B. your methods of work

Nein

Interestingly, considerably more German respondents say they are able to choose or change their methods of work (about 90%) than UK and Polish respondents (about 70% respectively). A closer look at the response distributions reveals that this difference is mostly due to the fact that employees in Germany are considerably more likely to answer “yes” to this item (83%) than employees in the UK (53%) and Poland (57%). It seems that the term “methods of work” is interpreted somewhat differently by respondents in Germany than by respondents in the other two countries. Given that the understanding of this term was not probed directly in this study, this issue should ideally be addressed further in the upcoming face-to-face cognitive pretest.
Similar to Item A, those who state that they are able to choose or change their methods of work mostly argue that their jobs involve a certain level of autonomy (about 90% of the cases in each country). Again, these respondents think about their jobs in general when answering Item B and not so much about specific tasks and activities:

• “I am free to decide how I do things.” (R105DE)
• “I can work how I like as I am the owner of the company.” (R44PL)
• “Similar to previous answer, if I find a quicker/more efficient way of doing a task I will do this. Not restricted.” (R8UK)

This reasoning is provided slightly more often by self-employed respondents than by employees.
Again, similar to Item A, of those who answer “yes” to Item B, a few self-employed respondents argue that their method of work depends on the urgency or priority of a given job. However, this reasoning is only provided by eight respondents in total (DE: 6, UK: 1, PL: 1).
The explanations of those who answer “no” to Item B are also very similar to the ones already documented for Item A. Most respondents argue that they have to follow specific procedures or guidelines (about 65% of the cases in each country):

• “There are set processes.” (R139DE)
• “We have to follow strict guidelines.” (R88UK)
• “The procedures are clearly defined and the system parameterized.” (R72PL)

Surprisingly, this explanation is again provided not only by employees, but also by self-employed respondents (DE: 1, UK: 6, PL: 7). It seems that these respondents do not interpret the item to refer to the general level of autonomy involved in their job but to a rather specific task or specific working conditions:

• “I could not change the way I translate documents.” (R13UK)
• “When we grow flowers, we have to stick to a specific pattern. Fertilizer, antifungal agents, it is important that nothing is overlooked.” (R98PL)

Finally, four respondents (DE: 2, PL: 2) argue that their method of work depends on their clients. This explanation is given by both employees and self-employed:

• “The methods are usually determined by the clients.” (R272DE; employee)
• “The client decides how a task is done.” (R268PL; self-employed)

However, in contrast to Item A, all of these four respondents say they are not able to choose or change their methods of work.

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false