New Eurostars? The labour market incorporation of East European professionals in London.

Professional and graduate mobility represents an increasing component of international migration streams due to the globalisation of markets, the expansion of the knowledge economy, and the global competition for talent. While in the last twenty years considerable attention was given to East-West mobility flows within Europe, little research has been done on mobile professionals' and graduates' occupational attainment abroad. In the thesis I analyse the social organisation of professional mobility, focusing on the determinants of mobility, the destination choice, and the job-seeking practices of East European professionals and graduates in London. Several bodies of literature deliver the conceptual basis for this research. Applying an economic sociological framework, I rely on three major currents among the theoretical approaches to migration and mobility: human capital, global cities and labour market segmentation theories. I use quantitative and qualitative techniques to analyse primary and secondary data, including an online survey and semi-structured interviews with Hungarian and Romanian professionals and graduates working in London, and London-based employers of East European graduates, as well as official statistics. While aiming to question the atomised economic individualism associated with well-educated migrants and to draw the profile of the potentially new 'Eurostars', the thesis reaches four main conclusions. First, I emphasise the need to investigate the social process leading to labour market incorporation of foreign professionals from a transnational perspective. I argue that the social structures and institutions at both destination and origin influence immigrants' labour market positions at destination. Second, I have found that mobility decisions are shaped by individual perceptions of relative deprivation when comparing their own social and occupational positions to the ones of members of groups they consider referential. Third, social ties act as centrifugal forces in sending professionals and graduates to either the top or the bottom of the occupational hierarchies at destination. Typically, however, professional and graduate mobility is a market-dependent phenomenon, influenced less by the existence of social ties, more by the supply and demand on the global labour, education and migration policy markets. These social institutions, together with social networks and migrants' self-selection contribute to the creation of labour market segments at destination. Finally, the thesis challenges the idea that the international transfer of human capital is a seamless process. Instead, I argue that it is the social aspects of human capital creation, transfer and appreciation which shape to a great extent what is socially recognised as being 'skilled' or 'highly qualified'. Being 'highly skilled' is an outcome of negotiations between employers and migrants on the socially constituted labour markets around the value and the value-attached significance of employable human capital

Technological change, polarization and inequality

Die vorliegende Dissertation umfasst vier Essays, in denen die Rolle von technologischem Fortschritt für die Beschäftigungs- und Lohnentwicklung in Deutschland in den vergangenen 30 Jahren untersucht wird. Die empirische Analyse nutzt die räumliche Variation in der Verteilung der Beschäftigungsanteile von Routinetätigkeiten, die durch Informationstechnologien substituierbar sind. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass Arbeitsmärkte, die besonders durch Automatisierung betroffen sind, eine stärkere Polarisierung der Berufsstruktur zwischen 1979 und 2006 erfahren haben, d.h. eine Verschiebung der Beschäftigung von Routineberufen (Büro- und Produktionsberufe) hin zu kognitiven und manuellen Nicht-Routineberufen (Fach- und Führungskräfte bzw. Dienstleistungsberufe). Aufbauend auf diesen Ergebnissen zeigt der zweite Aufsatz, dass technologischer Fortschritt positiv zu intra- und interregionaler Lohnungleichheit beiträgt. Der dritte Aufsatz untersucht die Wechselwirkung zwischen dem durch technologischen Wandel getriebenen Beschäftigungsanstieg am unteren Ende der Lohnverteilung und Beschäftigungschancen von Arbeitnehmern mit Migrationshintergrund. Die Ergebnisse stehen im Einklang mit der Hypothese, dass der technologisch bedingte Rückgang in der Nachfrage nach Routinetätigkeiten und die damit verbundene Reallokation in Berufe mit geringem Qualifikationslevel zu einem Anstieg des Wettbewerbsdrucks im Niedriglohnsektor führt, in dem ausländische Arbeitnehmer oftmals Beschäftigung finden. Der vierte Aufsatz beschäftigt sich mit der langfristigen Entwicklung der Zeitarbeit in den regionalen Arbeitsmärkten in Deutschland in den vergangenen 30 Jahren und zeigt, dass die anfängliche Verteilung der Beschäftigungsanteile für manuelle Nicht-Routinetätigkeiten und insbesondere für Routinetätigkeiten eine starke Vorhersagekraft für das regionale Beschäftigungswachstum von Zeitarbeit in Deutschland besitzt.This thesis studies the role of technological change as a determinant of employment and wage trends in Germany over the past 30 years. The econometric analysis exploits spatial variation in the exposure to technological progress which arises due to initial regional specialization in routine task-intensive activities. The empirical evidence suggests that the occupational structure of labor markets that were particularly susceptible to technological change has polarized, as employment shifted from middle-skilled routine clerical and production occupations not only to high-paying professional occupations but also to low-paying service and construction occupations. Building on these results, the second essay explores whether and to what extent increasing labor market inequality within and across regions is driven by technological change and establishes a positive link between intra-regional wage inequality and computerization. Because of substantial variation in the degree of technology exposure across German regions, technological change can also in part explain rising inter-regional wage inequality. The third essay investigates the interaction between polarization in the native labor market and employment opportunities of immigrant workers in Germany. The findings are consistent with a technology induced reallocation of labor from middle-paying routine tasks towards lower-paying non-routine manual tasks inducing additional competitive pressure in this labor market segment in which immigrant workers are typically employed. Finally, the fourth essay provides an empirical analysis of the diverging patterns of employment in temporary help services across labor markets in Germany over the last 30 years. The differential growth pattern both at the level of occupations and across regional labor markets are found to be related to the initial intensity of routine and non-routine manual tasks

