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This study examines the effects of a family's and individual children's characteristics on the probability of having a divorce. Current research shows a clear indication of increased divorce risks if an individual's parents or siblings have experienced a divorce. Explanations include both shared family characteristics (including genetic effects) and common characteristics of the individual children involved. This study analyzes the effects of shared family background characteristics on the divorce risk of individuals. By analyzing siblings within families and including individual children's characteristics in the analysis, it is possible to separate individual-level and family-level effects.

In addition to employing a multi-level structure of individual siblings nested within families, the data cited here are censored. For all individuals, the length of the marriage and the divorce status are known, but the divorce status is interpreted differently for individuals who have or have not experienced divorce. For divorced individuals, the final divorce status is known; for individuals who have not experienced divorce, the final marriage status is unknown or censored. The proper analysis model for such data is event history (also called survival) analysis. This study therefore employs a multi-level event history model.

Our results show that there is a similarity in the divorce risks of siblings from the same family, which is not explained away by the available child and family characteristics. This finding suggests that shared genetic and social heritage play an important role in the intergenerational transmission of divorce risks.

In this article, we further discuss the substantive and statistical issues raised in the articles by Farrell and Snijders. We point out where we agree and disagree with the two commentators. In addition to responding to a variety of issues that were raised, we point out where we believe additional studies may be particularly fruitful. We conclude that we believe that combining multi-level analyses with event-history analysis is potentially a very useful approach for future research.

The opposite of absenteeism, presenteeism, is the phenomenon of employees staying at work when they should be off sick. Presenteeism is an important problem for organizations, because employees who turn up for work, when sick, cause a reduction in productivity levels. The central aim of the present study is to examine the longitudinal relationships between job demands, burnout (exhaustion and depersonalization), and presenteeism. We hypothesized that job demands and exhaustion (but not depersonalization) would lead to presenteeism, and that presenteeism would lead to both exhaustion and depersonalization over time.

The hypotheses were tested in a sample of 258 staff nurses who filled out questionnaires at three measurement points with 1.5 years in‐between the waves.

Results were generally in line with predictions. Job demands caused more presenteeism, while depersonalization was an outcome of presenteeism over time. Exhaustion and presenteeism were found to be reciprocal, suggesting that when employees experience exhaustion, they mobilize compensation strategies, which ultimately increases their exhaustion.

These findings suggest that presenteeism can be seen as a risk‐taking organizational behavior and shows substantial longitudinal relationships with job demands and burnout.

The study suggests that presenteeism should be prevented at the workplace.

The expected contribution of the manuscript is not only to put presenteeism on the research agenda but also to make both organizations and scientists attend to its detrimental effects on employees' wellbeing and (consequently) on the organization.

Kerstin Aumann is a doctoral student in the social-organizational psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She received her B.S. at Northwestern University, after which she spent three years working in the Change Communication Specialty Group at Burson-Marsteller, a global communications firm. Her research interests include international human resources management, cross-cultural organizational behavior, and cultural diversity.

The purpose of the present study is to identify the core cultural aspects perceived by the executives of public, private and foreign banks in India.

Of the 124 responses, 96 usable responses were assessed from middle and lower level managers. Qualitative content analysis and deconstruction method were used to identify the perceived cultural aspects.

Interestingly, managers of Indian banking industry stated that cultural aspects of their banks possess good work and working environment, prefer people, management, experience and promotions in comparison to other factors like policy, bonus, market, commitment, project, etc. It is also noted that cultural aspects of banks prefer learning, training and team working.

Assessment of the perception of managers toward their culture will foster the banks to develop integral subculture and to achieve the long-term organizational goals.

The study analyze the cultural aspects in Indian banking industry qualitatively, based on executives characteristics. This qualitative analysis helps to find out more contemporary and prevailing factors of banks.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the opportunities in the labour market for young employees with intermediate-level education by studying which young employees are most likely to be retained and under what conditions managers favour retention.

