Doppelspitzen in der öffentlichen Verwaltung – Unterstützung durch Coaching

In this article I describe aspects of coaching concerning dual leadership in public administration. I will discuss organisational culture in public administration. Afterwards I emphasize on challenges for leaders and managers who will deal with change of corporate culture. At last I present a map of concepts dealing with coaching of dual leadership which will create insight for the clients for the challenges of their daily work.     

Kapitalmarktreaktionen auf Personalabbauprogramme: Welchen Einfluss haben Motiv,Umfang und Freiwilligkeit?

This study examines the effects of layoff announcements on the market value of German listed companies. Analyzing 136 announcements being published between 2000 and 2009, the results show marginal abnormal returns but high variance indicating that the market reaction might depend on specific characteristics. As potential determinants we particularly discuss the reasons for layoff, the size of layoff and the voluntariness of layoff. We find that reactive reasons like plant closures have a negative impact on shareholder value whilst active reasons like cost improvements enhance shareholder value. The size of layoff tends to induce negative effects. A voluntary layoff announcement however increases the value of a firm. Furthermore, we find a positive relationship between abnormal returns and human capital intensity and a negative one with both the manufacturing industry membership and financial leverage. In addition, the regression model extends prior literature since its coefficient of determination exceeds those in Anglo-American studies.     

The Other‐Race Effect in a Longitudinal Sample of 3‐, 6‐ and 9‐Month‐Old Infants: Evidence of a Training Effect

We investigated the development of the other‐race effect “ORE” in a longitudinal sample of 3‐, 6‐, and 9‐month‐old Caucasian infants. Previous research using cross‐sectional samples has shown an unstable ORE at 3 months, an increase at 6 months and full development at 9 months. In Experiment 1, we tested whether 9‐month‐olds showed the ORE with Caucasian and African faces. As expected, the 9‐month‐olds discriminated faces within their own ethnicity (Caucasian) but not within the unfamiliar ethnicity (African). In months. In Experiment 2, we longitudinally tested infants at 3, 6, and 9 months by presenting either the Caucasian or the African faces used in Experiment 1. In contrast to previous cross‐sectional studies and Experiment 1, we found that infants discriminated between all stimuli. Hence, we did not find the ORE in this longitudinal study even at 9 months. We assume that the infants in our longitudinal study showed no ORE because of previous repetitive exposure to African faces at 3 and 6 months. We argue that only a few presentations of faces from other ethnic categories sufficiently slow the development of the ORE.     

A note on Savage's theorem with a finite number of states

This article gives a preference-based characterization of subjective expected utility for the general equilibrium model with a finite number of states. The characterization follows Savage (1954) as closely as possible but has to abandon his axiom (P6), atomlessness of events, since this requires an infinite state space. To introduce continuity we replace (P6) with a continuity assumption on the set of consequences and assume the preferences are smooth. Then we apply Savage's sure-thing principle and his state-independence axiom to get an additively separable utility representation. Finally, to separate subjective probabilities from basic tastes, we apply a new axiom, which states that for each pair of states the marginal rate of substitution is constant along the certainty line.     

Determinants of motion picture box office and profitability: an interrelationship approach

Introduction  Producing and marketing motion pictures is notoriously risky, with only three out of ten movies breaking even and one becoming profitable at the box office. Extending knowledge on the factors that influence a movie’s box-office and on the interrelations between these factors can be seen as major contribution to aid in lowering the number of failures in the motion picture industry. The major aim of this study is to distinguish direct and indirect effects between potential success drivers and motion picture success by understanding the interrelationships among different determinants of movie success. Methods  Hypotheses are developed with regard to the relationships among a number of factors that have been shown to impact motion-picture box office as well as movie profitability. Applying path analysis, which allows a simultaneous testing of factor interrelations, the hypotheses are subsequently tested against a sample of 331 movies. Results and conclusion  The factors considered in the analysis explain a remarkable amount of a movie’s success. The findings improve the movie industry’s understanding of motion picture success because for the first time interrelationships between the various factors are considered, which enables the separation of direct and indirect (i.e., mediated) effects. By understanding different kinds of effects on movie success, studios are enabled to allocate budgets more effectively. In addition, the findings offer explanations for previous contrary findings of several factors’ influences on success.      

Jarque–Bera Test and its Competitors for Testing Normality – A Power Comparison

For testing normality we investigate the power of several tests, first of all, the well-known test of Jarque & Bera (1980) and furthermore the tests of Kuiper (1960) and Shapiro & Wilk (1965) as well as tests of Kolmogorov–Smirnov and Cramér-von Mises type. The tests on normality are based, first, on independent random variables (model I) and, second, on the residuals in the classical linear regression (model II). We investigate the exact critical values of the Jarque–Bera test and the Kolmogorov–Smirnov and Cramér-von Mises tests, in the latter case for the original and standardized observations where the unknown parameters μ and σ have to be estimated. The power comparison is carried out via Monte Carlo simulation assuming the model of contaminated normal distributions with varying parameters μ and σ and different proportions of contamination. It turns out that for the Jarque–Bera test the approximation of critical values by the chi-square distribution does not work very well. The test is superior in power to its competitors for symmetric distributions with medium up to long tails and for slightly skewed distributions with long tails. The power of the Jarque–Bera test is poor for distributions with short tails, especially if the shape is bimodal – sometimes the test is even biased. In this case a modification of the Cramér-von Mises test or the Shapiro–Wilk test may be recommended.     

Estimating cumulative prospect theory parameters from an international survey

We conduct a standardized survey on risk preferences in 53 countries worldwide and estimate cumulative prospect theory parameters from the data. The parameter estimates show that significant differences on the cross-country level are to some extent robust and related to economic and cultural differences. In particular, a closer look on probability weighting underlines gender differences, economic effects, and cultural impact on probability weighting. The data set is a useful starting point for future research that investigates the impact of risk preferences on the market level.     

Revealing age-specific past and future unrelated costs of pneumococcal infections by flexible generalized estimating equations

We aimed to study the excess health-care expenditures for persons with a known positive isolate of Streptococcus pneumoniae. The data set was compiled by linking the database of the largest Belgian Sickness Fund with data obtained from laboratories reporting pneumococcal isolates. We analyzed the age-specific per-patient cumulative costs over time, using generalized estimating equations (GEEs). The mean structure was described by fractional polynomials. The quasi-likelihood under the independence model criterion was used to compare different correlation structures. We show for all age groups that the health-care costs incurred by diagnosed pneumococcal patients are significantly larger than those incurred by undiagnosed matched persons. This is not only the case at the time of diagnosis but also long before and after the time of diagnosis. These findings can be informative for the current debate on unrelated costs in health economic evaluation, and GEEs could be used to estimate these costs for other diseases. Finally, these results can be used to inform policy on the expected budget impact of preventing pneumococcal infections.