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.     

Unsicherheiten im Beratungsdiskurs

Uncertainties in discourses of consulting. Why consultees need philosophy — pragmatism for exampleThe author demonstrates, in which way the pragmatism, particularly the philosophy of John Dewey with his aspects of epistemology, theory of acting, theory of learning, theory of democracy and ethics, can help, how people in organisations can learn to act intelligently and successfully in processes of consulting, although just today uncertainties are wide-spread.     

Mentoring und Coaching in Unternehmen — Abgrenzung der Inhalte

Mentoring and coaching in companies — definition of contentsOften Mentoring and Coaching are used at the same time in the same situations. Mentoring marks the consultation relationship inside the company, regarding knowledge of the culture of the company, habits and unwritten statues, whereas coaching intends to get independent advice for the personality from outside the company. The different use of the terms enables the user to define the roles, contents, goals of the consultation which are dependent of the individual development goals of the person.     

Entwicklung zur Handlungskompetenz durch Supervision in der Automobilindustrie

Development of competence by supervision in automotive industryAs a result of problems with the implementation of teamwork in the production processes a car manufacturing company decided to install training activities for the technical management. The author who participated in this training program, describes in which way a psychodrama oriented supervision was implemented as a specific learning process.     

论“宁波帮”精神财富的巨大意义

邓小平同志20年前发表的关于"宁波帮"的重要指示,既是对"宁波帮"支援家乡现代化建设的伟大号召,同时还包含着更深刻的内容"宁波帮"在经济建设方面的丰富经验,对于市场经济规律的熟悉,以及由此体现出来的深厚的人文精神的积淀.认真继承发扬他们的精神财富,对于进一步理解和落实科学发展观,加快宁波的社会主义建设,具有十分重要的意义.     

浅论住房抵押贷款证券化

随着住房产业作为国民支柱产业的确立以及货币分房政策的实施 ,住房抵押贷款将成为全社会最主要的住房消费方式。随着住房贷款市场规模的日益增长 ,不仅给银行带来了越来越大的信贷压力和资金供需矛盾 ,也因“短存长贷”引致的资产负债不匹配程度加重而加重银行的资产流动性风险 ,就可能构成金融危机的隐患。推动住房抵押贷款证券化对缓解这一矛盾有着极其重要的现实意义     

Wenn alle tatsächlich in einem Boot sitzen — Eine Studie zur Identifikation mit der Schule im Kontext einer erlebnispädagogischen Gruppenerfahrung

We report on the results of an experience-pedagogic project on the identification of pupils from a technical school with their classes and school. The analysis is done from a perspective of organisational psychology and group dynamics, which is influenced by the social Identity Approach. It is stipulated that the experiences of a communal out-of-school activity strengthens the organisational identification. Additionally, it is verified whether the attitudes of the pupils towards their classes, and the participation in lessons, changes by influence of the project. The study shows a positive effect of this experience on organisational identity, attitudes toward the school, and behavioural intentions.     

Zerbrochene Liebe: Unterschiede und Gemeinsamkeiten in den Ursachenzuschreibungen der beiden Partner — Eine Interviewstudie —

This essay analyses the subjective attribution processes of six couples after the separation. The theoretical basis for this exploration of attributions is a classification scheme (Debler, W. 1984) with dimensions location, stability, globalisation and control. The result is the predominating manifestation of external attribution in the sense of making the partner responsible. The hypothesis that all cases of women desiring the separation show a stronger internal attribution cannot be confirmed. In a second evaluation, concrete attributions in connection with communication, personal characteristics of the partner, birth of the first child and sexuality are pointed out in the context of the overall stories. In connection with personal characteristics of the partners the phenomenon of “changing attribution” can be observed — a trait of the partner that initially rated positive is seen as a cause of separation at the end of the relationship.     

Major Chemical Accidents in Industrializing Countries: The Socio-Political Amplification of Risk

Accidents in the chemical industry, such as those that took place in Seveso (1976) and Bhopal (1984), may kill or injure thousands of people, cause serious health hazards and irreversible environmental damage. The aim of this paper is to examine the ever-increasing risk of similar accidents becoming a frequent ocurrence in the so-called industrializing countries. Using figures from some of the worst chemical accidents in the last decades, data on the Bhopal disaster, and Brazil's social and institutional characteristics, we put forward the hypothesis that present social, political and economic structures in industrializing countries make these countries much more vulnerable to such accidents and create the type of setting where–if and when these accidents occur–they will have even more catastrophic consequences. The authors argue that only the transformation of local structures, and stronger technical cooperation between international organizations, industrialized and industrializing countries could reduce this vulnerability.     

Specific relationships between psychosocial job conditions and job-related stress: A three-level analytic approach

This cross-sectional questionnaire study presents a multi-level analysis on 2565 workers in 188 departments in 36 organizations in the Netherlands. A three-level model is used in which individual workers are nested within departments, which in turn are nested within organizations. Research questions concern (1) the amount and distribution of variance in job-related stress explained for the three levels in the study (individuals, departments, organizations), and (2) the specificity of relationships between psychosocial job demands and job-related stress in the three-level model. Well-being showed slightly more raw variance to be explained at supra-individual levels than strain. The full regression model explained about 35% of the total variance in both work-related strain and well-being. Psychosocial job conditions did not exceed the expected amount of 10 to 15% contribution to this explained variance. These results do not differ from comparable studies that do not use multi-level analysis. The variance distribution in the full model, however, showed unexplained variance to be located at the individual level for both strain and well-being, and at the departmental level only for well-being. This last finding shows a direction for possible improvement of work stress models. Specificity of relationships was also shown: psychological job demands were more strongly related to strain, whereas job content variables (i.e. job variety, job control) were more strongly related to well-being. Results also suggested that social support was more strongly associated with well-being than with strain. Well-being appeared to have a more widely varying range of predictors than strain.