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The purpose of this paper is to answer the following research question: which factors relating to the international competitiveness of German enterprises are most important for the Polish market? Then, in a broader context: which competitiveness factors play a key role in helping enterprises from the highest developed countries conquer the market of a relatively less developed country? On the basis of a literature review, a research gap is identified, indicating there is a shortage of studies that clearly identify a group of factors that influence a company's success on the foreign market. The gap is filled with the empirical qualitative research and the conclusions regarding the key competitiveness factors and their effective combination. Competitive strategies and factors key for their implementation are identified, presenting the factors responsible for the growth of German enterprises on the international market (Poland) and achieving market success. The set of enterprises' competitiveness factors is established and the hierarchy those factors is presented. Although the qualitative research based on thirteen companies is not representative, the leading German enterprises provide a valuable lesson on how to successfully conquer a foreign market. The key competitiveness factors responsible for such success in the context of strategic goals, competition strategies and modern methods of competition are presented and discussed. The findings are very useful for real enterprises in internationalizing situations, where the management has to determine the competitive strategy which should lead to foreign growth and in consequence success on the international market. The study indicates what to focus on when entering the foreign market and which factors have a direct impact on the growth on the foreign market. The paper is a result of empirical research on competitiveness and provides valuable information about the set of ranked competitive factors that have a direct influence on success in a foreign market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Global Media Journal: German Edition is the property of Global Media Journal: German Edition and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper provides a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the importance of the factors associated with the rise in male wage inequality in Europe's largest economy over the period 1995-2010. We simultaneously consider an extensive set of explanatory factors including personal characteristics, measures of internationalization, task composition, union coverage, industry, region, and firm characteristics. Our study uses a different data source than most of the other prominent studies on wage inequality in Germany. We carefully assess differences implied by the different data and show that previous studies have most likely underestimated the dominating role of de-unionization for the rise in German wage inequality. As the second most important factor, we identify compositional effects of personal characteristics such as age and education. We find only moderate effects linked to internationalization, firm heterogeneity, task changes and regional convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper adds to our understanding of the effects of globalization and localization on comparative strategic human resource management by providing an encompassing overview of the existing research paradigms, a brief description of the relevant theoretical underpinnings of comparative strategic human resource management research, and an analysis of the--admittedly limited--empirical results from a German perspective. Illuminating the peculiarities of the German, European, and U.S./American models from a comparative perspective makes the shape of strategic human resource management in Germany clearer: It is clearly distinct in that it focuses on employment practices associated with traditional values such as high investment in training, long-term employee development plans, job protection, and collaboration between employer and employee on various levels. However, Germany shares some characteristics with human resource management models in other European countries, and there is also evidence that it may be adopting some U.S./American strategic human resource management practices, which are sometimes considered best practices beyond the United States. Later in the paper I outline an agenda for future research and review implications for management practice and education. The conclusions do not focus solely on Germany as the country of investigation, but instead take a broader perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The intention of this paper is to explore the internationalization efforts of German pork producers towards Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) with a special focus on recent dynamics, market development strategies and policy conditions. The added-value potentials offered by CEE countries have become increasingly lucrative for the German pork industry, particularly as the domestic market currently shows a certain degree of saturation in terms of consumption. The results of this study which is mainly based on qualitative interviews with selected pork producers from North-West Germany reveal that transnational pork production networks between Germany and CEE are shaped by a high degree of fragility and discontinuity. This is reflected not only by the fluctuating development of foreign trade in piglets, live hogs and pork products, but also by the uncertainty and hesitancy of the interviewed pork producers with regard to business operations in CEE markets. It will be shown that the policy conditions on the national level still have a clear impact on internationalization processes in the pork industry. The paper further illustrates that the configuration of transnational pork production networks can be explained, in part, by insights from the global production networks (GPN) and the agri-food geographies literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The wine industry is significantly affected by globalization