The Signal of Applying for a Job Under a Vacancy Referral Scheme

We investigate the signalling effect related to participation in active labor‐market programs. To this end, we conduct an experiment in which human resources professionals make hiring decisions concerning fictitious job candidates who apply either under a job‐vacancy referral system or directly. We provide first causal evidence for a substantial adverse effect of referral on the probability of being hired. In addition, we find that employers perceive referred candidates as being less motivated than other candidates.     

Large Employers and Apprenticeship Training in Britain

We consider the link between apprenticeship and large employers in Britain, in terms of the contribution of apprenticeship to intermediate skills and the contribution of large employers to the Advanced Apprenticeship (AA) programme. Evidence is taken from interviews with managers in 28 organizations. We find that apprenticeship functions to only a limited extent outside AA, and then primarily because of the ineligibility of particular categories of trainee. The use that employers make of apprenticeship varies considerably, in association with its cost‐effectiveness relative to recruitment and upgrade training within human resource management strategy, and with employers’ evaluations of the technical content of AA qualifications. The prospects for increased sponsorship of apprenticeship by large organizations are curbed by the greater appeal of recruitment and upgrade training in various contexts.     

Works Councils,Collective Bargaining,and Apprenticeship Training – Evidence From German Firms

In this paper, we investigate the effects of works councils on apprenticeship training in Germany. The German law attributes works councils substantial information and co‐determination rights to training‐related issues. Thus, works councils may also have an impact on the cost‐benefit relation of workplace training. Using detailed firm‐level data containing information on the costs and benefits of apprenticeship training, we find that firms with works councils make a significantly higher net investment in training compared to firms without such an institution. We also find that the fraction of former trainees still employed with the same firm 5 years after training is significantly higher in the presence of works councils, thus enabling firms to recoup training investments over a longer time horizon. Furthermore, all works council effects are much more pronounced for firms covered by collective bargaining agreements.     

A sampled literature review of design-based learning approaches: a search for key characteristics

Design-based learning (DBL) is an educational approach grounded in the processes of inquiry and reasoning towards generating innovative artifacts, systems and solutions. The approach is well characterized in the context of learning natural sciences in secondary education. Less is known, however, of its characteristics in the context of higher engineering education. The purpose of this review study is to identify key characteristics of DBL in higher engineering education. From the tenets of engineering design practices and higher engineering education contexts we identified four relevant dimensions for organizing these characteristics: the project characteristics, the role of the teacher, the assessment methods, and the social context. Drawing on these four dimensions, we systematically reviewed the state-of-the-art empirical literature on DBL or DBL-like educational projects in higher engineering education. Based on this review we conclude that DBL projects consist of open-ended, hands-on, authentic and multidisciplinary design tasks resembling the community of engineering professionals. Teachers facilitate both the process of gaining domain-specific knowledge and the thinking activities relevant to propose innovative solutions. Teachers scaffold students in the development from novice to expert engineers. Assessment is characterized by formative and summative of both individual and team products and processes and by the use of a variety of assessment instruments. Finally, the social context of DBL projects includes peer-to-peer collaboration in which students work in teams. The implications of these findings for further research on DBL in higher engineering education are discussed.     

Assessing the impact of educational differences in HCI design practice

Human–computer interaction (HCI) design generally involves collaboration from professionals in different disciplines. Trained in different design education systems, these professionals can have different conceptual understandings about design. Recognizing and identifying these differences are key issues for establishing shared design practices within the educational community. Contributing to this understanding, we examined whether and how two different populations of students have different knowledge structures with respect to HCI design. We adopted the romantic, conservative and pragmatic dimensions, previously investigated in the related research, to elucidate those differences. This paper compares one specific type of design artefact—conceptual frameworks—created by groups of students with different educational backgrounds: Arts and Engineering. It was based on a set of 22 criteria divided by two main domains: scheme (addressing form) and realm (focusing on contents). The obtained results show that students with background in Engineering (1) focus more on the product of design; (2) rely less on conceptual frameworks to guide the design process; and (3) produce artefacts that are more constrained in terms of signal-to-noise ratio, definition of a symbolic system, and information organization and shaping. We suggest that conceptual frameworks serve to communicate and understand design practice. We note that Engineering students seem to be more susceptible to fixation than Arts students and suggest that an emphasis of reflection-in-action could help compensating this problem.     

Human Resources Practices as Predictors of Work-Family Outcomes and Employee Turnover

Drawing on a nonrandom sample of 557 dual-earner white-collar employees, this article explores the relationship between human resources practices and three outcomes of interest to firms and employees: work-family conflict, employees' control over managing work and family demands, and employees' turnover intentions. We analyze three types of human resources practices: work-family policies, human resources incentives designed to induce attachment to the firm, and the design of work. In a series of hierarchical regression equations, we find that work design characteristics explain the most variance in employees' control over managing work and family demands, whereas human resources incentives explain the most variance in work-family conflict and turnover intentions. We also find significant gender differences in each of the three models. Our results suggest that the most effective organizational responses to work-family conflict and to turnover are those that combine work-family policies with other human resources practices, including work redesign and commitment-enhancing incentives.     

