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We analyze the role of works councils for the use of performance appraisals (PA). We distinguish between the incidence of PA systems as intended by the firm and their actual implementation on the level of the individual employee.

We draw on two complementary data sets. These are the German Linked Personnel Panel (LPP), which combines firm-based information with information provided by several of those employees, and the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), which is a representative longitudinal study of persons living in Germany.

We find that works councils tend to promote rather than restrict PA. Employees working in establishments with a works council are more likely to face a formal PA procedure. Works councils also act as a transmission institution for the actual use of an existing PA system – i.e. among the firms that claim to implement PA for all their employees, the likelihood of their employees actually having regular appraisals is substantially larger when works councils are in place. Moreover, the existence of works councils is positively related particularly to PA systems, which affects bonus payments.

We contribute to the understanding of the work of works councils in firms. In more general, we shed light to the relation of industrial relations and human resource management in firms.

This result hints at a higher acceptance of PA systems in firms with works councils. It seems likely that the stronger formalization of such systems necessitated by codetermination laws increases the likelihood of supervisors consistently carrying out such appraisals.

We are the first who complement the analysis of the existence of HR practices (PA system) with its actual use for employees.

Career interruptions of employees imply important issues for both firms and individuals, including a possibly lower compensation after returning to a job. Different compensation components are explored, as bonus payments frequently complement fixed salaries for many employees, making various channels of lower compensation possible. This paper aims to discuss this issue.

This study is based on a yearly salary survey among a rather homogeneous group of professionals and middle managers from the German chemical sector, which contains detailed information on compensation components next to individual and job characteristics. The incidence and duration of past career interruptions act as the most important independent variables. Mincer-type wage regressions are complemented by estimations on wage increases.

The results show that career interruptions are more related to lower subsequent bonus payments than they are to fixed salaries. Furthermore, interruptions caused by unemployment are associated with higher interruption pay gaps than those resulting from other reasons such as parental leave. The results even hint for catch-up effects following parental leave with regard to higher wage increases compared to individuals without interruptions. Career interruptions are more prevalent for female managers offering an explanation for a considerable part of gender pay gaps. Wage losses after career interruptions are more pronounced for male employees than they are for females, though.

This study extents the literature by disentangling the relation of career interruptions and different compensation components, bonus payments next to fixed salaries in particular. The role of interruption type and gender are also taken into account so that the paper deepens the understanding of the role of past career interruptions for employees’ remuneration.

Given the ongoing demographic change in European countries, this paper aims to explore empirically the link between age structures of employees in firms and firm performance.

Based on theoretical considerations, the paper examines the link between both the average age and the standard deviation of employees' age and firms' value added per employee. Linked employer employee data of all private‐sector firms in Denmark with at least 20 employees is used.

A pyramidal or inverse U‐shaped interrelation is found between mean age and standard deviation of age and value added per employee, respectively.

It would be interesting to determine whether the results hold for different countries with other institutional environments.

This is the first paper to examine the link between corporate age structures and firm performance for a whole country. The paper gives insights for both academic scholars and practitioners, who may take the results into account in formulating an efficient personnel policy.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.

The objective of this paper is to assess the effect of the socio‐economic status (SES) on long‐term outcomes of a family‐based obesity treatment intervention in prepubertal children. A total of 52 overweight and 26 normal weight children were investigated. Nutritional status, intake of fruit, vegetables and low fat foods, in‐between meals, sports club membership, frequency of exercise and daily television viewing were measured before intervention (t₀ and after a mean period of 1.3 years (t₁. The result obtained indicate that a low SES may serve as a barrier against family‐based intervention. The data provide evidence for the idea that there is need for social stratification of future measures of health promotion within families.

Although the literature shows that ethical leadership reduces the risk of burnout, research still lacks a comprehensive understanding of the mediating effects between ethical leadership and burnout. As media reports on working conditions in the academic context often tie the problem of unethical leadership practices to illegitimate tasks, this study focuses on illegitimate tasks as a mediator between ethical leadership and burnout.

The research model is tested using structural equation modeling and data from 1,053 doctoral and postdoctoral students in randomly selected German state universities.

The results significantly support all hypothesized effects, showing direct correlations between (1) ethical leadership and illegitimate tasks, (2) ethical leadership and burnout facets and (3) illegitimate tasks and burnout facets. The relationship between ethical leadership and burnout is thus partially mediated by illegitimate tasks.

The authors recommend three major fields of action for practice. These fields comprise (1) the leadership situation, (2) the leader and (3) the follower.