and changes in consumption habits and shifts in lifestyle, which lead to changes in the market environment and intensity of competition in the wine markets. Overall, wine cooperatives have a market share of more than 40 % in Europe. In Germany, they account for around one third of the total wine production. The decreasing number of wine cooperatives and their members leads to the assumption that wine cooperatives have difficulties adapting to the different market environment and though, need to select and implement competitive strategies. The aim of this paper is to identify and develop competitive strategies for wine cooperatives in the German wine industry. Therefore, the external forces affecting competitive rivalry in the wine industry are being evaluated for wine cooperatives in Germany. A qualitative approach has been applied including in-depth interviews with managing directors and chairmen of the board (n=15). Data were transcribed verbatim and content analysed. Results showed that the intensity of rivalry among existing competitors is high. Bargaining power of wine cooperatives towards buyers and suppliers strongly depends on their size. However, generally the bargaining power of retailers is high, although this depends on the retail channel (discounters, food retail, specialized retail, specialized wholesale, gastronomy). Five main strategy dimensions emerged: (1) the cost leadership and cost focus strategy, (2) the differentiation and differentiation focus strategy, (3) collaboration among producers, (4) offering additional services, and (5) options for improved membership relations and increased youth involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foreign direct investment is an essential aspect of‘globalization’ yet its empirical determinants are not well understood. What we do know is based either on poor data for a wide range of nations, or good data for the US and Swedish cases. In this paper, we provide evidence on the determinants of the activities of German multinational firms by using a newly available firm-level data set from the Deutsche Bundesbank. The specific goal of this paper is to demonstrate the relative role of country-level and firm-level determinants of foreign direct investment. We focus on three main questions: First, what are the main driving forces of German firms’ multinational activities? Second, is there evidence that sector-level and firm-level factors shape internationalization patterns? Third, is there evidence of agglomeration effects in the foreign activities of German firms? We find that the market access motive for internationalization dominates. Firms move abroad mainly to gain better access to large foreign markets. Cost-saving motives, however, are important for some manufacturing sectors. Our results strongly suggest that firm-level heterogeneity has an important influence on internationalization patterns– as stressed by recent models of international trade. We also find positive agglomeration effects for the activities of German firms that stem from the number of other German firms that are active on a given foreign market. In terms of lessons for economic policy, our results show that lowering barriers to the integration of markets and encouraging the formation of human capital can promote the activities of multinational firms. However, our results related to the heterogeneity of firms and agglomeration tendencies show that it might be difficult to fine-tune policies directed at the exploitation of synergies and at the creation of clusters of foreign firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a unique, longitudinal data set of UK and German new technology-based firms (NTBFs) to investigate the determinants of internationalization and firm survival. Specifically, it tests the influence of absorptive capacity, inter-firm specific relationships and international exposure on survival. Its key findings are that high absorptive capacity increases survival probabilities; specific customer-supplier relationships enhance survival; and the greater the firm's exposure to internationalization activity, the higher its subsequent chance of survival. Thus, the paper provides evidence that young firms are more likely to survive when they pursue an internationalization strategy based on resource consolidation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The development of foreign markets can be considered as a strategic key factor in times of globalisation. However, past empirical research could not detect a 'universal' relationship between corporate multinationality and performance. There exist fundamental doubts whether the contextual condition of internationalisation of one empirical setting can be easily transferred to another setting for investigating the relationship between multinationality and performance. For instance, potentials for realising economies of scale in the home market and abroad, the degree of integration of neighbouring countries, as well as the accumulated internationalisation experience, can differ significantly from each other between countries. Taking into account the contextual conditions of internationalisation of stock-listed German firms in the time period from 1990 to 2006, this paper analyses the performance effects of firms' multinationality. Firms of this sample can benefit from multinationality even in early internationalisation stages and are able to manage high degrees of complexity in later internationalisation stages successfully. Firm-specific advantages in the field of intangible assets with long-term (short-term) effects moderate the relationship between multinationality and future-oriented (past-oriented) performance positive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a case study on factors of internationalization of Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) in GermanyTopics discussed include concept of international new ventures formulated by finance professors Benjamin M. Oviatt and Patricia P. McDougall, study on the upcoming internationalization theories and presents a table showing key dimensions of international new venture (INV) versus traditional exporter (TE).

