Search Results (1,084)

Background/Objectives: The American Heart Association Life’s Essential 8 (LE8) is a tool proposed to categorize overall cardiovascular health (CVH), ranging from 0 to 100 and classifies CVH as low (<50), moderate (50–79) or high (≥80), based on the following health behaviors (diet, physical activity, nicotine exposure and sleep) and health factors (body mass index—BMI, lipid levels, glycemic profile and blood pressure). Although used in the general population, it is not part of the health assessment routine in the workplace. We assessed CVH of healthcare workers using an LE8-based score through a mobile application. Methods: Cross-sectional pilot study with adults working at a tertiary hospital in Brazil. We used an app for self-reporting LE8 metrics. Additionally, data on age, sex, and mental health (10-item Perceived Stress Scale, PSS-10) were collected. Results: Sixty-five adults (58.5% female; mean age 36 ± 9.01 years) were included. The mean LE8 overall score was 69.39 ± 12.63. The proportion of participants in the low, moderate and high cardiovascular health categories were 6.2%, 69.2% and 24.6%, respectively. Diet quality (34.76 ± 24.3) and physical activity (45.38 ± 40.58) were in the “low cardiovascular health” category. “Health behaviors” had a significantly lower mean score than “health factors” (58.90 ± 20.53 vs. 79.88 ± 15.55, p < 0.001). The mean PSS-10 score was 19.01 ± 7.49, indicating moderate perceived stress. Overall LE8 and PSS-10 scores were not significantly correlated (r_s = −0,0.17; p = 0.161). There was no significant difference in the mean overall LE8 score in the linear regression model adjusting for age, sex and perceived stress. Conclusions: Among employees of a Brazilian tertiary hospital, the adapted LE8 score indicated overall moderate CVH. Health behaviors—particularly diet quality and physical activity—were the main vulnerable areas. Implementation of an LE8-based assessment in the workplace may be useful for targeted prevention strategies in Brazil. Future larger and longitudinal studies are warranted to confirm these findings. Full article

Working from home has become an increasingly common feature of contemporary working life. The present study examined how different degrees of working from home relate to employees’ perceptions of the work environment, job satisfaction, and health. The analyses were based on a national probability sample of Swedish employees (N = 2331). A multivariate regression model was estimated to examine associations between three working arrangements—office, hybrid, and predominantly home-based work—and multiple employee outcomes. The results showed that hybrid work and predominantly home-based work were associated with different patterns of employee outcomes. Hybrid work was primarily related to higher role ambiguity and lower job satisfaction, whereas predominantly home-based work was associated with a broader set of outcomes, including poorer general health, more sleep problems, lower job satisfaction, higher role ambiguity, and lower perceived workload. Taken together, the findings suggest that patterns of associations differ across working-from-home arrangements rather than simply reflecting the mere presence of remote work. The study highlights the importance of distinguishing between different degrees of working from home when examining how remote work relates to employees’ work experiences and well-being. Full article

Powder bed fusion (PBF) and directed energy deposition (DED) additive manufacturing use feedstock powders that contain metals associated with skin diseases. We performed a survey of surface contamination and limited task-based dermal exposure assessment (four employees) at a PBF and DED facility. Skin wipes of wrists for two employees in the PBF room had higher post-task levels of chromium, cobalt, molybdenum, and nickel. Personal clothing worn by PBF employees showed evidence of contamination with metals as did personal protective equipment (PPE). Microscopy analysis documented contamination of metals throughout most areas of the facility. Levels of metals on surfaces throughout the facility were (ng/cm²) <5.0–7247 (aluminum), <0.2–4899 (chromium), <background-6.0 (chromium VI), 0.03–468.1 (cobalt), 1.6–100.0 (copper), 32.9–19,000 (iron), 0.01–789.0 (molybdenum), 0.1–12,058 (nickel), 0.1–482.8 (titanium), and 0.07–9.3 (vanadium). Levels were significantly lower in administrative areas compared with the production area but generally did not differ among powder handling and non-powder handling rooms in production. The small number of participants in the dermal exposure assessment and uniqueness of the facility might limit generalizability of the results. At least for this facility, steps to lower skin contact with metals can include washing, consistent use of PPE, and increasing awareness of dermal hazards among workers. Approaches to reduce migration of metals throughout a facility can include using adhesive (“tacky”) mats and boot covers and frequent wet cleaning of floors, tools, handles, and high touch surfaces. Full article

