„Ausschließlich zahlenorientiert, ausschließlich an Erträgen orientiert“. Vermarktlichung als Organisationsprinzip und Anerkennungsproblem

The paper discusses the marketization of organizations and focuses on its consequences for organization members. It broadens the current debate of the issue by adding the dimension of social recognition. Indeed, the pursuit of recognition mobilises highly qualified knowledge workers’ comprehensive commitment in specific ways. Based on a case study the paper shows how the interviewed managers pursue recognition in ambiguous ways, and that this pursuit leads them into a dual trap of both admiration and appreciation. Only as a result of the pursuit of recognition failing on both sides, a person’s pride in their craft is replaced by a hollow ethos of duty. In this perspective the “marketization of subjectivity” is not merely a mirror image of structural constraints, nor an outcome of semantics that conceptualizes the market sphere as an “anethic institution” (Weber).     

Supervision und Organisationsentwicklung in der Arbeit mit alten Menschen

Zusammenfassung  Der Zuwachs der ?lteren Bev?lkerung wie auch der für sie bereitgestellten Versorgungseinrichtungen stellt die in der Altenpflege T?tigen vor vielf?ltige und schwierige Aufgaben. Vor dem Hintergrund einer verbreiteten, unbewu?ten aversiven Konnotation des Alterns stellt die Autorin das Spektrum von fachspezifischen Schwierigkeiten in der Supervisionsarbeit dar. Es wird aufgezeigt, dass feldspezifische Anforderungen im Umgang mit ?lteren in den Supervisionsprozess mit einzubeziehen sind und in weitere Schritte der Organisationsentwicklung münden k?nnen.

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The increased numbers of elderly and old people within our society as well as the growing number of institutional facilities for their support confronts those who work with them with manifold and difficult problems. Considering the background of a widespread, mostly unconscious negative connotation of age and ageing the author presents the spectrum of specific difficulties related to the specialised field of supervising work. It is shown that field-specific requirements in the relation with elderly have to be included and recognized in the supervising process and can lead to further organizational developments.

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Dr. phil. Gabriele Junkers ist Psychoanalytikerin und Lehranalytikerin (DPV/IPA), Generalsekret?rin der Europ?ischen Psychoanalytischen F?deration (EPF) Gerontologin. Supervision und Organisationsberatung.     

The prediction of learning in family therapy training programs*

Research on family therapy training has produced very little data regarding the kinds of trainees that do best in family therapy training programs. This study attempts to provide some rough and preliminary data on that issue. One hundred and seventy trainees, drawn from seven different structural!strategic training experiences, were evaluated as to how much they learned by taking the Family Therapy Assessment Exercise pre- and posttraining. Their performance was correlated using a hierarchical regression analysis with a number of trainee variables such as amount of conjugal family experience, amount of experience doing family or individual therapy, or prior knowledge of family therapy. The results indicate that, as predicted, conjugal family experience was positively related, and prior knowledge was negatively related to performance. Prior experience doing individual therapy was also positively related to performance.     

Does the Mortality of Individuals with Severe Disabilities Contribute to the Persistent East–West Mortality Gap Among German Men?

European Journal of Population - After three decades since reunification male life expectancy in East Germany still lags behind that of West Germany. Unlike most of the prior studies focusing on...     

Transparency tested: The influence of message features on public perceptions of organizational transparency

The concept of transparency has been promoted within the public relations and business literature as both ethical and advantageous; however, the effectiveness of transparency is seldom empirically put to the test. In particular, the use of clarity, disclosure, and accuracy in organizational messages needs to be empirically examined. To this end, we conducted an online experiment using a 2 (high vs. low message transparency) x 2 (news story placed before or after an organizational statement) between-subjects design. Participants (n?=?357) perceived organizations as more transparent and credible when exposed to messages exhibiting greater levels of clarity, disclosure, and accuracy as opposed to messages that did not. Placement of an information anchor in the form of an objective news story before the organizational message increased the perceived organizational transparency when messages employed transparent design features and decreased the perceived organizational transparency when messages did not use these features. These results provide significant implications for practitioners attempting to convey organizational transparency at the tactical level through message features.     

Effectiveness of an educational intervention to increase knowledge and reduce use of risky behaviors associated with cumulative trauma in office workers

OBJECTIVE: This pilot project assessed the effectiveness of an intervention to increase knowledge and reduce risky behaviors related to cumulative trauma disorders (CTD) in office workers. STUDY DESIGN: All 124 employees from the administrative offices of a health maintenance organization were invited to participate. Subjects were followed across time using an identification number. Data were collected via questionnaire in June 1994 (pretest1) (N=84), August 1994 (pretest II) (N= 63) and September 1995 (posttest) (N=40). The yearlong intervention focused on functional activities to prevent CTD. RESULTS: of chi-square analyses for the 40 subjects who completed all surveys indicated this intervention significantly increased overall knowledge of CTD (p =.002). Significant changes in self-reported hand/wrist (p =.016) and neck/shoulder (p =.003) posture were also found. CONCLUSIONS: This study is a first step in identifying effective educational interventions to increase knowledge and reduce risk factors related to CTD in office workers.     

Cause-of-Death Contributions to Educational Inequalities in Mortality in Austria between 1981/1982 and 1991/1992

This article uses census records and deaths records to analyze trends in educational inequalities in mortality for Austrian women and men aged 35–64 years between 1981/1982 and 1991/1992. We find an increasing gradient in mortality by education for circulatory diseases and especially ischaemic heart disease. Respiratory diseases and, in addition for women, cancers showed the opposite trend. Using decomposition analysis, we give evidence that in many cases changes in the age-structure within the 10-year interval had a bigger effect than direct improvements in mortality on the analyzed subpopulations.     

Climate events and the role of adaptive capacity for (im-)mobility

Population and Environment - The study examines the relationship between sudden- and gradual-onset climate events and migration, hypothesizing that this relationship is mediated by the adaptive...