Certain strands of cosmopolitanism have been criticized on various occasions for merely mirroring the mental framework of a global elite that stresses positive attitudes to mobility, flexibility, and disinterested objective detachment to the detriment of 'rooted', local and national values.1 In this way, it is argued, it presents a one-sided opportunistic or naively affirmative picture of processes of globalization rather than taking seriously the challenges posed by the inherently normative dimension of cosmopolitan thought and practice.2 The present paper will argue for a return to the critical core of the cosmopolitan idea and proposes that the critique of reification, which recently received renewed interest by philosophers of the so-called third generation Frankfurt School, can serve as a vital tool for re-imagining cosmopolitan teacher education as critique. In particular, the discussion around the recent turn towards a standards and competencies oriented teacher education in Germany will be critically examined in this regard. Rather than presenting a mere factual description of our thinking, judgments and actions, a cosmopolitan orientation should be concerned with reminding us of the importance of a continuous critical challenge of their validity. Firstly, the concept of reification will be shown to provide the conceptual resources to describe and select relevant characteristics of contemporary social pathologies that cannot be adequately captured within liberal social philosophies. A closer analysis of reification as a deficient relation to oneself, to others, or to the world will then lead to the second question of how to conceive of non-reifying forms of relatedness, commitment and boundedness as enabling new forms of expressive freedom. Instead of one-sided, narrow and hasty reactions towards a perceived 'global challenge'"either fetishizing borders or their transgression, an critical educational cosmopolitanism should bring into focus how educational institutions such as teacher education can provide, strengthen, and enhance the conditions for binding ourselves as citizens of the world in non-reifying ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Pedagogy Studies / Pedagogika is the property of Vytautas Magnus University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Revista de Administração is the property of Instituto de Administracao da FEA-USP and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

With this paper, we want to shed light on factors influencing a firm's rate of expansion. We argue that expansion is a complex task and complexity associated with expansion projects in one period can negatively impact rate of expansion in the following period. Moreover, we argue that firm portfolio complexity also slows down further expansion. Using longitudinal data on the expansion path of 91 German companies, we show that added product scope of expansion and degree of internationalization characterizing expansion in one period as well as level of product and international diversity have a significant impact on slowing down rate of expansion in the subsequent period. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The globalisation of higher education implies the application of a neo‐liberal market forces model based on competition and choice. This is happening in Germany by gradual stages, and is often, but not necessarily correctly, assumed to be antagonistic to the Humboldtian model that underlies the classical German university tradition. This paper reports a survey which showed that staff and student role relationships were permeated by paradoxes and mutual incomprehension, and that the goodwill, dedication and respect of the professors towards their students were being wasted due to deficits in organisation and structure. Freedom, an integral part of the Humboldtian model, was much more beneficial to the staff than to the students, many of whom called instead for better guidance and course structure. The professors were sceptical about some features of re‐structuring such as more executive leadership on the part of their management, and did not want their institutions to be run like enterprises—though they did want them to have more autonomy. About one third were willing to accept a diminution in state power. The system seems at a stage where the advantages of the Humboldtian model are being 'delivered' only incompletely, and the potential of a market model has not yet been fully realised. Humboldt was himself an intellectual predecessor of neo‐liberalism, and would not have been opposed to the notion of a reduction in state power, even though this runs counter to the present 'German model'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Internationalisation' became a key theme in the 1990s, both in higher education policy debates and in research on higher education. The process is accompanied by a European policy that seems to favour a de-nationalisation of higher education, a growing responsibility of individual institutions of higher education and an increasing popularity of managerialism. This paper addresses the traditional controversial role of higher education as regards internationalisation and the nation -state, comparing the mainland European and the Anglo-Saxon approach. Assessing the different impacts of internationalisation as a challenge to European and German higher education, it analyses the role of the European Union and the Bologna process, as well as the icebreaker function of internationalisation for higher education reform in Germany. A closer look at the complex and dynamic multi-level set-up of internationalisation in European higher education reveals that it not only means varying border-crossing activities that are on the rise, but rather substantial changes towards systematic policies and a growing awareness of international cooperation and competition in an increasingly global higher education market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents information about the book "Globalisation of R&D and Technology Markets: Consequences for National Innovation Policies: Proceedings of the International Conference on 1 and 2 December 1997 in Bonn, Petersberg, Germany organised by the BMBF and the FhG ISI." The papers in this book discuss the globalization of R&D and technology markets and conse- quences for national innovation policy; trends, motives, and consequences in the globalization of R&D and technology markets; emerging global economic trends and issues; globalization implications for industrial relations; European integration as an answer to technoglobalism; new challenges to education and research in a global economy and a Scandinavian perspective on how to improve local conditions for innovation.

