Zur Bedeutung der Supervision bei stationärer Psychotherapie am Beispiel von psychosomatischen Kliniken

The importance of supervision in inpatient psychotherapy settings such as hospitals for behavioral medicineThis article deals with the organization of supervision in hospitals that offer intensive inpatient psychotherapy (hospitals for behavioral medicine). The ?integrative model“ for supervision proposed by A. Schreyögg (1991) constitutes the theoretical basis. The author discusses the qualification of supervisors as well as aspects of different approaches to supervision, such as the psychoanalytical and the cognitive-behavioral approach. In doing so, she puts primary importance on the reflection of issues on the systemic, i.e. organizational level. At the end, a model for the organization of qualified internal supervision is proposed.     

Philosophie als Einübung des Perspektivenwechsels am Beispiel von Platon und Nietzsche

Philosophy as exercising the shift of perspectives, exemplified with Plato and NietzscheIn professional counselling a shift of perspectives is useful to develop new options of thinking and of action in the case of seemingly hopeless situations. Philosophy presents a great variety of concepts and also of models of change processes, which may offer a resource to counsellors. With regard to Plato’s “cave metaphor” and to Nietzsche’s “transvaluation of all values” the author presents a structure of change in three stages. Concerning the practice of counsellors some relevant aspects are derived from these discussions.     

Was tun mediaberater?

What is the work of media counsellors? Media planning — The professional use of media as advertising toolsMedia planning means the selection and the targeted use of media as a communication channel for advertising messages from the advertisers to the target groups. From a media agency’s point of view the extensive and multistage process of media planning is shown and explained, from the client’s briefing beyond the market and competition analysis, the compilation of the media strategy, the formulation of the media plans to the media buying and the measurement of results. The target orientation and dynamics of this process, which takes place in a very fast moving market and needs permanent adjustment, is especially emphasized.     

Steuerreformen durch Tarif-oder Zeiteffekte? Eine Analyse am Beispiel der Thesaurierungsbegünstigung für Personenunternehmen

Zusammenfassung  Der Beitrag diskutiert Tarif- und Zinseffekte anhand der begünstigten Besteuerung nicht entnommener Gewinne von Personengesellschaften, die 2008 in Deutschland eingeführt wurde. Bei Eigenfinanzierung und Betrachtung von Grenzsteuers?tzen zeigt der Beitrag, dass die Thesaurierungsbegünstigung stets nachteilig ist, wenn eine abgeltend besteuerte private Kapitalmarktanlage die Alternativanlage darstellt. Müssen Gewinne thesauriert werden, weil Mittel im Unternehmen ben?tigt werden, so entf?llt die private Alternativanlage und die Thesaurierungsbegünstigung kann bei hohen Zins- und Steuers?tzen vorteilhaft sein. Wird die Einkommensteuerprogression berücksichtigt, zeigt der Beitrag, dass bei schwankenden Gewinnen die Thesaurierungsbegünstigung oftmals vorteilhaft ist, auch gegenüber der Abgeltungsteuer. Bei fremdfinanzierten Investitionen kann die Inanspruchnahme der Thesaurierungsbegünstigung sehr vorteilhaft sein, da die geringere Steuerzahlung bei Gewinnanfall den Umfang des ben?tigten Fremdkapitals mindert. Insgesamt zeigt sich, dass sich Reformen von Steuertarifen wesentlich st?rker auf die Vorteilhaftigkeit von Investitionen auswirken als Zinseffekte.

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Tax reforms by tax rate effects or timing effects? An analysis based an the German tax privilege for retained earnings

Summary  This paper analyzes two typical effects of tax reforms, tax rate effects and timing effects. The example chosen for the analysis is the tax privilege for retained profits of partnerships and sole proprietorships, which was implemented in Germany in 2008. Taking equity-financing and top marginal tax rates into account, the so-called tax privilege turns out to be a disadvantage under most assumptions. If the alternative investment is private capital income taxed at a flat-rate tax, the tax privilege will always be disadvantageous. If profits have to be retained and business income is the alternative investment, then the tax privilege will be advantageous in case of high income tax rates and interest rates. Analyzing progressive tax rates instead of top marginal tax rates reveals favorable results in case of fluctuating profits if the tax privilege is claimed. The same is true if debtfinancing is taken into account. All in all, the paper shows that a reform of tax rates influences the attractiveness of investments much more compared to timing effects.

     

Qualität in der Personalberatung am Beispiel von Instrumenten der Personalauswahl

Empirical evidence shows that personnel selection methods positively contribute to the quality of the personnel selection process, which is one of the main fields of activity of personnel consultants. Unfortunately it is repeatedly mentioned in literature that selection methods could be implemented more efficiently. Personnel-consulting agencies and self-employed consultants bear a lot of responsibility regarding these aspects: they should recommend proven selection methods to their clients. In this article it is discussed how the selection process can achieve consistent quality.     

Die Selektionsentscheidung bei postalisch zugestellter Direktkommunikation. Eine feldexperimentelle ��berpr��fung des Einflusses aktivierungsstarker Reize am Beispiel der Kundenzeitschrift

The findings of activation theory provide evidence that highly-activating stimuli in above-the-line advertising increase consumers?? perception. In practice and theory these findings are also being transferred to postal direct marketing instruments, although hardly any empirical consolidated findings exist to substantiate this assumption. The absent empirical support and the reasonable presumption that the perception of postal direct marketing instruments and above-the-line advertising instruments differs are decisive reasons to examine if this transfer is justified. Based on the results to this question implications for designing postal direct marketing instruments will be offered. A field-experiment with 960 test persons was conducted and four, in terms of the activation level, manipulated versions of a customer magazine were employed. The empirical findings support the hypothesis that the activation level has no influence on the selection decision concerning postal direct marketing instruments.     