Competition and Cooperation in Economics and Business

Asia and the Pacific have become the growth engine of the world economy with the contribution of two-third of the global growth. The book discusses current issues in economics, business, and accounting in which economic agents, as individuals, entrepreneurs and professionals, as well as countries in the Asia and Pacific regions compete and collaborate with each other and with the rest of the globe. Areas covered in the book include economic development and sustainability, labor market competition, Islamic economic and business, marketing, finance, accounting standard compliances, and taxation. It will help shed light on what business and economic scholars in regions have done in terms of research and knowledge development, as well as the new frontiers of research that have been explored and opening up

Black Applicants, Black Employees, and Urban Labor Market Policy

In this paper, I use data from a new survey of employers in four large metropolitan areas to analyze the flow of black applicants to different kinds of employers and the extent to which these applicants are hired. The results show that less-educated black workers apply less frequently for jobs in the suburbs than in central cities, especially at smaller establishments. Their lower tendency to apply for suburban jobs is mostly accounted for by the higher costs to central-city black residents of applying there, and by lower information flows as well. Black applicants, especially less-educated black males, are also less likely to be hired at suburban establishments, particularly where they must deal with white customers. These results suggest the need for policies to reduce the costs of applying for suburban jobs and to improve the flow of information about suburban employment prospects to less-educated blacks, and perhaps a need to complement such policies with more effective enforcement of antidiscrimination laws in small suburban establishments.

A Framework for Explaining Accounting Students’ Formal Communication GAP

This paper introduces a framework that explains how innovations in communication technology have affected students’ communication skills. Our framework suggests that new communication mediums have reduced students’ exposure to contexts requiring formal communication and increased students’ exposure to contexts utilizing informal communication. As a result, today’s accounting students have less formal communication experience, thus less developed formal communication skills than their predecessors. To mitigate this communication gap, we discuss adapting the accounting classroom to familiarize, hone, and instill formal communication skills

Competition and Cooperation in Economics and Business

Asia and the Pacific have become the growth engine of the world economy with the contribution of two-third of the global growth. The book discusses current issues in economics, business, and accounting in which economic agents, as individuals, entrepreneurs and professionals, as well as countries in the Asia and Pacific regions compete and collaborate with each other and with the rest of the globe. Areas covered in the book include economic development and sustainability, labor market competition, Islamic economic and business, marketing, finance, accounting standard compliances, and taxation. It will help shed light on what business and economic scholars in regions have done in terms of research and knowledge development, as well as the new frontiers of research that have been explored and opening up

Gender in Agriculture Sourcebook

The purpose of the Sourcebook is to act as a guide for practitioners and technical staff in addressing gender issues and integrating gender-responsive actions in the design and implementation of agricultural projects and programs. It speaks not with gender specialists on how to improve their skills but rather reaches out to technical experts to guide them in thinking through how to integrate gender dimensions into their operations. The Sourcebook aims to deliver practical advice, guidelines, principles, and descriptions and illustrations of approaches that have worked so far to achieve the goal of effective gender mainstreaming in the agricultural operations of development agencies. It captures and expands the main messages of the World Development Report 2008: Agriculture for Development and is considered an important tool to facilitate the operationalization and implementation of the report's key principles on gender equality and women's empowerment

Factors Influencing Customer Satisfaction towards E-shopping in Malaysia

Online shopping or e-shopping has changed the world of business and quite a few people have decided to work with these features. What their primary concerns precisely and the responses from the globalisation are the competency of incorporation while doing their businesses. E-shopping has also increased substantially in Malaysia in recent years. The rapid increase in the e-commerce industry in Malaysia has created the demand to emphasize on how to increase customer satisfaction while operating in the e-retailing environment. It is very important that customers are satisfied with the website, or else, they would not return. Therefore, a crucial fact to look into is that companies must ensure that their customers are satisfied with their purchases that are really essential from the ecommerce’s point of view. With is in mind, this study aimed at investigating customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed among students randomly selected from various public and private universities located within Klang valley area. Total 369 questionnaires were returned, out of which 341 questionnaires were found usable for further analysis. Finally, SEM was employed to test the hypotheses. This study found that customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia is to a great extent influenced by ease of use, trust, design of the website, online security and e-service quality. Finally, recommendations and future study direction is provided. Keywords: E-shopping, Customer satisfaction, Trust, Online security, E-service quality, Malaysia