Vertikale Integration und Unternehmenserfolg: eine empirische Untersuchung in der Formel 1

According to the (new) theory of the firm vertically integrated firms might under certain conditions outperform disintegrated firms. In particular, in a situation with high transaction specific investments and measurement problems concerning individual performance an underinvestment problem may arise. In this paper we show for Formula One motor racing that integrated firms solve arising underinvestment problems more efficiently than disintegrated firms and that the decision to integrate positively affect the firm’s performance.     

Diskussionsbeitrag zur betriebswirtschaftlichen Ethik

Adam Smith as a Professor for moral philosophy didn’t intend to enforce immorality on the markets. But after a while he realized, that his concept of empathy wasn’t sufficient. Publishing his “Inquiry” he made the “Interest” to the inner movement of the “sympathy”. In this way he knitted together the personal “Interest” with the “Interest” of the society, not only economically but in morals too. And the “Interest” of society, the public welfare, had to enforce the wealth of the Nation, by being just and fair in the sense of Aristoteles. But to Deism belongs the tendency to relieve from religious beliefs as well as from virtues and values. And thus people began to think later, they had only to rely on “godless” laws of nature in economics too. That made the economic market-concept of Adam Smith drift to Manchester liberalism. At last that enforced the “selfinterest” to an unacceptable immoral “selfishness”, what Smith didn’t aim to and what would destroy the ethical foundation of his thinking. In the meantime it had become evident that markets don’t simple work after quasi laws of nature, but are in the need of a spiritual foundation. To that every market-participant must be invited on and on.     

A TEMPLE FOR THE NATION: REDESIGNING A COMMON SYMBOLIC SPACE OF CENTRAL EUROPEAN CONSERVATISM

In the wake of ‘1989», the redefinition of a common European identity and national identities turned the symbolic representation of these identities into a major issue of political debates. Especially the construction of conservative and right-wing-populist politics in a redefined central European region relies on a symbolic redefinition of national identities in the frame of and in conflict with the design of a common European political culture. Examples are based on an analysis of the symbolic representation of politics, as the image design of the Austrian ‘Wende»-government (2000-2002), the symbolic representation of Forza Italia and the image-construction of Berlusconi, as well as the cultural representation of the former Hungarian government (1998-2002). The contribution proposes a reconstruction of a common right-wing conservative (political) culture and its representation in the region under the notion of ‘neo-patriotism».     

Shortest and longest length of success runs in binary sequences

The shortest and the longest length of success runs statistics in binary sequences are considered. The sequences are arranged on a line or on a circle. Exact probabilities of these statistics are derived, both in closed formulae via combinatorial analysis, as well as recursively. Furthermore, their joint probability distribution function and cumulative distribution function are obtained. The results are developed first for Bernoulli trials (i.i.d. binary sequences), and then they are generalized to the Polya–Eggenberger sampling scheme. For the latter case, the length of the longest success run is related to other success runs statistics and to reliability of consecutive systems.     

Institutional design and utilization of evaluation: a contribution to a theory of evaluation influence based on Swiss experience

Growing interest in the institutionalization of evaluation in the public administration raises the question as to which institutional arrangement offers optimal conditions for the utilization of evaluations. Institutional arrangement denotes the formal organization of processes and competencies, together with procedural rules, that are applicable independently of individual evaluation projects. It reflects the evaluation practice of an institution and defines the distance between evaluators and evaluees. This article outlines the results of a broad-based study of all 300 or so evaluations that the Swiss Federal Administration completed from 1999 to 2002. On this basis, it derives a theory of the influence of institutional factors on the utilization of evaluations.     

The physical activity-mediated Demand–Control (pamDC) model: Linking work characteristics,leisure time physical activity,and well-being

Only recently has research begun to investigate the interplay between work characteristics, leisure time physical activity (LTPA), health, and well-being. So far, however, this research lacks a theoretical foundation. In this article, we introduce the physical activity-mediated Demand–Control (pamDC) model as a new theoretical framework. The two key ideas of the pamDC model are (1) that job demands and job control affect LTPA and (2) that LTPA partially mediates the effects of job demands and job control on health and well-being. We present eight propositions explaining how work characteristics affect LTPA, health, and well-being. For each of these propositions, we discuss empirical evidence and theoretical foundations. We then sketch a research agenda on how to adopt the pamDC model as a new theoretical framework for future research linking work characteristics, LTPA, and health. Finally, we discuss the practical implications of our new model.     

Die Schere öffnet sich

Recent decades have witnessed some extraordinary increases of income richness in some countries. Even though many consider Germany to be different, recent research has found a strong increase of rich income households in Germany, as well. However, Germany’s data infrastructure on rich households is comparatively weak so that little is known on the causes of higher richness headcounts. This article discusses research and possible causes of the recent increase of household richness using a decomposition of unconditional quantile regressions and data from the German Socio-economic Panel (GSOEP). Comparing most recent data and the early 1990s after reunification, the most striking result is that the upper half of the German income distribution was polarized most by taxes and social security contributions which reinforce labor market related developments.     

Heine process as a q-analog of the Poisson process—waiting and interarrival times

In this study, we introduce the Heine process, {X_q(t), t > 0}, 0 < q < 1, where the random variable X_q(t), for every t > 0, represents the number of events (occurrences or arrivals) during a time interval (0, t]. The Heine process is introduced as a q-analog of the basic Poisson process. Also, in this study, we prove that the distribution of the waiting time W_{ν, q}, ν ? 1, up to the νth arrival, is a q-Erlang distribution and the interarrival times T_{k, q} = W_{k, q} ? W_{k ? 1, q},?k = 1, 2, …, ν with W_{0, q} = 0 are independent and equidistributed with a q-Exponential distribution.