Work-Related Demands Emanating from Social Change and Their Relation to Trait-Like and Occasion-Specific Aspects of Subjective Well-Being

Following current macro-level social change people are increasingly confronted with new demands encompassing perceived uncertainties concerning their job and career prospects. Studies utilizing concurrent assessments showed that perceiving a high accumulation (“load”) of such demands is negatively related to individuals’ subjective well-being. Without further evidence the interpretation of the direction of these effects, however, is equivocal. Based on the concept that individuals have a rather stable trait-like level of subjective well-being from which they may vary when confronted with changes of the external ecology, the current study examined the relationship between the reported load of demands and subjective well-being assessed as general life satisfaction and average satisfaction in domains of life (i.e., family, work, finances, and leisure). We expected that a higher load of demands corresponds to a temporary decline in well-being, while at the same time differences in the stable trait-like level of well-being account for differences in the reported demand load. For the purpose of our study, we analyzed three annual waves of assessment of German adults aged between 18 and 43 years (N = 488). Utilizing a trait-state-occasion model, we separated trait-like aspects of well-being from occasion-specific deviations. Overall, our results confirmed our expectation that effects indeed run in both directions. The higher the reported load of work-related demands, the more respondents’ well-being negatively deviated from the stable trait-like level. Beyond that a higher trait-like level of well-being corresponded to a lower demand load. Both effects revealed almost equal strength and remained stable after controlling for participants’ employment status, family status, and educational attainment.     

Life Expectancy,Schooling, and Lifetime Labor Supply: Theory and Evidence Revisited

This paper presents a theoretical and empirical analysis of the role of life expectancy for optimal schooling and lifetime labor supply. The results of a simple prototype Ben‐Porath model with age‐specific survival rates show that an increase in lifetime labor supply is not a necessary, or a sufficient, condition for greater life expectancy to increase optimal schooling. The observed increase in survival rates during working ages that follows from the “rectangularization” of the survival function is crucial for schooling and labor supply. The empirical results suggest that the relative benefits of schooling have been increasing across cohorts of U.S. men born between 1840 and 1930. A simple quantitative analysis shows that a realistic shift in the survival function can lead to an increase in schooling and a reduction in lifetime labor hours.     

Checking a Semiparametric Additive Risk Model

McKeague and Sasieni [A partly parametric additive risk model. Biometrika 81 (1994) 501] propose a restriction of Aalen’s additive risk model by the additional hypothesis that some of the covariates have time-independent influence on the intensity of the observed counting process. We introduce goodness-of-fit tests for this semiparametric Aalen model. The asymptotic distribution properties of the test statistics are derived by means of martingale techniques. The tests can be adjusted to detect particular alternatives. As one of the most important alternatives we consider Cox’s proportional hazards model. We present simulation studies and an application to a real data set.     

Der Fussballverein zwischen e.V. und Kapitalgesellschaft

The overcoming of the dilemma of members’ contribution and efficient goal attainment leads German soccer clubs to an organizational development process. Three patterns of overcoming this dilemma in clubs of the first German soccer league are discussed. After analyzing theoretical problems of clubs at the point of view of rational-choice-theory, we focus on the three patterns of overcoming the dilemma and illustrate each with a case study. For the case studies we choose three traditional soccer clubs from the Ruhr-area. The three patterns are: (1) The classical German club structure: In this case the control of the resource ‘provision of capital’ solves the dilemma ad hoc in favor of goal attainment. (2) The stock company structure without a joint investment structure: This pattern preserves the participation of the members only by representatives through the introduction of a supervisory board. (3) Limited liability company as the general partner of a public limited company (a typical German form of a joint stock company): In this pattern the soccer club is transformed into a company, which restricts the members’ participation possibilities to symbolic acts in favor of goal attainment. The organizational development process of the German soccer clubs leads in general to a democratic-flexible form of organization.     

Burnout and Mental Health in Swiss Vocational Students: The Moderating Role of Physical Activity

Few studies have focused on burnout among vocational students. This study examined the association between burnout and mental health among 56 Swiss vocational students (29 males, 27 females, M = 18.1, SD = 1.2 years) and tested whether recommended levels of moderate‐to‐vigorous physical activity (MVPA) attenuate this relationship. Burnout was strongly associated with increased depressive symptoms and decreased levels of life satisfaction, mental toughness, and quality of sleep. Students above recommended levels of MVPA reported lower burnout and higher mental health. No significant moderator effects were observed. Symptoms of burnout were associated with increased mental health problems. Physical activity should be promoted to prevent burnout, because nearly half of the students did not meet MVPA recommendations.     

Transnationale Projektarbeit. Berufsbiografische Strategien der Sicherung von Autonomie, Zugehörigkeit und Identität

The article intends to broaden the discussion about the globalization of management by analyzing an intermediate, operative level of management in the context of transnational project work. In contrast to Kanter’s (1996) thesis of the emergence of a “world class of management” the identity concepts, career strategies and social embeddedness of this level of management clearly show the contradictions and ambivalences peculiar to this kind of work. Drawing on group discussions as well as problem-centred interviews three types of biography politics in the context of transnationalization are discerned. By more or less intentionally unfolding these politics in the course of their biographies, the subjects are struggling for autonomy, affiliation and individual history.