The role of finance in the development of trade draws increasing attention from economists and economic historians. Yet empirical studies, especially from an historical perspective, continue to be scarce. This study analyses the role of German and British foreign banks in the internationalisation of trade during the first globalisation. It creates a novel data set on the bilateral trade of Germany and Great Britain with the rest of the world and the number and geographical distribution of German and British foreign banks between 1881 and 1913. Using an augmented gravity model of trade, the article shows that banks had a significant positive impact on exports and imports and that this effect was even more pronounced in case of German banks and trade. Moreover, the effect of German banks on trade is the highest in the years closer to bank entry, supporting the idea of German banks being initiators of trade. In contrast, the effect of British banks seems constant over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reviews five recent contributions that empirically investigate the interaction between changing socio-historical contexts and individual adaptation and development. The contributions by John Bynner, Rand Conger and colleagues, Cigdem Kagitcibasi, Jungsik Kim and colleagues and Ingrid Schoon are discussed against the backdrop of a generic model of social change and human development. It is argued that research on social change has to consider the larger political and social context and needs to identify and to study conditions that represent the processes of macro-micro-interaction. Such research will not only enrich the scientific inquiry in this field and promote theorizing about development-in-context, but also is of relevance for social policies in times of rapid social change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Do the observable preferences and behavior of economic actors correspond to microeconomic models? I address this question by examining the microfoundations of firms' exchange rate preferences and lobbying activity between 1960 and 2008 in Germany, one of the most internationally exposed and export-oriented economies. The phenomena to be explained are twofold. First, lobbying activity appears to have declined over time. Archival sources provide evidence of strong preference articulation and exchange rate lobbying during the 1960s and 1970s. In recent years, by contrast, the intensity of firms' lobbying activity has gone down, despite greater exchange rate fluctuations and currency appreciations, which are costly and potentially ruinous for producers of tradable goods. Second, there is substantial variation in the propensity of tradables producers to lobby over exchange rate levels. I argue that the extent of firms' internationalization is key for explaining both of these observations and the political economy of exchange rate preferences and lobbying more generally. Firms and sectors with a low degree of 'operational hedging' or diversification across different currency areas are much more likely to have preferences for a low exchange rate and to lobby over exchange rate levels than their more diversified counterparts. As globalization proceeds apace, we may be moving towards a world in which 'no preference' is the stable equilibrium. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Copyright of Soziale Welt is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cahiers Internationaux de Sociologie is the property of Presses Universitaires de France and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In the current context of globalization, firms have concentrated their efforts on the development of international brands. As a result, international brand portfolios have been restructured, and many successful local brands have been eliminated. This article's objective is to improve the understanding of local brand differences and competitive advantages relative to international brands. To achieve this, the authors reanalyzed the Young & Rubicam database Brand Asset Valuator and examined more than 744 brands across the four largest countries in Europe: the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and Italy. The authors discuss the managerial implications of the findings for international marketers as they develop their ideal international brand portfolios. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Growing milk production, stagnating domestic consumption and ongoing liberalization of the worldwide milk market have led to increasing exports of milk and milk products out of Germany. This situation heightens competition amongst German dairies for market share on foreign markets. The German dairy industry, which comprises of some international corporations and many medium sized companies, including both cooperatives and privately owned companies, therefore has to find strategies with which to compete successfully on international markets. This study analyzes the German dairy industry comparing different internationalization strategies and their influence on the firms’ economic success. 18 German dairy companies have been analyzed. We identified different internationalization strategies with reference to Perlmutter’s EPRG model. To measure economic success, we analyzed annual reports from the dairy companies observed over the years 2010 to 2017 and so calculated different key figures. The influence of different internationalization strategies on economic success is analyzed by a Hausman Taylor estimation where the EBIT-margin is the dependent variable in our model, representing economic success. We found that German dairy industry companies do pursue different internationalisation strategies and that these have different influences on the companies’ economic success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although German companies lost their foreign assets after World War II, they returned quickly to the world market after 1945. While internationalisation during the post-war boom was mainly based on exports, foreign direct investment (FDI) increased enormously since the late 1960s. Simultaneously, the companies remained part of the German corporate network as a typical characteristic of Rhenish capitalism. Unlike many Varieties-of-Capitalism (VoC) studies dealing with the macro-level picture of whole economies, the article reconsiders the idea that firms should be at the centre of analysis and examines the responses of four major West German producers of chemicals, pharmaceuticals and fibres to the tension between national corporate governance and increasing internationalisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the article is to verify dependence between potential threat of industry 4.0 and present skills and knowledge of workers in engineering companies. There were defined four hypotheses, focused on connection between knowledge of industry 4.0 concept and potential threats of job loss from different points of view. To verify these hypotheses there was used questionnaire survey, distributed in engineering companies in Czech Republic, Germany and Canada. Gained data was put under statistical evaluation by Pearson’s chi-square test of independence and correspondence analysis for displaying connection between knowledge of industry 4 and country of company. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a new section of "Journal of Marketing" which focuses on marketing developments around the world. The focus of this particular article is development in Germany. Because of economic reasons, marketing problems were not particularly an issue in German companies until the mid 1960s. Marketing as a field of study emerged from German universities in 1970, accompanied by marketing literature. To gain an understanding of marketing in Germany, the author looks at some of the literature that has surfaced since that time. Some of the topics covered in the article include consumer behavior, quantitative marketing, marketing management, and societal aspects of marketing.

