Culture and leadership: women in nonprofit and for-profit leadership positions within the European Union

Research has shown that women commonly hold positions of leadership within nonprofit organizations, while men typically hold the leadership positions within for-profit organizations. However, little research on women's leadership roles has been conducted within European Union countries. The purpose of this article is to examine women's leadership positions within nonprofit and for-profit organizations within the European Union and, using Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory, to further investigate a potential correlation between national culture and female leadership. Fifty-one companies were examined based on type, country characteristics and gender dominance. A significant difference was found between organization type (nonprofit/for-profit) and organizational dominance (masculine/feminine). The findings suggest that the European Union has patterns of gendered leadership positions similar to patterns found previously in the USA. However, countries that were characterized as feminine had more than expected nonprofit organizations, while masculine countries had more for-profit organizations.     

Unions and innovative activity in Germany

This study is the first attempt to investigate the influence of unions on innovative activities in Germany at the industry level. Econometric models estimated by a highly robust method and submitted to a number of specification tests indicate that trade unions do not have a negative impact on innovative activity which is measured by either the percentage of revenues spent on R&D or the percentage of employees working in R&D. This finding is consistent with evidence on the influence of unions on productivity in Germany and with considerations about the German system of industrial relations.     

Kompetenzen als Auswahlbasis von Coaches

Many companies are increasingly making use of coaching as an instrument of human resources development. The selection of the a suitable coach is more often based on intuition of the selecting human resources employees than it is objective. This underscores the need for a more systematic approach to the selection of coaches, which is based on the useable competencies of a coach and is also scientifically supported. Through a multiparadigm literature review and an explorative study, this article identifies seven base competencies of coaches, which can serve as a foundation for the selection of a coach.     

Healthcare System Types: A Conceptual Framework for Comparison

This article addresses the need to establish a comprehensive conceptual framework for analysing healthcare systems and their transformations. It begins by offering an overview of the current state of the art in the field, pointing to the literature's absence of conceptual robustness in the definition of system types. By exploring the dimensions 'financing', 'provision' and 'regulation' of healthcare, the article then proceeds deductively in line with the 'Weberian method of ideal-types' to establish a taxonomy of 27 healthcare systems, of which three can be identified as 'ideal-types'. When applying this concept, not only can differences between healthcare systems be analysed, but also changes over time. The article concludes by identifying three forms of healthcare system transformation.     

Industrial Relations and Trade Union Effects on Innovation in Germany

ABSTRACT: This paper provides a thoretical and empirical evaluation of unions’effects on innovative activity, focussing on institutional details and country-specific factors. We represent results of an econometric investigation for Germany using data at the industry and establishment level. In contrast to US studies, no statistically significant negative influence of unions on innovative activity shows up from industry-level data. Establishment-level data, however, indicate that the presence of a works council is positive for R & D if union density is not “too high”. This is in line with the more cooperative nature of industrial relations in Germany.     

Optimal Cash Tender Offers*

This paper develops a contingent claims analysis, a simple decision model for determining the optimal price in a cash tender offer. The implied behavior of the optimal tender offer premium over the market price of the target common stock is also investigated. Those readers interested in applying the model may obtain an interactive computer program written in FORTRAN and implementable on a personal computer from the authors on request.     

PREDICTING LOTTO NUMBERS: A NATURAL EXPERIMENT ON THE GAMBLER'S FALLACY AND THE HOT‐HAND FALLACY

We investigate the “law of small numbers” using a data set on lotto gambling that allows us to measure players' reactions to draws. While most players pick the same set of numbers week after week, we find that those who do change, react on average as predicted by the law of small numbers as formalized in recent behavioral theory. In particular, players tend to bet less on numbers that have been drawn in the preceding week, as suggested by the “gambler's fallacy”, and bet more on a number if it was frequently drawn in the recent past, consistent with the “hot‐hand fallacy”.