基于营销视角的大学生就业“产品策略”初探

在严峻的就业形势下,当代大学生毕业面临着如何把自己"推销"出去,找到适合自己工作的难题。文中将大学生作为社会的"特殊商品",着重从产品策略出发,研究大学生这种"特殊商品"如何在市场上建立核心竞争力,以便于在激烈的竞争中具有自身的不可替代性优势。     

Skills for managing human resources in a complex environment: the perceptions of human resource managers in Singapore

This paper analyses some of the difficulties that human resource (HR) managers have in responding to problems of labour turnover and labour shortages.It provides a brief overview of the complex environments in which Singaporean HR managers operate. This paper suggests that, when the roles of management and personnel are ambiguous or when there is tremendous change, line managers and executives take over some of the functions of HR managers, a practice which is seen as a problem for HR managers. However, content analysis of interviews with HR managers shows that this encroachment becomes a problem only when the HR managers lack the skills necessary to perform their duties competently. Thus, it is suggested that HR managers should adopt an HRM approach which focuses on roles and skills necessary to manage ambiguity. In this respect, a more inclusive model should involve roles such as: reconciliation, recruitment and retention, employee relations, planning and internal management.     

Flexible work arrangements in Greece: a study of employee perceptions

The purpose of this study is twofold: first, to explore factors that affect employees' perceptions towards flexible work options; second, to examine whether the perceived benefits and barriers associated with work flexibility predict one's decision to participate in flexible work arrangements or not. A total of 362 Greek employees participated in the study to determine their attitudes towards flexible work practices. Univariate analyses of variance and logistic regression analysis were conducted with the aim of exploring the research hypotheses. It is found that attitudes towards flexible work options are dependent on gender, sector of employment and prior participation in a flexible work scheme. In general, women, public sector employees and employees who have participated in flexible work arrangements are more likely to perceive more benefits and fewer costs with regard to the use of work flexibility. Further analysis provided evidence that work–life balance benefits are stronger predictors of participation in flexible work practices. These findings suggest that employee-centred organisations that view flexibility as a valuable management tool, should deal with specific barriers that discourage people from taking up flexible work arrangements. Given the dearth of empirical research on work flexibility in Greece, the findings of this study provide the wider academic community with new insights on employees' perceptions of flexible work options.     

Core processes and applicant reactions to the employment interview: an exploratory study in Greece

This research explores the employment interview in Greece with two aims: first, to look at the practice of the employment interview from the interviewer perspective, exploring a number of issues, which have been identified as important for increasing interview's effectiveness and second, to look at the role of interviewers' characteristics on applicant reactions and their behavioral intentions to the actual interview, using two independent samples of interviewers (N = 131) and actual job applicants (N = 122), respectively. The results of the first study were quite supportive regarding the effective use of the employment interview in Greece. In the second study, interviewers' personal characteristics were related to applicants' post-interview attitudes and intentions, although this relationship was fully mediated by the overall perception of the interview held by the job applicant. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Mutation of HRM practices in Russia: an application of CRANET methodology

This article describes the challenges facing established practices and patterns of human resource management (HRM) during the economic recession. It is based on the results of the CRANET survey, administered in Russia in the third quarter of 2008, on the 2008 CRANET data available for Bulgaria and on survey of companies' executives, implemented in the first half of 2010. We found that Russian HRM practices that are based on low formalization of performance assessment, great versatility of payment arrangements, and high flexibility of working and contractual arrangements enabled companies to adapt to the recession conditions without massive layoffs.     

The use of flexible employment arrangements: some new evidence from Greek firms

The present study attempts an examination of the extent to which Greek firms use flexible employment arrangements, the kind of jobs in which they are used and the factors affecting their use. It concentrates on three types of flexible work: temporary workers, independent contractors and subcontractors. Drawing upon data from a sample of seventy-five companies, it identifies factors affecting: a) firm's decision to use flexible forms of work or not and b) the percentage of flexible workers used.

The main findings indicate that different types of flexible worker are used by the same firm for the accomplishment of different kinds of job and are affected by different factors. Training costs and monitoring problems appear to be the most influential factors explaining the use of temporary workers, while low frequency of specialized tasks is the main factor affecting the use of independent contractors and often the recourse to subcontractors. Results from the Greek national context would add to existing evidence on this important issue.     

