Using job evaluation to achieve pay equity

Job evaluation has become linked to debates over comparable worth. Proponents of pay equity complain that job evaluation is often biased against predominantly female jobs. Nonetheless, job evaluation is proposed as a tool to achieve more equitable pay for predominantly female jobs. We discuss ways in which conventionally used job evaluation plans incorporate sex bias and how these biases may be minimized. We conclude that, when care is taken to avoid sex bias, job evaluation is the best available tool to achieve pay equity. We predict that its use will grow, particularly in the public sector.     

Implementing pay reform in the public sector: Different approaches to flexible pay in sweden and the united states

A set of implementation criteria drawn from the United States experience provide a framework for examining pay reform in the Swedish public sector. The study finds that the Swedish approach is quite distinct and this may be attributable to unique features in the Swedish labor market. The reform toward flexible or individualized pay in government agencies appears to be based on an assumption of greater cost efficiency in human resource management and a broad unwillingness to employ objective measures of individual or organizational productivity. Consequently the study calls into question the utility of an analytical framework based on the Anglo-American experience for examining the Swedish case.     

The Making of a Martyr: Chechen Suicide Terrorism

Beginning in June of 2000 Chechen terrorists have carried out twenty-eight acts of suicide terrorism acts including two mass hostage taking operations combined with suicide terrorism (Beslan and Nord Ost). This paper reports the findings from psychological autopsies (interviews with close family members and friends) of thirty-four (out of 112 total) of these human bombers as well as augmenting them with material from hostage interviews from Beslan and Nord-Ost. The authors analyze the phenomena on the levels of the organization, individual, society and in terms of ideology and compare findings from other arenas also involving suicide terrorism. The main findings are that a lethal mix occurs when individuals in Chechnya are vulnerable to self recruitment into suicide terrorism due to traumatic experiences and feeling a duty to revenge and this vulnerability is combined with exposure to groups that recruit and equip suicide terrorists with both an ideology and the means to explode themselves. The ideology supporting Chechen suicide terrorism is very similar to the global jihadist ideology but remains more nationalist in its goals. It functions for the bombers much like short lived psychological first aid—answering their posttraumatic concerns in a way that shortly leads to their deaths. Unlike the Palestinian case, there is little social support for suicide terrorism in Chechnya.     

Making Europe Work

Because they have failed to address the fundamental economic imbalances within Europe obscured by the single currency, each effort by European leaders so far to resolve the euro crisis has only deepened it. Without a decisive move toward fiscal and political union, accompanied by policies that push productivity and competitiveness toward convergence while closing the democratic deficit, the Eurozone will disintegrate. To discuss the way forward, the Nicolas Berggruen Institute's Council on the Future of Europe met in Rome on May 28 with Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti. In this section we publish the contributions from that meeting by the former European leaders, scholars and Nobel laureates who are members of the Council.     

Transition in government pay policies: The problem of legitimacy

In this article the problem of legitimacy is discussed in the context of pay-for-performance in government agencies. The doctrine of a new public management implies a direct single track between individual performance and organizational result. In practice, however, this seems to be much more complex. It will be argued on theoretical and empirical grounds that public agencies will be hard-pressed to resolve the tension between quality and efficiency imposed by the new pay system. An examination of four empirical cases in different national agencies reveals that the bonus system creates a delicate management problem and poses a risk for the perceived legitimacy of public sector pay.     

The Texture of Livelihoods: Migration and Making a Living in Hanoi

Abstract

Through the experience of 30 rural migrants to Hanoi, this paper reconstructs their livelihood histories, linking the experience of our migrant subjects with wider transformations in Vietnam’s economy and society. We argue for an ‘everyday’ political economy that recognises the fluid connections between the state, society and economy, and the individual. While highlighting the indeterminacy and contingency of life, we recognise the wider context that contributes to the production of the livelihood textures we discern. The characteristic livelihood pathways of the migrant households are shown to echo research undertaken in rural, often less economically vibrant, contexts.