In this study, we provide the outcomes of a survey with Brazilian and German students about two main topics: (1) students' willingness and motivation to work abroad; and (2) the students' awareness about current industrial challenges, their knowledge perception and perspectives about the workplace of the future. We survey 733 college students from technical and natural sciences degrees in the period of October to December 2016 and compare our findings with the existing literature. We analyze the results by stressing the relevance of management's international experience for the success of company's internationalization as well as the importance of student's awareness about current industrial challenges for the development of national industry. The analysis shows that Brazilian students have a significant higher willingness to work abroad and are less money-driven compared to students from Germany. On the other hand, German surveyed students have a higher awareness regarding industrial digitalization than students from Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This article challenges the outsiders' views on European school social science adopting genuine cosmopolitan views, when globalisation is treated in social science classrooms. Method: The article is based on the theoretical framework of educational governance analysis and on qualitative corpus analysis of representative German Laenders' social science curricula from 1994-2014 (n=13). Findings: The article highlights tendencies of renationalisation of the global learning agenda and the problematisation of democracy in contexts of globalisation studies at German schools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Soziologie is the property of De Gruyter and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Zeitschrift für Internationale Beziehungen (ZIB) is the property of Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The processes of normalization, internationalization, harmonization and convergence have become a nowadays reality. As a result, the massive adoption of IFRS in many regions of the world has generated numerous debates and opinions. Under these circumstances, ever more attention was given to the connection between the international accounting/audit standard and quality in the accounting profession, the main characteristic of the business world. Therefore, through this study, we aim to identify the effects of adopting the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) on quality improvement in the accounting profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article addresses the issue of transnational private regulatory governance (TPRG) of economic activity in Germany. It explores the idea of lex mercatoria, the legal theory behind transnational governance, and a review of Lochner's legacy in examining the concept of context in transnational framework. It examines issues of legitimacy of TPRG in the absence of institutional and social norms in the global setting and the impact of globalization on international law.

Background: In the current era of strong worldwide market couplings the global financial village became highly prone to systemic collapses, events that can rapidly sweep throughout the entire village. Methodology/Principal Findings: We present a new methodology to assess and quantify inter-market relations. The approach is based on the correlations between the market index, the index volatility, the market Index Cohesive Force and the meta-correlations (correlations between the intra-correlations.) We investigated the relations between six important world markets—U.S., U.K., Germany, Japan, China and India—from January 2000 until December 2010. We found that while the developed "western" markets (U.S., U.K., Germany) are highly correlated, the interdependencies between these markets and the developing "eastern" markets (India and China) are volatile and with noticeable maxima at times of global world events. The Japanese market switches "identity"—it switches between periods of high meta-correlations with the "western" markets and periods when it behaves more similarly to the "eastern" markets. Conclusions/Significance: The methodological framework presented here provides a way to quantify the evolvement of interdependencies in the global market, evaluate a world financial network and quantify changes in the world inter market relations. Such changes can be used as precursors to the agitation of the global financial village. Hence, the new approach can help to develop a sensitive "financial seismograph" to detect early signs of global financial crises so they can be treated before they develop into worldwide events. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze the impact of economic globalization and industry growth on the complexity of early work careers in Germany. We conceptualize complexity as the absolute number of employer changes, the regularity in the order of job changes, and the variability of the durations spent in different employment states. Results from empirical analyses based on the German Life History Study (N = 5453) show only a small increase in the complexity of work careers over the last decades, but there was a shift in the prevalence of different career patterns. This suggests that effects of globalization might be counteracted or modified by other social changes that affected work careers in Germany during the last 60 years. In particular, we consider the possible impact of educational expansion, labor market restructuring, and women’s increased employment. We find no evidence that industry-specific economic globalization impacts the complexity of work careers, but we find a U-shaped relationship between industry growth and career complexity. Careers are slightly more complex in industries with high or low industry growth. We conclude that, while there has been a shift in career patterns over time, the impact of globalization on career stability is possibly overestimated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mobility is one of the defining concepts of globalization