Search

Purpose: The influx of refugees and asylum-seekers over the past decade into the European Union creates challenges to the health systems of receiving countries in the preparedness and requisite adjustments to policy addressing the new needs of the migrant population. This study aims to examine and compare policies for access to health care and the related health outcomes for refugees and asylum-seekers settling both in the UK and Germany as host countries. Design/methodology/approach: The paper conducted a scoping review of academic databases and grey literature for studies within the period 2010-2017, seeking to identify evidence from current policies and service provision for refugees and asylum-seekers in Germany and the UK, distilling the best practice and clarifying gaps in knowledge, to determine implications for policy. Findings: Analysis reveals that legal entitlements for refugees and asylum-seekers allow access to primary and secondary health care free of charge in the UK versus a more restrictive policy of access limited to acute and emergency care during the first 15 months of resettlements in Germany. In both countries, many factors hinder the access of this group to normal health care from legal status, procedural hurdles and lingual and cultural barriers. Refugees and asylum-seeker populations were reported with poor general health condition, lower rates of utilization of health services and noticeable reliance on non-governmental organizations. Originality/value: This paper helps to fulfill the need for an extensive research required to help decision makers in host countries to adjust health systems towards reducing health disparities and inequalities among refugees and asylum-seekers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose |!|#8211; The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of corporate governance structures in the UK and Germany addressing the extent to which corporate governance structures may have been a contributory factor to the recent banking crisis. Following a review of shareholder and stakeholder theories of corporate governance and a comparative overview of corporate governance codes in the UK and Germany, the authors aim to provide some country level macroeconomic data and performance related data for a small number of large banks in the UK and Germany. Design/methodology/approach |!|#8211; The paper is structured as follows. It first reviews the existing literature that underpins the stakeholder vs shareholder debate within corporate governance. It then reviews the current codes of conduct and governance structures implemented by UK and German banks. An analysis of the extent to which the banking crises can be attributed to failures in governance is presented and finally some conclusions and recommendations are outlined.Findings |!|#8211; Findings suggest that while corporate governance in banks would appear to have been a significant factor in the recent banking crisis, based on the performance data, it cannot be said that a corporate governance approach based on either shareholder capitalism (UK) or stakeholder capitalism (Germany) is more at fault than the other. However, it is clear that UK and German corporate governance structures were not adequate to prevent the recent banking crisis and only time will tell whether the remedial actions taken have been sufficient. The present findings, in line with those presented in the Walker report in 2009, suggest that the codes of conduct in both countries were not adequate to deal with the complex issues caused by the financial crisis and that changes need to be implemented. The authors fully acknowledge that corporate governance only played a part in the financial crisis and in order to try to stop a repeat of this, the whole regulatory environment in both countries needs to be strengthened.Research limitations/implications |!|#8211; The main limitation of the study lies with a lack of complex analysis undertaken to support the findings.Practical implications |!|#8211; The findings from the study suggest that, regardless of the type of governance in operation, current corporate governance rules were not adequate and that a new set of rules is needed in both the UK and Germany. The findings also suggest that the stakeholder/shareholder debate may not be as important as previously claimed and that regulators need to find good governance rules, regardless of theoretical underpinnings.Social implications |!|#8211; Governments across the world are currently cutting public spending in an extreme fashion and this is, partly, due to the banking crises. Therefore, poor governance in the banking sector is leading to massive social problems in the real world as governments cut services.Originality/value |!|#8211; The paper is original as it is the first attempt to discuss the corporate governance failing and the banking crises from a shareholder/stakeholder perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to evaluate EU election data for the UK and Germany and examine the influence of promotional activity (party campaigning) and the different voting systems prevailing in these two countries - first past the post (FPTP) in the UK and proportional representation (PR) in Germany - on voter turnout. Design/methodology/approach - The paper takes the form of a binomial logistic regression analysis of individual-level survey data from the European Election Studies (EES) archive. Findings - The findings suggest a general link between electoral systems, party campaigning and voter turnout. Individuals are more likely to turn out under PR systems, while "party campaigning" - including door-to-door canvassing and leafleting - also had a substantial positive effect on self-reported turnout. Research limitations/implications - The structure of the EES survey questions means that it is impossible to separate out which mode of campaigning (impersonal or face-to-face) is driving the observed strong positive relationship between the variable "party campaigning" and voter turnout. More survey research should be carried out to tease out which specific types of promotional activity have more of an influence on voter turnout. In addition, aggregate level research on campaigning patterns across countries with different voting systems would be helpful to explore this phenomenon in more depth. Originality/value - While research has been undertaken within the context