Retention decisions are examined by combining a vignette experiment and a survey study. Hypothetical profiles of 252 young employees were rated on their retention desirability by 21 managers, each working in a different organisation. Information on the managers’ characteristics and their organisations were collected in a survey.

Managers are generally not inclined to suggest retention. Their decisions are highly dependent on their own characteristics and organisational factors, even when young employees perform well and display desirable work-related behaviour.

While the small scale and explorative nature of this study limit its generalisability, this paper highlights the importance of combining information on employees, the organisation and managers; when studying (early) careers and employment decisions.

This study suggests that job retention is only in part within an individual’s control, and the future efforts to combat youth unemployment need to account for organisational and managerial characteristics.

The focus on the employer’s perspective is new to research on early careers, making it a starting point for further lines of exploration. Further, this study provides a comprehensive insight into factors that influence managers’ retention decisions by combining three sets of factors in a single research design.

This study aims to investigate the role of managers in the re-employment of early retirees and focuses on the effect of managers' age norms and stereotypes on managers' employment decisions.

A combination of a factorial study and a survey was conducted. First, information on the age norms and stereotypes was collected. Secondly, profiles of hypothetical retired job applicants were presented to the employers, who were asked to make a specific hiring decision. The information collected during both studies was combined in the analysis and multilevel models were estimated.

The results indicate that higher age norms (defined as age at which somebody is believed to be unable to work for 20 hours a week or more) result in a higher propensity to hire an early retiree. Stereotypes, by contrast, do not influence managers' decisions. Early retirees' chances for re-employment are also related to their own circumstances (physical appearance and relevant experience) and organisational forces, as they are hired when organisations face labour force shortages.

With the use of vignettes study the authors deal with a hypothetical hiring situation.

Although the effect of attitudes has been often suggested, not much empirical evidence has been presented to support this notion. This study estimates the effect of age norms and stereotypes on hiring decision.

The purpose of this paper is to examine employers’ perceptions of changes in the labour cost‐productivity gap due to the ageing of the workforce, the effects of tenure wages and employment protection on the perceived gap, and whether a perceived labour cost‐productivity gap affects employers’ recruitment and retention behaviour towards older workers.

The authors analyse surveys administered to employers in Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden.

Approximately half of employers associate the ageing of the personnel with a growing gap between labour costs and productivity. Both the presence of tenure wages and employment protection rules increase the probability of employers perceiving a widening labour cost‐productivity gap due to the ageing of their workforce. A counterfactual shows that even when employment protection and tenure wage systems are abolished, 40 percent of employers expect a net cost increase. The expected labour cost‐productivity gap negatively affects both recruitment and retention of older workers.

In this paper, the wage‐productivity gap is examined through the perceptions of employers using an international comparative survey.

Effort by managers and academics have been applied to understand elements that improving organizational performance and results. This study aims to analyze the relationship among job performance, job crafting, work complexity and learning support. The authors conducted a cross-sectional survey in a study with a regression hierarchical (i.e. multilevel) design.

Sample included 530 respondents of both sexes with ages ranging from 17 to 68 (M = 33.9; SD = 9.75). Participants were employees from 53 public and private organizations located in the Southeast of Brazil. They answered the scales: General Self-Assessment Scale of Job Performance, Job Crafting Behaviors, Learning Support and Subjective Task Complexity.

The results indicated that variance in job performance due to the differences among the organizations and learning support can explain 22% of variance at this level. Job crafting explained 22% of the job performance variance at level 1 (worker). It is concluded that the development of actions concerning job crafting and the relationship with the work context predict performance at work. Thus, the authors highlight the importance of maintaining individual-focused management practices, meaning that focusing on workers development promotes good results at the organization.

Results revealed practical implications through individual performance considered in a multilevel perspective both in Levels 1 and 2, which is not the most common for this variable. They could be especially important in scenarios that will demand adaptability and work modification, as the actual ones were observed in the contemporary world of work.