Sakari Taipale

Work engagement in eight European countries

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the level and predictors of work engagement among service sector employees in eight European countries.Design/methodology/approach – The work seeks to discover if job demands and resources, i.e. job autonomy and social support, affect work engagement in differing ways in different countries when socio‐demographical variables and work‐related factors are controlled. The study is based on a statistical analysis of survey data from Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, The Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden and the UK in 2007 (n=7,867). The data represent four economic sectors: retail trade, finance and banking, telecoms and public hospitals.Findings – The results show that the level of work engagement varies not only between countries but also between those four economic sectors within each country. Additionally, the findings indicate that demands decrease work engagement, while autonomy and support increase it. Although the effects are mainly the same across the ...

The affordances of reading/writing on paper and digitally in Finland

Abstract The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of digital technologies on reading and writing in Finland. The perceived affordances of reading and writing on paper and digitally are compared by analysing written essays collected from 25 communication students in 2013. Research design is replicated from a study of Fortunati and Vincent that concerns Italian students. Results show that Finnish students perceive more positive than negative affordances regarding reading on paper, while reading on screen attracts fewer virtues. In this respect, results are in line with the Italian study. Unlike in Italy, students in Finland value writing on a keyboard especially because it enables editing the text quickly and efficiently and thus increases textual productivity. The study shows that Finnish students take some affordances of digital writing for granted and do not recognise their non-digital alternatives. This implies that they are perhaps more embedded in the digital world than Italian students. The Technological Frames approach is utilised to expound these country differences.

The advanced use of mobile phones in five European countries

The paper explores the advanced users of mobile phones in Italy, France, Germany, Spain and the UK (EU5 countries) and aims to clarify the social meaning of advanced use. The mobile phone is seen as a strategic tool of social labour, whose capabilities are exploited to a different extent in the five studied countries. The analysis is based on a cross-national survey data collected in 2009 (N = 7,255). First, the results show that there are substantial differences in the advanced use of mobile phone and its predictors in Europe. Generally, only about one third of the studied mobile features are exploited. British and French people are the most advanced users, followed by German, Spanish and Italians. While Italians have stuck to early developed mobile phone features, Britons especially have continued to adopt the newer properties of the mobile phone. Second, the article shows that owing to the extensive under-utilization of its features, the mobile phone as a tool of social labour is efficiently exploited by only a small number of people. They, however, constitute technological vanguards that make use of the diverse features in different countries. This limited use of advanced features results in the new patterns of social stratification.

Bodily dimensions of reading and writing practices on paper and digitally

The bodily aspects of reading/writing practices are investigated in Finland.The paper is considered more adaptive to varied reading purposes than the screen.Handwriting is described as a more flexible and relaxed practice than typing.Skills determine less than materials and images the practices of reading/writing.Digital interfaces determine the ways we read and write less than suggested. This article investigates the different shapes in which reading and writing practices occur when paper/pen are compared with keyboard/screen. The focus is on the bodily aspects of these practices. Reading and writing are viewed as techniques of the body, which over the years have become increasingly mediated by technologies. The analysis is grounded in the theory of social practice. Research material consists of written essays collected from 25 students at the University of Jyvaskyla, Finland, in 2013. Results show that paper as material is considered suitable and adaptive to numerous reading purposes and bodily positions, while regarding the screen the places and positions of reading are viewed as more limited due to the material boundary conditions presented by devices. Students describe handwriting as a more flexible and relaxed bodily practice than typing, although the worsening skills of handwriting are recognized too. Skills and competences turned out to be less decisive factors than materials and images when trying to explain the differences in reading and writing practices when a paper/pen is compared with a keyboard/screen. Finally, the study argues that digital reading writing interfaces do not determine the ways we read and write as strongly as previously suggested.

What happened to body-to-body sociability?

This article aims to investigate how the body-to-body forms of sociability evolved from 1996 to 2009 simultaneously with the proliferation of ICTs in Europe and why this happened. The article also aims to find out how the socio-demographic profile of Europeans practising these forms developed in the same period of time. The analysis is based on two surveys carried out in Italy, France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain in 1996 (N=6609) and 2009 (N=7255). Results show that although the internal diffusion and frequency of the forms of communicative sociability changed, on the whole the amount of sociability has increased so slightly that it would be more appropriate to speak about real stability over the time. Secondly, results reveal that the possession of mobile phones and personal computers in 1996, and respectively the Internet in 2009, was especially associated with the increase in sociability. Lastly, the socio-demographic profile of the Europeans practising these forms of sociability changed between 1996 and 2009, although less than one might have expected.

