Social protection and revenue collection: How they can jointly contribute to strengthening social cohesion

Social protection and revenue collection are often regarded as potential drivers of social cohesion. The article joins this debate, providing three main contributions. First, we carefully discuss the concept of social cohesion and endorse one specific definition. Second, we propose using the concept of the “fiscal contract” as the key theoretical lens to understand the often neglected potential joint effects of social protection and revenue collection policies on social cohesion. Third, we illustrate three main mechanisms through which these policies can have positive or negative impacts on the different components of social cohesion and highlight the relevance of these for policy-makers deliberations.     

„Anders denken,anders fühlen“. Klaus Doppler über Erbe und Zukunft des Change Managements

Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO) - Klaus Doppler führte das Konzept Change Management im deutschsprachigen Bereich ein. Er...     

Parental Child‐Rearing Conflicts Through Adolescence: Trajectories and Associations With Child Characteristics and Externalizing Patterns

Research on longitudinal interparental conflict patterns and offspring development is scarce. The population‐based TOPP study (N = 459) was used to investigate (1) child‐rearing conflict trajectories through four time points during childhood and adolescence (ages 8–16), and (2) associations between conflict trajectories and child characteristics (i.e., birth order, gender, externalizing patterns from early childhood). Latent profile analysis identified six distinct trajectories. Conflict levels decreased for most respondents over the adolescent offspring period, but offspring's birth order and externalizing problems were related to less typical trajectories and higher levels of conflict. Onset of externalizing problems was of additional importance for the course of parental child‐rearing conflicts. The results highlight the perception of the whole family as an interwoven system.     

Neue Arbeitswelt,Führung und organisationaler WandelNew Economy,Leadership and Organizational Change.

This article of the journal “Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation.” analyzes and discusses current changes in the working environment with regard to the associated opportunities and risks. Due to the growing dynamism of the markets, digitization, the demographic change and the change of values the importance of flexibility and changeability as central prerequisites for organizational survival is rising constantly. At the same time organizations and employees make higher demands on each other. This shift in the “psychological contract” between employees and organization is discussed in the light of the characteristics of “generation Y”. The article concludes by summarizing consequences of these developments for work in organizations, leadership, change processes and consulting.     

Emergente Teamphänomene – Warum sich Erfolge eines Teams nicht einfach kopieren lassen

Analyzing emergent team phenomena carries the potential to extend previous research findings. However, team phenomena – such as team cognitions and team emotions – do not make research easier. They are difficult to observe, do not follow a clear course, and can only be measured and shaped indirectly. Nonetheless, they offer new perspectives on a more multi-faceted and realistic world, which leads to many new interesting research questions and makes current knowledge appear in a different light. The moments of surprise and unexpected developments characterize teams and make them worthwhile objects of study. Since not all aspects of a team can be measured entirely, managing team dynamics is a demanding as well as essential challenge for adaptable and learning organizations.     

Dynamic Choice Mechanisms

A dynamic choice mechanism (e.g. sophisticated choice) is a rule transforming a sequence of orderings into actual choices. The dynamic choice literature analysing such rules is restricted to the case of strict preferences. The present paper allows also for weak preferences. This generalisation is necessary since in dynamic utility models decision makers are typically endowed with orderings which can be represented by continuous utility functions. Such a representation, however, requires the orderings to be a weak ordering. In the presence of weak orderings the classical choice mechanisms have to be re-examined. This paper develops and analyses new choice mechanisms and relates them to the notion of a subgame-perfect equilibrium.     

Mapping Perceptions of Animal Experimentation: Trend and Explanatory Factors*

Objective. The goal of this article is to map out attitudes toward animal experimentation in Switzerland, more specifically, to document the current attitudes, analyze the change of attitudes over the last 10 years, and explain these attitudes. Methods. This study analyzes a series of Swiss surveys that measure public attitudes toward the environment and science (ISSP, 1994, 2000; EB, 2001, 2005). Results. It is shown that the relative majority of Swiss are against animal research in 2005 and that refusals are increasing since 1994. Attitudes toward animal testing are explained by attitudes toward science, attitudes toward nature, and values. Conclusions. The study of attitudes toward animal experimentation makes important contributions to sociology and, in particular, to the public understanding of science (PUS) research.     

THE IMPACT OF INCOME SHOCKS ON HEALTH: EVIDENCE FROM COHORT DATA

We study the effect of permanent income innovations on health for a prime‐aged population. Using information on more than half a million individuals sampled over a 25‐year period in three different cross‐sectional surveys we aggregate data by date‐of‐birth cohort to construct a “synthetic cohort” data set with details of income, expenditure, socio‐demographic factors, health outcomes, and selected risk factors. We then exploit structural and arguably exogenous changes in cohort incomes over the 1980s and 1990s to uncover causal effects of permanent income shocks on health. We find that such income innovations have little effect on a wide range of health measures, but do lead to increases in mortality and risky health behaviour. (JEL: I10, D31)