This study examines whether crises act as catalysts for sustainable digital transformation in Montenegrin small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and identifies the organizational and HR barriers that mediate change. Using a quantitative online survey conducted August 2023–January 2024 with 209 firms (response rate 24.7%), descriptive statistics and chi-square tests assess adoption patterns across marketing, advanced digital tools, platforms, and employee attitudes. Findings show substantial digital presence (≈95% maintain a website or social profile), 37% report full adoption of digital marketing, and 48% use generative AI (ChatGPT), yet over half lack familiarity with other advanced technologies. Primary obstacles are time constraints, organizational and individual resistance, and limited institutional support; substantive transformation frequently occurs reactively during crises rather than through proactive capability development. The findings suggest that technology adoption alone does not ensure sustained value creation. Effective digital transformation requires complementary investments in leadership, HR practices, employee training, and governance. The study is limited by its convenience sample and single-country focus; future research should adopt longitudinal and multivariate designs. Full article

This study examines Millennial business students’ expectations of organizational career systems (OCS) to inform the design of work environments that attract and retain Millennial employees. It explores preferred OCS features, the role of personal value orientations (PVO), and potential cross-national differences. Data were collected through a cross-national survey of 284 business students in Canada and Germany. Variance analyses and group comparisons were used to assess differences in OCS expectations, and ordinary least squares regression examined the influence of PVO on preferences for four OCS features: internal recruitment, recognition of group contributions, formal promotion processes, and tenure-based advancement. The results show that Millennial business students favor OCS that emphasize recognition of group contributions and transparent, formal procedures, while placing less importance on internal recruitment and tenure-based advancement. PVO significantly predict these preferences: self-transcendence values are positively associated with preferences for formal procedures, whereas conservation values relate positively to tenure-based advancement. Canadian respondents exhibit slightly stronger preferences for formal procedures, group recognition, and tenure than German respondents, although overall cross-national differences remain modest. The study’s reliance on a convenience sample and self-reported data limits generalizability, highlighting the need for more diverse samples and qualitative approaches. By linking career system expectations to underlying personal values rather than generational labels, this study provides theoretical insight and practical guidance for designing fair and transparent OCS aligned with the career expectations of Millennial respondents. Full article

Background: Obesity remains a major public health challenge, with central and visceral fat distribution conferring particularly high cardiometabolic risk. Lifestyle factors, including diet, physical activity, and sleep quality, have been implicated in adiposity, yet their combined and interactive effects in working populations remain insufficiently characterized. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study in 88,343 Spanish employees (53,122 men, 35,221 women) attending occupational health examinations between 2021 and 2024. Obesity was assessed using four complementary indices: body mass index (BMI), waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), Clínica Universidad de Navarra–Body Adiposity Estimator (CUN-BAE), and Metabolic Score for Visceral Fat (METS-VF). Lifestyle factors included sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index), Mediterranean diet adherence (MEDAS), and physical activity (IPAQ). Multivariable logistic regression models were adjusted for sociodemographic and lifestyle variables, with interaction, stratified, joint exposure, and dose–response analyses. Results: Obesity prevalence varied widely by index, ranging from 18.9% (BMI) to 55.6% (CUN-BAE). Poor sleep quality was independently associated with higher odds of obesity across all indices, particularly central obesity (WHtR OR 1.58, 95% CI 1.48–1.69), with stronger associations observed in women. Physical inactivity and non-adherence to the Mediterranean diet were robust predictors, with inactivity showing the largest effect sizes (METS-VF OR 9.92, 95% CI 8.70–11.15). Interaction analyses indicated that both Mediterranean diet adherence and regular physical activity attenuated the adverse association between poor sleep and obesity outcomes. Restricted cubic spline models revealed a progressive dose–response relationship between increasing PSQI score and central obesity. Joint exposure analyses showed nearly five-fold higher odds of central obesity among workers with concurrent poor sleep, physical inactivity, and low Mediterranean diet adherence. A graded inverse association was observed between a composite healthy lifestyle score (0–3) and obesity, with a score of 3 associated with 72–75% lower odds of BMI-obesity and WHtR-high. Conclusions: In this large occupational cohort, poor sleep quality, physical inactivity, and low Mediterranean diet adherence emerged as independent and combined determinants of general, central, and visceral obesity. Integrated workplace strategies promoting sleep hygiene, physical activity, and dietary quality—particularly among women and lower socioeconomic groups—may represent an effective approach to reducing obesity risk in working populations. Full article

