IMPORTANCE Home health care workers care for community-dwelling adults and play an important role in supporting patients with confirmed and suspected coronavirus disease 2019 ) who remain at home. These workers are mostly middle-aged women and racial/ethnic minorities who typically earn low wages. Despite being integral to patient care, these workers are often neglected by the medical community and society at large; thus, developing a health care system capable of addressing the COVID-19 crisis and future pandemics requires a better understanding of the experiences of home health care workers.OBJECTIVE To understand the experiences of home health care workers caring for patients in New York City during the COVID-19 pandemic. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTSFrom March to April 2020, a qualitative study with 1-to-1 semistructured interviews of 33 home health care workers in New York City was conducted in partnership with the 1199SEIU Home Care Industry Education Fund, a benefit fund of the 1199 Service Employees International Union United Healthcare Workers East, the largest health care union in the US. Purposeful sampling was used to identify and recruit home health care workers.MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Audio-recorded interviews were professionally transcribed and analyzed using grounded theory. Major themes and subthemes were identified. RESULTSIn total, 33 home health care workers employed by 24 unique home care agencies across the 5 boroughs of New York City participated. Participants had a mean (SD) age of 47.6 (14.0) years, 32 (97%) were women, 21 (64%) were Black participants, and 6 (18%) were Hispanic participants. Five major themes emerged: home health care workers (1) were on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic but felt invisible; (2) reported a heightened risk for virus transmission; (3) received varying amounts of information, supplies, and training from their home care agencies; (4) relied on nonagency alternatives for support, including information and supplies; and (5) were forced to make difficult trade-offs in their work and personal lives. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCEIn this qualitative analysis, home health care workers reported providing frontline essential care, often at personal risk, during the COVID-19 pandemic. They experienced challenges that exacerbated the inequities they face as a marginalized workforce. Interventions and policies to better support these frontline health care professionals are urgently needed.

We posit that traditional employment relations theories that focus on individual firms embedded in distinct national institutional contexts are no longer adequate for the analysis of employment relations in a globalized era where production and services are increasingly coordinated across countries and firms. Building on Global Value Chain theory, we introduce a configurational framework that explicitly addresses the employment relations implications of the interconnections within and between firms in the global economy. We argue that different value chain configurations will evidence different employment relations patterns and we validate our framework by applying it to the study of three contemporary global issues. In sum, the framework permits a shift in the focus of employment relations scholarship away from the individual firm to the global networks in which they belong, and hence provides a new theoretical lens for the analysis of employment relations in the global economy. Suggested CitationLakhani, T., Kuruvilla, S., & Avgar, A. (2013) AbstractWe posit that traditional employment relations theories that focus on individual firms embedded in distinct national institutional contexts are no longer adequate for the analysis of employment relations in a globalized era where production and services are increasingly coordinated across countries and firms. Building on Global Value Chain theory, we introduce a configurational framework that explicitly addresses the employment relations implications of the interconnections within and between firms in the global economy. We argue that different value chain configurations will evidence different employment relations patterns and we validate our framework by applying it to the study of three contemporary global issues. In sum, the framework permits a shift in the focus of employment relations scholarship away from the individual firm to the global networks in which they belong, and hence provides a new theoretical lens for the analysis of employment relations in the global economy.3

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Hospitals are increasingly experimenting with workplace innovations designed to improve the quality of patient care, alleviate financial pressures, and retain staff. The authors examine one such innovation, patient-centered care (PCC) , and its effects on clinical and employee outcomes in hospitals in the United Kingdom. Employing PCC entails a shift from an institutional and physician focus to one that emphasizes patients' needs and preferences. Drawing on a combined dataset covering the period 2001-2005 that includes 173 hospitals belonging to the British National Health Service as well as employee and patient survey data, the authors examine how hospital use of PCC affects patient care, perceptions of care, and employee outcomes. They find that greater use of PCC has positive consequences for hospital error rates and perceptions of care. They also find that PCC is associated with lower turnover intentions, which are positively related to the quality of care. The effectiveness of PCC is enhanced when complemented by the use of high involvement work practices.Despite the growth and centrality of healthcare as an industry in much of the industrialized world, hospitals and other healthcare organizations are in a state of cri-

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the dual effects of task conflict on team creativity and the role of team-focused transformational leadership (TFL) as a key contingency in the task conflict–team creativity relationship. Design/methodology/approach Data were collected from 325 teams across ten large companies in South Korea. The study tested the hypothesized moderated mediation model using an SPSS macro (PROCESS, Hayes, 2008). Findings Results showed that task conflict is directly and positively related to team creativity and is negatively and indirectly related to team creativity via relationship conflict. Furthermore, the study found that team-focused TFL moderates all paths through which task conflict affects team creativity. Specifically, team-focused TFL enhances the positive direct effect of task conflict and alleviates the negative indirect effects of task conflict on team creativity. Research limitations/implications Although this study could not test the causal chains of the proposed relationships owing to a cross-sectional nature of data, the present research provides theoretical implications for the conflict, leadership and team creativity literatures. The study highlights the role of transformational leadership in the process through which team conflict is managed so as to increase team creativity. Practical implications To capitalize on the creativity-related benefits associated with task conflict, managers will need to pay attention to the role they can play and their leadership that emphasizes collective goals and identity. Managers and team leaders are also expected to intervene in conflict situations to minimize the harmful effect of task conflict that may take place owing to the association between task conflict and relationship conflict. Social implications The findings will have implications for any social contexts where people work together toward common goals. In such contexts, the study emphasizes the role of leadership in teams to use the creative potential associated with different opinions and values regarding what and how work to be completed. Originality/value The study’s examination of the dual paths through which task conflict affects team creativity brings insights into why the impact of task conflict on team creativity has been inconsistent or unclear in past research. This paper also articulates a leader’s role in teams in relation to managing team conflict to increase team creativity.