Wolfgang G. Weber

Financial Participation in Europe-Determinants and Outcomes

This articles objective is to analyse determinants and outcomes of financial participation in Europe. It starts off with a definition of the instruments, a review of the literature in the field of financial participation and a discussion on the relevance of financial participation in selected European countries. Choosing a rather inductive approach, the authors develop a model for financial participation. Based on the Cranfield data, the significance of the variables used in the model is tested. Union density, number of employees, public limited company status, geographical market and policy regarding pay and benefits came out as significant determinants for financial participation at company level. The environment, however, also bears influence. Organizations in Germany, France, Great Britain and Sweden show significantly different practices. Employee share ownership and profit sharing cannot only increase financial performance but also allow for efficient human resource management. Profit sharing increases profits and decreases absenteeism as well as staff turnover. The findings for employee share ownership are not that straightforward.

The "Three Waves" of Industrial Group Work: Historical Reflections on Current Research on Group Work

This paper deals with the three waves of the discourse on group work in social science and industrial practice that have helped pave the way for the current boom in the introduction of group work in companies. These waves are represented by the human relations approach, the sociotechnical systems approach, and the lean management debate. They are reviewed in two perspectives. The first relates to their concepts of work design and group work, following four questions: (a) What emphasis is put on work factors or on subjective orientations, on the design of working conditions or symbolic strategies? (b) How do the various approaches address the relationship between efficiency and control? (c) Which concepts of participation or democracy are involved? (d) How is the role of the social scientist in the process of industrial modernization conceptualized, explicitly or implicitly? The second perspective from a sociology of science relates to the context of production and utilization of social scientific knowledge. In general, two theses are put forward. The first states that a gap exists between the aspirations and reality of group work because the basic conflict of efficiency and control has been overlooked for ideological reasons. The second postulates that there is no linear progress in the theory and practice of group work. It seems that the socioeconomical context determines reasonably which group concept and ideology dominates certain historical phases of industrial modernization.

The relationship between organizational democracy and socio-moral climate: Exploring effects of the ethical context in organizations

A great deal of attention has been devoted recently to the study of the ethical context in organizations. This article refines the concept of socio-moral climate (SCM) and its impact on organizational socialization towards ethics-related behavioural orientations. The authors expand on previous research by focusing also on specific pre-occupational socialization experiences. The empirical research was conducted in northern Italy. Employees from small and medium-sized enterprises with different levels of structurally anchored organizational democracy were surveyed with standardized questionnaire scales. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between structurally anchored organizational democracy, SMC and employees’ attitudes pertaining to prosocial work behaviours, solidarity at work, democratic engagement orientation and organizational commitment. Controlling for pre-occupational socialization experiences, the results provide evidence for a substantial socialization potential linked to structurally anchored organizational democracy and a favourable work environment in terms of SMC.

Psychological evaluation and design of work tasks: two examples

Abstract Practical experience with flexible production automation has provoked rising demands for human oriented job design. Prospective evaluation of work tasks based on status-quo analyses with the psychological instrument VERA, developed for the assessment of the available scope of action in fulfilling the task, has led to design proposals concerning technical and organizational aspects as well as questions of training and retraining. Procedure and results are shown by presenting two case studies dealing with a small flexible manufacturing system and a planned ‘production island’.

Internationalisierung mittelständischer Unternehmen: Organisationsform und Personalmanagement

Fur die Initiierung und finanzielle Forderung des dieser Studie zugrundeliegenden empirischen Projektes zur Auslandsorientierung der deutschen mittelstandischen Wirtschaft durch die Gerhard und Lore Kienbaum Stiftung mochten sich die Autoren herzlich bedanken. Ohne die Gerhard und Lore Kienbaum Stiftung ware eine Durchfuhrung dieses Projektes nicht moglich gewesen.

