Occupational identity of management accountants in Britain and Germany

The existence of management accounting as an unproblematic occupational label is often taken for granted. Prompted by contemporary discussions concerning radical changes in management accounting practice, we sought to examine the extent to which practitioners' accounts of practice demonstrate a coherent occupational identity. Collecting sixty-four occupational autobiographies in seventeen German and twelve British firms we found that management accountants in the two countries constructed common occupational identities out of their diverse experiences. Echoing the findings of anthropological practice theory, the good practitioner rhetorically reconciled a wide variety of contradictory attributes in their occupational idiom.     

美国、英国、德国三国职业技能标准研究对我国职业技能标准研究的启示

本文通过对我国在校职业教育情况入手,论述了职业技能标准研究的重要性。通过对美国、英国、德国三国对职业技能标准研究、制定和执行情况的研究,给出对我国职业技能标准的启示:(1)设立国家战略层面的行业技能委员会;(2)制定统一的专业人才培养方案专业核心课程框架;(3)统一制定职业技能标准并更新;(4)人力资源和社会保障部负责执行。     

The context of industrial relations in Great Britain and West Germany

Malcolm Warner and Arndt Sorge compare selected manufacturing units matched in products, technology, the task environment, dependence, location and size in Britain and West Germany. Despite the near-identical character of overall tasks according to matched criteria, the analysis clearly reveals industrial relations and organisational diversity between the two nations.     

Occupational change,employer change,internal migration,and earnings

"In this paper I use microdata from the [U.S.] Panel Study of Income Dynamics to measure the financial returns to intercounty and interstate migration for individuals in a temporal framework accounting for gains that accrue over time....To account for the indirect effects of migration on earnings, explanatory variables are created by interacting migration status with: (1) occupational change, (2) employer change and (3) changes in both occupation and employer. These interaction terms are then included in the earnings functions. Earnings are estimated for three years subsequent to the migration decision to account for the financial returns to migration accruing over time. Results indicate that, when estimating earnings, the use of a simple migration dummy variable will mask the indirect effects of migration on earnings."     

Vocational training and new production concepts in Germany: some lessons for Britain

This article shows the pivotal role, played by the German system of vocational education and training, in the emergence of a new manufacturing policy. It offers a critique of recent changes in British training policy and practice and suggests further radical revisions in that area, in order to break out of the vicious circle of low training effort–low technology–low competitiveness.     

The management of an ageing workforce: organisational policies in Germany and Britain

Demographic change as well as pressure from the European Union and national government are forcing organisations to change age‐discriminatory HRM approaches. Based on a qualitative analysis of eight British and German organisations, we found that commitment, scope, coverage and implementation of age management differ due to country‐specific institutions, particularly government, in nudging employers and unions to preferred age practices. This confirms the path dependency concept suggested by institutional theory. Nevertheless, we also found that industry‐specific factors mediate the implementation of age management, leading to some convergence across countries. This indicates that organisations deviate from the institutional path to implement practices that they deem important.     

Advertising expenditure and aggregate consumption in Britain and West Germany: An analysis of causality

This paper surveys past work which attempts to investigate the effects of advertising on the macro-economy, in particular on the allocation of income to consumption expenditure. It is argued that many prior studies aimed at testing this ‘Galbraithian’ hypothesis have suffered from an inability to detect the direction of any causal flows and may have only detected spurious relationships. Here, the relationship is analysed for West Germany and Great Britain, with the use of bivariate time series modelling techniques considered initially by Granger and Newbold. The advantages and disadvantages of using the concept of ‘Granger Causation’ are considered in relation to testing this area of interest. No support is found for the proposition that advertising has a positive causal effect on aggregate consumption in the two countries.     

Occupational pensions and job mobility in Britain: Estimation of a random-effects competing risks model

We analyse transitions between pensionable jobs, non-pensionable jobs, and other labour market states, using the 1988/9 UK Retirement Survey. We focus on the positive association between length of job tenure and pensionable status, allowing for the possibility that pension scheme members are less mobile than other workers because they have persistent unobserved characteristics that predispose them towards a high degree of security in both employment and retirement. We use a competing risks model with state-specific random effects. The model is estimated by simulated maximum likelihood.     

Judicial regimes for employment rights disputes: comparing Germany,Great Britain and Japan

This article compares the judicial regimes for resolving individual employment rights disputes in Germany, Great Britain and Japan. First, we consider the form of institutional change; second, we examine the lay judge's role; and third, we assess the effectiveness of the three judicial regimes. We find that Japan made the least institutional change, layering a new procedure on top of an existing one. Paradoxically, however, its lay judges have a more extensive role than their counterparts in Germany and Britain, which established new institutions. As to effectiveness, there are several criteria. British labour courts are currently the least informal and speedy, but the cheapest. In both Britain and Germany, legal norms are publicised as adjudicatory hearings are open to the public and judgments are available for public scrutiny, unlike in Japan.     

Union status of young men in Britain: a decade of change

Previous empirical studies of individual union status in Britain have been cross‐sectional. In contrast, we use longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study, to estimate the determinants of male trade union membership over the period 1981–1991. As suggested by union theories, we find that it is important to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity, and our preferred model allows for correlation of individual heterogeneity with observable variables. Our estimates reveal that the observed decline in very large workplaces, and the contraction of the public sector, explain about one third of the predicted decline in union membership over the period. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Managerial Sensemaking and Occupational Identities in Britain and Italy: The Role of Management Magazines in the Process of Discursive Construction

Processes of discursive construction in a British and an Italian personnel management magazine are analysed to show the ways in which the magazines, both as genre forms and providers of narratives and discursive resources, provide ‘story boards’ for their readers which are helpful to them when it comes to making sense of the tensions and dilemmas associated with their managerial roles. Tensions and occupational dilemmas generally associated with personnel management work are identified and variations found in the discursive constructions associated with the two magazines are related, with reservations, to cultural and institutional differences between British and Italian human resource management     

Is Germany following the British path? a comparative analysis of stability and change

This article reviews recent developments in industrial relations in Britain and Germany and examines the different adjustments to external influences of an economic, political and social structural kind. It concludes that the higher degree of stability and legitimacy of the German system is partly due to the lesser severity of external challenges and partly to structural characteristics of the two systems.     

Ethnicity and Self-Employment in Britain

This paper investigates the ethnic dimension of self-employment in the British labour market. It examines how both 'push' and 'pull' factors may lead members of non-white, ethnic minority groups to enter self-employment rather than paid-employment. Push factors include discrimination in paid-employment while pull factors refer to minority-specific entrepreneurial opportunities. Data from the General Household Survey and 1991 Census are employed to evaluate the empirical relevance of these issues and to explore differences between ethnic groups. Evidence of both push and pull factors is found.     

Equal pay in Greece and Britain

A number of significant reforms for the improvement of the position of women in Greece ha ve taken place since the restoration of democracy in 1974. After a brief discussion of these changes the author examines their effects on Greek women's pay and compares them with the British case.