The acceptability of layoffs and pay cuts : comparing North America with Germany

"Substantial evidence shows that North Americans are generally more accepting of the market than Europeans and attribute market outcomes to a larger degree to effort or skill. This article discusses the perceived fairness of layoffs and pay cuts in North America and Germany. We expect North Americans to be more accepting of layoffs and pay cuts than Germans and that procedures and conditions under which pay cuts or layoffs occur have a stronger impact on fairness perceptions for Germans than for North Americans. This hypothesis is tested using a quasi-experimental design. The empirical results are in line with our considerations." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))Entlassungen - Akzeptanz, Lohnsenkung - Akzeptanz, institutionelle Faktoren, gesellschaftliche Einstellungen, Gerechtigkeit, soziale Wahrnehmung - internationaler Vergleich, Einkommensunterschied, psychische Faktoren, Arbeitsbeziehungen, soziale Normen, soziale Einstellungen, USA, Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Kanada, Nordamerika, Silicon Valley, Toronto

A screen for round egg mutants in Drosophila identifies tricornered, furry, and misshapen as regulators of egg chamber elongation.

The elongation of tissues and organs during embryonic development results from the coordinate polarization of cell behaviors with respect to the elongation axis. Within the Drosophila melanogaster ovary, initially spherical egg chambers lengthen dramatically as they develop to create the elliptical shape of the mature egg. This morphogenesis depends on an unusual form of planar polarity within the egg chamber's outer epithelial cell layer known as the follicle cells. Disruption of follicle cell planar polarity leads to the production of round rather than elongated eggs; however, the molecular mechanisms that control this tissue organization are poorly understood. Starting from a broadly based forward genetic screen, we have isolated 12 new round egg complementation groups, and have identified four of the mutated genes. In mapping the largest complementation group to the fat2 locus, we unexpectedly discovered a high incidence of cryptic fat2 mutations in the backgrounds of publicly available stocks. Three other complementation groups correspond to the genes encoding the cytoplasmic signaling proteins Tricornered (Trc), Furry (Fry), and Misshapen (Msn). Trc and Fry are known members of an NDR kinase signaling pathway, and as a Ste20-like kinase, Msn may function upstream of Trc. We show that all three proteins are required for follicle cell planar polarity at early stages of egg chamber elongation and that Trc shows a planar polarized distribution at the basal follicle cell surface. These results indicate that this new mutant collection is likely to provide novel insight into the molecular mechanisms controlling follicle cell planar polarity and egg chamber elongation

Probing the qudit depolarizing channel

For the quantum depolarizing channel with any finite dimension, we compare three schemes for channel identification: unentangled probes, probes maximally entangled with an external ancilla, and maximally entangled probe pairs. This comparison includes cases where the ancilla is itself depolarizing and where the probe is circulated back through the channel before measurement. Compared on the basis of (quantum Fisher) information gained per channel use, we find broadly that entanglement with an ancilla dominates the other two schemes, but only if entanglement is cheap relative to the cost per channel use and only if the external ancilla is well shielded from depolarization. We arrive at these results by a relatively simple analytical means. A separate, more complicated analysis for partially entangled probes shows for the qudit depolarizing channel that any amount of probe entanglement is advantageous and that the greatest advantage comes with maximal entanglement

Analyticity of The Ground State Energy For Massless Nelson Models

We show that the ground state energy of the translationally invariant Nelson model, describing a particle coupled to a relativistic field of massless bosons, is an analytic function of the coupling constant and the total momentum. We derive an explicit expression for the ground state energy which is used to determine the effective mass.Comment: 33 pages, 1 figure, added a section on the calculation of the effective mas

Betriebswirtschaftliche Ziele und Effekte einer familienbewussten Personalpolitik

Die Analyse betriebswirtschaftlicher Ziele und Effekte einer familienbewussten Personalpolitik stellt vor dem Hintergrund eines nicht zuletzt demografiebedingten Bedeutungszuwachses der betrieblichen Familienpolitik ein zentrales Forschungsdesiderat dar. Vor der konzeptionellen Folie eines Input-Output Modells wird in vorliegendem Arbeitspapier zunächst gezeigt, dass mit dem berufundfamilie-Index ein dienliches Instrument zur Quantifizierung betrieblichen Familienbewusstseins vorliegt, es jedoch bisher an einer Systematik fehlt, welche die Output-Seite konsistent erfasst. Diese Forschungslücke wird im ersten Teil vorliegender Arbeit geschlossen, indem theoretische Ansätze und metaanalytische Befunde hinsichtlich der Ziele familienbewusster Personalpolitik in einem Zielsystem konzentriert werden. In dessen Zentrum stehen Mitarbeiterbindung und Mitarbeitergewinnung als überlagernde Ziele, welche hinsichtlich aktueller Beschäftigter in Wirkungsbeziehungen zu deren Arbeitszufriedenheit und Motivation, zu Fehlzeiten, Humankapitalakkumulation, Kundenbindung, Kostensenkung und Mitarbeiterproduktivität stehen; hinsichtlich potenzieller Mitarbeiter lassen sich die Wirkungsbeziehungen in Bezug auf den Bewerberpool, die Bewerberqualität sowie die Senkung von Opportunitätskosten unbesetzter Stellen beschreiben. Aufbauend auf dieser Systematik wird im zweiten Teil der Arbeit ein empirisches Forschungsdesign entwickelt und in einer Betriebsstättenbefragung in Deutschland (n=1.001) angewandt. Quantitative Datenanalysen zeigen einerseits, dass familienbewusste Personalpolitik bei allen beschriebenen Zielbereichen einen signifikant positiven Beitrag leistet. Andererseits führen Untersuchungen der Wirkungsintensität familienbewusster Personalpolitik zu dem Ergebnis, dass Unternehmen mit einem hohen betrieblichen Familienbewusstsein die beschriebenen Ziele zum Teil deutlich besser erreichen als die Vergleichsgruppe nicht familienbewusster Unternehmen.Due to the increasing relevance of demographic developments for human resources management, the analysis of goals and effects of corporate family-consciousness has become a central field of research. The concept of an input/output analysis presented in the paper shows that the berufundfamilie-index offers a quantification of corporate family-consciousness but also reveals that the output has not yet been conceptualized consistently. The first part of this paper closes this gap of research by issuing a system of goals of corporate family-consciousness. Central goals are employee loyalty and recruiting. With regard to current employees these goals relate to job satisfaction and motivation, absenteeism, accumulation of human capital, customer loyalty, cost reduction and efficiency of labour. With regard to potential employees they relate to the pool and quality of applicants as well as to the reduction of opportunity costs caused by vacancies. The second part of the paper describes the survey of 1001 companies in Germany based on the construction mentioned before. It shows that corporate family-consciousness significantly contributes to achieving the goals. Furthermore it proves that the more family-conscious a company is, the better the goals mentioned can be achieved. The empirical findings indicate that family friendly human resources management constitutes an important parameter in managerial decision making

