Designing brands and managing organizational politics: A qualitative case study of employer brand creation

This study explores intra-organizational processes and structures within the creation of an employer brand. Drawing on a practice perspective that analytically differentiates between practitioners, praxis, and practices, we present a qualitative case study of an employer branding project in a large industrial company. Our theorized account of the case demonstrates the managerial complexities and dynamics of employer brand creation. Based on a detailed content analysis, we identify three distinct sets of activities of employer brand creation: (1) defining and demarcating employer branding, (2) developing and maintaining cooperation within employer brand creation, and (3) confirming and contesting management ideas and structures beyond employer branding. Our study contributes to employer branding research by highlighting how employer brand creation is entangled within strategic, functional design of an employer brand and managing organizational power relations and differing interests. Furthermore, this study particularly emphasizes the emerging character of employer branding and the impact of an established social infrastructure within employer brand creation.     

European cultures and management styles

After the establishment of the Common Market in Europe, many companies from abroad opted for a single European headquarters and searched for European managers. That leads to the question whether one can really speak of a common European management style. The article at hand examines this issue. To do this, the legal framework and Corporate Governance background of individual European countries are assessed. Furthermore, cultural differences in Europe are considered. Referring to studies of cultural dimensions in European countries, the authors propose five different cultural areas in Europe. This leads to a concluding discussion of management styles in these regions.     

Strict proportional power in voting bodies

It is a widely known fact among game theorists as well as political scientists that the distribution of voting weights in a voting body is generally a poor proxy for the distribution of voting power within the body. It has been proposed to equate the distribution of a priori voting power and actual seat distribution by randomizing the decision rule of the voting body over various majority rules. In this paper, some implications of this procedure will be discussed.     

Why do immigrants have longer periods of unemployment? Swiss evidence

Immigrant groups, especially those originating from non‐European countries, tend to experience disadvantages in the labour market and to be overrepresented among the recipients of welfare benefits in many European countries. In the public debate, this outcome is sometimes explained with reference to migration‐related factors such as weaker work values than natives (i.e., acceptability of remaining on benefits), smaller and lower quality of informal networks and lower levels of psychological well‐being. Indeed, we find that these factors significantly influence unemployment duration in the expected direction. However, they explain only a small share of the overall disadvantage that some immigrant groups experience. We conclude that at least some of the large differences we observed in unemployment durations are likely to be due to other factors including discrimination by employers.     

Levelling across the life‐span?: Tracing the face vowel in panel data from the North East of England

Apparent time analysis has revealed that the Tyneside face vowel is the site of two intersecting trends: levelling towards the supra‐northern monophthong as well as the gradual incursion of the southern standard closing diphthong. This article investigates the participation of individual speakers across their life‐span in these ongoing changes in the face vowel. We report on a small‐scale panel sample of six speakers who were recorded in 1971 and again, 42 years later, in 2013. The analysis probes the stability of individual speakers’ grammars, relying on longitudinal ethnographic analysis in the community as well as insights gleaned from sociolinguistic interviews about the speakers’ socio‐demographic trajectory and their presentations of self. The article contributes to the growing body of panel research that aims to determine the scope and the limits of linguistic malleability across speakers’ life histories.     

The Peer Relationships of Those Who Have Experienced Adoption or Foster Care: A Meta‐Analysis

This meta‐analytic review examines the presence and quality of close peer relationships for adoptees and individuals with foster care experience. Results indicate that adoptees show difficulty forming close peer relationships compared with biologically reared individuals, but they do not differ in the quality of these relationships. In contrast, those with foster care experience report lower quality peer relationships than biologically reared individuals. Additionally, this meta‐analysis includes prevalence rates of close peer relationships that illustrate most adoptees and foster youth report having high‐quality peer relationships. These findings have important implications for intervention and prevention efforts and offer directions for future research on peer relationships among adoptees and foster youth, but should be considered in light of the presence of some publication bias.     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Editorial