Zwischen Engagement und innerer Kündigung: Arbeitsemotionen im Prozess fortschreitenden Personalabbaus

"Der Beitrag beinhaltet erste Zwischenergebnisse eines von der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung geförderten, empirischen Forschungsprojekts. Verglichen werden die Auswirkungen fortschreitenden Personalabbaus auf die Arbeitsemotionen und die psychologischen Verträge in drei deutschen Fallstudienbetrieben. Diese unterscheiden sich hinsichtlich Branchenzugehörigkeit, Größe und Mitbestimmungsstrukturen. Zwar führen sowohl betriebsbedingte Kündigungen als auch 'sozialverträgliche' Formen des Personalabbaus zu psychischen Belastungen und Stress. Gleichwohl korrespondieren die Arbeitsemotionen mit dem Grad der Verrechtlichung der Arbeitsbeziehung, aber auch mit der Mobilisierungsfähigkeit der Belegschaften sowie mit den von diesen kalkulierten externen Arbeitsmarktchancen. Wie die MitarbeiterInnen Personalabbau und analog stattfindende Restrukturierungen wahrnehmen und verarbeiten wird u.a. durch jene Regelungen beeinflusst, die die jeweiligen Arbeitnehmerinteressenvertreter mit dem Management aushandeln konnten." (Autorenreferat)"This article presents preliminary results of an empirical research project promoted by the 'Hans-Böckler-Foundation'. The project compares the impact of continuous downsizing processes on emotions in the workplace and psychological contracts in three German companies in different industries, with different growth and co-determination structures. Downsizing, whether by compulsory or by voluntary redundancies based on compensation or early retirement causes psychic burdens and stress. Nevertheless the emotions in the workplace vary according to the level of workplace rights. Moreover these emotions are influenced by the employees' willingness to fight for their interests and by their perceived opportunities on the external labour market. How employees respond to downsizing and simultaneous restructuring depends among other things on the rules and procedures negotiated between employee representatives and management." (author's abstract

Modelling radiation-induced cell cycle delays

Ionizing radiation is known to delay the cell cycle progression. In particular after particle exposure significant delays have been observed and it has been shown that the extent of delay affects the expression of damage such as chromosome aberrations. Thus, to predict how cells respond to ionizing radiation and to derive reliable estimates of radiation risks, information about radiation-induced cell cycle perturbations is required. In the present study we describe and apply a method for retrieval of information about the time-course of all cell cycle phases from experimental data on the mitotic index only. We study the progression of mammalian cells through the cell cycle after exposure. The analysis reveals a prolonged block of damaged cells in the G2 phase. Furthermore, by performing an error analysis on simulated data valuable information for the design of experimental studies has been obtained. The analysis showed that the number of cells analyzed in an experimental sample should be at least 100 to obtain a relative error less than 20%.Comment: 19 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Radiation and Environmental Biophysic