Dissertation_Paula Aleksandrowicz_12 ... - Jacobs University

Germany are more successful in protecting the interests of (older) workers, as well as more
cooperative towards the management on issues of early exit. Thus, the country-specific
model of industrial relations clearly determines the process of negotiations on early exit at
firm level.
The qualitative panel had strengths as well as weaknesses.
To start with the strengths, it allowed to track organisational changes, especially the
status of age management policies under different economic conditions. Those changes can
take the form of further development, continuation, suspension or reversal. It allowed to
cross-check declarations with actual practice in cases when a certain measure was at
conceptualisation or inception phase at the time of the first interview. I was also able to
analyse the effect of legislative changes which had not exerted full force by the time of the
first interview.
One substantial weakness was the unavailability or change of some contact persons
which made it difficult to access the firm (in four cases). It also disrupted the ´story´ on the
given firm as the new contact persons did not always have the same information on
phenomena under question as their predecessors. According to the constructivism of Schütz
(1971), facts become relevant only through the subjective meanings of actors and their
interpretations. In line with this, all interviewees presented their own version of the facts.
The task was to reveal whether the changed interpretation was due to a change of the facts,
or if it was a reflection of a different viewpoint. E.g., in a Polish firm, the personnel
manager told me that the shop stewards were opposing the introduction of occupational
pensions. A year later, in a talk with one of the shop stewards, I learnt that they did not
oppose it but demanded other conditions. In such cases, I assumed the fact to lie inbetween.
On matters which concerned the building of the ´internalisation – externalisation
index´ (Annex C), I resorted to weighting such contradictory answers.
Another problem occurred when one and the same person stated facts differently at the
two interview dates. E.g., in one German firm, the assessment of the average age of the
workforce in the year 2010 differed by 1.4 years and the interviewee denied that he had
given me the other information in 2004.
As concerns the interpretation of the hypotheses and the construction of the
´internalisation – externalisation index´, I took into account the most recent information as I
considered it an ´endurance test´ whether the firm has preserved a certain age-adequate
measure or continued giving decision latitude to older workers on the timing of exit even in
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