Comparison of Maximum Likelihood with Conditional Pairwise Likelihood Estimation of Person Parameters in the Rasch Model

This paper is concerned with person parameter estimation in the binary Rasch model. The loss of efficiency of a pseudo, quasi, or composite likelihood approach investigated. By means of a Monte Carlo study, two quasi likelihood estimators are compared to two well-established maximum likelihood approaches, one of which being a weighted likelihood procedure. The results show that the observed values of the root mean squared error are practically equivalent for the compared estimators in the case of a sufficiently large number of items.     

Crisis Management by Subjectivation: Toward a Feminist Neo-Gramscian Framework for the Analysis of Europe's Multiple Crisis

The ongoing global crisis not only poses challenges for critical empirical analyses, it also forces us to reconsider central analytical concepts. This paper takes the multiple crisis as a starting point to reconsider notions of (state) power, hegemony, and subjectivation in contemporary crisis management. We discuss recent analyses by feminist and neo-Gramscian scholars, highlight their valuable contributions to a richer understanding of current crisis politics, and argue for their mutual complementarity. Neo-Gramscian perspectives, which productively highlight the current conjuncture's increasing (lack of) hegemonic qualities, need to be confronted with feminist insights regarding the current transformations of gender orders. In combining these approaches, we develop the notion of ‘crisis management by subjectivation’. To illustrate this we refer to the example of Greece: increasingly coercive and authoritarian modes of governance parallel the re-privatization of reproductive work and increasing reliance on gendered division of labor, traditional concepts of privacy, and gendered knowledge of care and the practices associated with it for the reproduction of social cohesion. With the notion of ‘crisis management by subjectivation’ we hence refer to the fact that austerity policies draw on a gendered (re-)allocation and subjective incorporation of social responsibilities as hidden resources of stability and hegemony. The crisis, through its management, is displaced into the gendered subjects themselves.     

The Liberalization of Maternity Leave Policy and the Return to Work after Childbirth in Germany

German federal law has increased the potential duration of maternity leave five times since 1985. A theoretical model demonstrates that the cumulative return probability at potential duration cannot decline unless the mother's employment conditions or career expectations change. We estimate return to work hazards from the German Socio-Economic Panel for women bearing children in the period 1984–1991 and predict cumulative return probabilities for first-time mothers and mothers with a previous birth. The pattern of cumulative return probabilities as potential duration increases is consistent with the hypothesis that employment conditions or career expectations frequently change for mothers taking longer leaves.     

The Downside of Downsizing

With the help of data obtained from open-endedinterviews conducted with the various stakeholders indownsizing operations and applied within a clinicalframework, individual reaction patterns are explored in the victims, the survivors (those stayingwith a company after layoffs), and theexecutioners (those responsible for theimplementation of downsizing). Special emphasis is givento the reactions of the executives implementing the downsizingoperation. Among this group of people, a number of waysof coping can be discerned, described ascompulsive/ritualistic, abrasive, dissociative,alexithymic/anhedonic, and depressive. The article ends with a numberof practical recommendations about how to facilitate thedownsizing process. From the interviews conducted, itappears that downsizing, in the more narrow sense of the word, can be a quite destructiveprocess. Reframing the concept so that downsizing isviewed as a continuous process of corporatetransformation and change, a way to plan for thecontinuity of the organization, seems to be a moreconstructive approach.     

To Sample or Not to Sample? An Analysis of the Need for Salmonella Sampling of Smaller Poultry Processors

Within the European Union (EU), microbiological criteria (MC) sampling for Salmonella in poultry was introduced in 2005. In particular, processors had to meet a target of fewer than seven positive samples out of 50. However, processors producing small amounts of poultry meat did not have to sample if national authorities determined this was an acceptable risk. The U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA) thus has a sampling regime based on throughput that allows smaller processors not to sample. In 2011, the limit of 7/50 was reduced to 5/50. Given the current uncertainty regarding U.K. trade relations with the EU, the U.K. FSA decided to conduct a new risk assessment of the risks of Salmonella produced by smaller processors, to determine whether sampling was now necessary. Current evidence suggests that an MC sampling regime in smaller slaughterhouses is not warranted from a national public health perspective. Because of the insensitivities of the MC sampling scheme, the introduction of MC sampling into smaller slaughterhouses would only be necessary if the suspected carcass prevalence was 15% or more. While our analysis is prone to uncertainty, we estimated that the carcass prevalence in smaller processors is below this. Thus, we recommended that the current sampling framework, allowing smaller processors not to sample, was still applicable.     

Performance Evaluation of Foreign Subsidiaries: A Review of the Literature and a Contingency Framework

During recent years, the literature on the international dimension of business has grown. In particular, the literature on headquarters–subsidiary relationships has expanded. This paper aims to review the literature on performance evaluation and elaborate an integrative contingency framework. This contingency framework helps to clarify the concept of performance evaluation and to classify existing contributions. Furthermore, the framework serves as a tool to identify potential influencing factors on performance evaluation at corporate and at subsidiary level. By reviewing existing studies, the paper analyses the impact of these influencing factors on performance evaluation and reveals mostly contradictory results or no significant impact at all. Based on the findings, more research outside the classical tradition of contingency approaches is suggested.