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Discusses the status of education, mobility and poverty in Europe as of March 2000. Role of knowledge in its competition in the labor market worldwide; Importance of investment in human capital in preventing unemployment.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to study the gender specific private returns on education (RE) in Europe in a comparative perspective. The authors extend the model of de la Fuente (2003) by estimating the parameters by gender and introducing maternity leaves and benefits. The paper analyses the impact of the public policy variables evaluating the elasticities with respect to unemployment benefits, marginal and average tax rates, maternity leave and childcare benefits. Design/methodology/approach – The authors estimate the Mincerian coefficients, with the Heckman’ selection model, for 12 West European countries using the EU-SILC data. The authors then use them as input to calibrate the decision model. Findings – The RE of females tend to be higher than those of males in all the Europeans countries but Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. The gender gap can be explained mainly by the wage premia and labour income taxes which more than compensate the negative effects on females’ returns triggered by higher unemployment rates and maternity-related benefits. Practical implications – The tax system has the most pronounced effect on RE. An increase in the marginal tax rates has a negative impact. An increase in the average tax rates can have a negative or positive impact, depending on the progressivity of the tax system. An increase in unemployment benefits and maternity or child-care benefits has a negative but fairly small impact. Social implications – The analysis considers just one dimension of maternity related policies: the effect on RE and differences across gender. These policies may have aims which are beyond the scope of this paper, for instance to increase fertility. From this viewpoint, the small values of the elasticities presented are reassuring in that they suggest that they can be implemented at a fairly small cost in terms of investment in human capital. Originality/value – The authors compute the RE using a model which allows us to take into account and assess the significance of relevant variables: wage premium, income tax, some public transfers and benefits, costs of the investments. Moreover, the authors estimate the wage premia using relatively recent EU-SILC data. Finally, the paper compares 12 EU countries spanning quite different labour market conditions and institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose -- This paper uses a unique survey of Roma and non-Roma in South Eastern Europe with the aim of evaluating competing explanations for the poor performance of Roma in the labour market. Design/methodology/approach -- Following a descriptive analysis, econometric models are employed to identify the determinants of educational achievement, employment and wages for Roma and non-Roma. Limited information maximum likelihood (LIML) methods are employed to control for endogenous schooling and two sources of sample selection bias in the estimates. Non-linear and linear decomposition techniques are applied in order to identify the extent of discrimination. Findings -- The key results are that: the employment returns to education are lower for Roma than for non-Roma whilst the wage returns are broadly similar for the two groups; the similar wage gains translate into a smaller absolute wage gain for Roma than for non-Roma given their lower average wages; the marginal absolute gains from education for Roma are only a little over one-third of the marginal absolute gains to education for majority populations; and, there is evidence to support the idea that a substantial part of the differential in labour market outcomes is due to discrimination. Research limitations/implications -- The survey data employed do not include information on hours worked. In order to partially control for this, the analysis of wages is limited to employee wages excluding the self-employed. Practical implications -- Explanations of why Roma fare so badly tend to fall into one of two camps: the "low education" and the "discrimination" schools. The analysis suggests that both of these explanations have some basis in fact. Moreover, a direct implication of the lower absolute returns to education accruing to Roma is that their lower educational participation is, at least in part, due to rational economic calculus. Consequently, policy needs to address both low educational participation and labour market discrimination contemporaneously. Originality/value -- This is the first paper to attempt to econometrically distinguish between discrimination and educational explanations of Roma disadvantage in the labour market in Central and Eastern Europe. The survey data employed are unique and appropriate for the task. Unusually for analyses dealing with returns to education, the LIML econometric approach employed controls for both endogenous schooling and two sources of sample selection bias. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses human resource management and human resource development in central and eastern Europe (CEE). Importance of the labor policy and strategy within the two contending economic systems; Names of journals dedicated to these two economic systems.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address the problem of job satisfaction determinants of higher education graduates across six selected study domains. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the theoretical considerations, derived from human capital theory and signalling theory, the authors formulate the model explaining job satisfaction as a broad measure of labour market success. Explanatory variables include various socio-demographic characteristics as well as market environment and process of learning, modes of teaching and study programme characteristics. Data used in the analysis comes from two special surveys of European research projects REFLEX and HEGESCO. Principal component analysis method and OLS regression were used to estimate model parameters. Findings – The results of our research show the important role of characteristics of educational process, as well as individual graduates’ early work-related experience in predicting job satisfaction. Differences in job satisfaction determinants across domains may be to some extent explained by the differences in the labour market characteristics for graduates in given discipline. Variety of education-related characteristics taken into account in the empirical analysis of determinants of job satisfaction is a key valuable contribution to the research in the field. Originality/value – Research findings indicate the areas of potential actions aimed at improving future job satisfaction which can be undertaken by higher education institutions’ management bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose — The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which the quality of the jobs of low-skilled young workers is affected by the structure of education and training systems in various European countries. It focuses on the differences between countries providing fairly general education (internal labour market (ILM) contexts) and countries offering more specific vocational education (occupational labour market (OLM) contexts). Design/methodology/approach — Logistic regression analyses. Findings — It is found that low-skilled young workers are worse off in OLM countries than in ILM ones, with respect to employment in a permanent job, employment in a non-elementary job and participation in continuing vocational training. However, in OLM countries low-skilled young workers are less often involuntary part-time employed than those in ILM countries. With regard to participation in continuing vocational training, the ILM-OLM contrast is larger in manufacturing than in services; regarding employment in a permanent job the reverse is true. Originality/value — It is shown that the labour market position of low-skilled young workers is affected by the structure of education and training systems in various European countries. The upgrading of the skills demanded in the European ‘knowledge economies’ will therefore have less severe consequences for low-skilled young workers in ILM countries than in OLM countries, since the acquisition of occupationally specific skills is organized differently between the two institutional contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the European challenge in building work organisations that are both economically efficient and good places to work and learn, on the basis of the publication entitled "Facing up to the Learning Organisation Challenge" published in April 2003. The happenings in recent European research and development work dealing with the learning organisation and organisational learning have also been analysed and interpreted. A number of current criticisms of the learning organisation concept are outlined. The article also analyses dilemmas and tensions that have to be understood before beginning to tackle organisational learning and some key principles to be adhered to so that productive organisational learning can in fact take place. Four main conclusions were drawn from the study. The first is that, in order to build learning organisations, one has to ensure that: there is coherence between the "tangible" (formal/objective) and the "intangible" (informal/subjective) dimensions of an organisation. A need for boundary-crossing and interdisciplinary partnerships between the vocational education and training and human resource development communities has also been emphasised.

