EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini said: "EU has never taken the issue of migration as seriously as we are doing now. With this operation, we are targeting the business model of those who benefit from the misery of migrants. But it's only a part of a broader strategy including the cooperation with our partners in Africa, particularly in the Sahel region, and the work with the International Organization for Migration and the UNHCR. As EU, we are determined to contribute to save lives, dismantle the networks of the smugglers of human beings and address the root causes of migration."

The Council of the European Union

This study is focused on assessing the effects of burnout as a moderator of the relationship between employees’ quality of work life (QWL) and their perceptions of their contribution to the organization’s productivity by integrating the QWL factors into the trichotomy of (de)motivators of productivity in the workplace. The empirical findings resulting from an OLS multiple regression, with interaction terms, applied to a survey administered at 514 employees in 6 European countries, point out two important insights: (i) QWL hygiene factors (e.g., safe work environment and occupational healthcare) positively and significantly influence the contribution to productivity; and (ii) burnout de-motivator factors (that is, low effectiveness, cynicism, and emotional exhaustion) significantly moderate the relationship between QWL and the contribution to productivity. Combining burnout with other QWL components, such as occupational health, safe work, and appropriate salary, new insights are provided concerning the restricting (i.e., low effectiveness and cynicism) and catalyzing (emotional exhaustion) burnout components of contribution to productivity. These findings are particularly relevant given the increased weight of burnout, mental disorders and absenteeism in the labor market, affecting individuals’ quality of life and organizations’ performance and costs.

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Quality of Work Life and Contribution to Productivity: Assessing the Moderator Effects of Burnout Syndrome.

In the past few decades, a firm’s innovative climate has received much attention in the context of innovative behavior, competitiveness, and business performance The existing literature has relied to a great extent on innovative climate as an interacting factor and overlooked its role as an antecedent of various organizational phenomena Furthermore, the interaction effects of the firm’s size and age on the relationships between innovative climate and other organizational variables have gone unnoticed This study adds to the literature by empirically assessing the effects of the firm’s innovative climate on organizational learning and employees’ innovative behavior as well as its consequences on the firm’s competitiveness and business performance Additionally, it addresses the interaction impacts of firm size and age on the relationships between the abovementioned variables This research achieves its goal by developing an integrative research design that analyzes complex relations using covariance-based structural equation modeling (SEM) and regression techniques on a dataset of 408 Chinese law firms The results indicate that the firm’s innovative climate has a significant positive relationship with organizational learning and employees’ innovative behavior It is also found that organizational learning has a significant positive influence on employees’ innovative behavior Meanwhile, organizational learning and employees’ innovative behavior have a significant positive influence on firm competitiveness and business performance Another important finding is that contextual factors, ie, firm size and age, strengthen these relations Theoretical and managerial implications, including links to firm size and age, are provided

Innovative Climate, a Determinant of Competitiveness and Business Performance in Chinese Law Firms: The Role of Firm Size and Age

In most small manufacturing enterprise (SME), production planning and scheduling are crucial operational management tasks required. A typical make-to-order company is plagued by frequent absenteeis...

Human factors among workers in a small manufacturing enterprise: a case study

The purpose of this study was to validate the construct and reliability of an instrument to assess the work environment as a single tool based on quality of life (QL), quality of work life (QWL), and organizational climate (OC). The methodology tested the construct validity through Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and reliability through Cronbach's alpha. The EFA returned a Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value of 0.917; which demonstrated that the data were adequate for the factor analysis; and a significant Bartlett's test of sphericity (χ² = 7465.349; Df = 1225; p ≤ 0.000). After the EFA; the varimax rotation method was employed for a factor through commonality analysis; reducing the 14 initial factors to 10. Only question 30 presented commonality lower than 0.5; and the other questions returned values higher than 0.5 in the commonality analysis. Regarding the reliability of the instrument; all of the questions presented reliability as the values varied between 0.953 and 0.956. Thus; the instrument demonstrated construct validity and reliability.

Construct Validity and Reliability of the Work Environment Assessment Instrument WE-10

This is a pioneering study on the relationship between quality of work life and the employee’s perception of their contribution to organizational performance. It unveils the importance of subjective and behavioral components of quality of work life and their influence on the formation of the collaborator’s individual desire to contribute to strengthening the organization’s productivity. The results obtained indicate that for workers: feeling their supervisors’ support through listening to their concerns and by sensing they take them on board; being integrated in a good work environment; and feeling respected both as professionals and as people; positively influence their feeling of contributing to organizational performance. The results are particularly relevant given the increased weight of services in the labor market, together with intensified automation and digitalization of collaborators’ functions. The findings also contribute to the ongoing debate about the need for more work on the subjective and behavioral components of so-called smart and learning organizations, rather than focusing exclusively on remuneration as the factor stimulating organizational productivity based on the collaborator’s contribution.

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/20/3803/pdf

Quality of Work Life and Organizational Performance: Workers' Feelings of Contributing, or Not, to the Organization's Productivity.

This chapter uses an intellectual capital (IC) qualitative approach for assessing the bio health technologies entrepreneurial ecosystem of a university located in Southern Europe, aiming to identify the role played by IC in fostering the sustainable success of the entrepreneurial ecosystem. There has been limited research dedicated to deepening the knowledge of the entrepreneurial ecosystems’ dimensions, using an IC lens, in the context of university cities with different dimensions. Small cities may not have some dimensions, so developed, comparing with the ones of the ecosystems of large urban centers. This chapter uses a qualitative approach funded in a case study exploring internal and external stakeholders of a Portuguese entrepreneurial ecosystem, UBImedical, targeted at the bio health sector. The study is part of an exploratory study funded in the scope of a European Project, aiming to explore in a pioneering way the application of the dominant triad of capitals forming IC and, thus, identifying and understanding the dimensions of different entrepreneurial ecosystems. The case study reveals that the IC’s dimensions more critical for the success of the bio health entrepreneurial ecosystems are the structural capital and the relational capital, although human capital is perceived as a basic prerequisite for fostering the entrepreneurial ecosystem’s performance. The results are funded in primary and qualitative data collected from the interviews developed to previously identified external and internal stakeholders of this type of entrepreneurial ecosystem under study.

Ângela Gonçalves

Papers

Quality of Work Life and Organizational Performance: Workers' Feelings of Contributing, or Not, to the Organization's Productivity.

Quality of Work Life and Contribution to Productivity: Assessing the Moderator Effects of Burnout Syndrome.

Understanding Bio Health Technologies Entrepreneurial Ecosystems: An Intellectual Capital Approach