Patterns of governance structures in trade associations and unions

Most research on the governance of nonprofit organizations concentrates on welfare‐oriented organizations and disregards other types of nonprofits. This article examines the governance structures of trade associations and unions as a special type of nonprofit organization. Analysis is based on a qualitative case study survey of thirty Swiss trade associations. The results distinguish four categories of governance: satellite governance, delegate governance, executive governance, and inner‐circle governance.     

The equity-efficiency trade-off reconsidered

Envy-free and Pareto optimal allocations never exist in large economies with production, if there is enough variation with respect to preferences and innate abilities of the agents. If distributional equity is given priority only second best envy-free allocations may be considered. Those allocations are characterised in finite and continuum economies. In continuum economies envy-free allocations are type-egalitarian, i.e. agents with the same preferences but different abilities obtain the same consumption-labour bundle. Regarding implementation envy-free allocations can only be implemented by a tax depending on labour and income.I would like to thank two anonymous referees and the editor in charge of this paper for very helpful comments.     

Exploring the Interaction Between Volunteering Status,Paid Job Characteristics and Quality of Volunteers’ Motivation on Mental Health

The literature on the health-promoting effects of community work has primarily dealt with the population in retirement age, yet the vast majority of volunteers are people still in the workforce. The aim of this study is to observe the relationship between volunteering and health within the context of working life, considering paid work conditions and motives to volunteer as moderating variables. We conducted an online survey with a sample of Swiss workers employed in different industries. Results show that volunteers with self-determined motives (but not with controlled motives) report lower levels of stress and burnout than non-volunteers. Moreover, volunteers in general (regardless of the quality of motivation) report higher levels of work engagement and well-being. Analyses further reveal an interaction effect for burnout and stress, where the difference between self-determined volunteers and non-volunteers becomes larger with unfavorable working conditions at their paid job, hinting at potential compensatory effects. Implications for future research and the voluntary sector are discussed.     

QuickMMCTest: quick multiple Monte Carlo testing

Multiple hypothesis testing is widely used to evaluate scientific studies involving statistical tests. However, for many of these tests, p values are not available and are thus often approximated using Monte Carlo tests such as permutation tests or bootstrap tests. This article presents a simple algorithm based on Thompson Sampling to test multiple hypotheses. It works with arbitrary multiple testing procedures, in particular with step-up and step-down procedures. Its main feature is to sequentially allocate Monte Carlo effort, generating more Monte Carlo samples for tests whose decisions are so far less certain. A simulation study demonstrates that for a low computational effort, the new approach yields a higher power and a higher degree of reproducibility of its results than previously suggested methods.     

Closure properties of classes of multiple testing procedures

Statistical discoveries are often obtained through multiple hypothesis testing. A variety of procedures exists to evaluate multiple hypotheses, for instance the ones of Benjamini–Hochberg, Bonferroni, Holm or Sidak. We are particularly interested in multiple testing procedures with two desired properties: (solely) monotonic and well-behaved procedures. This article investigates to which extent the classes of (monotonic or well-behaved) multiple testing procedures, in particular the subclasses of so-called step-up and step-down procedures, are closed under basic set operations, specifically the union, intersection, difference and the complement of sets of rejected or non-rejected hypotheses. The present article proves two main results: First, taking the union or intersection of arbitrary (monotonic or well-behaved) multiple testing procedures results in new procedures which are monotonic but not well-behaved, whereas the complement or difference generally preserves neither property. Second, the two classes of (solely monotonic or well-behaved) step-up and step-down procedures are closed under taking the union or intersection, but not the complement or difference.     

Aging male symptomatology and eating behavior

Objective: The literature on eating disorders in older males is still very limited. We assessed the relationship between aging male symptomatology and eating behavior in middle-aged and older men.

Method: We distributed anonymous questionnaires to men aged 40–75?years living in or near Innsbruck, Austria, covering demographic items, current eating disorder symptoms (as defined by DSM-5), and associated measures of eating pathology, body image, and sports activity (including exercise addiction). We also administered the Aging Males’ Symptoms scale (AMS), and classified respondents as “high-AMS” (AMS score ≥37; N?=?82) or “low-AMS” (AMS score <37; N?=?386).

Results: High-AMS men reported a significantly higher mean current BMI, a greater prevalence of eating disorder symptoms, higher scores on the Eating Disorder Examination Questionnaire, greater risk of exercise addiction, and more negative body image than low-AMS men.

Discussion: We found a marked association between aging-male symptomatology and eating-disorder symptomatology in aging men. Our findings suggest that clinicians should carefully inquire about eating disorder symptoms in men aged 40 and above reporting aging-male symptomatology. Importantly, several men in the study reported “purging” via excessive exercise (as opposed to the more common methods of vomiting or use of laxatives or diuretics), and therefore this should be a subject of inquiry in clinical evaluations. To pursue these findings, subsequent studies of eating disorders in older men should consider assessing endocrinological measures, particularly testosterone levels, and should use longitudinal designs.