Human-centered entrepreneurship considers employee well-being and uses the Sustainable Development Goals as its fundamental pillars. However, existing research predominantly focuses on institutional interventions and fails to provide integrated intelligent solutions for tackling human–machine collaboration issues in the context of digital transformation. Large language models (LLMs) offer potential for affective computing and personalized support, but face critical gaps in ethical governance, privacy protection, and real-time risk intervention in sensitive entrepreneurial contexts. Our proposed Human-Centered Entrepreneurial Intelligent Agent (HCEA) framework achieves the unified optimization of task utility, empathetic expression, and ethical security by integrating a large language model core fine-tuned via a multi-objective hybrid loss function and a cluster of task-specialized intelligent agents. HCEA integrates retrieval-enhanced generation to ensure suggestion accuracy, a hierarchical data governance system for sensitivity-based privacy protection, and an independent risk detection module for real-time intervention and referral. We build the framework by constructing a hybrid entrepreneurial dataset, design the multi-agent architecture of decision support, emotion understanding and ethical risk tracking, and empirically evaluate both comparisons and ablation experiments. The results demonstrate that HCEA outperforms five baseline models across six key metrics, including entrepreneurship guidance relevance, emotion recognition, and high-risk recall. This study contributes to the intersection of digital transformation and sustainable entrepreneurship by providing a technically feasible, ethically grounded intelligent framework that empowers enterprises to reconcile efficiency with human-centric values, advancing SDG 8 (decent work and economic growth) and SDG 9 (industry, innovation, and infrastructure). Full article

Social support is generally assumed to buffer ego threat and reduce aggressive behavior in organizations. However, emerging research suggests that support may not always function as intended, particularly in contexts where support can also signal evaluation or control. Drawing on ego threat theory and a conceptualization of narcissism as a self-regulatory system, the present study examines when and for whom social support inhibits or facilitates workplace aggression. Specifically, the study investigates how perceived supervisor and organizational support moderate the relationships between ego threat and power harassment—a culturally institutionalized form of workplace aggression in Japan—and how the moderation effects differ across narcissistic self-regulatory strategies. Survey data of 600 Japanese employees were classified into distinct types reflecting narcissistic self-regulatory strategies, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses were conducted for each type. The results indicated that ego threat has no significant main effect on power harassment tendencies across any narcissistic type. However, among individuals characterized by superiority-based narcissistic strategies, a significant moderation effect emerged indicating that higher levels of perceived supervisor support amplified aggressive responses under ego threat. These findings challenge the universal assumption that social support is inherently protective and demonstrate that its effects depend on how support is interpreted within personal and cultural contexts. Full article

This study examined factors associated with self-reported workplace artificial intelligence (AI) use in a Norwegian employee sample (N = 196). Hierarchical logistic regression tested whether education, job sector, gender, age, leadership role, strengths-based leadership (SBL), perceived work training, and work engagement were associated with AI use. Higher education, employment in knowledge-intensive sectors, male gender, and higher perceived SBL were associated with greater odds of reporting AI use, whereas age, leadership role, general work training, and work engagement were not. The study’s contribution is exploratory: it suggests that organizational context, and particularly perceived SBL, may add explanatory value beyond demographic and sectoral differences in a Norwegian setting. Because the study relies on a cross-sectional convenience sample, a binary self-report measure of AI use, and models affected by sparse cells, the findings should be interpreted as tentative associations rather than causal evidence about AI adoption. Full article

Digital transformation and sustainability have become key priorities in strategic HR management; however, their implementation and integration remain inconsistent and are strongly influenced by organizational context. This study examines strategic HR management at the intersection of digital transformation, sustainability, and organizational culture. The objective is to explore how Romanian organizations align these dimensions within strategic human resource management. The research employed a qualitative approach, consisting of nine semi-structured interviews with HR professionals and managers from diverse organizational settings. Interview data were analyzed using thematic analysis to identify recurring patterns across the three dimensions. Although limited to the characteristics of the qualitative sample and not intended to generate findings applicable to the entire Romanian HR practice, the findings suggest that digital transformation in HR is primarily experienced as a capability development process, supported by integrated digital systems that enhance employee efficiency and autonomy, while also presenting challenges related to resistance to change and skills shortages. Sustainability emerges as a developing component of HR strategy, often limited by inadequate measurement mechanisms and competing organizational priorities. Organizational culture serves a mediating role by shaping how digital and sustainability initiatives are interpreted, adopted, and evaluated. The study highlights the need to align technological, sustainability, and cultural dimensions to support coherent and future-oriented HR strategies. Full article