of specific countries such as the UK, USA and New Zealand, there appears to have been no research reported within the context of the EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the influence of regulations, perceptions, and promotions on the emergence of an innovation system for wood-framed multi-storey buildings in Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom (UK). Design/methodology/approach – This descriptive paper made a qualitative analysis of information collected mainly from secondary sources such as reports, newspapers, journal publications, conference proceedings and general internet search. Findings – Results showed that the conditions for market growth of multi-storey construction seemed to be the most favourable in Sweden followed by the UK and Germany. The regulations are stringent in Germany, followed by the UK and Sweden. In all countries, the construction professionals seemed to have negative perceptions regarding engineering properties of wood. Similar negative perceptions exist among the general public in Germany and the UK, but not in Sweden. The wood construction promotional activities in Germany and the UK are directed to all types of houses, while in Sweden multi-storey buildings are targeted. Research limitations/implications – An important implication of this paper was that it highlighted the usefulness of cross-country surveys at the European level, in order to better understand observed differences in the adoption of innovative systems. However, there might be shortcomings in the comparability of the information across the countries analysed because it was difficult to make an objective assessment of the claims made in some of the information sources. Also, there was varying and limited information about the survey methodologies used in some of the reviewed studies. Practical implications – The study showed that market intervention is needed to promote radical or really new innovations such as wood construction. The variations in the promotional measures undertaken partly explained the variations in growth of wood construction system in the three countries. Originality/value – The paper applied a theoretical framework on technology transition to analyse emergence of wood construction system in Germany, Sweden and the UK. The framework can be applied to analyse the development of wood construction system in other countries also. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This paper seeks to compare different national PR histories in order to unfold the degree of abstract reflection in PR history writing. It aims to provide some suggestions for a future PR historiography, based on this comparison. Design/methodology/approach – The paper compares British, German, and US American PR historiography. The study is based on a comparison of 36 PR histories. A triple matrix of theoretization is used in order to differentiate the histories. Findings – Within the comparison American PR historiography accounts for 24 public relations history approaches, whereas Great Britain (1) and Germany (11) offer fewer histories. However, this richness in quantity does not lead to theoretical diversification. Owing to the paradigmatic obligation to a progressivist understanding, American PR historiography actually entails only one theoretic approach, while its German equivalent includes three different theoretic approaches and British PR historiography – being at its start – at least contains one explicitly non-progressivist, methodologically well-informed, fact-oriented example. Paradoxically, the prevailing American PR historiography, on the one hand, conceptualizes PR as a modern phenomenon but, on the other hand, claims even ancient beginnings. Research limitations/implications – The corpus of analysis contains only studies that attempt to supply an encompassing overview of (national) PR history. Practical implications – Public relations managers may use these findings to achieve a more nuanced critical understanding of the history of their occupation, and thereby reflect on its current state, which may lead to intensified ethical endeavours. Originality/value – The paper presents a pioneer systematic comparison of the three national PR histories, which may lead to enhanced national and general PR historiography. Another value is the establishment of a theoretically informed comparative measuring instrument, which (in future) can also be applied in order to compare and improve other national PR historiographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to investigate the extent and the human-capital determinants of low-wage mobility for labour market entrants in the UK and Germany. Design/methodology/approach -- Using panel data for the UK (BHPS) and Germany (GSOEP), a competing-risks duration model is applied that allows the study of transitions from low pay to competing destination states: higher pay, self-employment, unemployment and inactivity. Unobserved heterogeneity is tackled by a non-parametric mass-point approach. Findings -- It is found that low pay is only a temporary state for most young job starters. However, there is a small group of job starters that is caught in a trap of low pay, unemployment or inactivity. In the UK, job starters escape from low pay mainly by developing firm-specific skills. In Germany, involvement in formal vocational training and the attainment of apprenticeship qualifications account for low pay exits. Originality/value -- Over the past decades, unemployment and low-wage employment have emerged as major challenges facing young labour market entrants. While most empirical studies focus exclusively on the transition from low pay to high pay, the paper shows that a significant percentage of young entrants are caught in a low-pay-non-employment trap. Moreover, it is shown that, depending on the institutional context, different types of human capital investments can account for a successful low-pay exit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — This study aims to investigate the impact of news shocks on the growth rate of German and British tourist arrivals in Turkey Design/methodology/approach — This research utilizes GARCH as a detection device to distinguish the sensitivity of German and British tourists to news shocks, and employs monthly log-differenced tourist arrivals covering the period from January 1996 to December 2006. Findings — The uncertainty about future