Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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Editorial

     

In memoriam Heinrich Popitz (14.05.1925–01.04.2002)

Ohne Zusammenfassung

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In memoriam Heinrich Popitz (14.05.1925–01.04.2002)

     

Sage mir,wie viel Zeit du hast,und ich sage dir,wer du bist

Time as a dimension of the social value of persons in Bourdieu’s ?Meditations“In his book ?Meditations“ (2001), Pierre Bourdieu’s idea of ?Habitus“ plays a major role also with respect to the role and influence of ?time“. Only if expectations and possibilities are in close correspondence, our feeling of time does function in the sense, that time goes by unnoticed and continuously. Bourdieu does concede time to be of major influence and to be a powerful parameter of our lives, e.g. when unemployed workers lose control over their lives because they have too much time they cannot use it in a satisfying way. At the other extreme, people are as well able to dominate others by using this power of time (e.g. by waiting respectively letting people wait etc.). The shortage and in fact the importance, which is granted for a man’s time, in Bourdieu’s eyes is a relevant factor for the social value of a person in general.     

Resilienz und Selbstsorge im Coaching

Resilience is the internal power of resistance to stress and to threats to physical and mental health. Self-care refers to an active, self-governing organization of one’s own life, in order to deal with stress and threats. When we take these two concepts as polarities, we can understand self-care as an endeavor towards realizing and using of one’s own power of resistance. The author discusses the mental resources of resilience which may be useful in coaching processes in order to deal with situations of conflict and crisis. This can be understood as a form of training in self-care.     

The use of external controls: To what extent can it currently be recommended?

With more and better clinical data being captured outside of clinical studies and greater data sharing of clinical studies, external controls may become a more attractive alternative to randomized clinical trials (RCTs). Both industry and regulators recognize that in situations where a randomized study cannot be performed, external controls can provide the needed contextualization to allow a better interpretation of studies without a randomized control. It is also agreed that external controls will not fully replace RCTs as the gold standard for formal proof of efficacy in drug development and the yardstick of clinical research. However, it remains unclear in which situations conclusions about efficacy and a positive benefit/risk can reliably be based on the use of an external control. This paper will provide an overview on types of external control, their applications and the different sources of bias their use may incur, and discuss potential mitigation steps. It will also give recommendations on how the use of external controls can be justified.     

The role of privacy concerns in the sharing economy

Internet-mediated sharing is growing quickly. Millions of users around the world share personal services and possessions with others ? often complete strangers. Shared goods can amount to substantial financial and immaterial value. Despite this, little research has investigated privacy in the sharing economy. To fill this gap, we examine the sharing–privacy nexus by exploring the privacy threats associated with Internet-mediated sharing. Given the popularity of sharing services, users seem quite willing to share goods and services despite the compounded informational and physical privacy threats associated with such sharing. We develop and test a framework for analyzing the effect of privacy concerns on sharing that considers institutional and social privacy threats, trust and social-hedonic as well as monetary motives.     

Short‐Term‐Effectiveness of a Relationship Education Program for Distressed Military Couples,in the Context of Foreign Assignments for the German Armed Forces. Preliminary Findings From a Randomized Controlled Study

This study examines the short‐term effectiveness of a relationship education program designed for military couples. Distressed couples were randomly placed in either a wait‐list control group or an intervention group. We conducted training sessions before a 3‐month foreign assignment, and refresher courses approximately 6‐week post‐assignment. We analyzed the dyadic data of 32 couples, using hierarchical linear modeling in a two‐level model. Reduction in unresolved conflicts was found in the intervention group, with large pre–post effects for both partners. Relationship satisfaction scores were improved, with moderate‐to‐large effects only for soldiers, rather than their partners. Post‐follow‐up effect sizes suggested further improvement in the intervention group. Future research should examine the long‐term effectiveness of this treatment.     

Voluntary agreements between competitors: trick or truth?

Voluntary agreements in which competitors commit to common goals are important tools for corporate social responsibility. After entering into a commitment, however, competitors often have incentives to behave opportunistically. This is possible because voluntary agreements are not enforced by external sanctions. We present the results of an exploratory laboratory experiment that investigates the behavior of competitors engaging in commitments and consequently the effectiveness of such measures. We find that introducing a publicly visible commitment device that is implemented with a low probability mitigated conflict between competitors substantially. Our results show that subjects’ inclination to defect one another after competition was mainly driven by the opponents’ refusal to enter into a commitment. In our experiment, a commitment was not used to trick the competitor into a false sense of security but rather to convey the truth about subjects’ moral behavior. We conclude that the efforts of (non-)governmental institutions to reinforce trust between competitors may be of substantial value.