Quality of Working Life and Employee Outcomes: A Literature Review

Quality of working life (QWL) is a research field studied since the 1970s, which has grown considerably since then (Grote & Guest, 2017). QWL covers an employee’s feelings about various dimensions of his or her work (Mosadeghrad, Ferlie & Rosenberg, 2011) and includes dimensions related with home-work interface, working condition, job and career satisfaction, control at work, stress at work, employee commitment and general well-being (Fontinha, Van Laar & Easton, 2016). At an individual level, positive outcomes of QWL include reduced absenteeism, lower turnover, improved job satisfaction, improved individual productivity (Mosadeghrad, Ferlie & Rosenberg, 2011), but studies that analyze, in a systematic way, all the employee outcomes associated to QWL are scarce. Following the systematic literature review (SLR) methodology, this article aims to identify the employee outcomes associated to the QWL construct. This article specifically explores research studies that have examined the QWL and consequences of it to individuals in a given organizational setting. Since our focus was to gain insight on the empirical investigation about QWL, we exclude studies with a primary focus on model development or testing measurement instruments. Extensive research has been performed at PROQUEST and EBSCO databases. The terms included the following on the title of the document: quality of life at work, work-related quality of life, quality of working life, working-life quality. Only the work-related consequences of QWL have been considered. The search has been limited to peer reviewed articles, theses, and conference papers published in the English language, between 1970 and 2017. The results show how a higher level of quality of life at work can improve several and relevant employee outcomes at work.CIEQV- Centro de Investigação em Qualidade de Vidainfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Kaons and pions in strange quark matter

The behavior of kaons and pions in strange quark matter in weak equilibrium, is investigated within the SU(3) Nambu-Jona-Lasinio [NJL] model. This work focuses a region of high densities where the behavior of mesons has not been explored in the framework of this model. It is found that above the density where strange valence quarks appear in the medium, $\rho = 3.8 \rho_0$, a change of behavior of different observables is observed indicating a tendency to the restoration of flavor symmetry. In particular, the splitting between charge multiplets, $K^+, K^-; K^0, {\bar K^0} {and} \pi^+, \pi^-$ decrease and the low energy modes with quantum numbers of $K^-, \bar K^0 {and} \pi^+$, which are excitations of the Fermi sea, are less relevant than for lower densities.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures included; revised version, some changes in the discussio

Interplay between chiral and axial symmetries in a SU(2) Nambu--Jona-Lasinio Model with the Polyakov loop

We consider a two flavor Polyakov--Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model where the Lagrangian includes an interaction term that explicitly breaks the U$_A(1)$ anomaly. At finite temperature, the restoration of chiral and axial symmetries, signaled by the behavior of several observables, is investigated. We compare the effects of two regularizations at finite temperature, one of them, that allows high momentum quarks states, leading to the full recovery of chiral symmetry. From the analysis of the behavior of the topological susceptibility and of the mesonic masses of the axial partners, it is found in the SU(2) model that, unlike the SU(3) results, the recovery of the axial symmetry is not a consequence of the full recovery of the chiral symmetry. Thus, one needs to use an additional idea, by means of a temperature dependence of the anomaly coefficient, that simulates instanton suppression effects.Comment: 21 pages, 5 figures; PRD versio

Some properties of two Nambu--Jona-Lasinio -type models with inputs from lattice QCD

We investigate the phase diagram of the so-called Polyakov--Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model at finite temperature and nonzero chemical potential. The calculations are performed in the light and strange quark sectors ($u$, $d$, $s$), which includes the 't Hooft instanton induced interaction term that breaks the axial symmetry, and the quarks are coupled to the (spatially constant) temporal background gauge field. On one hand, a special attention is payed to the critical end point (CEP). The strength of the flavor-mixing interaction alters the CEP location, since when it becomes weaker the CEP moves to low temperatures and can even disappear. On the other hand, we also explore the connection between QCD, a nonlocal Nambu--Jona-Lasinio type model and the Landau gauge gluon propagator. Possible links between the quenched gluon propagator and low energy hadronic phenomenology are investigated.Comment: Contribution to the International Meeting "Excited QCD", Peniche, Portugal, 06 - 12 May 201

Anomalous decay of pion and eta at finite density

We study the anomalous decays $\pi^0, \eta \to\gamma\gamma$ in the framework of the three--flavor Nambu--Jona-Lasinio [NJL] model, in the vacuum and in quark matter in $\beta$ --equilibrium. It is found that the behavior of the relevant observables essentially reflects a manifestation of the partial restoration of chiral symmetry, in non strange and strange sectors. The probability of such decays decreases with density, showing that anomalous mesonic interactions are significantly affected by the medium.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures included; revised version, to be published in Phys. Lett.

Pseudoscalar neutral mesons in hot and dense matter

The behavior of neutral pseudoscalar mesons [pi]0,[eta] and [eta]' in hot and dense matter is investigated, in the framework of the three flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model. Three different scenarios are considered: zero density and finite temperature, zero temperature and finite density in a flavor asymmetric medium with and without strange valence quarks, and finite temperature and density. The behavior of mesons is analyzed in connection with possible signatures of restoration of symmetries. In the high density region and at zero temperature it is found that the mass of the [eta]' increases, the deviation from the mass of the [eta] being more pronounced in matter without strange valence quarks.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TVN-488VSNN-1/1/48bbd494b639319c7e5a001ad39ff79