The presented model is the first that connects the relationship between ethical leadership and burnout with illegitimate tasks and looks at ethical leadership from a stress-as-offense-to-self (SOS) perspective.

In the past, FM performance was mostly monitored by technical and cost‐related KPIs, whereas the measurement of perceived internal service quality was widely neglected. Thus, the purpose of this paper is two‐fold: first, to develop an adequate model to capture the relationships between internal service quality, internal customer satisfaction and internal customer retention; and second, provide an instrument for the identification of areas of improvement for customer orientation in FM.

This research gives an insight into the relevance of customer orientation in FM. Following this, it introduces the concept of a FM Servicebarometer, highlighting an application of this model by presenting the results of an extensive quantitative survey that was conducted within a healthcare setting. Based on this model, various indices are calculated for the internal service quality, customer satisfaction and customer retention, resulting in the FM Quality Index.

Detailed analyses show insights into the interdependencies between various aspects of internal customer orientation in FM. In addition, driving forces of internal service quality, internal customer satisfaction and internal customer retention are presented.

The FM Quality Index (FMQI) allows both a longitudinal research and cross‐sectional comparison within FM. Thus, the FMQI may be applied as a tool for monitoring and managing internal customer orientation in FM.

FM Servicebarometer is a unique application of the service barometer approach within FM. Thus, it presents an innovative attempt to measure and control perceived service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer retention.

The article is a summarised version of a prospective study for the Swiss tourism region of Valais by the Institute for Public Management and Tourism (ITD) of the University of St. Gallen which has been achieved in April 2000. The Transformation Model has served as theoretical background. The Swiss Ski area industry was for a long time a driver of the tourism development in the Alpine regions. The transformation of this sector has a direct impact on the transformation of destinations and other sectors. The necessary changes, the business models and the problems of financing investments explain the transformation process. The analysis is based on two major scenarios. If the status quo — scenario is followed, it would not be possible to change the structures. In this case, the public sector has to support the sector with payments of about 1,5 billions of sfr for the next decade. In the other case of a more managed development, the strategies and the structure of the sector's enterprises have to guarantee a sustainable development. The authors are in favour of a vertical integration of a destination which can create economies of scope rather than for a horizontal integration and economies of scale.

Zusammenfassung Die vorliegenden Ergebnisse des “Workshop 2” verdeutlichen, daß intensiv nach einem gemeinsamen Verständnis zur strategischen Tourismuspolitik in Abgrenzung der Felder Tourismuspolitik (policy) und — Strategie gesucht und dieses Verständnis in den genannten Modellen festgehalten wurde. Trotzdem haben gerade die Fallbeispiele gezeigt, daß jede spezifische Situation verschieden handzuhaben ist und deshalb auch unterschiedliche methodische Ansätze zur Analyse der Fallstudie herangezogen worden sind. Auch konnte die Begriffsverwendung von Tourismus‐politik und Strategie nicht immer eindeutig zugeordnet werden. Ein allgemein gltiges Rahmenmodell — wie in Kapitel 3 und vier aufgezeigt — ist deshalb nur erschwert im Detail darstellbar. Zur Notwendigkeit einer strategischen Tourismuspolitik ist insgesamt eine große Übereinstimmung festzuhalten.

Serious contributions to library history are all too rare, and the series of studies now being issued from the University of South Africa Department of Librarianship under the collective title of Mousaion is to be welcomed. It is proposed to publish six numbers of this journal annually in English, French, German, Italian, or Spanish. The first number dealt with Les Bibliothèques Ptoléméennes d'Alexandrie, and this is followed by two volumes comprising (in the author's words) a ‘methodological prolegomena to library history’. The term ‘encyclopaedia’ in the title is used in the sense of a technical discipline of historical librarianship. The project is formidable, and it is attacked with meticulous and laborious thoroughness: so laborious indeed that one sometimes has the impression of an elephant cracking a hazel nut. In history, over‐complication is as misleading as over‐simplification, and the scientific historian occasionally seems to introduce his own complexities into a problem for the sheer pleasure of disentangling them. Professor de Vleeschauwer is right in saying that in this field of library history the time for anecdotes has gone (though properly employed the anecdote has its uses). He is equally right in condemning the amateurishness of much that has passed for library history, and the ‘lyricism’ (as he calls it) of works such as Parsons's The Alexandrian Library. But is he right in supposing that the only alternative is to bring into action the whole armament of deductive logic and scientific method, in his anxiety to make his picture philosophically complete, with no term undefined and no particle of it unclassified or unorganized? His guns are too heavy for his target.