Was that really funny? The politics of humor

Everybody loves a comic--or do they? A Human Resources Department picked up a pattern when several departing employees, all excellent performers, said they liked their jobs but felt "excluded" from the camaraderie. One said he'd found the humor "barbed." Another said she's never seen anything funny in jokes that seemed to convulse everyone else. The past five years have been so gloomy, economically speaking, that, in many hospitals and health care organizations, laughter is a mega-event. But lately I've been listening to what employees joke about and watching how their humor affects others. Physician executives need to be alert to some kinds of humor that are weapons used by employees against other employees, their managers, and the company generally.     

Zur Struktur des Marktes für Abschlussprüfungen

This comment refers to the paper ofStefani/Bleibtreu. In their model they combine two important topics of audit research: Auditor’s independence and audit market’s concentration tendencies. The objective of their paper is to demonstrate that abandoning non audit services might have negative impacts on auditors’ competitive behavior.

This comment addresses the following features of the model:

• The paper’s relevance, because it addresses aspects of the audit market structure, which have been so far neglected in the political discussion on the EU-level.
• The way of modeling different auditors’ offered product portfolios and auditors’ cost structures.
• The implications of the paper’s results, because only very few papers make use of analytical models for analyzing the audit market.

     

Was heißt kommunikative Kompetenz im Spannungsfeld von Ost nach West?

What does communicative competence mean concerning the tension between East and West Germans? Although East and West Germany have been formaly reunified and ten years have passed the existence of different cultures cannot be denied. Trompenaars dimensions offer the possibility to make an intercultural comparison of the two cultures. I have chosen firm-cultures, individualism versus collectivism and specific versus diffuse culture. I also compare my experience as a West German lawyer in an East German administration with the results. The awareness and identification of these differences are important for more genuine recognition and acceptance of East and West Germans.     

Creeping-In als neues Instrument des Erwerbs von Unternehmenskontrollrechten ?C Taktische Meisterleistung oder unkalkulierbares Risiko?

A modern method for (partial) acquisitions is the so called creeping-in tactic. In this procedure the acquirer uses cash settled equity swaps to undermine WpHG notification requirements systematically until she holds at least 30% of the voting rights in the target company. In this case the acquirer has the obligation to submit a mandatory takeover bid for the remaining outstanding shares. In many cases acquirers are not interested in a complete acquisition of the target company but rather want to make use of low shareholder presence levels during the general assembly and therefore have the opportunity to significantly influence fundamental decisions like, e.g. allocation of the net income, corporate actions etc. The mandatory takeover bid has to be equal at least to the three months average share price. At first glance, this involves a high risk of an unintentional acceptance by the targets?? shareholders. The goal of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of the mandatory takeover bid. We show that with a temporal shift of the mandatory takeover bid to a point in time when the share price is above the three months average share price an unintentional acceptance is virtually impossible. In a logit-regression company specific context factors for the acceptance risk are indentified and rejected.     

Zur Berücksichtigung von Heterogenit?t versus funktionaler Flexibilit?t in Absatzreaktionsmodellen: Eine empirische Studie auf Basis von Handelsdaten

In this paper, we explore the differences between store sales models that allow for heterogeneity in marketing effects across stores and models that accommodate potential irregularities in sales response through the use of nonparametric estimation techniques. In particular, we investigate the following question: What benefits can we gain from incorporating store heterogeneity versus functional flexibility in sales response models concerning fit and predictive validity, as compared to a simple parametric store sales model? In an empirical study based on store-level data, we also compare the different model versions with respect to estimated price elasticities and resulting shapes for own- and cross-price effects. Our empirical results indicate that addressing heterogeneity is not advantageous in general, as model fit, predictive validity and the accuracy of price elasticities did not improve for many brands. In contrast, estimating sales response flexibly provides much more potential for statistical improvements and leads to different implications concerning price elasticities, too.     

Zur Persönlichkeitsstruktur von Multiplikatoren im On- und Offline-Bereich: Steigt deren Zahl durch die Online-Kommunikation?

As a key factor, word of mouth plays an important role in the diffusion of a product in the market. Therefore, big efforts are undertaken to identify opinion leaders and embed them in the value-added- and communication-process. Various studies confirm the relevant role of the opinion leader in terms of interpersonal communication. The importance of these multipliers got even more intensified through the wide range of services in the internet. Field reports or product evaluations achieve an intensely enhanced recipient circle through opinion platforms and discussion bulletin boards. However, the diffusion of information through the internet is not determinated through the typical attributes of a classical opinion leader. So it is possible to adopt an online multiplier role without acting the same way in an offline environment. Therefore, the present study deals with the differentiation between the online multiplier and the classical opinion leader on the basis of their personality structure. The results confirm the role of the internet as a platform that enables people with a strong personality as well as people with a weak personality to act as a multiplier.     

Zum Einfluss der Mandatsdauer des Abschlusspr��fers auf die Pr��fungsqualit?t

This study provides evidence on the relation between auditor tenure and audit quality. It is motivated by calls for mandatory auditor rotation, which are based on concerns that longer auditor tenure reduces auditor independence and thus audit quality. Earnings management is used as proxy for audit quality and is measured by absolute and signed performance-adjusted-Jones-model discretionary accruals. Multivariate analyses, controlling for additional firm and auditor characteristics indicate lower earnings management with longer auditor tenure. This result suggests that, in the current environment, mandatory limitations on the length of auditor-client-relationship would result in lower audit quality.