British arrival rates does not follow any specific pattern. The impact of news shocks seems to have an asymmetric, long-lasting, but decaying, effect on German tourists. The national culture seems to modify the impact of news shocks on visiting decisions; German tourists seem to be more sensitive to news shocks than British tourists. Research limitations/implications — The research covers only British and German tourists' decisions to visit Turkey. The question of whether the composition of the mean equation substantially alters the variance structure merits further study Practical implications — The findings suggest that, in the case of an unexpected negative news shock, tourism and travel-related organizations (private and government) should concentrate their mitigating policy responses on news-sensitive nationalities. Destinations that are more susceptible to negative occurrences such as natural disasters or political instability could reconsider their approaches to their target markets by taking into consideration characteristics of national cultures in their strategy Originality/value — The paper compares, for the first time, non-event-specific sensitivity of national cultures to news shocks and offers practical recommendations for response strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to highlight employee diversity at the workplace level in a MNC, and consider its impact upon management attempts to promote a global corporate culture. Design/methodology/approach - The investigation took the form of an ethnographic participant-observation study, which involved interviews and archival research plus a three-month period when the lead researcher worked on the plant's final assembly line. This provided insights into the personal and psychological issues of individuals within the workforce, and an experiential dimension to the study which is difficult to replicate in other ways. Findings - The management approach to cultural and diversity issues worked both for and against the development of cohesion and improved employee relations. Managers sometimes ignored the real impact of local ethnic diversity, focusing instead on inter-management conflicts, which contributed to employee morale and communication problems. But where diversity was recognised, more success followed, in particular where the distinct history and identity of the plant was emphasised. The study also tentatively suggests that "crossvergence" may be a fruitful way of interpreting the complex determinants of employee attitudes. Originality/value - The paper highlights how global strategies are always mediated by local circumstances, thus strengthening the arguments' for recognising the interaction between management elites and local workforces, acknowledging cultural diversity and its impact on global business, and looking beyond simplistic notions of "national culture" towards diversity within national boundaries. The key implication for managers is that the successful implementation of global corporate strategies works best not just with due acknowledgement of local workforce identities, but with positive engagement with local historical and cultural traditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to explore Wal-Mart's varying performance in Europe and eventual exit from the German market by singling out the role of consumer acceptance of Wal-Mart's market propositions. Design/methodology/approach - The paper uses the macro-constructs of institutional theory to interpret and conceptualise micro-level consumer data. Data were collected via telephone surveys in two regional German and UK markets in 2002/2003. Salient patronage norms in each market were established and Wal-Mart's as well as its competitors' performance on those norms were assessed. Findings - In the German context, the institutional theory approach to explaining Wal-Mart's problems clearly foreshadows market failure and exit. In UK market, no clear pattern between retailers adhering to salient patronage norms, patronage behaviour and market position could be established. The constructs of institutional theory were more likely to predict and explain market failure than success. Research limitations/implications - Research in two regional markets limits the applicability of findings. Nevertheless, some key issues seem to indicate overall market performance. The telephone survey approach carries, inherent problems, which however have only marginally impacted on the relevance of the findings. Originality/value - The use of institutional theory constructs adds a further dimension to the discussion of international retailer success/failure and can constitute a valuable tool in the repertoire of the divestment and failure literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the study that offers a comparison of the anti-money laundering (AML) legislation in Great Britain, Switzerland and Germany. AML legislations were compared based on criminal law, reporting stage, collation stage and the investigation stage. The article also highlights the specific differences and similarities between the three AML regimes, in which it is difficult to reach a conclusion concerning the effectiveness and efficiency. It is mentioned that a wide range of literature written in the original languages was analyzed in the compilation of the reseach.

Focuses on the workforce characteristics of the German and UK operations of McDonald's Corporation. The UK workforce is characterised by predominantly young workers with very limited work experience, the German workforce is much older and mostly foreign workers. The analysis suggests that despite these differences and differences in labour market regulation, there is a key similarity between the workforces. The corporation is able to draw on similarly "weak" and marginalised segments of the labour market and these segments are likely to be particularly acquiescent to managerial prerogative. National institutional arrangements can still constrain the employment relations policies of multinational enterprises (MNEs). However, this analysis supports the notion that there is a growing diversity within national systems increasingly explained by MNE policies and practices. This does not necessarily mean that national systems are becoming redundant, but that there is a dynamic relationship between such systems and the needs of MNEs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]