Disentangling Gut Feeling: Assessing the Integrity of Social Entrepreneurs

This paper analyzes how social venture capitalists evaluate the integrity of social entrepreneurs. Based on an experiment with 40 social venture capitalists and 40 students, we investigate how five attributes of the entrepreneur contribute to the assessment of integrity. These attributes are the entrepreneur’s personal experience, professional background, voluntary accountability efforts, reputation and awards/fellowships granted to the entrepreneur. Results indicate that social venture capitalists focus largely on voluntary accountability efforts of the entrepreneur and the entrepreneur’s reputation when judging integrity. For an overall positive judgment of integrity, it seems to be sufficient if either voluntary accountability efforts or reputation of the entrepreneur are high. By comparing social venture capitalists with students, we show that experience leads to a simpler decision model focusing on key attributes.     

Rechnet sich Coaching im Mittelstand?

Central question of this article: Is there a measurable correlation between health-oriented management culture in SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) and business success? Healthy management culture has a direct impact on the colleagues health and motivation, as well as on the healthy development and on the healthy results of business. On a practical example this connection between healthy colleagues, healthy business and healthy results becomes clear and quantitative demonstrable. The article is based on the research, “Basics for healthy management culture and business success” of Badura and Greiner (University of Bielefeld), on behalf of the Ministry of Labor, Health and Social Affairs NRW.     

Is Any Job Better than No Job? Life Satisfaction and Re-employment

Using data for West Germany from the German Socio-Economic Panel, we analyse the impact of transitions from unemployment to full-time employment on life satisfaction, with special focus on the influence of job quality. We apply various indicators of job quality (self-reported job satisfaction, wages, type of contract, and indicators of the fit between the worker and job requirements). We control for the influence of income changes and other factors affecting life satisfaction, using a conditional logit estimator. Results suggest that job quality only matters to some extent, and often people in bad jobs are still better off than those who remain unemployed. This effect is statistically significant for most indicators of job quality, except for workers with low job satisfaction and for those whose new job is much worse than their pre-unemployment job.     

Prosocial behaviour,inclusion and exclusion: why and when do we behave prosocially? / Comportamiento prosocial,inclusión y exclusión: ¿cuándo y por qué adoptamos comportamientos prosociales?

Two experiments analysed the influence of inclusion versus exclusion on prosocial behaviour. In Study 1, evidence for the social reconnection hypothesis was found. In Study 2, a cross-over interactive effect is demonstrated: excluded individuals tended to be more prosocial when their competence was affected than when their popularity was affected. However, included people were more prosocial than excluded people when their popularity was affected, but they were less prosocial when their competence was highlighted. Besides, Study 2 has shown that affiliation motivation mediates the effect of exclusion on prosocial behaviour, and thus: (1) excluded individuals endorse lower levels of affiliation motivation with their rejecters than included individuals do with individuals who have included them; and (2) individuals with higher levels of affiliation motivation engage in higher prosocial behaviour levels when the behaviour is oriented to people with whom the chance to reconnect exists, but not when it is oriented to people with whom there is no possibility for future affiliation.     

Evaluation systemischer Strukturaufstellungen im OrganisationskontextEvaluation of Systemic Structural Constellations within an Organizational Context

This article deals with the evaluation of systemic structural constellations within an organizational context. Twelve participants experienced a systemic structural constellation which differed in the kind of constellation (single constellation, constellation with representatives) using a topic from an organizational context. The participants were surveyed by questionnaire and/or interview on their estimation of perceived usefulness, effectivity of the method and practicability of the solution as well as on their perceived self-efficacy at three points in time. A high perceived usefulness, effectivity of the method, practicability of the solution was noticed independently from the kind of constellation. For the “variable perceived self-efficacy” significant differences appeared for the kind of constellation and the time interval as well. Overall, this study gives empirical evidence for the effectiveness of systemic structural constellations used in an organizational context.     

Schulqualität, Schulerfolg und Gesundheit. Ergebnisse aus der österreichischen „Health Behaviour in School-Aged Children“-Studie

Based on the question, how school quality, academic achievement and health are linked to each other, the paper presents a research model that regards students’ health as a central educational resource that mediates between school quality and students’ academic achievement. The empirical test is based on the most recent data of the “Health Behaviour in School-aged Children” (HBSC) survey by using a structural equation model. The results indicate, that school quality influences students’ academic achievement as well as their health. According to our model, students’ health acts as a mediator between the quality of schools and students’ academic achievement.     

Ähnlich,aber anders

Organizational dynamics and group dynamics exist side by side – they are related to each other and influence each other mutually. This article discusses the relationship between group dynamics and organizational dynamics. We describe eight key differences between groups and organizations that also affect their respective dynamics and reveal the interactions between them. For consultants to play an effective role in organizational dynamics processes, they must first gain access to the organization. There are four possible approaches to doing this.     

Robust Bayesian methods in simple ANOVA models

A robust Bayesian analysis in a conjugate normal framework for the simple ANOVA model is suggested. By fixing the prior mean and varying the prior covariance matrix over a restricted class, we obtain the so-called HiFi and core region, a union and intersection of HPD regions. Based on these robust HPD regions we develop the concept of a ‘robust Bayesian judgement’ procedure. We apply this approach to the simple analysis of variance model with orthogonal designs. The example analyses the costs of an asthma medication obtained by a two-way cross-over study.