Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

4.2. German Firm Case Studies
In the following chapters, I will describe and analyse the findings from the interviews
conducted in German firms and from collected statistical and collective bargaining material.
The key question is whether those inner-firm policies and regulations allow a prolongation
of working life. More specifically, I will distinguish between internalising and externalising
measures as depicted in section 4.1.1. I will also answer the hypotheses formulated in the
initial sections of this work.
In the next sections, I will deal in detail with the overall shape of HRM in the studied
German firms, with recruitment practice, further training, health management (including the
integration and rehabilitation of incapacitated workers) and with firm-level policies guiding
the end of work life. That division follows the structure of section 4.1. It is orientated
towards personnel policy areas rather than towards instruments or goals (an example of the
latter is Frerichs/Bögel 2008); a similar structure was applied by the European Foundation
(Naegele/Walker 2003). I did, however, not include dimensions like working time,
promotion, career development, personnel deployment, teamwork, or work organisation,
except where it touches upon the issue of health management or further training. Reasons
for omittance are that I regard the acquisition of competences and the preservation of good
health as core determinants of prolonged working life in line with the workability model of
Ilmarinen (2005: 133). Moreover, the qualitative interviews did not allow to cover all those
aspects in detail.
In each HRM field, I will typify ´good practice´ examples. I will resort here to policy
recommendations given in literature (see section 4.1.) and develop my own analytical grid
of ´good practice´. Afterwards, I will elaborate on the reaction of firms and of the workforce
(as perceived by my interviewees) to legislative changes, and describe the mode of
negotiations on HRM issues between the management and employee representatives.
In the final section, I will repeat the results of Hypotheses testing. I will also construct a
typology of firms in my sample which will specify, on the one hand, the criteria of ´good
practice´ applied in the sections dealing with recruitment, training, health management and
exit policy. That dimension will visualise the degree to which those policies are
internalising, resp. externalising older workers. The other dimension will visualise the
degree to which those policies are elements of an elaborate age management strategy or,
v.v., symptoms of ´muddling through´ and rather reactive, short-term policies.
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