Organizational Data

Organizational data describe central characteristics of organizations, their internal structures and processes as well as their behavior as corporate actors in different social and economic contexts. Firm and enterprise data are the most frequently used type of organizational data, but there is also a growing interest in data on schools, universities, and hospitals in the economic and social science research. In the last several years, there has been a substantial improvement in the accessibility and scientific usability of organizational data from official statistics. However, nonofficial organizational data produced within publicly funded research projects are practically impossible to obtain for secondary analyses. There is no documentation of the existing stock of non-official organizational data, and the methodological standards used for organizational research in Germany are low compared to the standards of international research. Against this background, it is recommended that efforts be focused on documenting and archiving the existing non-official organizational data for secondary analyses and on establishing higher methodological standards within this research field.firms, organizations, methods of organizational research, micro data, secondary analysis

Unjust Divergence in Earnings in Germany?

Since a court decided that bonuses paid to the former top management at Mannesmann AG were unjustifiable there has been widespread public discussion over fair pay in Germany. This has been against the background of big increases in the salaries paid to top executives at a time when the economy is sluggish and there is high unemployment. A special survey by the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) conducted by DIW Berlin in conjunction with Infratest Sozialforschung showed that many people feel top executives are too highly paid, and that the differences between their earnings and those of unskilled workers is not justifiable. Many, especially in eastern Germany, also feel that their own pay is unfairly low. Greater transparency would increase the acceptance of differentials that are otherwise seen as unjust.

Perceived Income Justice Depends on the Economy

At least half of all employees in Germany described their wages in all three survey years under consideration here - 2005, 2007, and 2009 - as just. Still, major changes occurred over this period in how people perceived their earnings. Data from the Socio- Economic Panel (SOEP) Study show that after an increase in income dissatisfaction in 2007, the percentage of the population who consider their income unjust has again decreased substantially in 2009 - at 30 percent - to 2005 levels. This suggests that in times of economic crisis, people are willing to lower their earnings expectations, while in times of economic growth - like the year 2007 - they expect to share in the benefits of increased prosperity. The analysis shows that it was mainly people in the low to medium income range and in particular skilled workers who perceived their net income as unjust, a perception that remained stable over time. This is partly due to the income taxes paid by these groups. In the upper income segment, in contrast, no negative effect of the income tax burden on perceived income justice is found. Finally, the results confirm previous studies indicating that even in a world in which everyone received the wages they subjectively perceived to be fair, income differences between men and women would still persist. Women's income expectations are significantly lower than men's - even within the individual occupational groups.Justice, SOEP, Inequality

Interdisciplinary longitudinal surveys: linking individual data to organizational data in life-course analysis

"In Deutschland gibt es bislang wenige Untersuchungen zum Zusammenhang zwischen Betriebsmerkmalen auf der einen Seite und individuellen Einstellungen und Merkmalen von Beschäftigten auf der anderen Seite. Dabei wird angesichts einer fortschreitenden Destandardisierung und Deregulierung von Beschäftigungsverhältnissen die Ebene der einzelnen Arbeitsorganisationen gerade in Deutschland für eine Reihe ökonomischer und sozialer Phänomene relevanter. Der Autor berichtet aus einem Forschungsprojekt, in dem ein so genannter Linked-Employer-Employee-Datensatz (LEE) generiert wird, der sowohl ausführliche Informationen über die ökonomischen, personalpolitischen und arbeitsorganisatorischen Strukturen und Prozesse von Betrieben enthält, als auch Informationen über die soziale und ökonomische Situation der Beschäftigten und deren Haushalte bietet. Für die Informationen auf Individualebene wird auf die Befragungsdaten des ALLBUS 2008 zurückgegriffen. Im Vordergrund des Projektes steht die Frage nach der Realisierbarkeit survey-basierter Personen-Betriebsdatensätze. Der Autor diskutiert dementsprechend methodische Fragen des Vorgehens und der Qualität der resultierenden LEE-Datensätze und gibt Ausblicke auf zukünftige interdisziplinäre Längsschnittstudien." (ICI

