Trade union recruitment strategies: facing the 1990s

Despite a high level of initiatives few unions have developed systematic recruitment strategies, in particular when measured against three key criteria-the employment of a ‘dedicated’ national official; a specific budget; and a comprehensive monitoring system. This reflects an organisational ‘culture’ restricting recruitment potential.     

Testing measurement invariance using multigroup CFA: differences between educational groups in human values measurement

This article applies the testing procedures for measurement invariance using multigroup confirmatory factor analysis (MGCFA). It illustrates these procedures by investigating the factorial structure and invariance of the Portraits Value Questionnaire (PVQ, Schwartz et al.: J. Cross Cult. Psychol. 32(5), 519–542 (2001)) across three education groups in a population sample (N  =  1,677). The PVQ measures 10 basic values that Schwartz postulates to comprehensively describe the human values recognized in all societies (achievement, hedonism, self-direction, benevolence, conformity, security, stimulation, power, tradition and universalism). We also estimate and compare the latent means of the three education groups. The analyses show partial invariance for most of the 10 values and parameters. As expected, the latent means show that less educated respondents attribute more importance to security, tradition, and conformity values.     

Sample bias in contingent valuation: A comparison of the correction methods

Abstract

This article compares various methods for correcting contingent valuation aggregate benefits when the sample is known to be biased. A sample is defined as the population, and response rates are simulated on the basis of a measure of salience. The simulated response rates suffer from nonresponse bias and selection bias. Coefficient and benefit estimates that result from weighting and self‐selection correction approaches are compared with the true coefficient and benefit estimates. Our results indicate that at both low and high response rates the standard approach leads to bias, and either correction approach will reduce the bias in coefficient and benefit estimates.     

Hard and Disappearing Work: Making Sense of the Leisure Project

Situated at a point of critical intersection between leisure and labour, ancient athletics was in the most essential respects just as complex and ‘modern’ as its contemporary counterpart and can thus benefit from the methods of contemporary sport sociology, which can in turn find in ancient Greece a useful comparandum. As with contemporary sport, athletic pursuits must be situated within the broader economy of leisure in ancient Greece. However, a process of professionalisation gradually developed during the fifth century bce, turning athletics into what was arguably a form of labour. While many continued to derive their pedigree from the elite ‘leisure class’ that almost exclusively dominated the sixth century athletics, a growing number came from less‐distinguished families, their inclusion rendered possible by the construction of public gymnasia, private patronage, cash prizes for victory and other forms of social advancement. Some scholars have pointed to this development as an index of democratisation, but I will argue that it was actually a continuation of elite hegemony by appropriation of the commercial and artisanal classes, parallel to what can be observed in the expansion of athletic participation in the late nineteenth century. Along with expanding the talent pool, the pressure to produce the best athletes for inter‐state competition led to a professionalisation and broadening of athletic training: originally informal and paederastic, it eventually became institutionalised and regulated by the state. Extension of elite privilege to a few successful athletes ultimately served to confirm the Panhellenic prestige and thus also the domestic power of each city’s hegemonic class.     

Job Anxiety,Work‐Related Psychological Illness and Workplace Performance

This article uses matched employee–employer data from the British Workplace Employment Relations Survey to examine the relationship between employee psychological health and workplace performance in 2004 and 2011. Using two measures of work‐related psychological health — namely employee‐reported job anxiety and manager‐reported workforce stress, depression and anxiety — we find a positive relationship between psychological ill‐health and absence, but not quits. The association between psychological ill‐health and labour productivity is less clear, with estimates sensitive to sector, time period and the measure of psychological health. The 2004–2011 panel is further used to explore the extent to which change in psychological health is related to change in performance.