Stress,Task, and Relationship Orientations of Dutch: Do Age,Gender, Education,and Government Work Experience Make a Difference?

Working people are often socialized differently based on their age, gender, education, and work experience in the public versus the private sector. To explore the stress, task, and relationship orientations of people in the culture of the Netherlands, this study focused on the differences of 208 Dutch respondents based on the demographic variables. It appears that they have dissimilar scores on the relationship and task orientations. Age, government work experience and education do appear to be a significant factor in their leadership orientation. Also, males seem to be less task-oriented and less relationship-oriented than their female counterparts. Overall, the Dutch respondents reported a moderate level of stress with no gender differences.     

Leadership and Stress Orientations of Germans: An Examination Based on Gender, Age, and Government Work Experience

Today??s working adults often display different leadership orientations, as well as moderate to severe levels of stress depending on the situation and various demographic traits. In order to explore the stress, task orientation and relationship orientation variables of German people, this study examined the differences of 232 respondents in Germany based on their gender, age, and public sector work experience. The results showed that respondents had dissimilar scores on their leadership orientations. Younger respondents had significantly lower task and relationship orientation scores. Furthermore, females reported having a significantly higher level of stress perception. These findings are useful for expatriate managers and professionals who work with German-born workers. Besides, relevant literature on the German culture, suggestions and implications for future studies are presented.     

The Early‐career Gender Wage Gap among University Graduates in the Finnish Private Sector

In the Finnish private sector, the gender wage gap increases significantly during the first 10 years after labour market entry, accounting for most of the lifetime increase in the gender wage differentials. This paper investigates the reasons for this gender difference in early‐career wage development. By focusing on university graduates the paper considers several explanations based on the human capital theory, job mobility, and labour market segregation. The results suggest that only about 20–26 per cent of the average early‐career gender wage gap is explained by gender differences in experience, the field of education, employer characteristics, and mobility. A substantial unexplained gap thus remains. Of the investigated factors gender differences in the field of education and work experience matter most.     

Estimating the 'appropriate' age for retirement as a function of perceived occupational characteristics

The 'appropriate' age for retirement as perceived by 120 young, 120 middle-aged, and 120 elderly adults was investigated. No participants displayed any difficulties in expressing an opinion about the minimum and maximum 'appropriate' ages for retirement for various different occupations. Participants' representations of the 'appropriate' retirement age varied primarily as a function of the perceived physical constraints involved in the occupation but also depended on their age (the younger the respondent, the lower the perceived 'appropriate' minimum retirement age). There was no tendency among the young adults to wish to prolong the work life of older individuals. There was no tendency in any of the three age groups to associate age of retirement with perceived cognitive or social and organizational characteristics of work: only the perceived physical demands of work predicted age at retirement.     

Estimating the 'appropriate' age for retirement as a function of perceived occupational characteristics

The 'appropriate' age for retirement as perceived by 120 young, 120 middle-aged, and 120 elderly adults was investigated. No participants displayed any difficulties in expressing an opinion about the minimum and maximum 'appropriate' ages for retirement for various different occupations. Participants' representations of the 'appropriate' retirement age varied primarily as a function of the perceived physical constraints involved in the occupation but also depended on their age (the younger the respondent, the lower the perceived 'appropriate' minimum retirement age). There was no tendency among the young adults to wish to prolong the work life of older individuals. There was no tendency in any of the three age groups to associate age of retirement with perceived cognitive or social and organizational characteristics of work: only the perceived physical demands of work predicted age at retirement.     

The importance of knowing the affective meaning of job demands revisited

This paper starts with the assumption that when people are asked to describe the level of demands they face at work, it cannot be assumed that those demands are necessarily stressful, even if they are rated as strong or high demands. Thirty demand questions were designed for use with a sample of 2,253 public sector employees in Western Australia. As well as rating frequency of demand the respondents were asked to rate their level of dissatisfaction with the demand. For only 16 of the demands was there a correlation high enough to assume that the demand might be a stressor. Having demonstrated this, the rest of the paper compares different ways of combining the two scores to predict the level of psychological distress as measured by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ12). The results support the claim in the title, that it is important to know the affective meaning of job demands.     

The development of the physicians' end-of-life care attitude scale

The Physicians' End-of-Life Care Attitude Scale (PEAS) was developed as an outcome measure for palliative care education. PEAS assesses the willingness of medical trainees to care for dying patients. Sixty-four Likert-type questions were created on the basis of discussions with focus groups of medical trainees, then administered to sixty-two medical students and residents. Total PEAS scores as well as personal preparation and professional role subscales (where higher scores indicated greater concern) possessed excellent internal consistency and reliability. In addition, there were substantial correlations between PEAS scores and the CA-Dying scale, a measurement of laypersons' fears about interacting with dying persons. Thus, PEAS adequately assesses the unique communication concerns of physicians in training regarding working with dying persons and their families. Correlations between PEAS scores and age were negative, while those who had experienced the death of a loved one had higher PEAS scores than those who did not. This suggests that for some persons, life experiences may lessen difficulties in dealing with dying persons, while for others, personal losses may exacerbate such concerns. The utility of PEAS in evaluating the efficacy of palliative care education as well as its potential to measure medical trainee's willingness to care for the terminally ill is discussed.     