Betriebliche Familienpolitik in auditierten Unternehmen und Institutionen

Betriebliche Familienpolitik ist ein junges Forschungsfeld, dessen wissenschaftliche Untersuchung sich aus einer politikwissenschaftlich orientierten und aus einer wirtschaftswissenschaftlich orientierten Perspektive heraus anbietet. Erstgenannte Perspektive ist primär deskriptiver Art und strukturiert den Untersuchungsgegenstand anhand dreier Dimensionen: Polity blickt auf die Rahmenbedingungen betrieblicher Familienpolitik, politics auf das Handeln betrieblicher Akteure; policy ist schließlich auf Inhalte und Ziele betrieblicher Familienpolitik gerichtet. Die wirtschaftswissenschaftlich orientierte Perspektive ist demgegenüber eher analytischer Art und fokussiert auf den betriebswirtschaftlichen Nutzen, der mit der Durchführung familienbewusster Personalpolitik einhergehen kann. Diesbezügliche empirische Studien wirtschaftswissenschaftlicher Ausrichtung liegen aufgrund einer komplexen Variablenstruktur in einem geringeren Ausmaß vor als deskriptive Untersuchungen politikwissenschaftlicher Strukturierung. Vorliegendes Arbeitspapier verbindet beide Untersuchungsperspektiven und betrachtet auf Grundlage zweier empirischer Untersuchungen von 75 erwerbswirtschaftlichen Unternehmen und 72 nicht-erwerbswirtschaftlichen Institutionen betriebliche Familienpolitik sowie betriebswirtschaftliche Erfolge familienbewusster Personalpolitik. Sowohl für Unternehmen als auch Institutionen kann gezeigt werden, dass Familienbewusstsein in sehr vielen Fällen mit positiven einzelwirtschaftlichen Effekten einhergeht. Komparative Analysen legen ferner dar, dass betriebliches Familienbewusstsein in Unternehmen eher zu Erfolg führt als in Institutionen. Die explorativ gewonnenen Erkenntnisse bilden die Ausgangsbasis für weitergehende empirische Untersuchungen der Erfolge und Effekte familienbewusster Personalpolitik. Durchzuführende methodische Vorarbeiten sind auf Konzeptionalisierung und Operationalisierung der Input- und Output-Seite familienbewusster Personalpolitik zu richten.Family policy pursued by enterprises can be scholary analysed by means of political science as well as economic science. Political science has a more descriptive view and structures the object of investigation via three dimensions: polity, focussing on the basic conditions of family policy pursued by enterprises, politics, concentrating on the acting of the managerial players; policy finally considers the contents and purposes of a family friendly management of human resources. Economic science has a more analytical view and examines the operational effects of family friendly human resources management. With regard to the view of political science there are less economic empirical than descriptive studies. This is because economic science has to deal with of a lot of very complex variables which are difficult to structure.The present paper combines the points of view of political science and economic science and considers family policy pursued by enterprises as well as operational effects of family friendly policies. 75 businesses and 72 non-profit companies have been examined. It can be shown that family friendliness leads in both, business and non-profit companies, to positive operational effects. A comparison of both types of enterprises shows that family friendliness is more effective in businesses than in non-profit companies.The conclusions from these explorations are starting points for the further analysis of family friendly human resources management. Within the next step, it will be necessary to conceptualize and operationalize the input and the output of family friendly policies

Polaron Effective Mass, Band Distortion, and Self-Trapping in the Holstein Molecular Crystal Model

We present polaron effective masses and selected polaron band structures of the Holstein molecular crystal model in 1-D as computed by the Global-Local variational method over a wide range of parameters. These results are augmented and supported by leading orders of both weak- and strong-coupling perturbation theory. The description of the polaron effective mass and polaron band distortion that emerges from this work is comprehensive, spanning weak, intermediate, and strong electron-phonon coupling, and non-adiabatic, weakly adiabatic, and strongly adiabatic regimes. Using the effective mass as the primary criterion, the self-trapping transition is precisely defined and located. Using related band-shape criteria at the Brillouin zone edge, the onset of band narrowing is also precisely defined and located. These two lines divide the polaron parameter space into three regimes of distinct polaron structure, essentially constituting a polaron phase diagram. Though the self-trapping transition is thusly shown to be a broad and smooth phenomenon at finite parameter values, consistency with notion of self-trapping as a critical phenomenon in the adiabatic limit is demonstrated. Generalizations to higher dimensions are considered, and resolutions of apparent conflicts with well-known expectations of adiabatic theory are suggested.Comment: 28 pages, 15 figure