Pundits around the world have criticized Germany for either trying to reshape Europe in its image or acting in its own self-interest. Germany has been accused of creating a new "empire," of pursuing a new Sonderweg, of "going global alone," of evasiveness, self-imposed isolation, and bullying....

Organisations centring their operations around human resources, in which skills are instrumental to the attainment of organisational goals, should create a climate to incentivise performance: the returns on any training depend on employee performance. To elicit such performance, organisations...