Gibt es die Generation Golf?

Florian Illies in his essay “Generation Golf” developed the thesis that traditional values are experiencing a revival among the generation born between 1965 and 1975. This thesis is read in the context of sociological theories of value change and empirically examined on the basis of time-series data. It can be shown, that “Generation Golf” as a clearly distinguished birth cohort with a specific value profile does indeed exist. Starting with “Generation Golf”, a process of averting from postmaterial values can be observed.     

Realisierung von Cross-Selling Potenzialen durch das Management von kundeninitiierten Kontakten

Existing research has not sufficiently addressed the question of how to cross-sell additional products and services to customers and what the behavioral consequences of cross-selling are. Moreover, these cross-selling-related questions have not been investigated in the context of customer-initiated contacts.The contribution of the paper is the empirical analysis of metrics which can be used to predict cross-selling success, e.g., in a call-center. The results show that two metrics, namely first contact resolution and reason for contact, significantly predict cross-selling success. Another contribution is the analysis of behavioral consequences. Here the results show that usage intensity significantly increases the time directly after the cross-selling took place but relapses to the original level within a few weeks.The results of the study can be used to derive managerial implications for managing and controlling cross-selling initiatives and for increasing and stabilizing cash-flows.     

How Social Relations and Structures can Produce Happiness and Unhappiness: An International Comparative Analysis

In this paper, subjective well being, as measured by survey questions on happiness and life satisfaction, is investigated from a sociological-comparative point of view. The central thesis is that happiness and satisfaction must be understood as the outcome of an interaction process between individual characteristics and aspirations on the one side, and social relations and macrosocial structures on the other side. A distinction is made between life satisfaction and happiness; the former is more seen as the outcome of an evaluation process including material and social aspirations and achievements, the latter as an outcome of positive experiences, particularly close personal relationships. The focus of this paper is on micro- and macrosocial conditions favouring or inhibiting the emergence of happiness and satisfaction. It is hypothesized that dense and good basic social relations, occupational involvement and success, sociocultural (religious and altruistic) orientations and participation are conducive to happiness and life satisfaction; the same should be true at the macrolevel for economic prosperity, relatively equal social structures, a well-established welfare state and political democracy. The latter conditions, however, should be more important for life satisfaction than for happiness. A comparative, multilevel regression analysis of happiness in 41 nations around the world is carried out (using the World Value Survey 1995–1997). Both our general assumption and most of the specific hypotheses could be confirmed. It turned very clearly that “happiness” and “life satisfaction” are two different concepts. It could be shown that microsocial embedding and sociocultural integration of a person are highly relevant for happiness. However, contrary to earlier studies, we find that macrosocial factors like the economic wealth of nation, the distribution of income, the extent of the welfare state and political freedom are also relevant, particularly for satisfaction. What counts most is the ability to cope with life, including subjective health and financial satisfaction, close social relations, and the economic perspectives for improvement in the future, both at the level of the individual and at that of the society. These abilities are certainly improved by favourable macrosocial conditions and institutions, such as a more equal income distribution, political democracy and a welfare state.     

The Impact of Complexity on Knowledge Transfer in Manufacturing Networks

Coordinating knowledge transfer within multi‐plant manufacturing networks is a challenging task. Using a computational model, we examine when it is beneficial to create production knowledge within a central unit, the “lead factory,” and transfer it to geographically dispersed plants. We demonstrate that the knowledge transfer generates a trade‐off between a positive cost‐saving effect due to fewer adaptations in each plant, and a negative transfer cost effect due to the costly knowledge transfer itself. The complexity of the production process moderates the performance implications of the knowledge transfer because it determines the relative strength of these two effects. For production processes with low complexity, knowledge transfer can engender superior network performance. Here, an optimal extent of knowledge transfer exists, and thus, a complete knowledge transfer is not performance maximizing. For production processes with medium and high levels of complexity, performance is reduced rather than enhanced through knowledge transfer so that it is optimal not to transfer any knowledge from the lead factory to the plants. While we analyze knowledge transfer within a manufacturing network, our results are transferable to other settings that consist of a knowledge sending and receiving unit.     

