Merkmale und Fragen einer Governance-Reform am Beispiel des österreichischen Schulwesens

Since the 1990s German speaking countries go through an increasing debate on modernising education systems. Based on an analysis of developments in Austria, but as a hypothesis for other German speaking school systems, the paper aims to identify some cornerstones of this discourse. It argues that a central element is the question how further developments of an education system may be productively steered and that the transformations in the idea of system steering may be conceptualized by an analytic concept of ‘governance’.     

Construction union programs to regain jobs: Background and overview

All union initiatives discussed herein are based on union demands for monopoly. Unable to compete with the open-shop contractors on an economic basis, the construction unions seek to offset economic considerations with political initiatives. They have been remarkably successful in so doing; yet their membership continues to lag.⁴⁷ The question for the future is whether politically assisted monopoly will smother economics with the public as the big loser. The author is Professor Emeritus of Management and was formerly, Director, Industrial Research Unit, and Chairman, Labor Relations Council.     

Jahresbericht 2004/2005

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Order relations for linear models: A survey on recent developments

Summary In this survey the most applicable order relations between linear experiments are studied. For linear normal experiments the cases of known and unknown variances require sophisticated arguments from linear algebra and some tools from convexity theory. The comparison of linear experiments also casts some new light on the popular statistical notions of sufficiency and deficiency.     

Vom Übergeben und Übernehmen: Zwei Beispiele aus Familienunternehmen

By means of two case studies the special dynamics of family enterprises’ organizational development is explained, focusing on the phases of handover. Thereby it is shown how family dynamics determine the understanding and the behaviour of those involved. Advisors in this field have to know the diverse rules and dynamics of both social systems: family and enterprises. These networks demand sensitive and equal management.     

The influence of secrecy on the communication structure of covert networks

In order to be able to devise successful strategies for destabilizing covert organizations it is vital to recognize and understand their structural properties. Every covert organization faces the constant dilemma of staying secret and ensuring the necessary coordination between its members. Using elements from multi-objective optimization and bargaining game theory we analyze which communication structures are optimal in the sense of providing a balanced tradeoff between secrecy and operational efficiency. For several different secrecy and information scenarios this tradeoff is analyzed considering the set of connected graphs of given order as possible communication structures. Assuming uniform exposure probability of individuals in the network we show that the optimal communication structure corresponds to either a network with a central individual (the star graph) or an all-to-all network (the complete graph) depending on the link detection probability, which is the probability that communication between individuals will be detected. If the probability that an individual is exposed as member of the network depends on the information hierarchy determined by the structure of the graph, the optimal communication structure corresponds to a reinforced ring or wheel graph in case of an information measure based on average performance. In worst case performance with respect to information it can be seen that windmill wing graphs approximate optimal structures. Finally we give an example how optimal structures change when considering a non-balanced tradeoff between secrecy and operational efficiency.     

Kashmir and the Kashmir Impasse

Social studies educators are responsible for successfully teaching students the knowledge, skills, and values necessary to be effective citizens. The National Council for the Social Studies urges educators to design technology-enhanced experiences that address social studies content and prepare students for effective citizenship. In this paper, we give examples from a piratical unit designed for a fourth-grade social studies classroom to highlight the role digital technology can play in enhancing social studies teaching and learning. We use Internet workshops as structures for students to meaningfully research social studies content, and we use blogs as technological tools to publish and showcase authentic student work, and ultimately, to develop students' higher order thinking skills and creativity.     

Matching With Multiple Controls to Estimate Treatment Effects in Observational Studies

Matching to control for covariates in the estimation of treatment effects is not common in sociology, where multivariate data are most often analyzed using multiple regression and its generalizations. Matching can be a useful way to estimate these effects, especially when the treatment condition is comparatively rare in a population, and controls are numerous but mostly unlike the treatment cases. Matching on numerous covariates is abetted by the estimation of propensity scores, or functions of the probability that cases are treatments rather than controls. This procedure is illustrated in the estimation of the effects of an organizational innovation on Medicare mortality within hospitals; the data set is very large, but innovative hospitals few, and many of the remaining hospitals are quite unlike the hospitals constituting the treatment subsample. Results are based on a variance-components model that is extended to consider the effects of an additional covariate. They show effects of the organizational innovation comparable to those estimated via multiple regression models but with substantially reduced standard errors.