Transnationalization of a Recruitment Regime: Skilled Migration to Japan

Japan, facing a demographic decline and challenges by companies and universities to internationalize, has opened its doors to skilled migration. Focussing initially on a two‐step student migration model, Japanese companies are now recruiting young graduates from overseas universities, mainly in Asia. We argue that, with the help of brokers, the domestic recruitment regime (a set of particular employment practices) has been transnationalized. Based on interviews with stakeholders and discussing international recruitment fairs as the site of engagement, we present first evidence that the activities of brokers have the potential to change attitudes towards employability among overseas universities and their students. We also find that this development compromises the original diversity objectives of Japanese employers and point to a lack of rules of engagement for brokers operating across national borders.     

Transforming child and family services in urban communities in South Africa: lessons from the South

Post‐apartheid, South African agencies have been required to shift their services in fundamental ways, including offering services in previously un‐resourced areas, honouring the rights of children and families, ensuring that users, staff and governing bodies are representative of the population and providing developmental social welfare services in place of child protection‐oriented interventions only. A study of urban South African child welfare agencies provides insight into the complex task of managing and leading change. In view of overloaded change agenda and resource constraints, managers focused on effecting incremental change and prioritized the most ‘rewarding’ change efforts. Transforming practice towards a developmental approach was less successful. Structural interventions were also not prioritized. Child welfare agencies internationally face demands to transform in response to the effects of local change and globalization. The study's insights might resonate with agencies working for change in other societal contexts.     

Effektive Führung heterogener Teams

This article in the journal “Gruppe. Organisation. Interaktion. (GIO)” analyzes theoretical and empirical findings of international research on the role of leadership in diverse teams. While practitioners often tend to expect primarily positive effects of team diversity, research has revealed both positive and negative consequences on team performance. Thereby, realizing positive outcomes of diversity appears to depend on additional boundary conditions; among these, leadership is often considered to be crucial. According to our analysis of the literature, established leadership styles (e.?g., transformational leadership, LMX, leader consideration) may contribute to increased performance of diverse teams. In addition, they will be most effective when leaders perceive and treat their followers as individuals rather than as members of a (sub-)group and when they carefully adjust their behavior to the most critical diversity attribute in the team. Based on these results, we provide practical implications for leadership in diverse teams and discuss how adequate leadership skills can be systematically developed in organizations.     

Productivity of Older Workers: Perceptions of Employers and Employees

What determines the perceived productivity of the older worker and how does this perception compare to the perception of the productivity of the younger worker? In this study we present evidence based on data from Dutch employers and employees. Productivity perceptions are affected by one's age and one's position in the hierarchy. The young favor the young, the old favor the old, and employers value the productivity of workers less than employees do. However, there are also remarkable similarities across employers and employees. By distinguishing the various dimensions that underlie the productivity of younger and older workers, we tested whether soft qualities and abilities—e.g., reliability and commitment—are just as important as hard qualities—cognitive and physically based skills—in the eyes of both employers and employees. It appears that both employers and employees, young and old, view hard skills as far more important than soft skills.     

Age,Cohort, and the Slump in Job Satisfaction among West German Workers

Abstract. Using German panel data, I examine the long‐term development in satisfaction with work from 1984 until 2001. As was the case for many other industrialized countries, Germany witnessed a sharp decline in workers’ self‐reported job satisfaction in the late 1980s and 1990s, the reason of which is yet unknown. I present a cohort analysis of job satisfaction using various identifying assumptions to examine several explanations for this phenomenon: pure cohort effects, a decrease in self‐reported job security, an increase in stress at work and a deterioration in other job conditions, and possible survey artefacts such as interviewer or repeated measurement effects. However, none of these can explain the overall decline in job satisfaction.     

Population and Climate Change: Consensus and Dissensus among Demographers

What role does population play in thinking about the problem of climate change and some of its solutions? In a survey conducted between February and April 2020, we asked European demographers to state their views on the relationship between climate change and population developments, and asked them to rate their concern about climate change and other socio-demographic issues. We found that climate change is at the top of the list of demographers’ concerns, but that their sense of urgency with respect to taking action to redress global warming is not matched by their belief that population policy can make a crucial difference in reducing CO₂ emissions: demographers are highly divided on the question whether the global population size should be reduced to lower CO₂ emissions, as well as on the question whether family planning is an effective policy instrument.     

Beyond “linking knowledge and action”: towards a practice-based approach to transdisciplinary sustainability interventions

ABSTRACT

The imperative to “link knowledge and action” is widely invoked as a defining characteristic of sustainability research. The complexities of sustainability challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss mean that linear models of knowledge and action, where knowledge is produced first (by researchers) then “applied to” action (by policy actors), are considered insufficient. Researchers have developed more dynamic, open-ended and collaborative forms of policy engagement such as transdisciplinary and co-production research. Although promising these approaches often remain captive to linear assumptions that hinder their transformative potential. We contribute by providing a relational model of knowledge and action rooted in contemporary practice theory. A practice-based approach suggests the primary task of participants in transdisciplinary interventions is to find workable solutions to situations of dynamic complexity that are fundamentally indeterminate and unpredictable. Knowledge is not “applied to” action, but drawn upon, produced and used from within the situation at hand, allowing researchers and policy actors alike to better harness the emergent character of situational developments and outcomes. A practice-based approach provides a conceptual language that captures the experienced complexities of intervening for sustainability, reconfigures the nature of “actionable knowledge,” and identifies appropriate modes of evaluation for transdisciplinary and co-produced research.     

Beyond growth: new alliances for socio-ecological transformation in Austria

ABSTRACT

Trade unions and environmental movements are often seen as political opponents most prominently discussed in the form of the ‘jobs vs. environment dilemma’. Based on historical examples of the conflict relations between trade unions and environmental groups in the Austrian energy sector, this paper showcases how the relationship between the two groups has changed from enmity to first attempts at alliance building. Drawing from analysis of union documents and problem-centred interviews conducted with Austrian unionists, it shows that newly emerging alliances between unions and environmental movements contain the seeds for a broad societal movement that can help overcome the paradigm of growth and actively engage in the creation of policies that support a social–ecological transformation.     

Generalised joint regression for count data: a penalty extension for competitive settings

Statistics and Computing - We propose a versatile joint regression framework for count responses. The method is implemented in the R add-on package GJRM and allows for modelling linear and...