A layered model of organizations: Communication processes and performance

Modeling organizations is most useful for predicting the outcome of decisions and courses of action. However, the tendency has been to view an organization too narrowly, thus overlooking critical variables. For example, financial models are based on abstract indicators and do not adequately describe human factors. This article offers a five‐layer, multidisciplinary model, where each layer defines units of analysis and subsystem boundaries. The layers (behavior‐motion, activity, process‐procedure, function, mission) define arenas of practical action, ranging from individuals’ moment‐by‐moment behaviors, such as making telephone calls, to broad policy decisions and functional structure of organizations.     

党务工作者如何做好职工的思想政治工作

加强职工的思想政治教育,是推进企业改革发展的重要措施,也是顺应市场经济发展的必然选择.在新的形势下,如何做好职工的思想政治工作,是我们党务工作者工作中的重中之重.     

Young people living as couples: How women's labour supply is adapting to the crisis. Spain as a case study

In this paper, we focus on the effects of the Great Recession on the decisions of young women regarding their labour supply. Considering the profound effect of the economic recession on the Spanish labour market, and in particular on the labour supply of young people, the focus of the empirical part of this paper is on Spain. Using EU-SILC 2007 and 2012 micro data for Spain, the labour supply models of women are estimated by age group, with a particular focus on the 20 to 29 and 30 to 39 age bands, in order to establish how young women living in couples exhibit different labour supply propensities according to their partner's labour market status. Correction is made for the non-random selection of women living in couples in the younger age groups. This first analytical step reveals a negative effect on the likelihood of forming a new household in the context of precarious employment conditions. Analytical results regarding the labour supply of women by age group confirmed a discouraging effect of young children on the labour supply of the youngest mothers, as well as a positive effect from being the owner of a house purchased under mortgage.The literature shows that different effects can be at work within the crisis: an added worker effect (AWE), which is countercyclical labour supply behaviour involving an increase in individual labour supply in response to transitory shocks in the partner's earnings, and a procyclical discouraged worker effect. The resulting estimations of the present study suggest an AWE in 2012 for young women living in couples. While in 2012 the discouragement effect was only prevalent for women over 40, in 2007 it was also prevalent among younger women. Women's higher propensity to enter the labour market when their partner becomes unemployed or is persistently unemployed, coupled with their likelihood to be inactive in the presence of young children, would suggest a need for labour market policies targeted towards young women. Childcare facilities could mitigate the latter effect and produce a more continuous work profile, avoiding the negative effects of work experience interruptions on labour supply during the female lifecycle.     

简析农村人口流动对农民工政治参与的影响

改革开放以来,社会流动对我国社会阶层的调整产生了重要影响。在这个特殊的社会转型时期,我国的农民工政治参与状况对社会和谐产生了重要影响。本文就将从农村社会流动的角度入手,阐明农村人口流动对于农民工政治参与的影响。     

企业危机中的职工思想状况调研与对策思考

金融危机对钢铁企业的冲击远超出其他实体，危机对职工思想情绪影响很大。以湘钢为调研对象，分析了职工思想情绪产生的原因，企业的对策措施。在此基础上，提出了三点值得深入思考的问题。     

社区工作者职业化探索

社区工作者是指专业从事社区工作,以社区工作为职业的人员,目前社区居民的文化素质、知识理念越高的要求,社区工作者文化水平、综合能力、知识结构要有更大的提高,要不断拓宽知识面,更新知识,补充技能,增长才干,使学有所成、用有所长、做有所为,满足社区居民的需求。现阶段的社区工作者更强调必须具有社区工作专业教育背景,以社区工作为职业。     

论农民工的廉价工资

农民工的工资之所以低廉,主要是因为农民工所具有的双重经济地位决定了其工资构成,它既不包括维持其家属生存所必需的生活资料的价值,又不包括其自身受教育和训练的费用,农民工的工资几乎就是维持其自身生存所必需的生活资料的价值。     

The perceived effectiveness of democratic management,job performance,and citizenship behavior: evidence from a large Chinese state-owned petrochemical company

Democratic management, a unique union-based form of employee participation in China, is seldom studied in the employee participation literature. This paper investigates the associations between employees’ perceived democratic management effectiveness, employee job performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), using 988 matching surveys of both workers and their supervisors in a state-owned petrochemical firm from the central region of China. We find that our measure of an employee’s perception of democratic management effectiveness is positively associated with an employee’s job performance and organizational citizenship behavior. However, the association between perceived democratic management effectiveness and employee performance is negative if the employee is a dispatch worker. Our interpretation of the findings suggests that an employee’s perception of democratic management effectiveness is a source of employee performance.     

Long-term unemployment and labour force participation: a decomposition of unemployment to test for the discouragement and added worker hypotheses

We sharpen tests for ‘discouragement’ and ‘added worker’ effects by splitting the explanatory variable – the unemployment rate – into a short-term component and a long-term component. While short-term unemployment (STU) might not result in additional workers on a large scale, long-term unemployment (LTU) reduces household income more, increasing the need for additional income. On the other hand, it may discourage older workers for psychological and sociological reasons. Applying our model to the German labour market, these hypotheses could be confirmed. Even for men, about whom only a few empirical studies on this issue are available, distinguishing between STU and LTU reveals added worker as well as discouragement effects.     

Trade Competitiveness and Employment: Job Creation or Job Destruction

This paper empirically examines the impact of fluctuations in international trade competitiveness on employment in the UK manufacturing sector over the period 1999–2010. We find statistically significant but economically small effects of a shock to international trade competitiveness on the level of employment. Our results show that the adjustment process in employment mainly works through job creation. We also find that compared to large firms, small firms contribute more toward job creation than job destruction. Our results that changes in GDP growth rate and average wages are significantly related to employment suggest that the UK labour market significantly responds to market forces. Finally, we find that the effect of changes in the real exchange rate on both job creation and job destruction differs between exporting and non-exporting firms.