Workers' Perceptions of Automated Production Work in Singapore's Electronics Industry

This study describes workers' perceptions of automated production work in a newly industrialising economy (NIE), Singapore. Workers perceived increased levels of skill required, responsibility and workload. Those who made the transition from a non-automated to automated line were less positive about automated work compared to workers who always worked, or who never worked on an automated line. Perceptions of automated work also varied by previous work experience and gender. These findings have implications for managing the transition to automated production. Unlike the situation in developed economies, union membership was not a significant factor in workers evaluation of automated work.     

Exploring justice judgment patterns in Asia: a four country multi-group latent class analysis

We explore workers’ justice judgment patterns to understand how they use information to assess fair treatment at work. Justice judgment patterns are the unique set of information that individuals draw upon and use when evaluating the overall fairness of an entity. Data from four samples of workers from Malaysia, Cambodia, the Philippines, and China were analyzed using a multi-group latent class analysis. Results suggest four classes of justice judgment processes, three of which represent different patterns of heuristic processing. Comprehensive processors use a wide range of information when making justice judgments, while minimalist processors consider a limited range of information. Reward-focused processors focus on distributive justice cues and treatment-focused processors specifically attend to interpersonal justice cues while neglecting distributive justice cues. The latent class structure shared conceptual meaning across countries but the patterns had different rates of representation. Findings suggest that individuals do not always use complete information when assessing how fairly they are treated at work. Many appear to use heuristics that emphasize minimizing information processing, instrumental outcomes, or more relational outcomes. Results and implications are discussed.     

Rice productivity improvement in Cambodia through the application of technical recommendation in a farmer field school

Innovation in rice (Oryza sativa) productivity improvement is a major goal for rice research. However, many studies have tended to analyse the various factors that affect productivity separately, while farmers invest their scare resources in farm inputs that impact on multiple factors in the real farm. This study assessed the effectiveness of integrated pest management practised during farmer field school (FFS) training in Cambodia on the production efficiencies, yields and profitability of rice farming. In total, 270 FFSs on rice cultivated in the early wet, wet and dry seasons were randomly selected from three provinces in 3 years to analyse the production practices and productivity using six cost-related factors: seed, planting methods, field management, fertilizer use, pesticide application and harvesting. It was found that yields and profits were significantly higher with the technically recommended practices (TRs) than with traditional farmer practices (FPs). However, the reverse was true for production costs due to the overuse of seed and pesticides in FP, neither of which are correlated with yield increase for both FP and TR. Thus, the FFS approach is a knowledge-intensive field management tool that enables the rational use of farm inputs and that is expected to be highly effective for sustainable rice production improvement.     

Female leadership,internet use,and performance of agricultural cooperatives in Vietnam

Supporting agricultural cooperatives might contribute to the livelihood improvement of many small-scale farmers in developing countries. This research examines the factors affecting the internet use of agricultural cooperatives with a focus on female leadership, its effects on cooperatives’ economic, social, and innovative performance, and the distributional effects of internet use on economic performance. Our analysis relied on the data of 3,512 agricultural cooperatives collected in 2021 from Vietnam. We addressed the endogeneity issue of internet use in impact assessment by employing an instrumental variable approach. Our results show that female leadership was positively and significantly associated with internet use and that internet use had a positive and significant effect on returns on assets, returns on equity, labor productivity, payment per laborer, contribution to labor union and insurance per laborer, and innovation in products of agricultural cooperatives. In addition, unconditional quantile regressions show that internet use in agricultural cooperatives exacerbated income inequality. Enhancing female leadership and promoting rural education were recommended to improve agricultural cooperatives’ performance.