationship between HPWSs and employee outcomes. HPWS is found to increase employees' SWB and decrease burnout. Such well-being-enhancing and burnout-relieving effects are stronger when employees have high OBSE. The positive effect of HPWS on SWB is also stronger when there is a collaborative relationship among employees in an organisation. The major contribution of this study is to unpack the ‘black box’ of how HPWS influences employee well-being in the Chinese healthcare sector context.