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1 – 10 of 23Discussions about the dignity of human beings often focus on violations of a person’s dignity that are performed by other persons. However, human beings can also violate their own…
Abstract
Discussions about the dignity of human beings often focus on violations of a person’s dignity that are performed by other persons. However, human beings can also violate their own dignity or at least they can expose it to a violation by others thoughtlessly or intentionally. In his Metaphysics of Morals, Kant states that ‘[o]ne who makes himself a worm cannot complain afterwards if people step on him’. Kant presupposes that persons can infringe or even forfeit their own dignity – for instance through servile behaviour – and that violating one’s own dignity is a violation of a duty towards oneself. Starting from the tension between dignity in terms of honour and worth in current debates and in Kant’s own thinking, as well as between understanding dignity as absolute or relational, I develop a comprehensive account of dignity as a duty to oneself. The author argues for a twofold obligation towards oneself to respect one’s own dignity: (i) a duty (as the necessity of an action done out of respect for the moral law) to respect one’s authority as an autonomous person in the Kantian sense; and (ii) beyond the Kantian framework – an obligation arising from the practical necessity that follows from one’s self-understanding as a self-determined, self-expressive individual personality in a socio-cultural context. Finally, the author outlines the consequences of the idea of ‘making oneself a worm’ for the concept of dignity in the realm of rights by discussing why, even though persons can behave like worms, others ought not to step on them.
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This chapter shows that Kant’s notion of human dignity can be understood as a novel ‘care of the self’ and an ‘art of not being governed’. Drawing on a Foucauldian approach, it…
Abstract
This chapter shows that Kant’s notion of human dignity can be understood as a novel ‘care of the self’ and an ‘art of not being governed’. Drawing on a Foucauldian approach, it demonstrates that Kant intends to shape an ethical subject that strives for freedom and self-mastery. It also argues Kant’s idea of dignity embodies a political and spiritual form of resistance against dominant relations of power and subjectivities. Thanks to this novel perspective, this chapter also offers novel insights on the political force of human dignity. With Kant, this notion becomes a ‘government of the self by oneself’.
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Julia Bredtmann and Sebastian Otten
– The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the gender wage differential of labor market entrants and the determinants of their starting wages.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical evidence on the gender wage differential of labor market entrants and the determinants of their starting wages.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper makes use of a unique data set on graduates in economics from a large German university that contains detailed information on the graduates’ course of study, their additional qualifications and their transition from university to the labor market. Based on these data, Mincer-type earnings functions as well as wage decompositions as proposed by Blinder (1973) and Oaxaca (1973) are performed.
Findings
The paper finds a significant gender wage differential of 7 percent. Blinder-Oaxaca decompositions suggest that the major part of this gap remains unexplained by gender differences in observable characteristics.
Research limitations/implications
The main feature of our analysis – having a highly homogeneous sample of graduates from a single university – comes at the costs of reduced ability to draw generalized conclusions from our findings.
Originality/value
This paper investigates the determinants of entry wages for a homogeneous group of high-skilled workers using a unique data set of graduates in business and economics from a large German university. Concentrating on a highly homogeneous sample limits the problem of unobserved heterogeneity, which results in an overestimation of the unexplained component of standard decompositions analyses. Hence, the finding that a large part of the gender pay gap remains unexplained can be considered as an indicator for gender discrimination in the labor market for economics graduates.
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Julia A.M. Reif, Katharina G. Kugler, Mariella T. Stockkamp, Selina S. Richter, Valerie M. Benning, Lina A. Muschaweck and Felix C. Brodbeck
Traditional approaches to business processes and their management consider the “people dimension” as an antecedent of process performance. The authors complemented this approach…
Abstract
Purpose
Traditional approaches to business processes and their management consider the “people dimension” as an antecedent of process performance. The authors complemented this approach by considering employees as process perceivers and thus taking an employee-centered perspective on business processes. The authors investigated dimensions of healthy business processes, that is, processes which, while promoting performance, foster employee well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on a qualitative dataset and two quantitative studies, the authors developed and validated a scale for healthy business processes, interpreted it from a salutogenic perspective and tested relationships with people and performance outcomes.
Findings
The scale comprises four factors reflecting the three dimensions of the salutogenic concept “sense of coherence”: manageability was represented by the factors process tools and process flexibility; comprehensibility was represented by the factor process description; and meaningfulness was represented by the factor management support. The scale and its subscales were significantly related to people and performance outcomes.
Originality/value
The authors propose that health-oriented business process management and performance-oriented business process management are two components of an integrated business process management that favors neither a functionalist, efficiency-oriented approach nor an employee-oriented approach, but takes both approaches and their interaction equally into account in the sense of person-process fit.
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Mareike Reimann, Charlotte Katharina Marx and Martin Diewald
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how employed single-parents differ from parents in two-parent families in their experience of work-to-family conflict (WFC) and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and how employed single-parents differ from parents in two-parent families in their experience of work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC). Looking at job-related as well as family-related demands and resources, this research investigated to what degree these demands and resources contribute to differences in WFC and FWC, how their relevance in predicting conflicts varies between single parents and other parents and the role of compositional differences in work and family demands and resources.
Design/methodology/approach
Cross-sectional linear regression analyses were applied to analyze a random sample of employees in large work organizations in Germany. The sample included 3,581 parents with children up to the age of 25, of whom 346 were single parents.
