Ist Authentizität möglich?

From my observation the term authenticity is usually linked to high expectations on the interaction partner’s cognitive and expressive abilities. Analysis shows: clear messages about one’s cognitive process do not allow the conclusion that such processes proceed in straight forward, linear ways. In fact, inner cognitive processes have proved to be a dynamic liaison of the orderly and disorderly, the complete and the fragmented, continuity and discontinuity. Therefore it is recommandable to redefine the term authenticity and to draw educational consequences accordingly.     

Demande et emploi dans les chaînes d'approvisionnement mondiales

L'essor des chaînes d'approvisionnement mondiales (CAM) éloigne l'emploi de la demande, géographiquement et sectoriellement. Pour mieux comprendre le phénomène, les auteurs mesurent l'emploi lié aux CAM selon sa localisation et celle de la demande, en se fondant sur les données de la base WIOD et en complétant les estimations déjà présentées par le BIT. L'analyse porte sur la période 1995–2013 et sur 40 économies. Elle montre que la Chine, principale bénéficiaire de la demande liée aux CAM autrefois, contribue maintenant à l'alimenter, tout comme les relations de production entre économies émergentes. En outre, le poids des services liés à une demande manufacturière augmente.     

Another Colonialism: Africa in the History of European Integration

Today's European Union was founded in a 1950s marked by its member states' involvement in numerous colonial conflicts and with the colonial question firmly entrenched on the European and international agenda. This notwithstanding, there is hardly any scholarly investigations to date that have examined colonialism's bearing on the historical project and process of European integration. In tackling this puzzle, the present article proceeds in two steps. First, it corroborates the claim that European integration not only is related to the history of colonialism but to no little extent determined by it. Second, it introduces a set of factors that explain why the relation between the EU and colonialism has been systematically neglected. Here the article seeks to identify the operations of a colonial epistemology that has facilitated a misrecognition of what postwar European integration was about. As the article argues, this epistemology has enabled colonialism's historical relation to the European integration project to remain undetected and has thus also reproduced within the present EU precisely those colonial or neo-colonial preconceptions that the European partner states, in official discourse and policy, falsely claim that they have abandoned.     

Organizational Transparency and Sense-Making: The Case of Northern Rock

Organizational transparency is associated with mutual understanding and consensus between the organization and its constituents, but is typically defined as information disclosure. Such definitions pose the risk of simplification and provide incomplete understandings of the transparency phenomenon. Additionally, research rarely focuses on how transparency is translated within crisis situations. This article presents a sense-making and discourse analysis perspective of transparency. We use the case of the British bank Northern Rock to show how this bank and its stakeholders enacted transparency in a critical moment, and to demonstrate how different zones of meaning emerged among the players involved.     

Ecosystem services of urban green spaces in African countries—perspectives and challenges

The concept of ecosystem goods and services is increasingly used to describe how biodiversity and ecosystems are linked to human well-being and that it should be placed at the core of sustainable urban development. Predictions of a tremendous future increase of urbanization in Africa necessitate an investigation into the research on ecosystem goods and services in the urban green infrastructure of Africa. Ecosystem goods and services (ES) are described as the benefits humans derive directly or indirectly from ecosystem functions and are classified as supporting, provisioning, regulating and cultural services. A literature study focusing on journal papers was conducted. Additionally a case study based on two masters studies was further refined. ES studies in African cities are biased towards South Africa and include assessments and economic valuations in which several different methods were used to determine direct consumptive and non-consumptive and indirect use values. Emphasis was placed on the multifunctional nature of ES. The main objectives of these studies were to sensitize policy makers, planners and the general public about the importance of biodiversity and ES. Ecosystem-based adaptation is discussed as the most appropriate approach in terms of applying knowledge about ES and their values in African cities as many residents still rely on ES from natural areas, but the major ecological, economic and political challenges are acknowledged. A case study focusing on domestic gardens (private green spaces) have indicated that the demand and supply of certain ES differ along a socio-economic gradient due to poor service delivery and smaller plots in the poorer areas mainly due to the legacy of separate development of the past. Where provisioning services are mainly outsourced in cities, it was found that plant species useful as food, medicine, etc. were more frequent in the gardens of poorer residents than in those of more affluent areas. The tendency to pay more for residential properties close to public open spaces, as in Europe, could not be statistically proven in the more affluent areas of a South African city, although the property values in proximity of public open spaces in some of the areas studied were lower than further away.     