processes. For some migrants, however, mobility is restricted by international and national laws as well as sociopolitical discourses, which regulate the migrant body and her ability to create social relations. Based on interviews in asylum seeker accommodations in Germany, this study illustrates how asylum seekers are spatially constructed and arrested through bureaucratic labeling and assignment to heterotopias and as a discursive location of transience and difference. Those processes freeze the forced migrant in place, in social and semiotic spaces, and position it as a politicized discursive location. The positioning is indicative of monitoring the Other as a symbol of threat to the nation in times of risk. Overall, the study illustrates the tensions between transnational mobility and fixity and the intersections between globalization, communication, social, legal, and political practice, and space/place-making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers Germans' relationships with other nations from a perspective of methodological cosmopolitanism. It examines the claim that everincreasing contacts with members of different nations can bring about a sense of trust in these nations. Using data from a 2006 opinion poll, it analyzes Germans' contact with and trust in six other nations. The study suggests that Germany as a whole is too large as a level of analysis. Germans' transnational relationships are better examined at a subnational level such as political districts. It is shown that transnational contact is particularly likely to occur in border regions and in parts of Germany with a high proportion of foreign residents. The two types of contact, however, have a differential effect on Germans' trust in other nations. Cross-border contact appears to be influenced by Germany's long-standing relationships with its western allies, since such contact has a positive effect on trust in western nations but not eastern ones. Conversely, multicultural contact with immigrant communities has a generally positive effect on levels of trust in other nations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As historians of the material cultures of Italy, England, India, China, and the Americas continue to reconstruct the early modern overseas trade in fashionable commodities, economic historians increasingly urge the study of early modern (or first-wave) globalism. Drawing on insights from this vast body of work, this essay explores the German Alamode discourse of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Long a stepchild of national literatures, the Alamode discourse across European vernaculars offers a locus of remarkable critical potential, serving to illustrate how global energies shaped local, even apparently provincial, discussions. Via readings of widely circulated and translated illustrated broadsheets, satirical pamphlets, prosodies, and poetry (by Balde, Zesen, Lauremberg, and Logau), this essay also examines the strategies early modern German literati developed to tame the anxieties unleashed when the world arrived at home. Globalization was imagined to work foremost on women, and the backlash it engendered sought to refashion women's "hard heads," hammering out "fashionable" notions such as women's intellectual and literary abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the history of late-19th-century discourse on earthquakes in Switzerland and Germany that involved a scientific transition from regarding earthquakes as rare and hazardous to events that were expected and statistically frequent. Western societies’ self-perception of social contingency reportedly helped sustain this transition and evoke an attitude that earthquakes could be planned for and that progress could be managed. Findings from earthquake and seismological research are discussed in terms of the political, economic, scientific, and cultural underpinnings they provided for globalization.

Background: In the past decades, the increasing importance of and rapid changes in the global health arena have provoked discussions on the implications for the education of health professionals. In the case of Germany, it remains yet unclear whether international or global aspects are sufficiently addressed within medical education. Evaluation challenges exist in Germany and elsewhere due to a lack of conceptual guides to develop, evaluate or assess education in this field.Objective: To propose a framework conceptualising 'global health' education (GHE) in practice, to guide the evaluation and monitoring of educational interventions and reforms through a set of key indicators that characterise GHE.Methods: Literature review; deduction.Results and Conclusion: Currently, 'new' health challenges and educational needs as a result of the globalisation process are discussed and linked to the evolving term 'global health'. The lack of a common definition of this term complicates attempts to analyse global health in the field of education. The proposed GHE framework addresses these problems and presents a set of key characteristics of education in this field. The framework builds on the models of 'social determinants of health' and 'globalisation and health' and is oriented towards 'health for all' and 'health equity'. It provides an action-oriented construct for a bottom-up engagement with global health by the health workforce. Ten indicators are deduced for use in monitoring and evaluation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After the two German states unified in 1990, the tendency to transplant West German practices to the former East Germany was particularly pronounced in areas where systemic differences and perceived inefficiency met ideological reservations. The higher education system was among them. Comprehensive institutional, policy, and personnel transfer from West to East ensued. Starting in the mid 1990s after many failed initiatives, however, new policies were launched in the unified Germany. Reinforced by feedback from institutional and policy transfer to the East, factors such as Europeanization and globalization empowered