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The purpose of this paper is to propose a general micro-theoretical framework that helps to understand the embeddedness of trade unions within the European system of industrial relations, and the consequences of this embeddedness for industrial relations outcomes. First, starting from the paradoxical observation of a trend towards homogeneity within a complex, multi-layered European industrial relations system consisting of heterogeneous and autonomous agents, the paper aims to explicate the mechanisms which produce these similarities. Second, the paper seeks to analyse potential mechanisms for transnational trade union cooperation and, third, it concludes by outlining its applicability as the basis for methodological approaches which enable realistic and policy relevant analyses.

This paper is conceptual and focusses on the development of a general micro-theoretical framework which captures European industrial relations actors’ behaviour and outcomes. It integrates theoretical and empirical accounts from differing social science disciplines and from various methodological starting points on trade union action and interaction into one general micro-theoretical framework.

Starting from a typology of trade union goals, the authors show how various social mechanisms lead to interdependencies between trade unions and review empirical evidence for their consequences. The authors, then, identify a set of motives for transnational cooperation that would allow outcomes that are in line with trade union objectives.

Against the background that previous studies on trade union action and cross-national interaction have paid less attention to the puzzling stylised fact that industrial relations outcomes are mimicked by heterogeneous and autonomous agents actors in different countries, the authors address this research gap by developing a novel general micro-theoretical framework for the analysis of transnational trade union action and interaction in order to better understand the underlying causal mechanisms for the common behaviour and outcomes of autonomous actors.

This paper addresses the puzzle of why the same workplace employment relations regimes can lead to different performances and why different regimes can produce the same performance. It is argued that the incidence of mutual, and not necessarily unilateral, trust between the employee representation and the management accounts for these differences, as mutual trust fosters information sharing and helps to strike deals that are mutually beneficial. Against the background that the institutional and organizational characteristics of some workplace employment relations regimes also constitutes information sharing and joint decision making, the author further argues that mutual trust is a functional equivalent.

Methodologically, the article is international and cross-country comparative in nature and conducted on the basis of a unique, large and transnational comparable data set of the employment relationship at firm level in eleven countries.

Our results show that strong mutual trust is associated with significantly higher incidences of increases in firm profitability, regardless of the workplace employment relations regime in which the firms are embedded.

The results clearly indicate that trust between the employee representation and the management works as a functional equivalent to performance enhancing employment relations regimes. Therefore, some policy recommendations and imposed institutional reforms of employment relations regimes by the IMF and the European Central Bank in some countries are sub-optimal and might not have been necessary. Trust building initiatives between the employee representation and the management are therefore an alternative, which is less conflictual and could have the same effect on the performance of firms.

Previous analyses on differences in the performance effects of workplace employment relations regime concentrated almost exclusively on institutional factors. Factors that account for differences in the functioning of regimes such as in particular the role of trust were not considered before. Against this background, the originality of this analysis is that it clearly shows that it is not sufficient to consider only the institutional and organizational structure of regimes, but it is essential for a better understanding of the effects of the employment relationship to consider factors which account for the functioning of the regimes such as, in particular, trust.

Elite interviewing is a well-established area of interview research methods. Nevertheless, the actual casting of an “elite” has been generally conducted in a prima facie or broad manner. A consideration of entrepreneurs and owner-managers as “elites” has been less profiled and received less attention, therefore the paper views the entrepreneurs and owner-managers as constituting a form of “local elite” within given and varying sectorial, regional and community boundaries. The authors argue that a consideration of entrepreneurs as “local elites” and transferring knowledge from an elite interviewing perspective may strongly support scholarly research in the entrepreneurship field.

The study conducts a comprehensive narrative literature review of elite interviewing literature and transfers key methodological insights to the entrepreneurship field. The methodological contribution based on literature is complemented by experiences and observations from an extensive inductive interview study with over 30 entrepreneurs of German manufacturing Small and Medium-sized Entities (SMEs) and are used to reflect on, and refine, interview research approaches with entrepreneurs.

The reflections and discussions in this paper provide valuable insights for other researchers conducting research in entrepreneurship domains regarding the power dynamics of negotiating access, procedural issues of interviews and thereby enhancing the quality of data.

The contribution to knowledge is mainly of a methodological nature. While the paper takes a novel act of recasting elite interviewing in the SME and entrepreneurship context, the paper methodologically contributes to the entrepreneurship and elite interview literature thereby facilitating higher quality interviews.

Drastic reductions in financial and personal support for public education over the last years in Germany seem to open gateways to ‘new’ acceptance of punishment in the realm of pedagogy. This ‘discourse’ is clandestine in theory, hidden from the public but real in institutions of the child and young people welfare system. They intensify the penalisation of their ‘drop-out’ clientele. The special schools for pupils with social, emotional and behavioural difficulties (SEBD) tend to act in that way, too. Particularly children and young people living in poverty are on the agenda of this new trend to penalise ‘deviant’ behaviour.

Programmes, trainings and drills are available. They are meant to help social workers and teacher in their position with new aims and functions. In their daily routine, most of them are overburdened and overloaded, because classes are overfilled and the number of families in the communal welfare system is growing rapidly, due to the so-called ‘Hartz IV’ legislative for unemployed families. This new trend is also a market place for the media; they launched an emergency call on education.

Some punitive praxis is contradictory to the human rights and the children rights, so that all professors for SEBD in Germany published a public declaration against the breaking up of the agreement of an education without violence. There is no empirical evidence for any positive outcome of such ‘pedagogy’. Despite all ‘modern’ promises, working with fear, anxiety, shame and punishment doesn't pay in the long run.

This chapter clarifies the relationship between socio-economic development and this ‘law and order’ pedagogy, the loss of professional standards and the psychodynamic consequences for pupils labelled as ‘deviant’.

The purpose of this paper is to conduct a systematic literature review for industry 4.0 maturity modeling research studies to obtain a clear view of the current state-of-the-art. Identifying characteristics of the studies; gaps, limitations and highlighted features has been aimed to guide future research studies.

The study includes a systematic literature review conducted on Scopus, IEEE Xplore and Web of Science databases and 90 publications have been reviewed. A novel qualitative taxonomy has been constructed which aims to reduce the cognitive load of the readers.

While industry 4.0 maturity modeling is an emerging concept and taking researchers’ attraction, review studies are still in infancy. Current review papers are inadequate in getting a clear idea about the concept, especially from the perspective of guiding future researchers. By the conducted approach of classification conducted in this paper, it has been seen that there are some challenges for improving the industry 4.0 maturity modeling.

Findings represented in this study can serve academicians and practitioners to develop and/or improve industry 4.0 maturity models.

The study includes a novel classification for the reviewed papers. Constructed taxonomy is among the first and tabular representations instead of prose analogy that aims to simplify the review of papers.