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Since the early 1980s, western governments are assumed to have been either moving toward post-bureaucratic models or transforming into so-called neo-Weberian bureaucracies. As different public-sector (reform) models imply different ideal typical personality traits for civil servants, the purpose of this paper is to ask the question to what extent personality requirements that governments demand from their employees have evolved over time in line with these models.

The authors analyzed the use of big-five traits in a sample of 21,003 job advertisements for local government jobs published between 1980 and 2017, applying tools for computer-assisted text analysis.

Using multilevel regression analyses, the authors conclude that, over time, there is a significant increase in the use of personality descriptors related to all big-five factors.

The authors postulate that governments nowadays are actively looking for the “renaissance bureaucrat” in line with the neo-Weberian bureaucracy paradigm. The authors end with a discussion of both positive and negative consequences of this development.

First, the authors explicitly link personality, public administration, and public management using the Abridged Big-Five-Dimensional Circumflex model of personality. Second, by linking observed trends in civil servant personality requirements to larger theories of public-sector reform models, the authors narrow the gap between public administration theories and practice. Third, the software tools that the authors use to digitalize and analyze a large number of documents (the job ads) are new to the discipline of public administration. The research can therefore serve as a guideline for scholars who want to use software tools to study large amounts of unstructured, qualitative data.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute original evidence about the conditions for formal and informal contracts for commodities and labour in the waste economy of a South Indian town.

Field research was exploratory, based on snowball sampling and urban traversing. The analysis follows capital and labour in the sub-circuits of capital generating waste in production, distribution, consumption, the production of labour and the reproduction of society.

Regardless of legal regulation, which is selectively enforced, formal contracts are limited to active inspection regimes; direct transactions with or within the state; and long-distance transactions. Formal labour contracts are least incomplete for state employment, and for relatively scarce skilled labour in the private sector.

The research design does not permit quantified generalisations.

Waste management technology evaluations neglect the social costs of displacing a large informal labour force.

While slowly dissolving occupational barriers of untouchability, the waste economy is a low-status labour absorber of last resort, exit from which is extremely difficult.

The first systematic exploration of formal and informal contracts in an Indian small-town waste economy.

This chapter highlights how implementing circular economy principles can help companies working with sustainability to move from a reductionist and waste management approach to marketing competitive circular value propositions that intentionally design out waste (e.g. emissions and pollution) by rethinking, reinventing and redesigning the value chain. Schijvens, a Dutch family-owned corporate fashion textile company, acts as a case for exemplifying successful implementation of circular economy principles as a marketing strategy in a sector that struggles with finding solutions to the ethical challenges of producing and marketing textile fashion. The textile industry has, for many years, been accused of production that is based on environmentally harmful processes and conditions that are not socially fair. Circular economy principles provide a range of suggestions to address the ethical challenges occurring from covering the human needs of having clothes to wear. Yet, implementing circular economy principles is not a panacea. It is not only a question of delivering a technological quick fix but also a question of managing the new processes and human mindset guiding the actions in the value chain. This chapter, therefore, outlines reasons for a different perspective on the traditional linear value chain and related implications managers face when undertaking a journey from sustainability based on a reductionist approach to a closed-loop approach. It is argued that implementing circular economy principles by pro-actively managing the value chain processes based on eco-centric dynamic capabilities can provide even more radical changes than the incremental reductionist approach often associated with being a green sustainable company.

Under the dual pressure of resources and environment, many countries have focused on the role of railways in promoting low-carbon development of integrated transportation and of even the whole society. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive study on methods to improve railway energy efficiency in other national railways and achievements made by China’s railways in the past practice, and then to propose ways in which in the future China’s railways could rationally select the path of improving energy efficiency regarding the needs of the nation's ever-shifting development and carry out the re-engineering for mechanism innovation in energy conservation and emission reduction process.

This paper first studies other national railways that have tried to promote the improvement of railway energy efficiency by the ways of technology, management and structural reconstruction to reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions. Among them, the effect of structural energy conservation and emission reduction has become more prominent. It has become the main energy conservation and emission reduction measure adopted by foreign railway sectors. The practice of energy conservation and emission reduction of railways in various countries has tended to shift from a technical level to a structural one.

Key aspects in improving energy efficiency include re-optimization of energy structure, re-innovation of energy-saving technologies and optimization of transportation organization. Path selection includes continuing to promote electrified railway construction, increasing the use of new and renewable energy sources, and promoting the reform of railway transportation organizations.

This paper provides further challenges and research directions in the proposed area and has referential value for the methodologies, approaches for practice in a Chinese context. To achieve the expected goals, relevant supporting policies and measures need to be formulated, including actively guiding integrated transportation toward railway-oriented development, promoting innovation in energy-saving and emission reduction mechanisms and strengthening policy incentives, focusing on improving the energy efficiency of railways through market behavior. At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to new phenomena in the railway industry for track and analysis.

The purpose of this paper is to address notions and practices relating to work–life balance for native German scholars and researchers who have migrated from the former Soviet Union (FSU). Issues will be explored from a cultural perspective, identifying culturally based interpretations of work–life balance.

Foregrounded in a diversity approach, this empirical study draws upon explorative interviews to discuss work–life balance in German academia. To overcome monocultural observations, 25 German scholars and 11 researchers originating from the FSU were interviewed, all of whom are highly skilled female scholars.

Findings demonstrate that individuals with diverse cultural backgrounds can perceive huge differences in identical working conditions. The study links meanings of work–life balance with individual practices and identifies key components of work–life balance within this population. It also discusses the decisions that scholars make about starting families or remaining childless for the sake of their careers.

This study is the first of its kind in Germany, and represents a strong implication for policies and their evaluation. It identifies the crucial role played by culturally rooted notions relating to work–life balance practices.

This paper points out that common human resource manageement (HRM) research and practice have overlooked employee's class of origin. Workers' class of origin can be seen as “the elephant in the room” in current HRM, being that it significantly affects organizational decision-making with negative social (increased class-based inequality) and organizational (inefficient allocation of human re-sources) effects.

The paper summarizes the partial, fragmented and multi-disciplinary literature on HRM and employees’ social class of origin.

The paper shows how recruiting, selection, training and development practices systematically reinforce class-based inequality by providing high-class employees with more resources and opportunities compared to low-class employees.

The paper provides sustainable HR practitioners, educators and researchers with recommendations on how to address employees' social class of origin, improving organizational competitive advantage and reducing class-based inequality at the societal level.

The paper focuses on a topic which, in diversity management, is an elephant in the room (i.e. workers social class of origin).