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In 1997 minimum wages were introduced in the West and East German construction sector. The purpose of this paper is to analyze their impact on wage growth and employment retention probability of affected workers.

Following a difference‐in‐differences approach the paper proposes a method to identify the effects of this quasi‐experiment despite the lack of information on working hours in the large panel microdata. The method determines the size of the treatment and control group by the maximum likelihood criterion.

All results show positive wage growth effects of the minimum wage regulation in both parts of the country. When it comes to employment effects, the results clearly differ between the two parts of the country. The employment effects are negative for East Germany and positive for West Germany, although the latter are not always statistically significant.

Although there is a limit to the simple transferability of the results for the construction sector to other industries, the study provides some useful insights for this country concerning reactions to the minimum wage. This is the first paper analyzing the effect of minimum wages in Germany using microeconometric methods.

As the minimum wage in the East German construction sector was much higher in relation to the median wage than in West Germany, a tentative conclusion of the different employment results might be that the trade‐off between increasing wages for low‐paid workers and the danger of job losses does not exist in this case if minimum wages are moderate.

This paper provides valuable information on the impact of wage growth and employment retention probability in Germany.

The purpose of this paper is to study how insights from socio-cognitivism (sensemaking and interaction) in conjunction with institutional theory enhance our knowledge of strategizing in business networks through role and position.

This paper is conceptual and reviews extant literature from the fields under scrutiny, presenting and analyzing new combined approaches.

Current writings concerning strategizing in networks need to be supplemented in the area of strategic business network research. Interaction, sensemaking and institutionalization, as well as the network in which a firm is embedded, are important for strategically developing network positions and the roles of actors.

This conceptual paper suggests mechanisms affecting role and position in networks and calls for empirical research to deepen the understanding of the change forces at play in embedded relational situations for firms.

This study adds to current conceptual knowledge of strategizing in business networks. It presents a comprehensive perspective in viewing how key forces impact on the strategic position and role of corporate actors (both managers and firms) in networks.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a brief introduction to the topic of cultural research approaches that are applicable for investigating the interdependence of culture and labour. The “Introduction” notes two main constraints and four main research approaches that refer to this field of scientific exploration. The authors then outline and summarize the ten studies included in the International Journal of Manpower Special Issue, as well as acknowledge the main value added provided by each of them.

The Special Issue used a double-blind review process, employing one external referee and one cross-referee for each of the ten selected papers. The papers themselves represent a wide variety of designs, methodologies, and analytical strategies used to study culture and labour.

The findings of the studies included in this Special Issue touch on culture and diversity and cultural impact on migration, as well as on culture in the workplace and willingness to work.

Each article also draws attention to practical implications with regard to cultural impact for the particular country and/or regions examined in the study.

Together, the papers in this Special Issue help to make a clear distinction in macro- and micro-cultural economic research by shedding innovative light on the study of culture and labour from an international and interdisciplinary perspective.

To reveal similarities between the business process reengineering (BPR) and shared service approaches, in order to improve outcomes of shared service implementation processes through lessons learnt from previous BPR projects.

As the focus of this paper is primarily theoretical, the paper starts out with a literature review of developments in the BPR and shared service movements. Similarities between the two change alternatives are discussed and drawn up.

The paper concludes by identifying which previously learnt lessons the emerging shared service movement should take into account from the BPR era when implementing shared services.

The paper is primarily based on previous findings from a literature review. To increase insights into the contemporary shared service phenomenon, complementary research in the form of in‐depth case studies are recommended.

Based on the similarities between BPR and shared service approaches, some normative guidelines for the implementation of shared service are given to practitioners.

This paper fills a gap in process‐oriented research by comparing BPR and shared service approaches in order to reveal similarities, which in turn enables practitioners to draw on pre‐existing research findings in their present shared service projects.

Definition-problems concerning the terms “migrant” and “Health-Related Quality of Life” (HRQoL) have a negative impact on the operationalization and measurement of the multidimensional and subjective construct of HRQoL. The aims of this systematic literature review are to address the following questions: How can the instruments used within the research field “migration and HRQoL” be described or categorized? Which dimensions (psychological, physical and social) and associated sub-dimensions have been used concerning measuring HRQoL when measures are applied to migrants?

A systematic review was conducted. Three databases (Medline, Embase and Cinahl) were systematically searched for the investigation on HRQoL of migrants. Articles written in English, German and Polish, published since 2003 and meeting other inclusion criteria, were included in the final analysis.

In the first stage a total of 4,062 studies were identified. However, very few studies were found to focus on HRQoL among migrants. Finally, 28 studies were included in the analysis. The results confirm that the terms “migrant” and “Quality of Life” and “Health-Related Quality of Life” are neither congruently used nor defined, respectively, within these studies, which consequently impacts deleteriously on the application and measurement of the concept in these groups. The majority of the studies reported to measure HRQoL with a well-known and validated HRQoL instrument. The physical dimensions (symptoms/pain/vitality, energy/vitality/sleep and the objective/subjective health status) are predominantly represented in the reviewed literature. The psychological dimension mostly includes sub-dimensions such as psychological stress and depressive symptoms; the social dimension was predominantly considered as the sub-dimension social relationships/networking.

This paper highlights profound issues in the accurate assessment of HRQoL in migrants. This may have a significant impact on delivery of appropriate evidenced-based care for migrants in need of healthcare intervention.

Theoretical and empirical research on the impact of immigrants for local development is rather inconclusive regarding the direction of said impact. The purpose of this paper is to identify relationships between human capital and cultural capital, in the context of local labour market productivity.

As the key constituents of human capital, identified in the literature, are both the locally generated through investment in education and the inflowing through immigration human capital, the paper examines those jointly in a close-to-reality-model. To this end, the paper operationalizes and infers data on the “melting pot” of EU15, NUTS2 level. The sources of the data are the Eurostat Regional Database and the World Value Survey, which have served to construct both a cross-section for the year 2001. These data sets allows us to examine the different groups of migrating and local human capital, their interaction and joint impact on local productivity through three stage least square estimations of the simultaneous equations CBD model.

The evidence suggests that benefits from immigrants differ, not only due to their human capital, but also due to their culturally biased different bargaining power on the labour market.

The main advantage of the suggested model of productivity is that, in addition to accounting for the filigree composition of human capital, it also takes into consideration the cultural capital present in a locality. In this manner, the authors are able to examine the interaction between the quality of the incoming human capital and the cultural encounter context (generating the cultural “milieu” effect) of the modern diverse city.

Nobody concerned with political economy can neglect the history of economic doctrines. Structural changes in the economy and society influence economic thinking and, conversely, innovative thought structures and attitudes have almost always forced economic institutions and modes of behaviour to adjust. We learn from the history of economic doctrines how a particular theory emerged and whether, and in which environment, it could take root. We can see how a school evolves out of a common methodological perception and similar techniques of analysis, and how it has to establish itself. The interaction between unresolved problems on the one hand, and the search for better solutions or explanations on the other, leads to a change in paradigma and to the formation of new lines of reasoning. As long as the real world is subject to progress and change scientific search for explanation must out of necessity continue.