ABSTRACT
This edited volume presents a compendium of emerging and innovative studies on the proliferation of new working spaces (NeWSps), both formal and informal (such as coworking spaces, maker spaces, fab labs, public libraries, and coffee shops), and their role during and following the COVID-19 pandemic in urban and regional development and planning. This book presents an original, interdisciplinary approach to NeWSps through three features: (i) situating the debate in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has transformed NeWSp business models and the everyday work life of their owners and users;(ii) repositioning and rethinking the debate on NeWSps in the context of socioeconomics and planning and comparing conditions between before and during the COVID-19 pandemic;and (iii) providing new directions for urban and regional development and resilience to the COVID-19 pandemic, considering new ways of working and living. The 17 chapters are co-authored by both leading international scholars who have studied the proliferation of NeWSps in the last decade and young, talented researchers, resulting in a total of 55 co-authors from different disciplines (48 of whom are currently involved in the COST Action CA18214 'The Geography of New Working Spaces and Impact on the Periphery' 2019-2023: www.new-working-spaces.eu). Selected comparative studies among several European countries (Western and Eastern Europe) and from the US and Lebanon are presented. The book contributes to the understanding of multi-disciplinary theoretical and practical implications of NeWSps for our society, economy, and urban/regional planning in conditions following the COVID-19 pandemic. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Ilaria Mariotti, Mina Di Marino and Pavel Bednár. All rights reserved.
ABSTRACT
In the context of the exponential growth of data, the Covid 19 pandemic and the need for quick adaptation faced by companies, as well as by society at large, the concept of organisational learning is flourishing and becoming an even more critical component of organisational survival and growth. This study applies a socio-technical lens to shed light on the organisational learning processes taking place in 40 various sizes and kinds of UK businesses during the critical, volatile, and unprecedented period - February-May 2021. Our study identifies organisational learning antecedents and key organisational context enabling and/or impeding learning processes and follow up evolution within companies. The findings suggest that even if employees have capability, not all are able to capture and transform intelligence into learning and apply it at a strategic level, reconfiguring purposefully future operational capabilities to respond to environmental changes, as they are not empowered and supported by the organisational management. © 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
ABSTRACT
Blended and online learning environments continue to grow, transforming higher education. The motivation behind this study is to explore blended and online learning environments, from the perspective of students, through the lens of Activity Theory (AT). Based on 12 virtual semi-structured interviews with Master's (MSc) students at one University in England, the paper sheds light onto some of the findings with respect to student motivation underlying engagement, as well as tensions and contradictions in the activity system. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
Sustainability of the enterprise is crucial to support long-term business survival and development. Unpredictable events such as Covid-19 highlights sustainability issues in enterprises. This empirical study aims to investigate sociotechnical sustainability in real world work practices. The focus is on employee involvement and problems in work practices concerning the economic, environmental, social, and technological area. The study draws on findings from the 2019 and 2020 analyses on sustainability development in employees’ work practices. Overall, there seems to be a lack of integration of sustainability in work practices and this does not support the employees in their efforts to co-create a sustainable future for the enterprise. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
ABSTRACT
This paper investigates the drivers for, and implementation of, digital transformation projects and organizational change initiatives in 20 companies in the UK. The study follows on previous research based on the Socio-Technical Toolbox [STT], specifically focusing on the activity analysis and employees’ experience and participation in the change initiative or digital transformation project. © 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
ABSTRACT
Security standards consider that developing a security policy is a cornerstone in information security management. In practice, the development of a security policy is contextually dependent and there is no agreement on what organisations should include in their security policies. This paper argues that analysing information security policy documents could potentially provide new insights into existing issues with security practices. The paper explores and analyses the content and form of 100 UK schools’ information security policies to assess their scope and accessibility. The key findings show that the content varied widely between schools but tended to have a technical focus, many security policies had not been updated to address changes to work practices due to the Covid-19 situation and many policies have poor readability scores preventing readers from engaging with them. © 2021, IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.