Reviews

The Jewish Anti‐Fascist Committee Revisited. Alexander M. Borschtschagowski, Orden für einen Mord: Die Judenverfolgung unter Stalin. Berlin: Propyläen, 1997. Notes. Ind. Glossary. 472pp. ISBN 3–549–05605–2 (hbk)

Arno Lustiger, Rotbuch: Stalin und die Juden. Die tragische Geschichte des Jüdischen Antifaschistischen Komitees und der sowjetischen Juden. With a foreword by Efim Etkind. Berlin: Aufbau‐Verlag, 1998. Bibl. Notes. Ind. Photographs. 429pp. ISBN 3–351–02478–9 (hbk)

A Chicken‐and‐Egg Situation. Charles King and Neil J. Melvin (eds.), Nations Abroad: Diaspora Politics and International Relations in the Former Soviet Union. Boulder, CO/Oxford: Westview Press, 1998. 240 pp. Index. ISBN 0–8133–9015‐X

A Greek Tragedy. Gennady Estraikh, Soviet Yiddish: Language Planning and Linguistic Development. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999. x + 217pp. Bibliography. Index. £40. ISBN: 0–19818479–0

Freeze‐Frame Picture. Susanne Marten‐Finnis and Heather Valencia. Sprachinseln. Jiddische Publizistik in London, Wilna und Berlin 1880–1930. Cologne/Weimar/Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1999. 144pp. Illustrations. Bibliography. ISBN: 3–412–02998‐X     

The determinants of opting for the German group taxation regime with regard to taxes on corporate profits

Forming a tax group for corporate and trade tax purposes in Germany has its advantages in terms of tax savings for the companies concerned. Depending on the profit situation, for certain companies these benefits were extended by the 2001 German corporate tax reform. However, setting up a tax group in Germany is also accompanied by certain disadvantages for the consolidated companies, resulting especially from the assumption of increased liability for subsidiaries’ losses. The objective of this study is to investigate the factors determining the decision in favour of, or against, the formation of a tax group. A natural experiment arising from the 2001 German corporate tax reform allowed us to determine to what extent companies exploited the increased potential benefits of a tax group post reform. We test this finding employing firm-level data from the database AMADEUS. Our results show that the number of tax groups increased significantly with the introduction of the exemption method as from 01.01.2001. This result is especially apparent amongst companies benefiting from a tax group only post reform. Yet eligible companies which would have obtained tax benefits by entering into a tax group did not always choose this option. This applies in particular to parent companies with subsidiaries that are not wholly owned, and to small subsidiaries.     

State of Control: Unknown Migrant Children

Recently, crises seem to predominate migration policymaking. They are commonly seen as critical junctures which precipitate major policy change. However, rather than creation of something new, crises can instead be vehicles for restoring the order of the past. This article examines the case of asylum-seeking unaccompanied minors in Sweden, where drastic changes have been made in the aftermath of the perceived “migration crisis” of 2015. Employing historical institutionalist theory, it examines decades of Swedish migration policymaking through analysis of state inquiries, law proposals and court rulings. It argues that the changes introduced 2015 were not qualitatively new, but rather a result of long-simmering tensions. These tensions lie between state attempts to control migration, particularly of “unidentifiable” individuals, and the rights accorded to migrants. The article shows that Sweden's migration framework of bounded universalism has gradually been altered by tools that categorize migrants, with implications for migration policy as a whole.     

THE AGENCY OF POLITICS AND SCIENCE

We study a principal‐agent relationship between a politician and a researcher that captures stylized facts regarding the involvement of politics into scientific research. The politician has some ideal policy that he would like to implement, but needs to contract with a researcher to choose a policy that is supported by scientific advice. We study the implemented contracts under symmetric and under asymmetric information about the researcher's ability and concern for reputation, and discuss with which types of researchers the politician will contract. We identify several conflicts between the interests of voters and those of the politician. (JEL D72, D82, D83)     

Antecedents and effects of individual ambidexterity – A cross-level investigation of exploration and exploitation activities at the employee level

For long-term success, companies need to adapt to technological and environmental change. Organizational ambidexterity, which balances the exploration of new opportunities with the exploitation of existing capabilities, is increasingly viewed as a promising approach to tackle this challenge. However, despite the important role of individuals for firms' ambidexterity and performance, evidence on how exploration of new opportunities and exploitation of existing capabilities are triggered at an individual level and on their subsequent effects on overall performance is still lacking. Accordingly, the present research shifts the focus from organizational ambidexterity to individual ambidexterity. Based on data from 415 employees, the results of structural equation modeling show that both organizational architecture and organizational context can be used to induce individual ambidexterity. Furthermore, positive performance effects of individual ambidexterity across different organizational levels, namely the team and department levels, are confirmed.     

The influence of stimulus ambiguity on category and attitude formation

Existing research on categorical ambiguity has mostly examined how consumers assimilate new products into familiar product categories. Extending these findings, this research investigates whether and under what circumstances consumers either create new mental categories for hybrid products or integrate them into existing categories. Specifically, we propose that this effect is influenced by the degree of product ambiguity and the availability of a new category label. We find that as ambiguity increases, the probability of new category creation augments, but product evaluation deteriorates. However, we also find that a new category label can reduce the effects of ambiguity and can improve product evaluation. Thus, the results fill the existing gap in research on the cognitive integration of hybrid products and shed light on how managers may position these products successfully.