Internationales Personalmanagement Stand der Forschung, offene Fragen, weitere Entwicklung: Konturen eines Arbeitsgebietes

Das Internationale Personalmanagement hat sich als wichtiges praxisrelevantes und wissenschaftliches Arbeitsgebiet erst in den letzten Jahrzehnten als Folge der Internationalisierung der Wirtschaft mit weltweiten wirtschaftlichen Aktivitaten eines grossen und wachsenden Anteils der Unternehmungen entwickelt. Erste vereinzelte Forschungsergebnisse finden sich bereits in den sechziger Jahren. Beispielhaft seien die Arbeiten von Perlmutter (1965; 1969) fur den franzosisch- bzw. englischsprachigen Raum oder Borrmann (1968) in der deutschen Fachliteratur genannt. Seitdem hat die Zahl der Veroffentlichungen, insbesondere in den achtziger und neunziger Jahren, erheblich zugenommen.1 Mitte der achtziger Jahre stellte Andre Laurent fest, das das Internationale Personalmanagement noch in den Kinderschuhen stekke. Herausforderungen, denen die Disziplin gegenubersteht, umreist er wie folgt: “The challenge faced by the infant field of international human resource management is to solve a multidimensional puzzle located at the crossroad of national and organizational cultures.”2

Examining the link between organizational democracy and employees’ moral development

Abstract While much is understood about the role of the family context and educational experiences for moral development, less attention has been devoted to the occupational context. In this research, we used Kohlberg’s approach of moral education as a framework and investigated the relationship between structurally anchored organizational democracy and employees’ moral development. Employees (N = 285) of five conventional (i.e., traditionally owned and hierarchically managed) and five democratic (i.e., collectively owned and democratically managed) enterprises participated in our study. Consistently with our theoretically derived hypotheses, the results provide initial support for the theoretical model in that employees from democratic firms scored higher on moral development than employees from conventional firms. In turn, contrary to our expectations, the socio-moral climate within organizations failed to explain variance in moral development. Theoretical implications of our findings as well as suggestions for future research are discussed.

The Analysis of Preconditions for the Fostering of Democratic Behavioural Orientations in Business Organizations – The ODEM Questionnaire (POPD)

Is it possible to support the (further) development of democratic and democracy-related orientations through structures and practices of democratic decision-making in business organizations embedded in a capitalistic economy? This is the frame research question of the project series ODEM that is performed within the research centre Psychology of Everyday Activity (PsyAll) and the research platform Organizations and Society (OrgSoc) at the University of Innsbruck.

Das soziomoralische Organisationsklima und Sinnerfüllung in der Arbeit: Erkenntnisse über zwei Gesundheitsressourcen

In diesem Beitrag werden zwei arbeits- und organisationspsychologische Gesundheitsressourcen, Methoden, wie man sie erfasst sowie ihre Zusammenhange mit vorwiegend psychologischen Gesundheitsindikatoren vorgestellt. Das soziomoralische Organisationsklima kann man als diskursiv, partizipativ, wertschatzend und unterstutzend umschreiben, es bildet einen Teilbereich des ethischen Organisationsklimas. Sinnerfullung in der Arbeit bedeutet, dass Arbeitende im Rahmen ihrer Arbeitstatigkeit Bedeutsamkeit, Koharenz, Orientierung und Zugehorigkeit erfahren. Es werden Ergebnisse einer eigenen empirischen Studie (N = 373 abhangig Beschaftigte in Deutschland und Osterreich) vorgestellt, die einen positiven Einfluss des soziomoralischen Klimas auf das Sinnerleben sowie eine uber das berufliche Sinnerleben vermittelte Hemmung emotionaler Erschopfung nahelegen. Auch Erkenntnisse aus internationalen Forschungsuberblicken zur Ressourcenfunktion des spezifischen Ethikklimas in Hinblick auf weitere Gesundheitsindikatoren werden einbezogen.

Introduction: Whither Democracy in Everyday Social Life?

The Innsbruck Working Group Democracy and Social Practicebrings together specialists from business studies, educational sciences, social psychology and political science. It is a working group within the university’s research platform Organizations and Society established in 2009 as a federation between seven existing university research centres and a media studies group from four university faculties, all of which include social science disciplines and specialist fields.