Cork University Business School - Journal Articles
Permanent URI for this collection
Browse
Recent Submissions
Item Social relations and worker resistance in the platform economy: towards a future research agenda(Taylor & Francis, 2025-02-07) Dasgupta, Prakriti; Carbery, Ronan; McDonnell, Anthony; Jooss, StefanThis paper examines how the social relations of platform work shape workers’ acts of resistance. We critically discuss the broad spectrum of resistance approaches employed by platform workers, bringing attention to how the heterogeneity and novelty of some practices stem from the dynamic and complex social relations of platform work. Accounting for resistance practices at both individual and collective levels, as well as across different types of platform work, enables one to consider the extent to which worker resistance has evolved from its more traditional association with the presence of a ‘shopfloor’ and established organisational structures and processes for social relations with supervisors and co-workers. We elucidate how worker resistance has emerged despite the considerable efforts by platform firms to marginalise the potential for resistance through their business models and conclude with an agenda to guide future research efforts.Item A systematic review on worker voice in the platform economy: The constitution of a grassroots voice mechanism(John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2024-12-25) Dasgupta, Prakriti; McDonnell, Anthony; Carbery, Ronan; Jooss, StefanThis systematic review investigates why and how platform workers express voice in a context where institutional and organisational voice mechanisms and representation structures are lacking or absent. Platform workers have been restricted in their ability to formally unionise or collectively bargain, and the presence of a digital intermediary in the form of a platform organisation limits the scope of worker voice. In this paper, we identify and synthesise the motives for voice use by platform workers—namely mutual aid, organising, visibility, and confrontation, and unpack how these are realised through bottom‐up and independent voice channels that may potentially influence multiple stakeholders. The paper's core contribution lies in highlighting how the blurred employment boundaries of platform work structurally render labour power even more indeterminate, informing our conceptualisation of a ‘grassroots voice mechanism’, wherein the social relations of platform work and digital technologies convey worker voice beyond traditional organisational boundaries. We conclude with an agenda to guide future research centred heavily around the dynamics of platform work, the use of novel voice channels, and worker attitudes towards them.Item Exploring female entrepreneurship experience of Ireland’s business ecosystem: implications for business support(Emerald Publishing, 2024-10-22) Turley, Anna-Marie; Ryan, Marie; Doyle, EleanorPurpose: This paper investigates the motivations and challenges of women entrepreneurs in Ireland, assessing the role of policies and Enterprise Ireland (EI) support for women-led companies and high potential start-ups (HPSUs). It employs the gendered theory of entrepreneurship and opportunity recognition theory to analyse the enablers and obstacles to women’s entrepreneurship, particularly in the context of EI’s support, aiming to suggest improvements. Design/methodology/approach: Grounded in a feminist epistemology and employing a mixed-methods approach, a targeted survey explores motivations, barriers and supports the needs of female entrepreneurs in Ireland, offering a comprehensive gender perspective evaluation for policy enhancement. Findings: Findings note a shift in Irish women’s entrepreneurship motivations and outlines major hurdles like limited funding and work–life balance issues. It recommends policy enhancements in data collection, website usability, financial guidance and childcare support. Practical implications: This paper aims to highlight the impact of gender-specific factors on entrepreneurship, the study highlights the importance of ongoing data collection and gender comparative analyses. It advocates for women mentoring networks and improved financial support to build a more inclusive entrepreneurial environment in Ireland, with potential global implications. Originality/value: This study is unique for its in-depth exploration into Irish female entrepreneurship challenges, this study proposes actionable strategies with local and global relevance. Advocating for caregiving support integration and women’s increased involvement in tech, it offers a blueprint for fostering female entrepreneurship. It contributes to global discussions on creating supportive, equitable entrepreneurial ecosystems, serving as a valuable resource for advancing gender inclusivity and equity in entrepreneurship worldwide. It identifies scope for integration of a feminist epistemology in policy development.Item Adaptive multilayer extreme learning machines(Elsevier Ltd., 2024-12-12) Filelis-Papadopoulos, Christos K.; Morrison, John P.; O’Reilly, Philip; Science Foundation IrelandExtreme learning machines is a neural network type that has been utilized in tasks such as regression and classification, due to their efficient training process, which is based on pseudoinverse matrices and randomized weights, avoiding the computationally intensive backpropagation. In order to further improve their performance and reduce their complexity with respect to number of required hyperparameters, especially in the case of multiple layer architectures, a novel multilayer adaptive approach, based on residual networks, is proposed. This approach constructs the network iteratively with respect to error minimization and parsimony using a recursive pseudoinverse matrix framework. A new block approach, using mixed precision arithmetic and Graphics Processing Units (GPU) is proposed. The proposed technique is coupled with a new adaptive penalty criterion to ensure adequate numbers of neurons are included in each layer, while avoiding highly correlated basis. Adaptive regularization, along with scaling, is also incorporated to ensure Symmetric Positive Definiteness (SPD) of the Gram matrix. Several random number distributions for the proposed approach are examined and discussed. Handling of large datasets is discussed and a new batch variant is proposed. The proposed scheme is evaluated for regression and classification tasks in a multitude of datasets and is compared with other neural network architectures.Item The financial risks from wind turbine failures: a value at risk approach(Taylor & Francis, 2024-07-21) Mikindani, Dorcas; O’Brien, John; Leahy, Paul; Deeney, Peter; Irish Research CouncilThis paper models the financial risk associated with the cost of turbine failures over the lifetime of a wind farm. These failures cause significant variation in realized profit on wind generation projects. A model of the fault generating process is presented and industry data is used to parameterize the model. The model is then used to measure the financial risk associated with the wind project. Risks are measured using the financial metrics Value at Risk (VaR) and Conditional VaR (CVaR) metrics. The study shows that the 95% lifetime VaR of a turbine is equivalent to 52% of the initial capital expenditure. However, as the number of turbines in a farm increases, this risk diminishes. These findings have significant implications for small-scale projects, particularly community projects.