Managing the duality of IHRM: unravelling the strategy and perceptions of key actors in South Korean MNCs

This research aims to extend our understanding of the duality between global integration and local responsiveness in multinational corporations (MNCs) by exploring the perceptions of corporate HR actors regarding the intra-organisational factors that alter the balance between these pressures. It examines the perceptions and actions of key actors in the context of two Korean MNCs. The study shows the importance attributed to a range of socio-procedural factors by corporate actors and which, therefore, inform the practical management of the dual forces, notably: HR expertise, social ties, trustworthy relationships and co-involvement in decision processes.     

Discussion of “Nowcasting US GDP: The role of ISM Business Surveys”

This paper discusses the contribution of Lahiri and Monokroussos, published in the current issue of this journal, where they investigate the nowcasting power of ISM Business Surveys for real US GDP. The second part of this note includes some empirical considerations on nowcasting quarterly real GDP by using the monthly PMI index for Switzerland. The results indicate that the Swiss PMI is not leading GDP growth; rather, it is coincident, and its nowcasting power is quite good. The signs of the fitted values mostly correspond to the sign of the actual GDP growth, and the important turning points are identified accurately by the model. This also holds true during the recent crisis.     

Analysis of the practice of job evaluation in the metal industry in Turkey

Job evaluation's main aim is to establish a fair wage structure. Its main principle is ‘equal pay for equal work’. ‘Metal Industry Job Grouping System’ (MIDS) has been in the metal industry in Turkey for more than 20 years. The results of the practice of the system were measured by the Gini coefficient. By the findings, the average wages of the job groups are different enough from each other by their job groups in the way the wage of the bigger number job group is higher than the smaller except the job group two in the industry. However, the wages are far from the principle ‘equal wage for equal job’ within the same job itself. In addition, the workers make use of bonuses and social benefits. The effect of social benefits of them on the wage structure is positive within the same job group and negative between different job groups within the same company. Nevertheless, the effect of both bonuses and social benefits on the wage structure is negative between the companies because, between them they are different from each other. Job group and seniority affect the wage structure. Seniority has a socio-psychological self-producing dynamic. The distribution of seniorities within the same job group has negative effects on the wage structure. However, this fact for each worker disappears for the long term since the worker of today who has short-term seniority will be the one of tomorrow who has long-term seniority. Therefore, for each worker, the wage structure gets closer to the principle ‘equal wage for equal job’ within the same job group itself over time.     

Misconceptions emerging in mathematics student teachers’ limit instruction and their reflections

The purpose of this study is to investigate the misconceptions emerging in mathematics student teachers’ limit instruction and the reflections of these misconceptions on their teaching. In this study, which used the case study design, regarding the limit concept, four senior mathematics student teachers’ four-hour limit instruction was examined within the context of misconceptions as described in the literature. Mathematics student teachers’ lesson plans, video recordings of the participants’ lessons in which they taught the concept of limit and audio recordings of semi-structured interviews were used to gather data. Participants carried their instruction mostly by demonstrating that the function’s limit is different than the function’s value at \(x=a\) . However, since mathematics student teachers did not have adequate knowledge of misconceptions regarding the limit concept, some misconceptions emerged in their teaching process. Three of the participants made illustrations by making use of the meaning attributed to limit in daily language, and this situation caused students to perceive the limit concept as the maximum value to be reached and as a boundary not to be exceeded.