Die Regulation der ?kologischen Krise

There is a growing discrepancy between the knowledge about the ecological crisis and the effectiveness to deal with this crisis politically. Just in a time of increasing environmental problems the institutions of international environmental politics are in a crisis of legitimation and functioning. This contrasts with the broadly acknowledged anthropogenic character of climate change and the respective politicisation of this crisis phenomenon. The article firstly develops a theoretical framework which aims to contribute to explaining the growing discrepancy between crisis consciousness and crisis politics. For this purpose, the concept of societal relationships with nature is linked to insights of critical geography, regulation theory and critical state theory. Thereafter, the empirical analysis identifies the fossilist production and consumption patterns as principal cause for the mentioned discrepancy. Its deeply rootedness and global outreach supersede the ecological crisis consciousness and the negotiations on the existing terrains of environmental politics. At the same time, they contribute to intensifying the contradictions in societal relationships with nature. The (possible) processing of these contradictions and their democratically motivated politicisation will be analysed in the last section of the paper.     

Coordination of legislative speech in times of crisis: Youth unemployment and debates on redistributive policies in the Swedish Riksdag, 1994–2014

Parliamentary debates and the discussion on different law proposals are a key part of the process of policy making. We argue in this article that a high economic problem pressure in the region an MP represents will affect the MP’s legislative speechmaking. We also hypothesise that parties tend to coordinate their speakers in parliament to display a cohesive profile in the domain of labour, employment and immigration issues, i.e., in issue areas which reflect redistributive policies that are highly salient for almost all parties. We evaluate our expectations based on an analysis of Swedish parliamentary debates on labour, employment and immigration policy during the period between 1994 and 2014. The findings show that parliamentary parties coordinate speechmaking: Those MPs who represent economically troubled districts are less likely to appear in plenary debates, as well as MPs who deviate programmatically from the party line.     

Unconditional Quantile Treatment Effects Under Endogeneity

This article develops estimators for unconditional quantile treatment effects when the treatment selection is endogenous. We use an instrumental variable (IV) to solve for the endogeneity of the binary treatment variable. Identification is based on a monotonicity assumption in the treatment choice equation and is achieved without any functional form restriction. We propose a weighting estimator that is extremely simple to implement. This estimator is root n consistent, asymptotically normally distributed, and its variance attains the semiparametric efficiency bound. We also show that including covariates in the estimation is not only necessary for consistency when the IV is itself confounded but also for efficiency when the instrument is valid unconditionally. An application of the suggested methods to the effects of fertility on the family income distribution illustrates their usefulness. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.     

IMMIGRANTS' GENES: GENETIC DIVERSITY AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN THE UNITED STATES

This paper examines the relationship between immigrants' genetic diversity and economic development in the United States during the late nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries, a period commonly referred to as the age of mass migration from Europe to the New World. Our panel model estimates show that during this period, immigrants' genetic diversity is significantly positively correlated with measures of U.S. counties' economic development. There exists also a significant positive relationship between immigrants' genetic diversity in 1870 and contemporaneous measures of U.S. counties' average income. (JEL J11, O51, Z13)     

Changes at Corporate Headquarters: Review,Integration and Future Research

In modern corporations, the corporate headquarters (CHQ) unit is considered central to the fortunes of the overall firm. In light of ever‐changing environments, changes at the CHQ have become a crucial concern in management research and practice, and scholars have studied a variety of changes at the CHQ. Despite the common focus on the CHQ entity and the potential for cross‐fertilization across several research tracks, a coherent picture of this dispersed body of knowledge is lacking. This paper reviews 25 years of research on changes at the CHQ. In so doing, it advances a common language and an overarching framework that integrates the existing knowledge in the intellectual domains of strategy, organizational design and international business research. On this basis, the authors suggest directions for future research to advance knowledge of: (1) the pressure for and resistance to changes at the CHQ; (2) interrelationships among changes at the CHQ; (3) change processes at the CHQ; (4) agents involved in changes at the CHQ; and (5) adaptive and disruptive effects of changes at the CHQ. Overall, the study provides a conceptual basis for combining the existing knowledge of changes at the CHQ and serves as a guide for future research.