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PurposeThis manuscript explores the evolving roles of HR professionals amidst global megatrends and organizational transitions, focusing on the Italian context, which has experienced disruptive adoption of new forms of work such as remote and hybrid work. In this challenging scenario, our research aims to uncover if and how HR professionals are transforming their roles or maintaining the status quo in navigating organizational changes, dealing with the upcoming working scenario, and challenging conventional perceptions of HR practitioners.Design/methodology/approachThe study employs the social-symbolic work lens, that contributes to a deeper understanding of how HR professionals work to construct organizational life, the identities of employees, and the societal norms and assumptions that provide the context for organizational action. This perspective highlights HR professionals' personal efforts, consisting of the emotional labor entailed in steering organizational transformations and, eventually, maintenance in a context where remote work has become prevalent. Data was collected through 16 online focus groups involving 76 HR professionals from Italian organizations.FindingsOur research offers two interrelated contributions to HR literature. First, we provide pieces of evidence on how HR practitioners act as agents of change in two emerging roles: the "Wannabe Hero" and the "Ordinary Hero". This challenges the prevailing rhetorical discourse about the so-called HR business partner. Secondly, we delve into the persistent obstacles that hinder HR professionals from making a substantial impact in addressing radical changes. These findings will provide useful insights into effectively engaging HR practitioners as agents of change in organizational transformation, shedding light on praxis, structures, and their emotional work.Originality/valueThe paper analyzes HR professionals' social-symbolic work, which offers an original contribution to the comprehension of the acti

Rationale: Aging in the heart is a gradual process, involving continuous changes in cardiovascular cells, including cardiomyocytes (CMs), namely cellular senescence. These changes finally lead to adverse organ remodeling and resulting in heart failure. This study exploits CMs from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iCMs) as a tool to model and characterize mechanisms involved in aging. Methods and Results: Human somatic cells were reprogrammed into human induced pluripotent stem cells and subsequently differentiated in iCMs. A senescent-like phenotype (SenCMs) was induced by short exposure (3 hours) to doxorubicin (Dox) at the sub-lethal concentration of 0.2 µM. Dox treatment induced expression of cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors p21 and p16, and increased positivity to senescence-associated beta-galactosidase when compared to untreated iCMs. SenCMs showed increased oxidative stress, alteration in mitochondrial morphology and depolarized mitochondrial membrane potential, which resulted in decreased ATP production. Functionally, when compared to iCMs, SenCMs showed, prolonged multicellular QTc and single cell APD, with increased APD variability and delayed afterdepolarizations (DADs) incidence, two well-known arrhythmogenic indexes. These effects were largely ascribable to augmented late sodium current (INaL) and reduced delayed rectifier potassium current (Ikr). Moreover sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+ content was reduced because of downregulated SERCA2 and increased RyR2-mediated Ca2+ leak. Electrical and intracellular Ca2+ alterations were mostly justified by increased CaMKII activity in SenCMs. Finally, SenCMs phenotype was furtherly confirmed by analyzing physiological aging in CMs isolated from old mice in comparison to young ones. Conclusions: Overall, we showed that SenCMs recapitulate the phenotype of aged primary CMs in terms of senescence markers, electrical and Ca2+ handling properties and metabolic features. Thus, Dox-induced SenCMs can be consider

A large number of organizational scholars has devoted attention to the topic of meaning and purpose in human action, as an occasion to deepen the question about the scope and motives of organizational action. Such questions deal with a central question in organization design and behavior, but they also get to the core of organization studies, characterized by a strong disciplinary pluralism that comprises many possible perspectives and levels of analysis (Podolny et al. 2004). Within this large field, a specific stream focuses on the attitudes workers have toward their organizational contexts in contemporary work settings. On the one hand, organizations look for motivated and positive employees, who deliver better performance, display collaborative behaviors, and ultimately improve team and organizational climate; on the other hand, people strive to find jobs that offers them a meaningful endeavor, from which they derive positive effects both on and off work. In fact, the valence (e.g., positive, negative or neutral) and amount (i.e., intensity) of meaning that people find in their work shape their feelings, thoughts, and behaviors related to both work and life dimensions (Rosso, Dekas, and Wrezesniewski, 2010). Importantly, meaning may stem from objective characteristics of jobs and organizational contexts, but it is also subjectively construed by people in the process of making sense of their working experiences. Work meaningfulness and meaningful work are thus related to work that is considered personally valuable, thus being related to a positive personal experience (Lysova et al., 2019).

Enjoying a painting, a sculpture or, more in general, a piece of art and, at the same time, to receive all the information you need about it: in this paper, we present E.Y.E. C. U. (read “I see you”), a modular eye tracking system which supports art galleries fruition without diverting visitors attention. Every time a visitor lingers on a painting detail, a hidden camera detects her gaze and the framework beams, in real time, the related illustrative contents on the wall region around it, deeply implementing the augmented reality meaning. E.Y.E. C. U. enhances the gaze detection functionalities with an emotional analysis module: as pupil is well known to reflect the emotional arousal, we monitor its size, in order to detect radius variations. Once the visitor has completed her visit, the system summarizes the observed details and the emotional reactions in a report.