How Does Performance Management Affect Workers? Beyond Human Resource Management and Its Critique

While performance management (PM) is pervasive across contemporary workplaces, extant research into how performance management affects workers is often indirect or scattered across disciplinary silos. This paper reviews and synthesizes this research, identifies key gaps and explores ‘recognition theory’ as a nascent framework that can further develop this important body of knowledge. The paper develops in three main stages. The first stage reviews ‘mainstream’ human resource management (HRM) research. While this research analyses workers’ reactions to performance management in some depth, its focus on serving organizational goals marginalizes extra‐organizational impacts. The second stage reviews more critical HRM research, which interprets performance management as a disciplinary, coercive or inequitable management device. While this literature adds an important focus on organizational power, there is scope to analyse further how PM affects workers’ well‐being. To develop this strand of PM research, the third stage turns to the emerging field of recognition theory independently developed by Axel Honneth and Christophe Dejours. The authors focus especially on recognition theory's exploration of how (in)adequate acknowledgement of workers’ contributions can significantly affect their well‐being at the level of self‐conception. Although recognition theory is inherently critical, the paper argues that it can advance both mainstream and critical performance management research, and also inform broader inquiry into recognition and identity at work.     

Remittances of Immigrant Citizens,Attachment to the Host Country and Transnationalism

Population Research and Policy Review - The purpose of the paper was to investigate the remittance behavior of immigrant citizens and the motivations behind it, to conceptualize and investigate the...     

Wage Gap Paradox: The Case of Immigrants from the FSU in Israel

The purpose of this article was to investigate whether some groups of immigrants are particularly disadvantaged in their earnings compared to other population groups, to what extent wage gaps arise from discriminatory remuneration, and how immigrants’ wages change over time. The contribution of this study is twofold: it conceptualizes a wage gap paradox and delineates the indicators of discrimination in terms of earnings. Data from the 2010‐2014 Social Surveys in Israel were used. The results revealed evidence of a wage gap paradox for immigrants from the former Soviet Union: the wage gaps between them and other population groups do not close during time living in the host country, despite the high level of their formal credentials. Applying the Blinder‐Oaxaca decomposition, the study revealed that a sufficient part of the wage gap is attributable to discrimination, which prevented immigrants from full economic integration.     

Family business in Russia: the path to middle class?

The paper seeks to explore via a series of interview-based case studies aspects of the emergence of an entrepreneurial middle-class in Russia. The paper notes the origins of those studied in the professional or highly skilled workers in the former Soviet Union. The paper reveals the complexity and fragility of the circumstances of these entrepreneurs and suggests that commentary in both Russia and the West that pins its hopes for social stability on the emergence of a new property owning middle class in Russia are, at best, premature.     

Dimensions of life satisfaction: Immigrant and ethnic minorities

The article investigates the dimensions of life satisfaction of immigrant and ethnic minorities comparing them with the majority population. It constructs a theoretical framework, taking into account both pecuniary and non‐pecuniary dimensions of welfare. This study is based on the data of the Social Survey, administered by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics. Immigrants in this study are regarded as a migrant minority and Israeli‐born Arab citizens as an ethnic minority. The results reveal significant life satisfaction gaps between the groups, which can be partially explained by the value of work per se and the value of leisure activities. Applying the Blinder‐Oaxaca decomposition technique, the study revealed that the gap in life satisfaction could be attributed both to the differences in pecuniary and non‐pecuniary resources for each group, and to different returns on resources. Policy targeted on increasing the economic possibilities of minority groups would decrease the life satisfaction gaps.