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This article explores the newspaper discourse surrounding a paradigm shift in social policy. The case at hand, Germany, is a prime example of a welfare state that was particularly resistant to reform. Hence, the rapid paradigm shift in German family policy since the late 1990s is puzzling. This study seeks to resolve this puzzle by drawing on the insight that public discourse is crucial for policy change. Politicians have to promote reforms prior to their implementation. The main channel for communication with the wider public is the mass media. I use newspaper coverage from 1990 to 2016 to analyze whether the media is responsive to reform initiatives. I use topic modeling, an innovative method from the computational social sciences (CSS), to identify dominant themes and shifts over time in a large corpus of newspaper articles (N = 1,459). The analysis shows that public discourse was responsive to the parliamentary debate. The article also clarifies the role of critical events and identifies discursive strategies. ; Peer Reviewed

PurposeThis study explores the influence of Wasta, informal social network on the retention of non-family talented employees in family-owned SMEs in Jordan. Despite the increased attention received by talent management (TM) in the last decade, limited attention has focused on family-owned-SMEs. This study demonstrates while resource-based view explains how human capital provides sustainable competitive advantage the lack of strategic retention management may lead to losing this competitive advantage.Design/methodology/approachA multiple case study approach underpinned by a qualitative orientation was utilized to help explore the dynamics of TM practices in greater depth. The authors conducted a series of 18 semi-structured in-depth interviews with HR managers, non-family junior and middle managers from six family-owned enterprises.FindingsEvidence showed that family Wasta accelerate employee dissatisfaction among non-family talented individuals and in turn enhances their intention to leave due to organizational injustice and lack of organizational support.Practical implicationsThis study could help managers in family-owned organizations enforce the concept of organizational justice by implementing solid performance management systems and talent reviews to strengthen the social exchange with non-family competent employees.Originality/valueFirst, this study demonstrates how access to Wasta accelerate the mobility of non-family talented individuals and in turn enhances their intention to leave. Second, this study provides a theoretical and contextual framework to deepen the authors' understanding of the impact of social networks on strategic retention performance.

Increasing attention is being paid to the link between insecurity and obesity. The link is, however, still mainly described on national level as causal connections between social security and prevalence of obesity. It remains abstract: why and how this connection works are unanswered questions. In the cross disciplinary field of obesity research, where biomedical world views and large scale quantitative analyzes are dominating, the sociology of health and illness have an important role to play in attempts to understand how structural conditions affect individual and family-level health behavior. Insecurity is becoming a widespread prerequisite in an increasing number of people's lives under the current economic crisis, all the while European governments make cuts on welfare and health budgets. Thus, there is an urgent need to understand the connection between insecurity and obesity at the social level where health behavior is enacted, in order to know how to counter health problems that will assumingly grow as social security levels decrease. Based on qualitative interviews with a sample of Danish adults with low SES-status and diverse ethnic backgrounds, this paper explores insecurity as a recurrent pattern in their life conditions and how it affects family health behavior in relation to weight management. Further, it will theoretically conceptualize the empirical examples of insecurity, using Bauman's exploration of security, and discuss ways to sociologically grasp why insecurity facilitates obesity at family level. ; Increasing attention is being paid to the link between insecurity and obesity. The link is, however, still mainly described on national level as causal connections between social security and prevalence of obesity. It remains abstract: why and how this connection works are unanswered questions. In the cross disciplinary field of obesity research, where biomedical world views and large scale quantitative analyzes are dominating, the sociology of health and illness have an important role to play in attempts to understand how structural conditions affect individual and family-level health behavior. Insecurity is becoming a widespread prerequisite in an increasing number of people's lives under the current economic crisis, all the while European governments make cuts on welfare and health budgets. Thus, there is an urgent need to understand the connection between insecurity and obesity at the social level where health behavior is enacted, in order to know how to counter health problems that will assumingly grow as social security levels decrease. Based on qualitative interviews with a sample of Danish adults with low SES-status and diverse ethnic backgrounds, this paper explores insecurity as a recurrent pattern in their life conditions and how it affects family health behavior in relation to weight management. Further, it will theoretically conceptualize the empirical examples of insecurity, using Bauman's exploration of security, and discuss ways to sociologically grasp why insecurity facilitates obesity at family level.