The tourism industry faces increasing pressure for agile, personalized services, yet travel agencies struggle with fragmented knowledge scattered across isolated systems and legacy formats. While Large Language Models (LLMs) are widely applied in customer-facing roles, their potential to enhance internal operational efficiency remains largely underexplored. This study presents the design and evaluation of an intelligent assistant specifically for travel agency operations, built upon a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture using Gemini 2.0 Flash. The system integrates heterogeneous data sources, including structured product catalogs and unstructured documentation processed via Optical Character Recognition (OCR), into a unified interface comprising work assistance, interactive training, and evaluation modules. Results demonstrate information retrieval times not greater than 45 s, ensuring its daily usability, while maintaining 95% accuracy. Furthermore, the system democratizes tacit senior expertise and accelerates new employee onboarding. This research validates RAG architectures as a powerful solution to knowledge fragmentation, shifting the strategic AI focus from customer automation to employee empowerment and operational optimization. Full article

Urban pedestrianization has become a widely adopted strategy to promote sustainable mobility, improve urban livability, and enhance the quality of public space. Despite its potential benefits, pedestrianization interventions often generate heterogeneous perceptions among different user groups, which may influence their long-term acceptance. This study analyzes citizen perceptions of an urban pedestrianization intervention implemented in the city of Loja, Ecuador, considering residents, business owners or employees, and pedestrians or visitors. A structured survey was conducted, and the collected data were analyzed using exploratory analytical techniques, including rescaled single-item indices, user segmentation, and Spearman correlation analysis to identify patterns and relationships among variables. The results reveal significant associations between socio-demographic characteristics, user type, and acceptance of permanent pedestrianization, as well as differentiated patterns of urban experience. These findings provide empirical evidence to support decision-making in urban mobility policies and contribute to the academic discussion on pedestrianization in intermediate Latin American cities. Full article

The adoption of information technology (IT) has become essential for improving operational efficiency and service quality in the restaurant industry. However, integrating IT into organizational structures and daily work processes often requires employees to acquire new competencies and adapt to revised workflows, which may also generate technology-related stress. To address this issue, this study examines the relationship between IT adoption and organizational performance while considering technostressors and computer self-efficacy as moderating variables. A questionnaire-based survey was administered to restaurant employees, and hierarchical regression analysis was employed to test the proposed hypotheses. The empirical results reveal that IT adoption has a significant positive effect on organizational performance. However, this relationship is contingent upon individual-level factors: technostressors weaken, whereas computer self-efficacy strengthens, the positive impact of IT adoption on organizational performance. These findings suggest that organizations seeking to enhance performance through digital transformation should not only invest in IT systems but also address employees’ psychological and competency-related factors. Full article

This study investigates and compares Food Safety Management System (FSMS) compliance in retail shops across Mazovia (Poland) and Kerala (India). A structured visual inspection checklist with 51 indicators across seven FSMS sections was used in 500 shops per country: design and layout, general food safety, food handling and storing practices, display, personnel hygiene practices, sanitation and cleanliness, and pest control. Each section was scored using a four-point ordinal scale. Compliance scores were analyzed using the Mann-Whitney U test, Kruskal–Wallis test, Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and Cluster analysis to identify influencing factors and compliance patterns. The results demonstrate significant differences between the two countries, with Polish retail shops showing notably higher compliance (p < 0.001). No significant difference was observed in the design and layout section (p = 0.103). None of the assessed shop categories in either country achieved full compliance with all food safety requirements. Retail format, location, and number of employees were significantly associated with compliance levels. This is the first comparative study to examine FSMS compliance in retail shops in Mazovia, Poland, and Kerala, India, using a standardized visual inspection method. The findings contribute to a better understanding of FSMS performance in retail environments under different economic and regulatory conditions. Identifying how variations in retail format, staffing, and operational practices influence FSMS compliance can support the development of context-specific strategies to improve food safety performance. Full article

Sustainable human resource management (HRM) has attracted growing attention as a new paradigm for enhancing organizational resilience. However, prior studies mainly examined the effects of individual practices, offering a limited explanation of how organizational resilience emerges as an integrated mechanism. To address this theoretical gap, we conceptualize sustainable HRM as an integral talent management process in which multiple practices operate interdependently and investigate the configurational mechanisms through which organizational resilience is generated in Japanese firms and discuss these from the perspective of socioformation. Based on six analytical dimensions derived from a tertiary literature review, we conducted a crisp-set qualitative comparative analysis (csQCA) using securities report data from 36 listed Japanese companies. The results revealed that organizational resilience is not achieved through a single best practice, but rather points to a new form of integrated human resource management aimed at sustainable value creation. From a socioformation perspective, employees are viewed not merely as productive inputs but as agents capable of continuous development through sustained investment in human potential. From this perspective, sustainable social development cannot be reduced to well-being or inclusion indicators alone but also encompasses ethical, collaborative, territorial, and interdisciplinary dimensions of transformation. The findings clarify the theoretical role of integral talent management in sustainable value creation and provide practical implications for human-centred management. Full article