Synchronicity matters: defining the characteristics of digital generations

ABSTRACT This paper investigates whether or not the proposition that the second digital generation (or so-called digital natives) is more engaged in social use of the Internet than older generations is tenable. By analysing nationally representative questionnaire-based survey data collected from Finland in 2011 (N = 612), the study shows that rather than social use of the Internet in general, it is the synchronicity of online communication that distinguishes user generations. Results show that, in contrast to asynchronous modes of online communication (e.g. social networking sites, blogs and online discussion forums), synchronous modes (e.g. instant messaging and Internet calls) are clearly generationally differentiated practices. They are more frequently used by the second digital generation than the first digital generation and digital immigrants. Furthermore, the study shows that asynchronous uses of the Internet are clearly gendered in nature. Women are more typically users of social networking sites and blogs than men, whereas men are more often engaged with discussion forums than women. These results are discussed in light of two concepts: privacy and communicative efficacy. The studied forms of synchronous online communication provide more privacy as well as an instant and abundant channel for effective communication, which are all features especially appreciated by the youngest user generation.

Social Robots from a Human Perspective

This book presents a comprehensive overview of the human dimension of social robots by discussing both transnational features and national peculiarities. Addressing several issues that explore the human side of social robots, this book investigateswhat a social robot is and how we might come to think about social robots in the different areas of everyday life. Organized around three sections that deal with Perceptions and Attitudes to Social Robots, Human Interaction with Social Robots, and Social Robots in Everyday Life, it explores the idea that even if the challenges of robot technologies can be overcome from a technological perspective, the question remains as to what kind of machine we want to have and use in our daily lives. Lessons learned from previous widely adopted technologies, such as smartphones, indicate that robot technologies could potentially be absorbed into the everyday lives of humans in such a way that it is the human that determines the human-machine interaction. In a similar way to how todays information and communication technologies were initially designed for professional/industrial use, but were soon commercialized for the mass market and then personalized by humans in the course of daily practice, the use of social robots is now facing the same revolution of domestication. In the context of this transformation, which involves the profound embedding of robots in everyday life, the human aspect of social robots will play a major part. This book sheds new light on this highly topical issue, one of the central subjects that will be taught and studied at universities worldwide and that will be discussed widely, publicly and repeatedly in the near future.

Women's Emotions Towards The Mobile Phone

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether womens emotions associate differently with the mobile phone depending on the type of family in which they live. James A. Russells circumplex model of affect which explores four main emotional dimensions, excitement, distress, depression and contentment, was applied. The article is based on the female sub-sample (N = 3,704) of nationally representative survey data collected from Italy, France, the UK, Germany and Spain (N = 7,255) in 2009. The results show that it is women living in blended families who seem to associate more distress and less feelings of contentment with the mobile phone than women living in other types of family.

The dimensions of mobilities: The spatial relationships between corporeal and digital mobilities

The aim of this article is to study how the corporeal and digital mobilities are spatially organised in relation to each other in everyday life. The dimensions of mobilities are modelled by using survey data (N=612) collected from Finland in 2011, Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) and Multiple Regression Analysis (MRA). The results show that the combined use of corporeal and digital means of mobility affect the spatial organisation of mobilities only little. The results indicate that young people and students are more likely to benefit from their mobility in networking activities as they are equipped with a larger variety of mobility means than older people and pensioners. Lastly, women and people living in essentially urban areas are more likely to augment their physical travelling practices by using small-sized digital mobilities than men and people living in rural locations.

Capturing methodological trends in mobile communication studies

This study investigates methodological trends in mobile communication studies. The articles published over the past 20 years in five journals (Communication Research, Journal of Communication, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, New Media & Society, and Information, Communication & Society) are analysed. The results show that the quantitative and qualitative studies have increased while theoretical accounts have remained few. The quantitative approach is the most applied. The studied articles reflect a structural problem of science communication that stems from the lack of cumulativity of scientific results and cross-national analyses and from the standard length of articles that poses limitations for scientific communication.