Applying the Housing First approach to single-site permanent supportive housing

This study explored how the U.S. Departments of Housing and Urban Development-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing (HUD-VASH) program applies Housing First principles in the context of ten single-site programs. Focus group discussions with 64 HUD-VASH staff and community partners explored how the programs were influenced by Housing First principles and specific strategies to implement these principles in a single-site setting. Focus group respondents described resourceful ways that the principles of Housing First were implemented in their programs specifically related to (1) housing choice and structure, (2) separation of housing and services, (3) service philosophy, and (4) service array. Several of the Housing First domains cite the importance of integrated housing and the provision of services off-site; it was of particular interest to learn how single-site programs address these issues logistically. Lessons learned from this study include the importance of leveraging the independent yet overlapping tasks of case management and property management to ensure functional – if not geographic – separation of housing and services; maintaining staff on-site to address Veterans’ needs; working with community service organizations to complement the array of service available to residents; and housing single-site programs in mixed-use buildings.     

The Revitalization of a Popular Movement: Case Study Research from Sweden

This article tries to enhance knowledge about organizational characteristics and processes that are important for mitigating oligarchic tendencies in the governance of CSOs, and to discuss the factors that condition the operation of these characteristics and processes. Civil society is frequently seen as an important part of societal governance and discussed as the intermediary link between the individual and society. This connection is often made through the aggregate function of civil society organizations (CSOs). Currently there are discussions regarding the decline of traditional cross-class federative CSOs and the possible effect of this on democracy in society. This article presents a longitudinal case study of the governance within a large, membership-based federative CSO and illustrates the revitalization of a CSO and its mission through the influx of a new group of members from the surrounding environment. The author argues that this revitalization process was possible partly because the proposed changes were in keeping with the organization’s original ideological core and partly because of the organization’s open democratic governance system. This permeability is found at two levels: first, the borders are open for individuals to enter the organization as members, and second, the borders of the internal governance system are open for members to take part in the decision-making process. This enabled ideas to percolate up from the members through the democratic decision-making system to the top of the organization, and some ideas are translated into statutes and policies, which then trickle down to the members again through the executive structure. The conclusion is that a functioning democratic governance system, which is able to stay true to the organization’s ideological core at the same time as it is able to modify it in light of societal change, seems imperative for this kind of organization. By doing this, the organization is not just staying true to its original mission but also actively contributing to democracy in society by including new groups into the decision-making process.     

Rényi entropy of m-generalized order statistics

Abstract

Characterizing relations via Rényi entropy of m-generalized order statistics are considered along with examples and related stochastic orderings. Previous results for common order statistics are included.     

Harmful care. To what extent is terminology from medicine and clinical psychology applicable to out‐of‐home care?

Research concerning outcomes for children who have been placed in out‐of‐home care has indicated that the care may have unwanted consequences. However, there has been no coherent terminology for differentiating between different types of such unwanted consequences. In this article therefore, we attempt to disentangle different aspects of potentially harmful care for looked after children, as well as to discuss potential pathways to more systematically approach and report adverse events for this group. In this endeavour, we turn to two adjacent disciplines, medicine and psychology, where these issues have received more interest. The applicability of the concepts used in these fields is discussed, and it is concluded that although they provide some help in categorizing different aspects of harmful care, the complexity of out‐of‐home care makes existing models difficult to adopt without adjustments. This has consequences for the possibility of evaluating care in research, as well as for monitoring adverse events in practice. Importantly, the causality will often be unknown. We therefore suggest that it is essential to shed more light on how decisions should be made about when to intervene or not in out‐of‐home care, despite limited information.