This article examines the role of management in the system of employee participation. It builds on the premise that management can have a sizeable impact on how employee participation is put into practice. The authors develop a comprehensive index of employee participation implementation and test the relation between management’s attitudes towards employee participation and the implementation of employee participation in a cross-sectional survey among 225 managers in Slovenia, using a mail-solicited web-based questionnaire. The results indicate a positive link between managers’ support for participation and its actual implementation. If managers perceive a positive link between employee participation and corporate performance they will tend to put such participation into practice to a greater extent.

There are few topics in contemporary labour law scholarship that have generated more literature than work in the so-called ‘platform economy’. To date, much work has focussed on the question of defining the personal scope of the employment relationship and on the problems of using existing classifications of employment status in the context of work organised via platforms. This article seeks to address the much less-discussed issue of how collective bargaining may function in the ‘platform economy’, and the role of collective labour law actors, most notably the social partners. The article argues that, rather than focussing on individual employment status and litigation, it is by developing a regulatory framework supportive of, and that involves key stakeholders in, strong sectoral collective bargaining that work in the ‘platform economy’ can be adequately regulated to the benefit of workers, business and the State.

Over the past decade, researchers and human-resource managers, par­ticularly in larger private sector organisations, have shown an increased interest in talent management, while this issue has been overlooked in the public sector. The purpose of this paper is to present the literature review about talent management in the public sector and to show how the existing legislation allows the creation of a talent management system for Slovenian public sector organisations. The main methodological ap­proach used was qualitative research with document analysis. The pa­per sought answers to three research questions: (How) are talented em­ployees treated differently from other employees? What types of models or practices in the field of talent management are applied in European countries? What are the legal limitations in the field of civil servant talent management in Slovenia? The literature review shows that organisations that are aware of the importance and contribution to the ultimate or­ganisational objectives treat talented employees differently from other employees in the organisation. Models or practices in the field of talent management vary widely among different European countries. The limitations in Slovenia are strict observance of the principle of equality and thus equal opportunities for inclusion in the system of talented civil servants with limited reward opportunities and, consequently, for the promotion of civil servants. In order to enable good practices in Slovenia, a change of the legal framework is necessary.

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PurposeThe aim of the paper is to identify the causal effect of the COVID-19 induced crisis on students' decisions about their educational plans. The authors hypothesise that students adjusted their decisions by delaying graduation, dropping out or change the field of education because of increased uncertainty about future employment and monetary returns.Design/methodology/approachThe empirical approach is based on a survey done during the first wave of COVID-19 in Slovenia. The probability of dropping out, prolonging or stop-out is designed by applying probit and probit with insturmental variables empirical model.FindingsPrimary orientation towards work increases the probability of dropping out and financial constraints increase the probability of prolonging studies. The same holds after accounting for endogeneity. However, the authors do not find that poor job expectations due to COVID-19 affect students' decisions to prolong, drop-out or stop-out. The authors also find that the primary orientation toward work or study explains the differences in the probability of each outcome that is not influenced by enrolment in a particular field of study.Research limitations/implicationsThe results cannot be read as an objective prediction of the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on college failures. However, the study provides insight into how students' expectations change their intentions to prolong, drop-out, or stop-out during periods of high uncertainty. The extent, to which measured intentions are realised, however, is uncertain.Practical implicationsUnderstanding the response diversity and motives behind students' study decisions represents extremely valuable insights for economic policy. Mapped apprehensions, augmented by heterogeneity in personal and financial characteristics, are relevant for policymakers. In terms of future research, it would be interesting to analyse what changes occurred over a five-year period, specifically which field of study was most affected by students' adjusted plans due to the pandemic.Social implicationsStudents have always been a special group in the labour market. After the initial shock of closing activities, studying online and the drastic decrease in student work due to COVID-19, the decision was made in spring 2020 to continue on the chosen path or not. This paper provides insight into the changing decision students made about their educational plans.Originality/valueThis paper is one of the first to highlight the implications of COVID-19 for the adaptation of student plans in the transition from school-to work in Europe. It departs from the classical literature of college failures, as specific macroeconomic conditions influence students to reconsider their educational decisions. Moreover, the paper also contributes to the rapidly growing literature on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on household-level labour market outcomes, particularly with respect to job search and labour supply decisions in general.