The role of language skills in the settling-in process – experiences of highly skilled migrants’ accompanying partners in Germany and the UK

ABSTRACT

The role of the family in the international migration of highly skilled migrants has often been disregarded. Highly skilled labour migrants follow a concrete job offer abroad and are structurally integrated into the new environment through the work place. On the contrary, the migration of family members is subject to different conditions since most accompanying partners initially do not work. However, accompanying partners are described as managers of the settling-in process of the whole family [Yeoh, Brenda, and Katie Willis. 2004. “Constructing Masculinities in Transnational Space: Singapore Men on the ‘Regional Beat’.” In Transnational Spaces, edited by Peter Jackson, Philip Crang, and Claire Dwyer, 147–163. London: Routledge] and their experiences can be crucial for the duration of their stay. Our paper explores the experiences of mobility of highly skilled migrants’ accompanying partners in Germany and in the UK with regard to their strategies and practices during the settling-in process. The main focus is on the role of language, the establishment of new social networks and labour market participation. The paper draws on the concept of capital accumulation and conversion [Bourdieu, Pierre. 1986. “The Forms of Capital.” In Education: Culture, Economy, and Society, edited by Albert Henry Halsey, 46–58. New York: Oxford University Press] and asks how partners make use of their cultural capital language after migration. Our paper is based on empirical studies in Germany and in the UK, which focus on the migration and settling-in processes of highly skilled professionals and their families.     

Understanding the links among innovation performance,market performance and financial performance

Innovation and its impacts on business performance are strategically vital deliberations for modern business organizations. In this study, we examine how innovation performance affects two different facets of firm performance: market performance and financial performance. Many studies address the relationship between innovation and business performance, but few empirical studies analyze the interplay between those variables. Research results reveal a suppression effect of market performance on the innovation–financial performance relationship. We find a negative direct relationship between innovation and financial performance; however, market performance reverses this negative effect to a positive total influence through its suppression effect. This result indicates the vital role of market performance in converting innovation to positive financial outcomes. The proposed mediation model is relevant regardless of the set of firm-level and environmental contingency variables.     

J-Curve? A Meta-Analysis and Meta-Regression of Parity and Parental Mortality

Research suggests that parity and parental health and mortality are associated significantly, although the pattern of association varies across studies. Studies ascribe long-term poor health (and mortality) to either low or high parity, and some studies show that both low and high parity increase the risk of adverse health for parents (i.e., forming a “J-shaped curve”). While a recent meta-analysis (Zeng et al., Sci Rep 6:19351, 2016) has partially addressed this gap in the literature, the present study further extends the literature by using a methodology that allows for more robust control of study heterogeneity and potential confounders. Using data on 223 measures of relative mortality risk from 37 studies, from samples gathered after 1945 from developed nations, meta-analysis and meta-regression (weighted linear regression) results show a nonlinear association (J-shaped curve) between parity and all-cause parental mortality, though the strength of the association varies by both sex and cohort. The results also suggest that the mortality hazard is partially explained by health selection effects.     

A two-phase algorithm for bin stretching with stretching factor 1.5

Online Bin Stretching is a semi-online variant of bin packing in which the algorithm has to use the same number of bins as an optimal packing, but is allowed to slightly overpack the bins. The goal is to minimize the amount of overpacking, i.e., the maximum size packed into any bin.We give an algorithm for Online Bin Stretching with a stretching factor of 1.5 for any number of bins. We build on previous algorithms and use a two-phase approach. However, our analysis is technically more complicated and uses amortization over the bins with the help of two weight functions.     

Explaining the influence of time budget pressure on audit quality in Sweden

This paper is aimed at explaining how time budget pressure influences audit quality in the Swedish context. A hypothesis is deduced and tested through a survey sent to Swedish auditors. The Swedish context provides a special setting since audit firms and auditors have been facing new pressures due, for example, to the removal of statutory audits for a majority of the companies in Sweden. The findings show that time budget pressure lowers the quality of audits performed by Swedish auditors, but it is not the only explanation. Audit quality is also related to other factors such as gender, position, experience, number of clients, local office size and audit firm. Thus, the model is useful for explaining the factors influencing audit quality and could be used and expanded in future studies. The study also has practical implications showing that when trading-off between audit efforts and available resources and setting time budgets for each audit assignment, audit firms should also consider the personal characteristics of the auditors.     

Inszenierungen von Macht und Ohnmacht bei der Auftragsklärung und im Erstkontakt

Performances of power and powerlessness can be performed or enacted at the very beginning between counselor and client system. To create a “potential space” (Winnicott) it is essential to discover the play of power and weakness initially to take benefit from it for the counselling process. Four cases illustrate variations of this kind and their handling.     

Using queueing models to estimate system capacity

The true capacity of a production or service system is often difficult to estimate with sufficient accuracy. The two main methodological approaches to capacity measurement described in the literature – measurements based on engineering and physical factors and measurement based on time studies – are both characterised by conceptual as well as practical shortcomings. This paper provides analyses on how capacity measurement can be approached using queueing models, thereby eliminating some major drawbacks of other approaches. The core idea is to use the theoretical relation among arrival rate, service rate and queueing time; because the arrival rate and queueing time can both be measured objectively in an empirical sense, these measures can be used to estimate the true service rate of the system. The suggested method is completely insensitive to the proportional relationship between design and effective capacity, and it cannot cause any behavioural problems during measurement since it does not require direct observation of the system itself. Particularly appealing is the potential for practical application to many contexts in many industries. The validity of the approach is discussed.     

Investigation of the performance of trimmed estimators of life time distributions with censoring

For the lifetime (or negative) exponential distribution, the trimmed likelihood estimator has been shown to be explicit in the form of a β‐trimmed mean which is representable as an estimating functional that is both weakly continuous and Fréchet differentiable and hence qualitatively robust at the parametric model. It also has high efficiency at the model. The robustness is in contrast to the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) involving the usual mean which is not robust to contamination in the upper tail of the distribution. When there is known right censoring, it may be perceived that the MLE which is the most asymptotically efficient estimator may be protected from the effects of ‘outliers’ due to censoring. We demonstrate that this is not the case generally, and in fact, based on the functional form of the estimators, suggest a hybrid defined estimator that incorporates the best features of both the MLE and the β‐trimmed mean. Additionally, we study the pure trimmed likelihood estimator for censored data and show that it can be easily calculated and that the censored observations are not always trimmed. The different trimmed estimators are compared by a modest simulation study.     

Policy Changes in Community Mental Health: Interventions and Strategies Used in Sweden over 20 Years

The deinstitutionalization of mental health care has changed the responsibilities of involved authorities and has led to a continuous need for new treatment forms and interventions. This article describes this development in Europe, and in particular how these new conditions have been handled in Sweden over the past 20 years at the level of governmental policy‐making. Three major policy documents from 1994, 2009 and 2012 were included in this study. To increase our understanding of the policies' contents, we have used theoretical concepts concerning governance, implementation and political risk management. Although our main interest was to find out how the government handles interventions for users of the mental health care system, we found that the policy work is progressing stepwise. The first document, from the deinstitutionalization era, did not discuss interventions clearly. Instead, it was mainly concerned with both practical and economical areas of responsibility. The second document, from the post‐deinstitutionalization era, was more focused on what services should be delivered to the users, while the most recently published document to a greater extent addressed the question of how the support is supposed to be designed. The trend in European community mental health policy has been to advocate services in open forms that are integrated into the society's other care systems. This is also the case in Sweden, and continuous work is being done by the government to find strategies to support the development, and to meet the needs at both political and local levels.