Outsourcing in 18 European countries: The role of worker power

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 481-499
Author(s):  
Fabian Dekker ◽  
Ferry Koster

Most research on outsourcing looks at cost-driven, resource-based or transformational motives to understand outsourcing decisions at the company-level. This article brings in the workers’ perspective, which is a topic that has not been the focus of attention of most previous studies. The article takes cross-national data for 18,264 companies in 18 European economies to examine the role of worker power on outsourcing decisions. According to the results from multilevel logistic analysis and contrary to the authors’ expectations, worker power relates to a higher likelihood of outsourcing. This article concludes with some thoughts on this finding and presents some directions for future research.

Author(s):  
Zuzanna Brzozowska ◽  
Eva Beaujouan

AbstractThe use of fertility intention questions to study individual childbearing behaviour has developed rapidly in recent decades. In Europe, the Generations and Gender Surveys are the main sources of cross-national data on fertility intentions and their realisation. This study investigates how an inconsistent implementation of a question about wanting a child now affects the cross-country comparability of intentions to have a child within the next three years and their realisation. We conduct our analysis separately for women and men at prime and late reproductive ages in Austria, France, Italy and Poland. The results show that the overall share of respondents intending to have a child at some point in their life is similar in all four analysed countries. However, once the time horizon and the degree of certainty of fertility intentions are included, substantial cross-country differences appear, particularly in terms of proceptive behaviour and, consequently, the realisation of fertility intentions. We conclude that the inconsistent questionnaire adaptation makes it very difficult to assess the role of country context in the realisation of childbearing intentions.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-64
Author(s):  
Luz Marcela Hurtado ◽  
Ivan Ortega-Santos

Abstract Our goal is to explore the intersection of two bodies of literature, namely, the one on impersonal constructions with an emphasis on uno ‘one’, and the one on the effect of transitivity and the focus of attention on the distribution of overt vs. null pronouns, where it has been shown that overt pronominal subjects are disfavored in transitive contexts as opposed to intransitive contexts. Through a variationist analysis of the expression of uno in Barranquilla, Colombia, in the PRESSEA-BARRANQUILLA corpus, we extend this line of inquiry to this impersonal pronoun and study in detail for the first time the effect of the various components of transitivity on the distribution of overt pronouns. Specifically, various transitivity parameters put forward by Hopper and Thompson are shown to correctly predict the distribution of uno, namely, number of participants and kinesis whereas sentence polarity, aspect and individuation of the object yield mixed results meriting future research.


1993 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aaron M. Pallas

This review examines the role of schooling in the life course of individuals, focusing on the timing and sequencing of schooling in the transition to adulthood. First, I examine conceptual issues in the study of schooling and the life course, drawing heavily on the sociological literature. I then consider the timing and sequencing of schooling in the transition to adulthood in the United States, and the consequences of variations in the timing and sequencing of schooling for adult social and economic success. I then discuss the role of social structure, norms, and institutional arrangements in the transition to adulthood, with special attention to cross-national comparisons with the U. S. and historical changes within countries. I conclude with speculations regarding trends in the role of schooling in the life course, and some directions for future research on this topic.


Author(s):  
Spyros Kosmidis

The chapter reviews studies and shows evidence related to several aspects of the voting behaviour of Greek citizens, in contrast to other similar and dissimilar democracies. It begins with a historical overview of social cleavages and their role in determining coalitions amongst different segments of the electorate. It continues to evaluate the role of group (i.e. party identification) and class membership by reviewing national and cross-national research. It also shows empirical evidence using the available data sources. The chapter continues with a review of studies looking into the role of economic conditions in shaping vote choices, and aims to identify a future research agenda.


2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 238-251 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefanie Beninger ◽  
Stanley J. Shapiro

The role of local intermediaries in impoverished contexts has been a focus of attention within the marketing and development literature since shortly after WWII. A systematic review of this work reveals that while much of this literature identifies market intermediaries as exploitative and unspecialized entities, other work views them more positively. These conflicting accounts, rarely supported empirically, have resulted in diverging policy recommendations. Many scholars call for the wholesale removal of such intermediaries, while a lesser number argue that they can and should be supported. The dominant view as regards local intermediaries reflects three prevailing biases in the marketing and development literature: an emphasis on transformation; a rejection of the local; and a favouring of consumers and producers over intermediaries. This paper describes these biases and proposes shaping constructs, potential future research questions, theoretical lenses, and methods of analysis that should ideally guide future scholarship on the role of local intermediaries within impoverished contexts.