The Justice of Earnings in Dual-Earner Households

The rise in female labor market participation and the growth of "atypical" employment arrangements has, over the last few decades, brought about a steadily decreasingpercentage of households in which the man is the sole breadwinner, and a rising percentage of dual-earner households. Against this backdrop, the present paper investigates the impact of household contexts in which the traditional male breadwinner model has been called into question on individuals' subjective evaluations of the equity or inequity of their personal earnings. In the first step, based on social production function theory, we derive three criteria used by individuals to evaluate the fairness or justice of their personal earnings: compensation for services rendered, coverage of basic needs, and the opportunity to earn social approval. In the second step, we apply considerations from household economics and new approaches from gender research to explain why men's and women's evaluations of justice are determined to a considerable degree by the specific situation within their household - for example, by the status and income relation between the two partners. The assumptions derived regarding gender-specific patterns in justice attitudes are then tested on data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) from the year 2007. We find that, among women, the perceived justice of personal earnings depends much more strongly on the particular household context. At the same time, opportunities for social comparison within the household and the relation between the woman's personal income and that of her husband play central roles. Men's justice evaluations, in contrast, are determined to a much greater extent by whether their income allows them to conform to traditional gender norms and concepts of "masculinity", and by so doing, to gain social approval outside the household as well.

Organizational data

"Organizational data describe central characteristics of organizations, their internal structures and processes as well as their behavior as corporate actors in different social and economic contexts. Firm and enterprise data are the most frequently used type of organizational data, but there is also a growing interest in data on schools, universities, and hospitals in the economic and social science research. In the last several years, there has been a substantial improvement in the accessibility and scientific usability of organizational data from official statistics. However, nonofficial organizational data produced within publicly funded research projects are practically impossible to obtain for secondary analyses. There is no documentation of the existing stock of non-official organizational data, and the methodological standards used for organizational research in Germany are low compared to the standards of international research. Against this background, it is recommended that efforts be focused on documenting and archiving the existing non-official organizational data for secondary analyses and on establishing higher methodological standards within this research field." (author's abstract

Pilotstudie einer surveybasierten Verknüpfung von Personen- und Betriebsdaten: Durchführung sowie Generierung einer Betriebsstudie als nachgelagerte Organisationserhebung zur SOEP-Innovationsstichprobe 2007

In this paper, we compare different approaches to the generation of datasets linking employees and firms, and present the specific advantages and disadvantages of each method. We discuss in detail the employee-first method, which has only been investigated so far in the survey research in initial US studies. We show that for Germany, this method provides reasonably comprehensive and error-free data on individuals. Our analyses are based on the results of a follow-up study of firms that was first tested in a SOEP Pretest in the year 2007 on more than 300 employees. Our results also show that the data edition method provides a relatively easy means of considerably improving the quality of contact addresses obtained through an open-ended survey question. The quality and number of the firm contact data as well as the number of participating firms can be increased as well through improvements in the different phases of the generation process. Der Beitrag diskutiert hinsichtlich der Erstellung verknüpfter Datensätze von Arbeitnehmern und Betrieben unterschiedliche Vorgehensweisen und die damit verbundenen spezifischen Vor- und Nachteilen. Ausführlich wird dabei die employee-first-method vorgestellt, zu dem bislang in der Surveyforschung lediglich entsprechende Vorbildstudien aus den USA vorliegen. Es kann für Deutschland gezeigt werden, dass mit Hilfe dieser Methodik erstens die Angaben der Personen hinreichend vollständig und fehlerfrei sind. Die Analysen basieren auf den Ergebnissen einer nachgelagerten Erhebung von Betrieben, die im SOEP-Pretest im Jahr 2007 erstmals bei mehr als 300 Beschäftigten erprobt wurde. Hierzu Weiterhin zeigen die Ergebnisse, dass mittels der Methode der Datenedition relativ einfach eine beachtliche Verbesserung der Güte der durch offene Abfrage erhaltenen Betriebskontaktadressen erreicht werden. Die Güte und Anzahl der Nennungen der Betriebskontaktdaten ebenso wie die Anzahl der teilnehmenden Betriebe kann zudem durch eine Reihe an Verbesserungen in den unterschiedlichen Phasen des Generierungsprozesses gesteigert werden.German Socio-Economic Panel Study, SOEP, Linked Employer-Employee-Data