Financial literacy and its influence on internet banking behavior

This paper presents the survey results for financial literacy among Cypriot adults and reports their financial aptitude and behaviour. Additionally, it investigates for the first time the implications of financial literacy on respondents’ usage of digital financial services, particularly internet banking (i-banking). The focus is on Cyprus, a country that experienced an unprecedented financial crisis in 2013 that resulted in a bail-in and an enormous subsequent shrinkage of the banking sector. Cypriot consumers face an ever-increasing need for financial sophistication to effectively utilise and manage digital banking services. Neverthless, financial literacy is still low in Cyprus, whereby only 37.33% of survey respondents showed proficiency in financial knowledge. The findings indicate that there is a statistically positive relationship between the levels of financial knowledge and the frequency of i-banking use. More importantly, financially illiterate consumers appear to report far more often than their financially literate peers the lack of trust in i-banking, as well as a lack of self-confidence in financial and digital skills as the main reasons for not using this service. The findings highlight the interplay between financial literacy and digital proficiency, and their implication on individuals’ use of i-banking services.     

The importance of knowing the affective meaning of job demands revisited

This paper starts with the assumption that when people are asked to describe the level of demands they face at work, it cannot be assumed that those demands are necessarily stressful, even if they are rated as strong or high demands. Thirty demand questions were designed for use with a sample of 2,253 public sector employees in Western Australia. As well as rating frequency of demand the respondents were asked to rate their level of dissatisfaction with the demand. For only 16 of the demands was there a correlation high enough to assume that the demand might be a stressor. Having demonstrated this, the rest of the paper compares different ways of combining the two scores to predict the level of psychological distress as measured by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ12). The results support the claim in the title, that it is important to know the affective meaning of job demands.     

Will the Dismantlement of Early Retirement Schemes Increase Older Unemployment? A Competing‐risk Analysis for Belgium

On the basis of administrative data for Belgium, we estimate a competing‐risk model on transitions from employees aged 50 and older into unemployment, early and old‐age retirement while accounting for forward‐looking work disincentives. Our estimates are used to simulate a cut in early retirement benefits. Although this would enhance the financial sustainability of the social security system, our simulations predict a strong increase in unemployment among older blue‐collar workers in traditional industries. Members of private saving plans or occupational pension schemes and highly educated workers are predicted to move into the old‐age pension system.     

整合工作、退休与一生收益决策的最优投资组合研究

将工作时间和退休年龄视为内生变量,用一个包含随机死亡概率和不确定劳动收入的标准化模型,探讨个人一生最优投资组合,拓展投资领域,使投资不仅包括购买股票和债券,而且还包括购买年金。研究表明,将劳动力供给看作内生变量不仅能提高老年人股票持有量,而且能极大提高年轻人工作努力程度,显著改善个人一生福利。此外,引入年金也将导致老年人提前退休和更多参与金融活动。最后,如果考虑取决于年龄的闲暇偏好,随着接近退休年龄,个人将减少工作时间和股票持有量。     

Is the work society running out of work?

The growth of unemployment and underemployment in a society devoted to the work ethic creates a growing pressure for more work to be provided within a pre-existing social and economic framework. Growth of services and small businesses are unlikely to be sufficient. The public sector is widely used as a source of artificial and therefore unsatisfying work. The contrasting growth of the ‘black economy’ despite an official framework of wage rates and law suggests that work-creating forces are still strong. Relaxation of that framework and the breaking down of other rigidities in education, in attitudes to working times and to voluntary service are essential if the need to work is to be satisfied in our changing environment.     

Implementation of customisation strategies in collaborative networks through an innovative Reference Framework

Consumer needs and expectations of specific target groups – such as elderly, obese, disabled or diabetic persons – are arising as challenging opportunities for European companies which are asked to supply innovative customised goods of high quality at affordable price. This is particularly true in the fashion as well as in the orthopaedic sector where there are many different competences to conjugate to offer dedicated products to the mentioned target groups. This paper aims at proposing a reference model to support companies in defining collaborative supply networks for customised production. In particular, this work describes the implementation of the developed model in a real case highlighting the changes implied at network level to address the need for fashionable and healthy products.     

Reflexion berufsbezogenen Handelns? Ja, aber wie?

Reflection on professional practices? Yes, but how? An empirical study on Supervision in academic education at Universities for Social Work in Germany Supervision today is a common element of the studies of Social Work nowadays. The question of what should be the contents and aims of learning in relation to supervision vary however. Often supervision in academic education is an appendix of a more theory based curriculum, or it is a central hinge between theory and practice. The members of the teaching stuff are often internal lecturers without special skills in relation to supervision, or otherwise they are trained supervisors without skills in relation to the application of social work The payment for external supervisors often considerably falls short of the market prices. Empirical studies on the impact of supervision in relation to the development of professional skills for the social practices of social work and the professional identity are missing.     

