Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Wachstumsbedingungen von Ein-Personen-Gründungen – Eine Längsschnittbeobachtung über acht Jahre

This study analyzes the growth potential of one-person startups on the basis of the framework model proposed by Gilbert, McDougall and Audretsch (2006) by postulating five key groups of enterprise growth predictors: entrepreneur characteristics, resources, strategy, industry, and organizational structures and systems. The framework model was adapted to suit the specific circumstances of one-person startups. The model was tested using a longitudinal data set comprising 188 Austrian one-person startups which were observed over a period of eight years. At the end of the observation period, the businesses included in the study had an average of 1.33 employees. The gender of the founder, capital requirements at the time of establishment, and growth strategy proved to be the most important predictors of growth. In addition, human capital resources also tended to have a positive impact. In summary, it is possible to draw empirically reliable conclusions about growth potential on the basis of the “seriousness” of an one-person startup project.     

Multiple unit root tests under uncertainty over the initial condition: some powerful modifications

We modify the union-of-rejection unit root test of Harvey et?al. ??Unit Root Testing in Practice: Dealing with Uncertainty over the Trend and Initial Condition?? (Harvey, Econom Theory 25:587?C636, 2009). This test rejects if either of two different unit root tests rejects but controls the inherent multiple testing issue by suitably modifying the critical values to ensure the desired null rejection probability. We evaluate the new tests?? power relative to existing ones?? and to the Gaussian asymptotic power envelope. An empirical application illustrates the usefulness of the new statistics.     

Linking maternal psychopathology to children's excessive crying and sleeping problems in a large representative German sample—The mediating role of social isolation and bonding difficulties

Attaining self-regulation is a major developmental task in infancy, in which many children show transient difficulties. Persistent, clinically relevant difficulties in self-regulation include excessive crying or sleeping disorders. Many families with affected children are burdened with multiple psychosocial risk. This suggests that regulatory problems are best conceptualized as the maladaptive interplay of overly burdened parents and a dysfunctional parent–child interaction. The current study examines whether social isolation and bonding difficulties function as mediating mechanisms linking maternal psychopathology to (1) children's excessive crying and (2) sleeping problems. The sample comprised N = 6598 mothers (M = 31.51 years) of children between zero to three years of age (M = 14.08 months, 50.1% girls). In addition to socio demographic data, the written questionnaire included information on maternal depression/anxiety, isolation, bonding, and children's regulatory problems. Hypotheses were tested with a mediation model controlling for psychosocial risk and child characteristics. As expected, maternal symptoms of depression/anxiety were linked to infants‘ excessive crying and sleeping problems. Social isolation and bonding difficulties mediated this association for excessive crying as well as for sleeping problems, but social isolation was a single mediator for sleeping problems only. The findings provide important insights in the mediating pathways linking maternal psychopathology to children's regulatory problems.     

The Relation Between Life Satisfaction and the Material Situation: A Re-Evaluation Using Alternative Measures

Asking clients to document their perceived quality of life during and after intervention is a popular approach employed by helping professionals to evaluate intervention programs. In the Project Positive Adolescent Training through Holistic Social Programmes (P.A.T.H.S.), students participating in the Experimental Implementation Phase and Full Implementation Phase were invited to write reflective journals in the form of weekly diaries to reveal their perceptions and feelings regarding the program and the perceived benefits of the program. Based on multiple studies, results showed that the respondents generally (a) had positive views on the program, (b) had positive views on the instructors, and (c) perceived that they had acquired competencies at the societal, familial, interpersonal and personal levels and their quality of life was promoted after joining the program. Acknowledging the limitations of diaries, the present qualitative findings provide support for the effectiveness of the Tier 1 Program of the Project P.A.T.H.S. in Hong Kong.     

Second modernity as a research agenda: theoretical and empirical explorations in the 'meta-change' of modern society

In this article we are reformulating the theory of reflexive modernization as an empirical research programme and summarize some of the most recent findings which have been produced by a research consortium in Munich (integrating four universities, funded by the German Research Society (DFG)). On this basis we reject the idea that Western societies at the beginning of the twenty-first century move from the modern to the post-modern. We argue that there has been no clear break with the basic principles of modernity but rather a transformation of basic institutions of modernity such as the nation-state and the nuclear family. We would suggest, therefore, that what we are witnessing is a second modernity. Finally, we reform the theory of reflexive modernization in reaction to three uttered objections.     

Risk aversion over finite domains

We investigate risk attitudes when the underlying domain of payoffs is finite and the payoffs are, in general, not numerical. In such cases, the traditional notions of absolute risk attitudes, that are designed for convex domains of numerical payoffs, are not applicable. We introduce comparative notions of weak and strong risk attitudes that remain applicable. We examine how they are characterized within the rank-dependent utility model, thus including expected utility as a special case. In particular, we characterize strong comparative risk aversion under rank-dependent utility. This is our main result. From this and other findings, we draw two novel conclusions. First, under expected utility, weak and strong comparative risk aversion are characterized by the same condition over finite domains. By contrast, such is not the case under non-expected utility. Second, under expected utility, weak (respectively: strong) comparative risk aversion is characterized by the same condition when the utility functions have finite range and when they have convex range (alternatively, when the payoffs are numerical and their domain is finite or convex, respectively). By contrast, such is not the case under non-expected utility. Thus, considering comparative risk aversion over finite domains leads to a better understanding of the divide between expected and non-expected utility, more generally, the structural properties of the main models of decision-making under risk.

     

Socio-economic patterns of sport demand and ageing

Due to the demographic situation in nowadays societies, physical activity, and sport expenditure have to be analysed from a demographic as well as socio-economical perspective. This means that determinants such as age, gender, nationality/ethnicity, income, time, educational level, profession, and social status have to be taken into account. However, when comparing the various studies, the different methods of analysis and different operationalisation of variables have to be considered. This is in particular vital investigating age. Whilst cross-sectional studies point out that physical activity generally decreases with increasing age, longitudinal analyses come to different results. Previous studies indicate that pertaining to gender more men take part in sports than women. However, considering period and cohort effects, recent longitudinal studies showed that women participate more in sport than in the past. Besides, it was found out that men generally tend to spend more money on sports than women do. A further finding is that the educational level influences physical activity positively. Research revealed that income had a positive impact on both, physical activity and sport expenditure.