Soziale Einstellungen in der Organisationsgesellschaft : betriebliche Strukturen und die gerechte Verteilungsordnung der Gesellschaft (Social attitudes in the organisational society : Company structures and the just distributive order of society)

"This paper examines the significance of income and career chances in the firm for attitudes regarding social justice. On the basis of organisational theory arguments from the more recent sociological class theories and the findings from labour-market and organisational research, the autonomous role of employment organisations for the allocation of position in the social structure of a society is first shown. This is justified by the fact that income and career chances in the firm are to be understood as collective goods, with the consequence that mere membership of a firm opens up or closes income and career chances. Based on the assumption that attitude formation is based on the 'logic of the situation' and is imparted via learning-theory mechanisms, the paper then builds on this to discuss the significance of work organisations for the formation of general social attitudes. The assumption involves the structural characteristics of an organisation being important not only for work-related and organisation-related attitudes but also for political and social attitudes. For a first empirical examination the cross-sectional study of the National Organization Study (NOS) is used, for which data was collected in the USA in 1991 and which is linked with data from the ISSP from 1992. On the basis of structural equation models, the relationship between the company distribution structure and attitudes of social justice is examined. The observed effects largely confirm the hypotheses derived from theory. Thus employees with low income and mobility chances in the firm and whose firms recruit their staff internally are more in favour of state regulation of social inequalities. In contrast, managers and employees in profit-orientated firms who also have good career chances in the firm are in favour of an order of social distribution that stands out due to high social inequalities. The results indicate that the career and income chances which are imparted via work organisations can be decisive for the formation of employees' general, social attitudes. However, longitudinal studies are needed in order to obtain more precise information about the causal direction of this relationship." (Author's abstract, IAB-Doku) ((en))soziale Einstellungen - Determinanten, Arbeitsmarktchancen, beruflicher Aufstieg, soziale Gerechtigkeit, Verteilungsgerechtigkeit, betrieblicher Status, Statusmobilität, Einkommenshöhe, soziale Mobilität, Berufsaussichten, innerbetriebliche Hierarchie, innerbetriebliche Mobilität, gesellschaftliche Einstellungen, soziale Ungleichheit, sozialer Status, Sozialstruktur, soziale Wahrnehmung, Verteilungspolitik, soziale Klasse, USA

Gerechtigkeitsprobleme im Wohlfahrtsstaat: Besteuerung, wohlfahrtsstaatliche Transfers und die Gerechtigkeit des eigenen Erwerbseinkommens

The article discusses the conflict of goals between fair compensation for performance and equitable support based on need in modern welfare states, which is a subject of controversy in various disciplines. It answers the question of the extent to which this policy problem of modern welfare states, which is an issue at the macrosocial level, also creates individual perceptions of problems of equity. Based on survey results of a theory-driven supplemental survey of the longitudinal study of the German Socio-economic Panel (SOEP), it was investigated how employed persons evaluated their income with respect to the fairness of earnings and what effect welfare state interventions have. An important result of the analyses is the high proportion of persons who considered their earned income to be fair. Only a quarter of those employed in Germany consider their remuneration to be unfair. Thus it appears that the normative conflict of goals between fair compensation for performance and equitable support based on need described in the literature for the macrosocial level does not really exist at the individual level, as the article discusses theoretically with reference to new multidisciplinary work and also demonstrates empirically. An unexpected result of the analyses is that transfer payments by the government cannot compensate for perceptions of unfairness with regard to individual income; openly recognizable transfer payments may be seen as discriminatory.