Understanding 'individualization' in human resource management: the case of 'skill-based pay' in France

'Individualization' in personnel practices has long been considered as an essential component of 'modern' human resources management, but the empirical complexities of its definition, implementation and impact within firms have not been analysed in considerable depth. This paper adds to this analysis by reporting on research into one form of individualization - 'skill-based pay' - adopted in different sectors in France. The crucial institutional context for this adoption is explained and then it is shown how different models of skill-based remuneration have emerged as a result of both sectorial contingencies and specific industrial relations processes.     

城市住宅面面观--兼谈住宅个性化

实现小康社会,城市居住需划、建设、管理工作应该改变观念、调整规划、全盘考虑、制度政策,建立一个健全的机制,为国家、城市提供适应不同城域城市、不同城市区域、不同阶层的住房方案.文章还提出实现住宅个性化,改变城市形象的建议.     

The Epistemic Consumption Object and Postsocial Consumption: Expanding Consumer‐Object Theory in Consumer Research

We introduce the concept of the epistemic consumption object. Such consumption objects are characterized by two interrelated features. First, epistemic consumption objects reveal themselves progressively through interaction, observation, use, examination, and evaluation. Such layered revelation is accompanied by an increasing rather than a decline of the object’s complexity. Second, such objects demonstrate a propensity to change their “face‐in‐action” vis‐à‐vis consumers through the continuous addition or subtraction of properties. The epistemic consumption object is materially elusive and this lack of ontological stability turns the object into a continuous knowledge project for consumers. Via this ongoing cycle of revelation and discovery, consumers become attached to the object in intimate and quasi‐social ways. Therefore, the concept of the epistemic consumption object brings the “object” directly into theorizations of consumer‐object relations, extending current theories of relationship, product involvement, and consumption communities. We draw from research with individual online investors to illustrate the theory of the epistemic consumption object.     

Questioning a Courtroom Proof of the Uniqueness of Fingerprints

Forensic scientists or analysts concerned with "individualization" often presume that features such as fingerprint minutia are unique to each individual. In the United States, defendants in criminal cases have been demanding proof of such assumptions. In at least two cases, the government of the United States has successfully relied on an unpublished statistical study prepared specifically for litigation to demonstrate the uniqueness of fingerprints. This article suggests that the study is neither designed nor executed in a way that can show whether an individual's fingerprint impressions are unique.     

The individual vs. the group? Individualization and collectivity among students in collaborative design

The various modes in which individuals relate to the collectivity of a group have been fruitfully explored in research on group dynamics. The present paper applies a phenomenological interview approach to understand how this dynamic relationship plays out among design students in a collaborative design situation. Through deep-interviews with the members of a temporary design group, a number of dimensions for this relationship were uncovered. These individual-group characteristics related to instrumentality of engagement, experience of ambivalence and threat and finally to the process of individualization in which the group enabled an individual “design self”. After having presented the theoretical underpinnings and the empirical results of this study, the paper ends with suggesting a synthesis perspective of the individual-group relation in collaborative design.     

Individualization revisited: global family developments,uncertainty and risk

Abstract

As part of our special issue appreciating the work of Ulrich Beck, this article introduces and rearticulates his concept of individualization for an audience beyond those engaged with sociological theory. It is argued to be the ‘forgotten half’ of Beck’s approach that is in particular need of both restatement and reaffirmation of its contemporary relevance. It does so by firstly contextualizing and explaining its comparatively limited impact before elaborating the stages of the individualizing process and how his key notion of ‘disembedding without re-embedding’ is distinct from traditional sociological understanding of the individualizing dynamic within modernity. Its relevance and utility is then indicated through surveying developments in family and affective relations in China and America, two of Beck’s ideal types of individualization pattern. Both demonstrate a pattern of radical ‘disembedding’, and a conscious and partial ‘re-embedding’ in the case of the ‘neo-traditional’ American middle-class family. Following this, the article suggests a stronger potential connection between the risk and individualization dimensions of his approach than was drawn out by Beck himself, through focusing upon the uncertainty created by disembedding. The uncertainty that follows from individualization suggests precautionary retreat into security and the construction of risk as a means of embodying and managing uncertainty. Recognition of this social dynamic is potentially more useful in understanding risk than the better-known but very general theory of reflexive modernization that is the other half of Beck’s contribution to risk research.     

民法典时代信托融入的路径选择

与“法律融入”相比,信托的“学理融入”并不顺利。但既有的争论因未看到信托的叛逆本质而不尽如人意。罗马法的信托与英美法的信托,都是对既有制度的反叛。这是信托核心的特质： 因其乃是为了更好地实现当事人的个人意图。正因如此,信托的功能性和工具性也得以凸显。信托的融入涉及政策层面和技术层面： 前者要求法律对规避行为更加宽容;后者则应当采取一个二段式的认定方式——财产的独立为信托机制的适用提供可能性;而一经适用,则可以排除物债之辩,以具体化和个案化的方式来维护当事人的真实意思。