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PurposeEven after COVID-19 pandemic, several organizations intend extending work-from-home (WFH), to the extent of making it permanent for many. However, WFH's impact on productivity remains uncertain. Therefore, this paper aims to study personal and job factors determining the likelihood of amount of work done at home being same/more vis-à-vis office.Design/methodology/approachEmployees' basic psychological needs and job crafting tendencies; job-related aspects of task independence, technology resources and supervisory support; and several demographic factors are examined as determinants. Firth logistic regression analysis of data from 301 Indian white-collar employees is performed.FindingsDemographically, longer exposure to WFH, greater work experience and being a support function worker increased the likelihood of same/greater amount of work done at home. Being a woman or married reduced the likelihood, while being a manufacturing/services worker was non-significant. Among psychological needs, greater needs for autonomy and relatedness decreased and increased the likelihood of same/greater amount of work done at home, respectively. Regarding personal and job resources, job crafting to increase structural job resources and supervisor support increased the likelihood of same/greater amount of work done at home versus office.Originality/valueThis paper adds to the limited India-centric literature on WFH; uniquely examining influences of individual personal attributes on amount of work done by combining job demands-resources (JD-R) model and basic psychological needs theory.

A person’s capability to manage financial matters has become important in today’s world. Availability of different types of sophisticated financial products coupled with the complexity and increased uncertainty of the economy and financial markets have generated a strong move to measure and study financial literacy among investors. The present article aims to analyze the status of financial literacy of college students with three identified antecedents, namely, socio-demographic characteristics, parental influence and attitude towards financial planning. A sample of 425 students from various colleges of the Hyderabad–Secunderabad region was studied to understand the role of the identified antecedents on financial literacy. The results of logistic regression analysis support the hypothesis that financial literacy of Indian college students is influenced by their socio-demographic characters, parental influence and their attitude towards financial planning. While both socio-demographic and parental influences have a positive impact on financial literacy, attitude towards financial planning is observed to have a negative impact.

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Globally, the demand for temporary workers is rising across organizations and sectors, driven by benefits of lower cost and workforce flexibility. Flexibility for organizations, however, means job insecurity for the temporary worker. This study focuses on understanding how the Indian IT sector’s temporary agency workers (TAWs), that is, temporary workers recruited by staffing agencies to work with client organizations, cope with their job insecurity. Grounded theory-based analysis of 36 interviews revealed that TAWs rely on enhancing their employability as the primary strategy to combat job insecurity. In addition, to enhance employability, TAWs make proactive efforts to perform consistently and upskill continuously. TAWs also expect support, largely in the form of learning and development opportunities, from the staffing agency and client to augment employability. The findings and recommendations in this article to help TAWs improve employability hold significance for TAWs, staffing agencies as well as clients. With enhanced employability, TAWs overcome job insecurity—an impediment to job performance, which is of direct relevance to the worker and the client—and also affects the staffing agency’s long-term relationship with the client.

Indian employers rapidly adopted work from home (WFH) due to COVID. Now some contemplate long-term, also permanent WFH for select employee segments even post-pandemic, for productivity benefits. But employee wellbeing is critical for productivity. Therefore, this article examines effects of personal and job-related factors on wellbeing for 301 Indian employees placed under WFH during COVID lockdown of early-2020 and longer. Hierarchical linear regression demonstrated that demographically, the presence of elders at home and employment in manufacturing were negatively associated with wellbeing. Among personal attributes, the need for structure (routines) was negatively associated with wellbeing. But the need for autonomy (volition) and job crafting to increase structural job resources (proactively obtaining more responsibility and knowledge) were positively associated with wellbeing. Wellbeing was also positively associated with job-related factors of technology and supervisor support. These findings could inform customization of, and interventions under, organisations’ WFH approaches.

The growth of temporary and non-standard employment arrangements post liberalization drives temporary agency workers (TAWs), especially of the information technology (IT) sector, to be agents of their own career identities. As a result, TAWs embrace self-managed/adaptable career management approaches namely protean career (PCO) and boundaryless career (BCO) orientations for their long-term sustainability and well-being. This study investigated the direct effects of PCO and BCO on TAW’s well-being, also, their indirect effects thorough perceived employability (PE). Study participants were 246 TAWs employed by leading Indian IT recruitment agencies and deployed to work for various IT clients. Data were collected through validated questionnaire and analysed through structural equation modelling. Findings confirm direct effects of PCO and BCO on TAW well-being and partial mediation effects of PE. Thus, to boost TAWs’ well-being, organizations may consider developing their protean attitudes via employee engagement programmes, staff agencies through counselling to map workers values/interest with their assigned projects, TAWs workers themselves proactively participating in the challenging assignment at the client place.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test the possible influence of the Ajzen’s theory of planned behaviour (TPB) in predicting conflict-handling intentions during process conflict episodes. Conflict situations are often to be managed with limited time in software projects. With this cue, the study is conducted in the context of software companies in India. Design/methodology/approach – Five variables of the TPB comprising attitude, injunctive subjective norms, descriptive subjective norm, conflict efficacy (CE) and structural assurance (SA) have been studied in relation to the two standard conflict-handling intentions: integrating and dominating approach. By developing vignettes on process conflict, salient beliefs towards process conflicts were elicited among software employees in India. A questionnaire using Ajzen’s guidelines was administered. Structural equation modelling for 150 responses is used for testing path suitability and significance. Findings – Employees with positive attitude towards conflict, high CE and high SA intend to integrate during process conflict. Employees with low efficacy and who are influenced by the action of their role model intend to dominate during process conflict. Research limitations/implications – The study is contextualized to Indian software employees. Findings should not be generalized until replicated in samples from other settings. Practical implications – This study will help practitioners in understanding the various elements that play role in a process conflict and also help in developing appropriate interventions in managing conflicts. This can be done by identifying and resolving issues related to unfavourable attitude and behavioural norms towards process conflicts. Originality/value – This study is the first to examine the efficacy of the TPB model in predicting multiple conflict-handling intentions among Indian software companies.