管理服务业：政府职责及若干基本原则

达成以顾客感知满意为标准的高质量服务是需要企业付出一定努力和成本的,其潜在影响是,顾客满意不应被视为所有服务企业的当然目标。某些服务特性和政府政策会导致服务业在竞争压力与质量改进动力方面与制造业明显不同,单纯依赖市场竞争机制或指望企业主动改进质量的管理方法还不能简单应用于对服务业的宏观管理。此外,社会需要的服务很大一部分直接来自政府的公共服务领域,因此,政府对提高社会整体服务质量具有特殊的责任,也需要特别的管理原则。     

Social Security Wealth and Retirement Decisions in Italy

Abstract. This paper uses administrative data to study the retirement decisions of Italian private‐sector non‐agricultural employees during the period 1977–97. Our analysis tries to assess the importance of the financial incentives built into the social security system. The basic idea is very simple: at any given age, and based on the available information, workers compare the expected present value of two alternatives: retiring today or working one more year, and then choose the best one. A key role in this kind of comparisons is played by social security wealth, whose level and changes reflect the expectations about the profile of future earnings and the institutional features of the social security system. The various incentive measures that we consider differ in the precise weight given to the social security wealth that workers accrue as they continue to work. Our model does not provide a structural representation of the retirement process. A worker's decision is modeled here following a ‘quasi reduced‐form’ approach, with the incentive measures entering as predictors of the worker's choice in addition to standard variables. The estimated models are then used to predict retirement probabilities under alternative policies that change social security wealth and derived incentive measures.     

The Effects of Health Insurance and Self‐Insurance on Retirement Behavior

This paper provides an empirical analysis of the effects of employer‐provided health insurance, Medicare, and Social Security on retirement behavior. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we estimate a dynamic programming model of retirement that accounts for both saving and uncertain medical expenses. Our results suggest that Medicare is important for understanding retirement behavior, and that uncertainty and saving are both important for understanding the labor supply responses to Medicare. Half the value placed by a typical worker on his employer‐provided health insurance is the value of reduced medical expense risk. Raising the Medicare eligibility age from 65 to 67 leads individuals to work an additional 0.074 years over ages 60–69. In comparison, eliminating 2 years worth of Social Security benefits increases years of work by 0.076 years.     

An educational option for those facing lay-off: a human capital perspective

This research assesses factors that affect the choice of an educational support severance package when an employee is offered an array of severance packages that also includes a lump-sum buyout and a retirement package. Hypotheses developed from human capital theory were tested using multinomial logistic regression. The sample comprised 446 current and former employees of a large unionized manufacturing firm. This sample is of interest because the jobs held by these individuals, manufacturing jobs with high wages and benefits, are rapidly disappearing. Results indicated that women were more likely to accept the educational option, as were younger and single respondents. Two groups who were not eligible for retirement were of particular interest in this study. Those who accepted the educational option and those who chose the lump-sum payment did not differ on educational attainment or tenure, but differed on age, partnered status, gender and salary.     

Job demands and job control as correlates of early retirement thoughts in Finnish social and health care employees

Given the ageing workforce, there is an increasing interest in understanding the retirement process. This study examined whether early retirement thoughts can be explained by job demands, job control and their interaction, a hypothesis derived from the job demand-control model of Karasek (). The moderated hierarchical regression analyses of early retirement thoughts were based on a sample of 274 male and 2798 female employees aged 20 to 65 years in Finnish social and health care. Our results suggest that job demands and job control are independent predictors of early retirement thoughts even when adjusted for age, gender, educational level and self-rated health. Furthermore, our results offered support for the interaction effect of job demands and job control on early retirement thoughts. Among people over 45 years old, these associations were even stronger, compared to the whole sample. This indicates that one way to reduce the number of people taking early retirement would be to put the emphasis on psychosocial factors, such as job control, affecting the older workers.     

An Examination of the Impact of Career-Oriented Mentoring on Work Commitment Attitudes and Career Satisfaction Among Professional and Managerial Employees1

Data obtained from 164 proteges in managerial and professional positions in public and private sector organizations in Singapore were used to examine the impact of career-oriented mentoring on three work commitment attitudes (career, organization and job) and career satisfaction. Factor analysis of the 15-item career-oriented mentoring scale (Ragins and McFarlin, 1990) revealed a five-factor solution – coach, sponsor, protection, challenging assignments and exposure. These career-oriented mentoring roles were differentially related to job involvement, organizational commitment and career satisfaction, and explained modest amounts of the variance in these outcome variables. T-test results indicated that mentored respondents (N = 164) reported significantly higher levels of the outcome variables than non-mentored respondents (N = 225). Limitations of the study, directions for further research and implications of the findings are discussed.