2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 350-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin Smith

Recent research on separatist nationalism has focused on the most common location of new states in the international system—the postcommunist world. While providing the largest number of cases for exploration, the arguably unique features of the Soviet system may have effects that do not easily translate to other parts of the world. This article reviews a recent set of books that highlights this question, focusing on the legacies of Soviet ethnofederalism in catalyzing secession, separatist war, and nation-state crisis. These books share in common a tendency to deemphasize the historical lineages of separatist nationalism and to focus more proximately on institutions. The article builds on the discussion of recent research by engaging two separate cross-national data sets to explore the role of ethnofederal institutions and of historical legacies. It concludes by arguing for a return to historically situated studies of center-minority conflicts and for greater engagement across regional lines of expertise.


2021 ◽  
pp. 206622032110564
Author(s):  
Linnéa Anna Margareta Österman

This paper offers a unique longitudinal qualitative perspective on a group of women maintaining desisting pathways in two different European countries: Sweden and England. Applying a social and emotional capital framework, with particular attention given to the friend and family connection, the paper aims to unveil how a resource perspective can enable a more nuanced view of the role of overlapping female identities and network management, the paradoxes of trust within these, and experiences of stigmatisation and emotional expenditure in female desistance narratives across time and space. The cross-national perspective brings to light the importance of situating the desistance process in the particular context in which it plays out, making visible how narratives may be structurally mediated by wider social, cultural, penal – and gendered – conditions and processes. These insights may, in turn, contribute to the identification of desistance support that have the potential to make female desistance paths less socially and emotionally costly.


2018 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-270
Author(s):  
Victoria Donu ◽  
Martin Janíčko

Institutional quality is commonly cited as a reason that investment infl ows still vary across European countries, despite their economic stabilization following the tumultuous years in the early 1990s. This article tests empirically whether institutional quality has any bearing on the level of investment infl ows into selected groups of European countries. The role of institutions is assessed using Economic Freedom indices from the Heritage Foundation. We construct a panel dataset from 2000–2015 for 35 European countries to apply a fixed-effects and generalized method of moments model framework in the regression benchmark with the metrics from the Heritage Foundation. Results show that although institutional quality has some impact on the level of investment, it is less significant than expected and far less than suggested by the existing theoretical literature. Macroeconomic fundamentals matter more than do institutional factors.


2000 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 349-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zoran Sušanj

In the last decade there has been a growing emphasis on the role of pro-innovative climate and culture in organizational adaptiveness and overall company success. In spite of the growing interest among scholars and practitioners, there is a lack of cross-national studies that explore innovative climate and culture differences. The present study is an attempt to examine the content of the differences in innovative climate and culture in various European countries. A questionnaire for measuring several organizational climate and culture orientations was used. In the present article, only items from the climate and culture innovation scales are analysed. Data were gathered - in the context of the international FOCUS (First Organizational Climate/Culture Unified Survey) project - from 21 manufacturing organizations in 11 European countries. Discriminant function analysis was used to discover which climate and culture innovation items are the best predictors of differentiation between countries. The results show that the countries from Central and Eastern Europe have a relatively distinct position from the countries with a longer market economy tradition. Some methodological problems of this study, as well as the implications of the results for organizational change and development, are discussed.


2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-286 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Clark

Do parties’ valence characteristics affect their policy strategies? The verdict of the spatial modeling literature on the positioning effects of valence is mixed on this point. Some spatial studies argue that valence-advantaged parties/candidates should moderate their policies, while others argue that they should radicalize their policies. Empirical cross-national work on this issue has been lacking. Using an original measure of valence and party positioning data compiled by the Comparative Manifesto Project, the period 1976–2003 is analyzed in this article for nine West European countries. The findings suggest that as parties’ character-based valence attributes worsen they tend tomoderatetheir Left–Right positions, and there is a notable time lag in parties’ responses to changes in their character-based valence attributes.


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