进入权理论:能否成为公司治理的理论基础

本文认为，进入权理论为公司治理研究提供了一个新的视角，它使得我们对公司治理的理解更贴近于管理实践，但是．进入权自身的机会性使得进入权的配置机制中充满不确定。以至于它无法像设计的那样有效塑造当事人事后的讨价还价能力。不确定来自于：①关键资源的特征。关键资源应该是一束可分割的权利集，即使是一束虚拟的权利集：②对人力资本专用性投资的计量，包括对入力资本专用性投资程度的计量和对人力资本专用性投资绩效的计量。如果不能克服进入权的机会性所引致的不确定．它很可能只是一种可用于指导公司治理实践的思维方式，而不能成为公司治理的理论基础．至少现阶段如此。     

Social management in professional organizations: searching for new impulses

The paper addresses the present interest in human resources management in Dutch professional organizations, primarily in research institutions and engineering firms. The author has used the opportunity afforded by interviews with seven personnel managers to check their experiences with the academic literature on the social policies for professionals. He also benefited from responses of the interviewed persons and five personnel managers of industrial research organizations to his draft paper. After the overview of the policies of the seven organizations, the article looks at theoretical aspects that seem to stick out as essential for a more coherent social policy for professionals.
First, it is concluded that management of human sources is not a hot issue in science and engineering discussions, but the need for it is often mentioned. Career development issues are already discussed in this and other journals, but still seem to be a key problem as there are no simple solutions available. Mid-career issues are acknowledged and new directions for this increasingly important problem are discussed. Job assignment and motivation seem to be essential elements in career development. Management can increase the motivation by offering challenging assignments and opportunities for education and training, even at a later stage in the career of a professional. Some remarks are made about the advantages of the 'dual ladder system' for career development and the system of 'assessment centres' for career development selection of managers.
The article ends with a strong plea for more management interest in the human resources aspect of professional Organizations. A new conference on the subject would be timely.     

Poaching and Firm‐Sponsored Training

A series of seminal papers argues that poaching hampers company‐sponsored general training. Empirically, however, the existence and extent of poaching remain open questions. We provide a novel empirical strategy to identify poaching. We find that only few apprenticeship training firms in Germany are ‘poaching victims’ or ‘poaching raiders’. Victims are more likely to be in a temporary downturn and raiders are more likely to be growing. Victims hardly change their training strategy after poaching and poaching seems be a transitory event. This is an important result for countries that intend to introduce apprenticeship‐type training and need to convince firms to participate in training.     

R&D professionals' reactions to the career plateau: Mediating effects of supervisory behaviours and job characteristics

A career plateau is defined as that point in a person's career which represents a cessation of both lateral and upward movement between jobs. The present study elaborates the idea that a fuller understanding of individual reactions to the career plateau can be achieved by considering supervisory behaviours and job characteristics as variables transmitting the influence of career plateauing to behavioural and attitudinal reaction measures. It is suggested that supervisors invest less attention and resources in plateaued employees and that plateaued employees are assigned to jobs with less motivating potential. Analyses of questionnaire data from 618 R&D professionals in 11 large West German firms show that there are significant differences between plateaued R&D professionals (i. e. those subjects with at least 10 years of job tenure) and a nonplateaued comparison group (i. e. respondents with not more than 6 years of job tenure) controlling for age as a potential confounding influence. Specifically, plateaued R&D professionals indicate less working hours, to be less satisfied with their career and their work, to be less involved in their work, and they tend to produce less publications and patents per year of company tenure. Furthermore, considerable differences are found between one's immediate supervisor's behaviours (e. g. provision of job-related performance feedback) reported by plateaued professionals and their non-plateaued counterparts. However, even after controlling the mediating effects of supervisory behaviours and job characteristics variables plateauing still had a small, but significant detrimental effect on 3 out of 6 reaction measures. Implications are outlined for organizational career management activities.     

The Revival of Apprenticeship Training in Britain?

This article examines the attempt to revive apprenticeship training in Britain in the 1990s in the form of the Modern Apprenticeship. Drawing on historical and comparative examples, it puts this attempt into a broader context. The design of the Modern Apprenticeship is assessed and the operation in practice is evaluated. While some optimistic conclusions are drawn, there are worries in terms of the quantity and quality of training under the initiative. The Modern Apprenticeship is seen as being probably the last opportunity in Britain to revive the employment-based route to initial training.     

The Survival of Apprenticeship Training: A British, American, Australian Comparison

This paper examines the development of apprenticeship training in three English-speaking countries where apprenticeship has fared very differently. It declined at an early date in the USA in most sectors of the economy; it survived intact in Britain well into the post-Second World War period; and it has survived relatively strongly in Australia up to the present day. The reasons for decline and survival are examined and an explanation is proferred in terms of the interaction between the institutional supports and the ability and need felt by employers to sustain the system.     

Changes in IR Programs Since the Mid-Sixties

An up-date of a 1967 study of industrial relations programs reveals that they are increasingly being integrated into traditional academic units. Both undergraduate and graduate degree programs have increased and most are housed in an academic department. The content of degree programs is shifting from collective bargaining to human resources management.     