Findings
The results indicated that single parents face more FWC, but not more WFC, than other parents. For all parents, job demands such as overtime, supervising responsibilities and availability expectations were associated with higher levels of WFC, whereas job resources such as job autonomy, support from supervisors and flexible working hours were associated with lower levels of WFC. In predicting FWC, family demands and resources played only a minor role. However, results provide only scant evidence of differences between single parents and other parents in terms of the effects of job and family demands and resources.
Originality/value
This study offers interesting insights into the diversity of WFC and FWC experiences in Germany. It provides first evidence of the impact of job and family demands and resources on both directions of work–family conflicts among employed single parents as a specific social group.
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Martina Bauer and Katharina J. Auer‐Srnka
This research seeks to provide a historical review of the life cycle concept in marketing. The paper aims to show the development of traditional life cycle models and links to the…
Abstract
Purpose
This research seeks to provide a historical review of the life cycle concept in marketing. The paper aims to show the development of traditional life cycle models and links to the life course perspective.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors relate to life events and transitions in consumers' life trajectories, life status, role transitions, and role identities as determinants of consumer behavior. The paper reveals future research potential in the field. Essentially, the authors demonstrate the need for life cycle models grounded on empirical data and discuss related methodological issues.
Findings
This paper provides a temporal systematization of theoretical and empirical life cycle research. The major outcome is an outline of conceptual and methodological research directions that enable researchers to follow the life course perspective and to derive empirically grounded life cycle models.
Research limitations/implications
Providing chronological literature compilations and an evolutionary review of life cycle research, the authors identify future research directions. To encourage empirical development of the concept, the article also refers to the related methodological literature.
Practical implications
Both marketing thought and practitioners benefit from the insights presented. Marketing managers may better address consumers' changing needs over their lifetime, strengthen customer loyalty and reduce brand switching, thereby enhancing customer lifetime value.
Originality/value
This paper adds to the study of the consumer life cycle by providing a comprehensive anthology of life cycle research from 1910 to 2010. It shows major research streams and reveals future research potential in marketing.
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Achill Holzer and Katharina Schmitz
This paper aims to increase the knowledge of the run-in process of lubricated contacts in hydraulical pumps. When performing EHL simulations of tribological contacts, the surface…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to increase the knowledge of the run-in process of lubricated contacts in hydraulical pumps. When performing EHL simulations of tribological contacts, the surface influence needs to be taken into account. This experimental measurement wants to investigate the amount of change of the flow factors in the first hour of run of tribological contacts.
Design/methodology/approach
An experimental test bench is used to run-in several samples. After several minutes of running, samples are removed and the surface structure is captured using a digital microscope. With the measured data, flow factors are calculated.
Findings
The findings were clear that flow factors are highly direction-dependent, especially shear flow factors in radial directions experience almost no change. Overall, influence of the surface structure of up to 30% compared to a flat surface can be registered.
Originality/value
This paper helps to choose application-oriented values for the simulation of tribological contacts.
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Katharina Ebner, Roman Soucek and Eva Selenko
This study illuminates the assumption that internships facilitate labor market entry and answers the question of why internships have a positive effect on students' self-perceived…
Abstract
Purpose
This study illuminates the assumption that internships facilitate labor market entry and answers the question of why internships have a positive effect on students' self-perceived employability. It is assumed that internships enable more positive employability perceptions by reducing career-entry worries – the worries of not finding a suitable job or not being able to obtain a satisfactory career.
Design/methodology/approach
A two-wave study among graduate students currently in an internship investigated these relationships. Data on career-entry worries, perceived employability and an evaluation of the internship were collected from 80 students (mean age: 24.6 years, 68% female) from various fields of study aiming at both bachelor's and master's degrees.
Findings
The results showed that positively evaluated internships contributed to graduates' self-perceived employability by means of reduced career-entry worries over an eight-week period.
Originality/value
By considering graduates' career-entry worries – the perceived uncertainty about finding an “appropriate” career in the future – the authors introduce a new concept to the career literature and show that these worries are significant in terms of self-assessed employability.
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A. Thushel Jayaweera, Matthijs Bal, Katharina Chudzikowski and Simon de Jong
This paper contains a meta-analysis of the psychological contract literature published in the last two decades. The aim of this paper was to investigate the moderating role of…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper contains a meta-analysis of the psychological contract literature published in the last two decades. The aim of this paper was to investigate the moderating role of national culture in the individual-level relationships between psychological contract breach (PCB) and two important work outcomes, namely job performance (in-role and organizational citizenship behaviors) and turnover (actual and intended).
Design/methodology/approach
After an extensive literature search, 134 studies were found which matched the authors’ aim. The authors then incorporated national cultural scores based on the GLOBE study to include country-level scores to identify how the PCB relationships with these four outcomes vary across cultures.
Findings
The findings indicate that national cultural practices moderated the associations between PCB and the four outcomes, yet, no significant moderations for uncertainty avoidance practices.
Originality/value
While existing research has examined the impact of the breach on work outcomes such as job performance and turnover, there are few empirical studies that examine how national cultural practices influence the relationships between psychological contract breach and job performance and turnover. The authors address this need by investigating and creating a deeper insight into how cultural practices such as institutional collectivism, performance-orientation, power-distance, future orientation and gender egalitarianism moderate the relationships between PCB and job performance and turnover.
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