Rezensionen

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Der Fragebogen Karls des Grossen

A document compiled by Charlemagne in the year 811 can be viewed as a precursor to the structured survey and thus as a part of the very beginnings of empirical social research. Charlemagne intended to use the list, which resembles a discussion guide employed in an intensive interview, to exert moral pressure on the secular and clerical leaders of his realm, who were gathered for a parliamentary assembly. At the same time, however, it is also evident that at least some of the questions were designed to gather information on the mood of the population throughout the empire. These questions were probably passed on to the sovereigns and clerics in the provinces. Another document from the year 811 would seem to indicate that answers to similar lists of questions did in fact arrive at the emperor’s court. Both documents attest to a means of gathering information that could be viewed as the first attempt to conduct at an opinion survey.     

Heinz Hartmann aus Anlass seines 70. Geburtstages (12.2.2000)

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Frugality-based advantage

We analyze frugality-based advantage and explain its types and implications. Frugality-based advantage is an advantage that a firm achieves over competitors in its ability to develop and use frugal innovations, that is, innovations that overcome external resource constraints. We differentiate among three types of frugality-based advantages based on the external constraints they solve: (1) Input frugality-based advantage, which is the result of addressing restrictions in the provision of inputs needed for the production process; (2) Income frugality-based advantage, which is driven by solving limitations in the income of consumers; and (3) Infrastructure frugality-based advantage, which is the outcome of resolving constraints in the hard and soft infrastructure of the country. We explain how these three types of frugality-based advantages differ in their transferability across locations and their sustainability across time. Frugality-based advantage complements the resource-based view by explaining how the scarcity of external resources, rather than their abundance, can support the advantage of some firms.     

Prägen Persönlichkeitseigenschaften Einstellungen zu Parteien?

Since the sixties the influence of personality traits on intentions to vote (for different political parties) and on the voting decision itself has scarcely been investigated. It seems very promising to take up this tradition again. This paper summarizes the author’s most important findings of the last ten years of research in this area. The results of several studies indicate that attitudes towards specific parties (and voting intentions) are correlated with personality traits in a characteristic way and with a remarkable degree of diachronical stability. In this context the variables “Openness”, “Conscientiousness” and “Agreeableness”, known from the “Five-Factor Model” (or Big-Five Model) of personality traits, are of great importance. Since 1989 similar covariations also appeared repeatedly for “Affinity to a Stable Cognitive Frame of Orientation”, a more specific personality characteristic. Theoretically, strong direct correlations of “big” personality traits with much more “specific” attitudes (towards political parties) or voting intentions are not necessarily to be expected. For this reason the studies also dealt with — and supplied evidence for — intervening processes. Theoretically, these analyses were based on Fishbein’s attitude model and on Byrne’s attraction paradigm.     

Möglichkeiten und Probleme des Einsatzes postalischer Befragungen

The research focuses on the strategies in mail surveys that lead to high response rates and on the social characteristics of the respondents that are recruited into the survey through reminders. Empirical basis are surveys in the East German cities of Chemnitz, Dresden and Leipzig with an original sample size of ca 2000 persons per city and up to three reminders. The response rate varies between 68 and 70 percent and surpasses the usual response rates in face to face and telephone surveys done in German cities. In contrast to common assumptions in the literature it has no effect on the response rate whether stamps are used on the address and return envelope, neither do original versus scanned signatures make a difference and whether financial incentives are used in the late reminders. Through the reminders especially respondents with low education and of little political interest are recruited into the survey.