The treatment model of the guidance center for gamblers and their relatives in Vienna/Austria

Within 8 years, Gamblers Anonymous in Vienna evolved into a guidance center for gamblers and their relatives, with professional aid. It is a non-profit institution and the therapeutic team consists of one psychologist, one social-worker and one psychiatrist. The clients can remain anonymous, but about 90% of them reveal their identity. The treatment model integrating professional therapy and self-help is presented. The reasons we decided to base our work on an addiction model of pathological gambling are explained. All the clients consulting our center in 1990 (N=237) are described according to age, sex, types of gambling, duration of problem gambling, family status, profession, income, debts, and income/debt relationship. Finally, the treatment program of our center is presented.This article is an extension of the special issue on Gambling in Europe edited by Iver Hand, M.D.     

Days of Labour: Topographies of Power in Modern Peripheral Capitalism. The Case of The Industrial City of Łódź

The article investigates the city of ?ód? as an exceptional case of a settlement constitutive of different kinds and techniques of power typical of nineteenth century industrial capitalism. We consider Foucault's disciplinary power/biopower through the convergence of the paternalistic gaze of the factory owner, and the Tsarist rule in the Scheibler and Grohman industrial establishment and the nearby workers housing estate. The aim of this article is to investigate a specific locus of peripheral capitalism and the relations accompanying it through the Foucauldian analysis of power. We argue that unique and unstable patterns of correlation of power techniques emerged here. Power is no longer strictly related to the temporal matrix or the functional demands of capitalist production, and only temporarily ossified in contingent configurations. While Foucault's canonical theoretical premises and concepts are of explanatory value, the very relations between them become problematic when confronted with the particular entanglement in ?ód?. Therefore we opt for the new paradigm of power analysis through S. J. Collier's “topological analysis”.     

Employability management practices in the Polish ICT sector

This article examines current career thinking and employability management practices within the Polish Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector. The aim of this contribution is to identify career management problems and to determine obstacles for implementing employability management practices at a company level. Semi-structured interviews aimed at establishing company needs were conducted with 18 managers of small and medium-sized ICT enterprises in Poland. These firms appear to apply various developmental approaches to stimulate competitive advantage. Faced with a more demanding environment, firms aim for versatility rather than adopting simplified solutions. Managing the careers and employability of ICT professionals is acknowledged as vitally important for the survival and development of ICT companies.     

The effects of data input errors on subsequent statistical inference

Data input errors can potentially affect statistical inferences, but little research has been published to date on this topic. In the present paper, we report the effect of data input errors on the statistical inferences drawn about population parameters in an empirical study involving 280 students from two Polish universities, namely the Warsaw University of Life Sciences – SGGW and the University of Information Technology and Management in Rzeszow. We found that 28% of the students committed at least one data error. While some of these errors were small and did not have any real effect, a few of them had substantial effects on the statistical inferences drawn about the population parameters.     

Gambling Prevention Program Among Children

Gambling becomes a more frequent activity among children as they have an easy access to the world of the games. In the same time children are at a higher risk for developing problem and/or pathological gambling having erroneous information about how games of chance and games of skill work. The purpose of the study was to compare the influence of specific primary prevention with rational emotive education (REE) on the subjects’ knowledge about games. The experimental design randomly assigned children (N = 81, age 12–13, 37 male and 44 female) into three groups: 1. control, 2. specific information about games using the interactive software “Amazing Chateau”, and 3. REE. All children completed a questionnaire with 38 items at the beginning of the study and after 10 weekly interventional meetings. Each item had three answering options, children choosing only one correct answer. Findings indicated that the use of the software significantly improved subjects’ knowledge about gambling and corrected their information about how games work. The results of the study confirmed that using specific primary prevention tools for changing erroneous conceptions about games is more efficient than using only REE. The implications of these results for the prevention of gambling problems especially in schools are discussed.     

