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Interdisciplinary research is a popular mode of knowledge production that becomes intensively promoted by research centers all across the globe. Despite the facilitation of interdisciplinary research, however, scholars working in these centers are 'disciplined.' Career promotions, funding decisions and scientific publishing are based on peer-review procedures that tend to favor monodisciplinary research. This paper builds on a qualitative study with scholars in interdisciplinary research centers in Germany and asks how scholars cope with these monodisciplinary demands. After deriving a conceptual framework, the study identifies four coping strategies: disciplinary innovation, strategic compliance, niche-seeking, and field creation. Each of these strategies is characterized by a different degree of openness to knowledge bases of other disciplines and a different degree of proactivity towards monodisciplinary demands from the scientific field. The results illuminate how research agendas become disciplined despite interdisciplinary motivation and organizational support of interdisciplinary research.

Due to the high costs and strategic importance of expatriate assignments, expatriate performance management (EPM) plays an increasingly important role for multinational enterprises (MNEs). However, research on EPM is still in its infancy. Drawing from the convergence/divergence debate in international human resource management, this study investigates and compares EPM strategies and practices across MNEs from three different country clusters to better understand whether EPM practices tend to converge, diverge, or crossverge (i.e., show aspects of both). Results from surveying 132 Anglo‐Saxon, Germanic, and Japanese MNEs reveal prominent differences (divergence) at the EPM strategic level such that Japanese MNEs tend to pursue more ethnocentric staffing strategies and design EPM systems specifically tailored to expatriates. On the practice level, we found both commonalities and differences between Japanese and Anglo‐Saxon and Germanic MNEs, pointing toward crossvergence. Theoretical and practical implications of our results are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the results and further consequences of my empirical investigation of Christian-Muslim families and their children in Germany. It gives an insight into the religious world of 4- to 12-year-old children in Christian-Muslim families through the analysis of evaluated interviews and drawings concerning religious practice and the image of God. Through the presentation of different aspects such as prayer, the image of God, gender issues, religious practice and affinity, the question of children's own needs is discussed. (Contains 8 notes.)

Diversity perspectives are philosophies of or approaches to diversity held by organizations, groups, or executives. They are important for organizations because they can determine the success or failure of diversity in the workforce. However, little is known about the predictors of diversity perspectives among executives. Using fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis, we analyzed 50 interviews with top executives in Germany to identify individual and organizational characteristics that predict executives' adoption of a diversity perspective, in particular of a value‐in‐diversity perspective. Specifically, we analyzed gender, age, education level, vocational background, and tenure (individual characteristics), as well as size, sector of organization, and competitive environment (organizational characteristics), as potential predictors. We found single characteristics did not predict adoption, but configurations of characteristics did. Drawing on the person‐situation‐interactionist perspective, we developed specific profiles of executives likely to foster a value‐in‐diversity perspective and identified characteristics of their work environments that support such an approach. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the proceedings of a conference entitled "Kontinuität und Wandel von Vorsorgeregimen und Risikodebatten" that was held on November 20-21, 2015 in Germany. The conference focuses on continuity and change of pension regimes and risk debates. It discussed risk areas such as technology, insurance and pensions and how they are related to the ratio of risk and body.

In response to demographic change organizations in Germany and Japan have recently begun to adapt their human resource management practices to embrace employees with diverse backgrounds: e.g. females, foreigners, or older workers (aged fifty and older). Based on a survey of 209 organizations we compare the current situation of diversity management practices in the two countries. Our findings indicate that, due to institutional differences, the scope and focus of diversity management varies significantly. Japanese diversity management focuses primarily on gender, whereas German organizations adopt a broader approach. While Japanese organizations consider communication and HR initiatives more important, German organizations assign a higher importance to practices integrating diversity in everyday work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As of May 3, 2011, workplace-related muscular skeletal rehabilitation has been a rehabilitation module within the German Statutory Accident Insurance (DGUV). Essential components of the procedure include compiling and documenting detailed standardized functional workplace profiles. A comparison of these profiles enables existing physical deficits to be identified and adequate deficit-orientated therapy to be planned. The effectiveness of workplace-related musculoskeletal rehabilitation was measured by means of a prospective monitoring study. Commercial and industrial employees (both male and female) aged between 20 and 65 years at the time of their accident were included in the study. Numerous rehabilitation process parameters, the results of re-entry to work as well as residual reductions in work capacity were evaluated. Immediately following workplace-related musculoskeletal rehabilitation, work capacity for the last job performed could be achieved. The number of cases of a reduction in work capacity was low. Workplace-related musculoskeletal rehabilitation proved to be a highly successful specific therapy, supporting re-entry to work within a minimum period of time. Further, possibly randomized studies for sustainable evidence of efficiency are desirable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the life and works of Ephraim Weber, a Pennsylvania-German Mennonite in Berlin, Germany. It mentions Weber's and Lucy Maud Montgoomery's 40-year epistolary relationship which was revealed by Wilfrid Eggleston. It describes how Eggleston admires the quantity of Weber and Montgomery's correspondence and label him as his first spiritual or literary father. It recounts how Weber struggled most of his life to become a poet, essayist, novelist as well as achieve a scholastic level. It notes how Weber's image reminds the people of various possible constructions in the shifting into a culturally-determined ways of reading.