The article talks about the papers published by the Center Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW), which focuses on the social work profession's interest to push for closer links to enhance its status in the U.K. and in Europe. The paper "Social Work Education and 1992," by Hugh Barr considers initiatives in the European Community for the benefit of social work education and training in U.K. The second paper, "Links and Exchanges," offers a guide to establish links and exchanges between social work education programs in Europe. The two other studies discuss a study in France and analyzes racism and anti-racism in the European Community.

Purpose - Utilising data from 18 in-depth case studies, this study seeks to explore training, development and human resource development (HRD) practices in European call centres. It aims to argue that the complexity and diversity of training, development and HRD practices is best understood by studying the multilayered contexts within which call centres operate. Call centres operate as open systems and training, development and HRD practices are influenced by environmental, strategic, organisational and temporal conditions. Design/methodology/approach - The study utilised a range of research methods, including in-depth interviews with multiple stakeholders, documentary analysis and observation. The study was conducted over a two-year period. Findings - The results indicate that normative models of HRD are not particularly valuable and that training, development and HRD in call centres is emergent and highly complex. Originality/value - This study represents one of the first studies to investigate training and development and HRD practices and systems in European call centres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses training, employee development, and human resource development in European call centres. A description of European call centres is provided including the complexity and importance of such centres in the European economy. Topics include employees who are expected to meet stretch goals and manage emotional pressures. A conceptual framework is proposed that maps the interactions of internal and external influences which explain characteristics associated with training, development, and human resource development (HRD) in call centres.

Purpose - The aim of this article is to offer a conceptual framework in entrepreneurship education largely inspired by education sciences and discuss its two main levels, the ontological and educational levels. This framework is then used to discuss various types of entrepreneurship teaching programs, focusing on three broad categories of learning processes. Design/methodology/appraoch - This article uses intensive reviews of literature in the fields of education and entrepreneurship. The teaching framework and the derived propositions are intended to provide a bridge between education sciences and the field of entrepreneurship and seeks to stress the scientific legitimacy of entrepreneurship education. Findings - Finds that there is a need to reconsider entrepreneurship education in its wide diversity, both from an ontological and pedagogical point-of-view. The range of theoretical choices, objectives, publics, pedagogical methods and institutional context should be approached through the lenses of multiple teaching models and learning processes, which can be structured around a general framework. Research limitations/implications - The framework allows for the combination of both the concept of teaching models and learning process in a general theory-driven framework and their applicability to specific entrepreneurship education situations. Practical implications - The authors' contribution sheds a new light, both on the design and on the implementation of entrepreneurship teaching programs. An explicit conceptual framework should help the effective and systematic design, management and evaluation of new or existing programs, along all the relevant dimensions. Originality/value - The authors propose a conceptual framework, a canonic teaching model, in entrepreneurship education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of interactive, case method and other experiential teaching has a very recent history in the Czech and Slovak educational systems. Before the "Velvet revolution", courses were typically taught using non-interactive lecturing. Along with the recent introduction of the free market economy has come a real need for business administration courses. The Czechoslovak Management Center has attempted to introduce and foster interactive techniques through direct training and through pairing western and Czech/Slovak Faculty in the classroom. Experiences during the first 18 months revealed market resistance to interactive methods among some local faculty and students. Reviews issues which impinge on receptivity to interactive teaching on the part of Czech and Slovak Faculty and students. Identifies lessons learned and makes recommendations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Community is process- or product-oriented, not customer-oriented. This is nowhere more clearly indicated than in the recent adoption of the slogan single market. For all but commodities, and industries the economics of which are uncontainable within a single European nation state such as aircraft production, the directional movement is towards segmentation rather than singularisation of markets. Professional marketing thinking believes markets exist at a moment in space and time when customers and products or services come together to gain benefits in use. Different customers can satisfy quite different needs and wants from acquiring exactly the same product or service. All can place quite different value in use on it. Furthermore, increasing levels of education and technological capabilities make it possible for one to afford to be different. The current disaggregation of Europe's longest running so-called single market, the Soviet Union, shows how little progress had really been made therein, despite very determined attempts at overcoming cultural differences and delivering postulated benefits.

Focuses on two courses provided by the Institution of Occupational Safety adn health, an organization in Europe for individuals with a professional involvement in occupational safety and health. Case study of a Managing Safely course run by British Waterways; Feedback on the course from participants.