On the Differential Attachments of Migrants from Central and Eastern Europe: A Typology of Labour Migration

In this article we develop an empirically grounded typology of labour migration patterns among migrants from Central and Eastern Europe, based on two dimensions: attachment to the destination country and attachment to the country of origin. We conducted a survey (N=654) among labour migrants in the Netherlands from Poland, Bulgaria and Romania. We found four migration patterns in our data: (i) circular migrants (mostly seasonal workers) with weak attachments to the country of destination, (ii) bi-nationals with strong attachments to both the home country and that of destination, (iii) footloose migrants with weak attachments to both the home and the destination country, and (iv) settlers with weak attachments to the home country. Our findings demonstrate the relevance to the debate on transnationalism and integration of distinguishing different migration patterns. Successful integration in Dutch society can go hand-in-hand with ‘strong’ as well as with ‘weak’ forms of transnationalism. The bi-national pattern shows a tendency to strong transnationalism, while the settlement pattern demonstrates less transnational involvement with the country of origin.     

Social remittances and intra-EU mobility: non-financial transfers between U.K. and Poland

The massive rise in intra-European Union (EU) mobility in recent decades has spawned several important social and cultural phenomena that are still not covered by academic research. Social remittances – the transfer of ideas, practices, codes of behaviours, values and norms between the place of origin and destination are an important aspect of social change and modernity and they are still to be explored and documented. However, not all migrants acquire, transfer and implement them in the same way. Ongoing acts of resistance, imitation and innovation are involved, so that some migrants become ‘ordinary agents of change’ in their local microcosms, while others may contest that change. Tracing these processes in a transnational perspective through a three-year transnational multi-sited qualitative longitudinal research, this article offers an in-depth look at the consequences of human mobility within the enlarged EU.     

A stakeholder perspective on process improvement behaviours: delivering the triple bottom line in SMEs

Abstract

The primary focus of operations management is to add value through operational processes. Considerable attention has been given to using process improvement (PI) techniques to reduce costs and time, in order to develop a competitive advantage for the wider organization. However, this narrow definition of value at times overlooks the triple bottom line (TBL) which can result in a number of unintended consequences, specifically issues related to environmental and social measures of performance. To address this, a stakeholder theory lens will be used to analyze PI activities within the context of small and medium-sized enterprises. The TBL will be used to complement the stakeholder perspective, to interpret the benefits that are realized from PI activities. This article highlights both the direct benefits from PI as well as more indirect benefits realized by involving a selection of salient stakeholders in PI. It will show how a developed view of PI can provide an important mechanism for delivering improvements to a firm’s TBL. The work concludes by highlighting the contributions made to both PI practice and stakeholder theory, while acknowledging the need for more research on PI, both from a stakeholder perspective and how it impacts a firm’s TBL.     

The end(s) of immanence in the anthropocene: militarized ecologies and the future of Deleuzian thought

Two features bear down fundamentally on our current historical occasion: structures of security, and breakdowns of planetary ecosystems. This essay argues that Deleuze is not only tracing a “geophilosophy” (that is, a nonhuman-centered theory of history that includes a geohistory of the planet) that moves from nomadic through State and finally through neoliberal forms that extend beyond the power of the State, but that he is also moving toward a theory of “control” that can teach us a great deal about the rise of the security society and its relation to the anthropocene. More specifically, this essay argues that philosophy is at a moment when the stakes of Deleuze’s conceptualizations of “immanence” have changed. This change hinges on the ecological circumstances of the twenty-first century – a set of conditions considerably underway, involving a course unlikely to change in time to reverse the seriousness of the situation (due in part to the supremacy of a self-destructive international neoliberal politics). The essay concludes by more sharply defining the workings of security in relation to immanence in the anthropocene.     

An empirical evaluation of the management resourcing strategy of a Western multinational within a post-socialist Polish subsidiary

The continued globalization process and internationalization of business is increasingly raising issues concerning human resource strategy and practice in those organizations operating across international boundaries. This paper presents an empirical evaluation of the management resourcing strategy of a Western multinational corporation (MNC) within a post-socialist Polish subsidiary. Findings suggest a high level of pragmatism in relation to management staffing decisions. Whilst normative resourcing models emphasize the importance of environment, organization and job analysis in selecting and preparing managers for expatriate appointments, these processes are contingency constrained. Difficulties of adaptation and integration of the Polish subsidiary serve to increase reliance on expatriate managers.