Introduction to the Special Section Value Development from Middle Childhood to Early Adulthood—New Insights from Longitudinal and Genetically Informed Research

Research into values at an early age has only started recently, although it has expanded quickly and dynamically in the past years. The purpose of this article is twofold: First, it provides an introduction to a special section that aims to help fill the gap in value development research. The special section brings together four new longitudinal and genetically informed studies of value development from the beginning of middle childhood through early adulthood. Second, this article reviews recent research from this special section and beyond, aiming to provide new directions to the field. With new methods for assessing children's values and an increased awareness of the role of values in children's and adolescents' development, the field now seems ripe for an in‐depth investigation. Our review of empirical evidence shows that, as is the case with adults, children's values are organized based on compatibilities and conflicts in their underlying motivations. Values show some consistency across situations, as well as stability across time. This longitudinal stability tends to increase with age, although mean changes are also observed. These patterns of change seem to be compatible with Schwartz's (1992) theory of values (e.g., if the importance of openness to change values increases, the importance of conservation values decreases). The contributions of culture, family, peers, significant life events, and individual characteristics to values are discussed, as well as the development of values as guides for behavior.     

Exit or Voice? The Recent Drivers of Kosovar Out‐migration

A remarkable out‐migration from Kosovo occurred after the winter 2014/15, raising urgent questions about its underlying drivers and implications for both Kosovo and the destination countries. This article aims at providing a better understanding of key migration triggers and some particularities of the phenomenon. We link our empirically found migration drivers to Hirschman's ( 1970 ) famous exit, voice or loyalty scheme by asking in how far the exit must be understood as the explicit alternative to voicing dissatisfaction with the current situation in the country. According to our results, the recent Kosovar out‐migration is a clear response to weak governance and thus goes beyond the widespread ‘migration‐cum‐remittances’ livelihood practice. In this sense it could be interpreted as a revolt against the political system. With view to policy implications for destination countries, we point at legal travel and migration opportunities as the better solution to channel both voice and exit.     

Modeling probability density through ultraspherical polynomial transformations

We present a method for fitting parametric probability density models using an integrated square error criterion on a continuum of weighted Lebesgue spaces formed by ultraspherical polynomials. This approach is inherently suitable for creating mixture model representations of complex distributions and allows fully autonomous cluster analysis of high-dimensional datasets. The method is also suitable for extremely large sets, allowing post facto model selection and analysis even in the absence of the original data. Furthermore, the fitting procedure only requires the parametric model to be pointwise evaluable, making it trivial to fit user-defined models through a generic algorithm.     

Inequality in Interaction: Equalising the Helper–Recipient Relationship in the Refugee Solidarity Movement

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - In this paper, we supplement existing scholarship on the interactional process within volunteering with one that focuses...     

20 years of Bologna - a story of success,a story of failure

The Bologna Process is a unique harmonisation process taking place outside the policy-making framework of the European Union. It aims at enhancing the comparability and compatibility of higher education structures and degrees across Europe, as well as to institutionalise quality assurance mechanisms. The aim of this article is to provide a condensed, up-to-date overview of the Bologna Process with regard to structural characteristics, before embedding it into a discussion on processes on voluntary policy convergence and to which extent we should be able to find this kind of policy harmonisation in the realm of the Bologna Process. Related to this are questions why this, in principle, completely voluntary process of policy harmonisation, has appealed to so many countries and why they might or might not feel committed to the implementation of its policies and tools.     

Self-exciting threshold models for time series of counts with a finite range

In this article, an integer-valued self-exciting threshold model with a finite range based on the binomial INARCH(1) model is proposed. Important stochastic properties are derived, and approaches for parameter estimation are discussed. A real-data example about the regional spread of public drunkenness in Pittsburgh demonstrates the applicability of the new model in comparison to existing models. Feasible modifications of the model are presented, which are designed to handle special features such as zero-inflation.     

Determinants and effects of formal target agreements: an empirical investigation of German firms

We investigate organizational determinants and performance effects of formal target agreements for employees based on the IAB establishment panel, a representative panel of German establishments. The results show that establishments with a high employee turnover rate, a large proportion of temporary workers, and a highly qualified workforce are significantly more likely to implement target agreements. Also, establishments with works councils installed are more likely to do so, controlling, among others, for firm size. Concerning organizational performance, we apply a first-difference and a fixed effects approach and find that establishments that implement target agreements achieve around 5 % higher total sales compared to firms that did not introduce this practice. Hence, organizations seem to benefit from the implementation of formal target agreements for employees.     

Coaching,Training und Co – ist das alles Personalentwicklung?

This paper focuses on coaching and similar types of consulting in the field of personnel development. First the author discusses the current debate concerning personnel development; finally she describes the special goals, target-groups and issues of coaching, clinical supervision, mediation, mentoring and outplacement-consulting within the field of personnel development.     

Model averaging for treatment effect estimation in subgroups

In many clinical trials, biological, pharmacological, or clinical information is used to define candidate subgroups of patients that might have a differential treatment effect. Once the trial results are available, interest will focus on subgroups with an increased treatment effect. Estimating a treatment effect for these groups, together with an adequate uncertainty statement is challenging, owing to the resulting “random high” / selection bias. In this paper, we will investigate Bayesian model averaging to address this problem. The general motivation for the use of model averaging is to realize that subgroup selection can be viewed as model selection, so that methods to deal with model selection uncertainty, such as model averaging, can be used also in this setting. Simulations are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach. We illustrate it on an example early‐phase clinical trial.     

Effects of Leadership Style,Creativity Technique and Personal Initiative on Employee Creativity

Transformational leadership is assumed to enhance employees' creativity. However, results of meta‐analytic research on the relations between transformational leadership and creativity have fallen short of expectations. The authors argue that, besides leadership style, the creativity technique that a leader employs is an important means of stimulating employees' creativity. In addition, it is assumed that leadership styles and creativity techniques may have different effects, depending on the measure of creativity output (quantitative vs qualitative). Therefore, in an experimental setting, the effects of different creativity techniques (provocation technique vs brainwriting) and leadership styles (transformational vs transactional) on both quantitative and qualitative creativity were examined. Results showed that transformational leadership and provocation technique led to higher levels of qualitative creativity than transactional leadership and brainwriting, respectively. Conversely, transactional leadership and brainwriting were more effective for quantitative creativity. The additional benefit of the provocation technique in qualitative creativity was found to be higher in the transactional leadership condition than in the transformational leadership condition. Moreover, personal initiative made a significant and independent contribution to both qualitative and quantitative creativity. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.