Performance appraisal,employee development and organizational justice: exploring the linkages

Much has been written about performance appraisal (PA) in such a manner as to suggest that the process is politically driven, even though one of its primary purposes is said to be the development of the individual employee. Our examination of a cross-section of workers' perceptions of this process was therefore motivated by the need to determine whether they believed that they experienced fair outcomes from PA, and whether its usage was seen to contribute toward their career advancement.

Given the role unions are expected to play in shaping human resource outcomes, we hypothesized that workers in the non-union environment would experience lower levels of procedural and interactional justice than their trade-union counterparts. We also hypothesized that, since unions might be asked to walk a tightrope in contesting PA decisions affecting different persons who were union members, employers would be able to exercise much discretion in making those decisions, with the result that there would not be any appreciable difference in justice perceptions between union member and non-union member. A third hypothesis that informed the research was that workers' perceptions about the treatment received from performance appraisal were likely to influence their expectations regarding career advancement, as expressed through opportunities for training and development, pay for performance and promotions.

No significant differences in perception were found among union and non-union respondents' perceptions about the vast majority of procedural elements used in this study. Contrary to our hypothesis, non-union respondents expressed less unfavourable perceptions about the interactional elements than their trade-union counterparts. The results confirmed the hypothesis that workers who believed that performers were not treated fairly as a result of performance appraisal would also agree that their expectations regarding development and advancement were not being met. We found significant, but relatively moderate relationships between perceptions about treatment of performers and their expectations about career advancement.     

‘Breaking the ICE’: workplace democracy in a modernized social Europe

The EU seeks to improve its labour market performance through implementing the Lisbon and European Employment Strategies which encourage the modernization of work organization through the development of partnership with the assistance of an ‘appropriate’ regulatory framework. Key aspects of this latter framework concern workers' rights regarding information, consultation and participation in corporate governance. European labour laws, introduced in the 1970s, sought to strengthen employers' consultation with their workforce and, more recently, the changing economic, technological and organizational environment has returned issues related to workplace democracy to the top of the social policy agenda. Here we evaluate the significance of the new Directive on Information and Consultation with Employees (ICE) within the context of this planned modernization of European social policy. In doing so, we re-examine the historical development of workers' consultation laws in Europe and assess the economic rationale for regulating workplace social dialogue in an enlarged Social Europe.     

Learning from the alien: knowledge relationships with temporary workers in network contexts

This paper contributes to our understanding of the role of temporary workers in learning for innovation in network contexts. The strategy literature advocates that the knowledge and talent of workers is vital to competitive success yet at the same time temporary workers are becoming more prevalent, making relationships with workers more ephemeral. These shifting competitive and employment contexts make insights into learning from, and with, contractual nomads paramount. The setting is the UK television industry, where such workers are dominant. Internationally, creative industries are a prime site of networks where temporary workers are brought together for specific projects. In the television industry, a range of knowledge attachment employee relationships have been developed by firms to ‘contain’ and sustain worker contributions in terms of knowledge and talent. These relationships are identified as freelance, regular contract, golden handcuffs and invest in knowledge firm. This paper highlights the learning implications both positive and negative arising from these different ways of relating to temporary workers thereby extending our understanding of employee relationships built on mutuality.     

A relational framework for international transfer of diversity management practices

The aim of this paper is to propose that a relational framework, which is underpinned by a contextual and multilevel conceptualisation of diversity management, can help international transfer of diversity management policies and practices. We argue that the mainstream single-level conceptualisations of diversity management within the territory of legal or organisational policy fail to capture the relational interplay of structural- and agentic-level concerns of equality. Consequently, individual choices, organisational processes, and structural conditions – all of which collectively account for unrelenting power disparity and disadvantage within social and employment contexts – remain generally under explored. The paper proposes a relational framework that bridges the divide between macro-national, meso-organisational and micro-individual levels of analyses to arrive at a more comprehensive, realistic and context-specific framing of diversity management, which can overcome the difficulties of international transfer.