The Visualized Employment Contract. An Exploratory Study on Contract Visualization in Danish Employment Contracts

Abstract

The essence of any employment contract should be aclear and understandable communication of the employment relationship. Usingcomics as a medium for employment contracts can help in achieving this goal.This article provides an exploratory case study in the context of Danish labourcontracts. In the first part, it is assessed whether an employment contractthat contains comic strips would meet the formal requirements of Danish and EUlabour law. In the second part, the textual and comic versions of an employmentcontract of a Danish leisure sport organization are tested on two volunteergroups in an experiment. In this experiment the participants first had toreport on their impression of the contract received (textual or comic) andthen, secondly, had to explain two legal terms and solve two cases based ontheir recollections of the contractual clauses. The results show that both thepersonal utility and actionable knowledge of the users of comic contractsincreased significantly compared to the users of the textual version of thecontract. This provides initial evidence that contract visualization with thehelp of comic strips can be an important component in ongoing reforms of labourlaw aiming at providing workers with more transparency and predictability abouttheir employment relationship.@font-face{font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:roman;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:3 0 0 0 1 0;}@font-face{font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;mso-font-charset:0;mso-generic-font-family:swiss;mso-font-pitch:variable;mso-font-signature:-469750017 -1073732485 9 0 511 0;}p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal{mso-style-unhide:no;mso-style-qformat:yes;mso-style-parent:"";margin-top:0cm;margin-right:0cm;margin-bottom:8.0pt;margin-left:0cm;line-height:107%;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:DA;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}.MsoChpDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;mso-default-props:yes;font-size:11.0pt;mso-ansi-font-size:11.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-fareast-font-family:Calibri;mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi;mso-ansi-language:DA;mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}.MsoPapDefault{mso-style-type:export-only;margin-bottom:8.0pt;line-height:107%;}div.WordSection1{page:WordSection1;}