Perceptions of Job Security in Europe’s Ageing Workforce

Using data from the 2004 Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, this paper investigates older workers’ perceptions of job security in eleven countries. We describe cross-national patterns and estimate multilevel models to analyse individual and societal determinants of self-perceived job security in the older labour force. While there are considerable cross-country variations around a median value of 23% of workers aged 50 or older ranking their job security as poor, none of our suggested macro-level explanatory variables—employment rate, employment protection legislation, mean level of general social trust, and proportion disapproving of working beyond age 70—bears statistically significant associations with individuals’ job security. We find some indication, however, that the various societal factors considered here might contribute jointly to explaining the observed cross-national variation. Future research should aim at identifying statistically more powerful indicators of the supposed multilevel relationship between social context and older workers’ perceptions of job security. Moreover, supplementary findings indicate that further attention should be paid to the gender dimension of job insecurity.     

Transformational Leadership and Volunteer Firefighter Engagement

This study explores the relationship between transformational leadership and volunteer firefighter engagement. Using responses from 213 volunteer firefighters, structural equation modeling reveals a positive relationship between transformational leadership and volunteer engagement, which is mediated by both group identification and perceived social impact. In addition, higher volunteer engagement is positively related to a firefighter's intention to continue volunteering and to recruit others. Taken together, the results indicate that transformational leaders achieve positive volunteer outcomes by strengthening the organizational ties of volunteers and by connecting volunteers with the prosocial impact of their work. Theoretical implications for transformational leadership research in volunteer settings as well as practical recommendations for a sustainable volunteer management are provided.     

Nest design in a changing world: Great tit <Emphasis Type="Italic">Parus major</Emphasis> nests from a Mediterranean city environment as a case study

Investigations of urbanization effects on birds have focused mainly on breeding traits expressed after the nest-building stage (e.g. first-egg date, clutch size, breeding success, and offspring characteristics). Urban studies largely ignored how and why the aspects of nest building might be associated with the degree of urbanization. As urban environments are expected to present novel environmental changes relative to rural environments, it is important to evaluate how nest-building behavior is impacted by vegetation modifications associated with urbanization. To examine nest design in a Mediterranean city environment, we allowed urban great tits (Parus major) to breed in nest boxes in areas that differed in local vegetation cover. We found that different measures of nest size or mass were not associated with vegetation cover. In particular, nests located adjacent to streets with lower vegetation cover were not smaller or lighter than nests in parks with higher vegetation cover. Nests adjacent to streets contained more pine needles than nests in parks. In addition, in nests adjacent to streets, nests from boxes attached to pine trees contained more pine needles than nests from boxes attached to other trees. We suggest that urban-related alterations in vegetation cover do not directly impose physical limits on nest size in species that are opportunistic in the selection of nesting material. However, nest composition as reflected in the use of pine needles was clearly affected by habitat type and the planted tree species present, which implies that rapid habitat change impacts nest composition. We do not exclude that urbanization might impact other aspects of nest building behaviour not covered in our study (e.g. costs of searching for nest material), and that the strengths of the associations between urbanization and nest structures might differ among study populations or species.     

Union Wage Setting,Employment and Investment: a Survey of Theory and Empirical Evidence

Abstract. This paper provides a survey of recent theoretical and empirical research on union wage setting, employment and investment. The basic models of union wage setting and employment are presented in a unified framework. The distinction between insiders and outsiders is introduced as an extension of the basic models. Empirical evidence on union preferences and on the performance of the various models is accessibly ordered. Finally, attention is paid to the effects of strategic behaviour between union and firm on wages, employment and investment.     

极地环境变化——将减少炭黑排放作为保护极地以及阻止气候突变的机制

1 绪论 气候变化对北极的影响比对地球任何其他地方的影响都要更早,且更强烈.在过去的5年里,天的气温已经上升了3～4℃,1] 预计到本世纪末,地温度会上升4～7℃,冰洋的温度会上升7～10℃.但有一产业会在短期内,海冰消融中受益,就是航运业.随着北极变暖,业增长、资源开发以及包括游轮业在内的旅游业的发展,随之增长.北极航运线路的开发将降低全球航运时间和成本,短日本至英国差不多5000m的行程.过去的1个世纪里,极海洋冰块已经大晕减少,且还在继续减少,使得在北极发展航运业和加大资源开发成为现实.     

How performance related pay affects productivity and employment

This paper uses information from a panel of Dutch firms to investigate the labor productivity effects of performance related pay (PRP). We find that PRP increases productivity at the firm level with 9% and employment growth with 5%.     

Innovationsverhalten in Familienunternehmen

Family businesses are publicly believed to be highly innovative and to be the “Hidden Champions” of the German industry. In recent times scholars have begun to examine this thesis and have come to starkly opposing results. On the one hand family businesses are attested to have a special ?entrepreneurial “spirit” which makes them highly innovative. On the other hand the lack of separation of ownership and control and insufficient diversification of family-investors are said to lead to less innovation activity. In this study we investigate the innovation activity of 384 German manufacturing firms differing in legal structure, size, age, industry, and—most importantly—in the degree of family ownership, family management and family control. The results of our analysis reveals differentiated results. Fundamentally, family ownership and family management are detrimental to firm innovation, at the same time family control has a positive impact on innovation activities. Our Results point to the fact that owner-managed businesses tend to innovate less due to risk aversion while a focus on controlling instead of managing a corporation by the owning family lead to an increase in innovations.     

Determinants of Rural Physicians' Life and Job Satisfaction

Objective: To identify and quantify factors that contribute to rural physicians' satisfaction with their jobs and life as a whole.Design: Cross-sectional, mailed survey. Study population: Family physicians practicing in rural communities eligible for British Columbia's Northern and Isolation Allowance. Main measures: Demographics, Domain satisfaction, Maslach Burnout Inventory, Beck Depression Inventory, and Life Satisfaction.Results: Stepwise multiple regressions reveal the greatest predicators of rural physician overall life satisfaction are satisfaction with jobs, personal relationships, health, finances, and absence of depression. These predictors account for 70% of the variation in rural physician overall life satisfaction. The greatest predictors of rural physician satisfaction with jobs and satisfaction with current place of residence/practice, on-call shifts, personal accomplishments, and absence of emotional exhaustion. The predictors account for 44% of the variation in rural physician job satisfaction.     

The tradeoff between mutual fund and direct stock investments: a theoretical analysis involving different types of investors

We study the tradeoff between direct and indirect stock investments through equity mutual funds for a utility-maximizing investor. Whereas direct investments impose higher transaction costs on the formation of a well-diversified portfolio, mutual funds charge fees for their services. Our results show that the fee levels that make private investors indifferent between direct and indirect stock investments vary heavily according to risk aversion, the amounts invested, correlations between assets, transaction costs, and the length of investment horizon. In particular, our results suggest that for a wide range of actively managed mutual funds, the fees charged are too high for these mutual funds to appeal to a wide range of informed investors. However, accounting for search costs, such as costs for financial advice, can facilitate an understanding of the levels of management fees charged by mutual funds existing in the market.     

Regret, disappointment and the endowment effect

The endowment effect is the finding that minimum selling prices for a particular good exceed maximum buying prices. We build on and extend previous research showing that emotions influence the endowment effect, and reveal that the two negatively valenced decision-related emotions, regret and disappointment, have distinct effects on the valuation of an object. We found that an induction of regret eliminates the classic endowment effect, whereas an induction of disappointment reverses it. The findings demonstrate the necessity of a specific emotion approach to understand the effects on decision making.