Explaining alliance success: Competences, resources, relational factors, and resource-advantage theory

Business alliances, by filling critical resource gaps, enable firms to have positional advantages that lead to superior financial performance. Some alliances, however, are more successful than others. The three prominent theoretical approaches to explaining alliance success rely on resources, competences, and relational factors. The authors theorize that the three approaches are interdependent and, using resource-advantage (R-A) theory as a framework, develop an integrative model. This model proposes that the three approaches are linked by means of relationships among (1) alliance competence, (2) complementary resources, (3) idiosyncratic resources, and (4) cooperation. A test of the model, using a sample of alliance professionals, finds support for the theory that the three approaches are, indeed, interdependent and that resources, construed in the manner of R-A theory, influence alliance success through positional advantage.     

基于关键资源视角的垂直网络组织及治理机制

当企业生产所需关键资源需专属关系投资,且这些资源的可转移性又是有限的,及所需的中间投入品具有高度不确定性等特征时,产业链上经济活动的组织出现了一种不同于企业和市场的治理结构:垂直网络组织。它是由产业链上服务于既定任务的企业群体所形成的一个组织集。在垂直网络组织结构中,有一个企业扮演集成者的角色,一方面,通过关系权力对与它有直接(和或间接)的关系进行配置和组织;另一方面,通过关系租金激励其他成员进行专属关系投资,降低交易费用,提升产业链竞争力。集成者的重要功能是产品定义和设置交易关系、关系内容和空间区位等多层次治理机制来对嵌入于产业链上主体间的交易结构进行调适、控制和保护。     

Slack resources,firm performance,and the institutional context: Evidence from privately held European firms

Research summary : Integrating the behavioral and institutional perspectives, we propose that a country's formal institutions, particularly its legal frameworks, affect managers' deployment of slack resources. Specifically, we explore the moderating effects of creditor and employee rights on the performance effects of slack. Using longitudinal data from 162,633 European private firms in 26 countries, we find that financial slack enhances firm performance at diminishing rates, whereas human resource (HR) slack lowers performance at diminishing rates. However, financial slack has a more positive effect on firm performance in countries with weaker creditor rights, whereas HR slack has a more negative effect on performance in countries with stronger employee rights. The results provide a richer view of the relationship between slack and firm performance than currently assumed in the literature. Managerial summary : A key dilemma managers often encounter is whether, on the one hand, they should build in excess resources to buffer their firms from internal and external shocks and to pursue new opportunities or whether, on the other hand, they should develop “lean” firms. Our study suggests that excess cash resources—which are usually viewed as easy to redeploy—benefit firm performance, especially when firms operate in countries with weaker creditor rights. However, excess human resources—which are usually viewed as more difficult to redeploy—hamper firm performance, particularly when firms operate in countries with stronger labor protection laws. Thus, the management of slack resources critically depends on the characteristics of these resources (e.g., redeployability) and the institutional context in which managers operate. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Carving up the commons—emergence of a new international regime for germplasm development and transfer

No nation has ever fabricated or maintained a prosperous food system based on genetic resources of purely indigenous origin. Remarkably, many countries now seem ready and almost eager to try such an approach. We identify four separate components of an emerging regime that are interacting in ways that should worry everyone concerned with the development and transfer of plant genetic materials into the South: new provisions on intellectual property; increased concentration of new enabling technologies into a few large multinational companies; heightened anxieties over transgenic crops; and new problems arising from international agreements. We argue that the solutions now being discussed in global forums are either infeasible, incomplete, or are likely to have seriously negative effects. We call instead for creative new thinking on building human capacity in developing countries, on the legal status of plant genetic resources, and on public−private partnerships, especially those in service of the poor.     

浅析战略人力资源管理

本文从企业发展与人力资源管理的关系出发,分析战略人力资源管理的概念和特点,充分肯定战略人力资源管理在现代企业发展中的地位和优势,对于企业的发展和创新具有指导意义。     

人本管理的核心——激励

以人为本是现代人力资源管理的本质要求 ,因此 ,人本管理成为现代人力资源管理的最明显的特征。实现人本管理的途径有很多 ,而激励是最重要的手段 ,是人本管理的核心。     

Implementing an exemplar-based approach in an interaction design subject: enhancing students’ awareness of the need to be creative

In higher education effective teaching includes making learning goals and standards clear to students. In architecture and design education in particular, goals and standards around assessment are often not well articulated. There is good evidence that when teachers engage students before an assessment in marking exemplars, and explain why the exemplars received the grades they did, students’ performance in their written assessment is consequently enhanced. However some teachers are concerned that exemplars may discourage students from being creative; this concern is particularly important in design education. In this small-scale mixed methods study we explore interaction design students’ perceptions of the effect of an exemplar-based teaching approach on their work in a design task. Our quantitative and qualitative results show that students developed their understanding of task criteria and standards; far from discouraging their creativity, most students perceived that their experience of the approach enhanced their awareness of the need to produce an original design. The exemplar-based approach used in this study complements the studio-based teaching approach in design education, and helps to make clear the design goals and standards that teachers expect their students to strive for.