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This paper aims to examine emotional labour in the work of frontline staff (FLS) of the Canadian Blood Services' Cord Blood Bank (CBB), contributes to understandings of emotional labour by allied healthcare workers and suggests implications for healthcare managers.

Qualitative interviews with 15 FLS were conducted and analyzed as part of a process evaluation of donor recruitment and cord blood collection in Canada.

Emotional labour with donors and hospital staff emerged as a vital component of FLS' donor recruitment and cord blood collection work. Emotional labour was performed with donors to contribute to a positive birthing experience, facilitate communication and provide support. Emotional labour was performed with hospital staff to gain acceptance and build relationships, enlist support and navigate hierarchies of authority.

The results indicate that FLS perform emotional labour with women to provide donor care and with hospital staff to facilitate organizational conditions. The findings are based on FLS' accounts of their work and would be enhanced by research that examines the perspectives of donors and hospital staff.

Attention should be paid to organizational conditions that induce the performance of emotional labour and may add to FLS workload. Formal reciprocal arrangements between FLS and hospital staff may reduce the responsibility on FLS and enable them to focus on recruitment and collections.

This paper addresses a gap in the healthcare management literature by identifying the emotional labour of allied healthcare workers. It also contributes to the cord blood banking literature by providing empirically grounded analysis of frontline collection staff.

Purpose: This chapter problematizes the philosophical origins of direct funding models in a normative conception of independence that ignores and obscures the fundamentally relational nature of care work.

Approach: The study adopts a reflexive ethnographic methodological approach. In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 19 participants variously involved with direct-funded attendant services (disabled “self-managers,” “attendant” employees, other members of self-managers’ support networks, and program staff). Additional data sources included the author's reflexive journaling and publicly available policy and program materials. The present analysis interrogated the impact of systemic constraints (i.e., limited funding) on the organization and management of attendant services.

Findings: The data illuminate how systemic constraints draw the interests of self-managers and attendants into tension, despite the affective relationality of the work they do together. The findings present four strategies self-managers adopt to maximize support hours, including: splitting shifts, strategic hiring, dynamic resource management, and supplementing remuneration. These findings suggest it is not vulnerability to each other that represents an ongoing concern for self-managers and attendants, so much as exploitation by a system that capitalizes on the oppression of both groups.

Implication/ Value: Disabled people and care workers have been and continue to be constructed as opposing interest groups. However, there is great potential in disabled people and care workers joining a united front to lobby for their common, often interrelated interests. Direct funding models are an important evolution of support services, but where they fail to attend to the relational nature of care work, we must continue to pursue more inclusive solutions.

This chapter provides an insight into the career paths of autistic professionals in large private practice law firms. Rather than being a result of efforts to recruit autistic people for the first time through targeted hiring programmes, it is suggested that corporate law firms recognized these strengths early in their formation and developed a type of employment both well suited to autistic strengths and able to make accommodations. Six career stages from Law Student to Retired Partner are described with their opportunities and challenges to illustrate the career paths of autistic professionals who work in law. A call is made for an approach to inclusiveness of the autism community by employers and professional associations to create a system of employment system that supports the employment of many while meeting the unique needs of individuals.

Purpose – We investigate the antibias norm, “political correctness” (PC), and explore the consequences of the PC norm for group processes and group performance.

Methodology/approach – We define the term PC as it is used in public discourse and distinguish the PC norm from the related antibias norm of color blindness.

Findings – We suggest that the PC norm may play a unique role in reducing a critical type of uncertainty that would otherwise constrain performance, in particular, group creativity and decision making, in diverse work groups. We then explore the controversial argument that being politically incorrect can actually promote freedom of expression.

Originality/value of chapter – We conclude by reflecting on the costs of the PC norm and why the PC norm may remain prevalent in work groups for some time to come.

Advances in Group Processes publishes theoretical analyses, reviews, and theory-based empirical chapters on group phenomena. The series adopts a broad conception of “group processes.” This includes work on groups ranging from the very small to the very large, and on classic and contemporary topics such as status, power, trust, justice, influence, decision-making, intergroup relations, and social networks. Previous contributors have included scholars from diverse fields including sociology, psychology, political science, business, philosophy, computer science, mathematics, and organizational behavior.

The purpose of this study is to explore the role of “overtime norms” as a mediator between performance-driven work climates and employee burnout. This study also examines in-role performance and work engagement as moderators between high-performance climates and burnout.

A snowball sample of 214 full-time working adults from the United States participated via an online survey. Data were analyzed using SmartPLS and conditional process analysis.

Results from conditional process analyses suggest (1) performance-driven climates are positively related to burnout, (2) overtime norms mediate the relationship between performance-driven climates and burnout, and (3) in-role performance and work engagement moderate that relationship such that highly competent and engaged employees are less prone to stress and burnout.

These results highlight the dangers of performance-driven work climates on employee well-being. Trends toward extended work hours which can be exacerbated by technological advancements inevitably come at a cost. Managers and organizations should be careful not to prioritize work life over non-work life.

This study contributes to the literature by identifying overtime norms as a mediator in the performance-driven work climate–burnout relationship. This study also identifies in-role performance and work engagement as resources that can reduce burnout.