newly formed advocacy coalitions to advance a reform agenda. Competition and performance seeded other ideas, prominent among them diversification, internationalization, autonomy, and accountability. Existing institutions and firmly rooted traditions still condition and limit change, and reforming the reforms has become commonplace. Differentiation among Länder and higher education institutions has become more pronounced, adding to the variety of outcomes. In ways unforeseen in 1990, some areas of the German higher education system have seen paradigmatic change, while others have survived relatively unscathed. The recalibration of the system continues, and reform pressure persists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the potential of one of the most contested and debated spaces of German Studies research, the Postdamer Platz in Berlin, as an interactive "textbook." By employing the notion of "play" the areas around the commercialized Postdamer Platz can be "read" and explored as contradictory, chaotic, messy, and haunted by ghosts of the past, despite-or possibly amplified by-the newly constructed, glossy surfaces of global media and capitalism that form a center for the German capital. I consider the subversive possibilities as well as the limits of this playful approach to teaching, exploring, and learning about commercialized urban centers in the twenty-first century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From its founding in 1949 through the dramatic events of 1989/90, the Federal Republic relied on a concept of "blood-based" citizenship (jus sanguinis), hoping to sustain ties between the peoples of the divided nation, as well as to protect "co-ethnic" groups scattered throughout historically defined eastern territories. Geographical reconfiguration, generational change and globalization processes have rendered Germany's insistence on an ethno-national citizenship paradigm detrimental to its own political and socio-economic interests. Ostensibly the real "losers" of unification, more than seven million "foreigners" and children of migrant descent are now set to become the long-term winners of Chancellor Merkel's pro-active measures to foster their integration and education. Making very effective use of EU initiatives on migration policy, Merkel has adopted a holistic approach to integration as a means of overcoming the FRG's looming demographic deficit and shortage of high-tech laborers. This study begins with profiles of three "migrant" generations and the changing opportunity structure each has encountered, leading to different degrees of identification with the new homeland. It then summarizes key features of the 2007 National Integration Plan, and examines factors allowing Merkel to blaze a trail through the perilous "immigration" territory all previous Chancellors had feared to tread. Despite internal opposition, Angel Merkel's pro-active efforts to redefine "what it means to be German" has, paradoxically, given the Christian Union a chance to modernize its own identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the global market for higher education has expanded rapidly, while internationalisation strategies have been developed at university, national and European levels to increase the competitiveness of higher education institutions. This article asks how institutional settings prevailing in national models of capitalism motivate distinct national approaches with regard to the internationalisation, globalisation, and Europeanisation of higher education systems. While the university is defined as an organisational actor embedded in the higher education system, the higher education system itself represents an institutional subsystem within the national model of capitalism. An analytical framework is then developed on the basis of the Varieties of Capitalism approach to compare the internationalisation of German and British universities. Findings indicate that the relations between the various actors involved in the internationalisation of universities are based largely on market coordination in the British case. In contrast, this process in Germany relies more on strategic interactions between the various organisational actors in higher education. The development paths in the internationalisation of universities are found to be influenced by and reflect the specific mode of coordination in the respective higher education system and the national model of capitalism more generally. This comparative case study shows that recent conceptions of path dependence as well as conceptual tools developed in the Varieties of Capitalism literature, such as institutional complementarity and comparative institutional advantage, may be fruitfully applied to research on institutional change in higher education systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a study on the values of early career teachers being positioned in Norway, Germany and England. The research questions were related to the values held by becoming teachers in relation to their proposed occupation, similarities and differences in values of the teachers among the three national settings and the role played by national pedagogic traditions, national policy contexts and institutional settings in the changing values of newly-qualified teachers. It was based on the theory and methods related to globalization and followed a layered approach of study focusing on both macro and micro phenomena. The study concluded that all the three nations had different cultural traditions and were subject to the forces of economic globalization.

Based on longitudinal data, this article examines empirically the long-term export behaviour of German and British technology-oriented firms founded between 1987 and 1996. Applying logit models, the results show that firms can overcome high entry costs by acquiring firm-specific assets. Similarly, firm-specific resources prevent high-tech companies from exiting the international market. The strategic role of investment in R&D is stressed in particular by the data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]