When Many Davids Collaborate with One Goliath: How Inter‐organizational Networks (Fail to) Manage Size Differentials

How do organizations of vastly different size collaborate in order to achieve a common goal? While this poses less of a problem when the network is orchestrated by a classic lead firm, in networks exhibiting a shared governance mode, where leadership responsibilities are more or less equally distributed, size differentials present a critical management challenge. In this paper, we contribute to the literature on coordination in and of inter‐organizational arrangements by emphasizing the so far largely neglected role of size for managing close collaborative relationships. We study the case of Apprenticeship Network, a network that originally consisted of seven small and medium‐sized enterprises, but which then accepted a very large multinational firm as a new member. By unpacking how the network coordinated its endeavour over time to achieve accountability, predictability and a common understanding as critical conditions for effective coordination, we explore how coordination effectiveness may deteriorate and result in the failure of the collaborative effort. We pay special attention to the role of size in these processes, and we theorize how the strategic front and back‐staging of agreed‐upon rules and norms facilitates the formation, maintenance and deletion of a tie, thus producing important network dynamics.     

Multicultural education: A new approach for a new South African dispensation

In a new South African dispensation, the reconstruction of a national education system necessitates fundamental change to existing educational policies and practices. Seen as a cultural kaleidoscope or ethnic mosaic of peoples, modern South African society can be characterised as being multicultural. It stands to reason, therefore, that multicultural education for a new multicultural South Africa has become a logical, outcomes-based necessity. The extent to which multicultural education will succeed depends largely on the knowledge, attitudes, views and conduct of the teacher as initiator, facilitator and manager of the educational and learning practice. Most teachers in this country have been trained in a monocultural context and are therefore not adequately prepared for implementing multicultural education. All educators in South Africa who are seriously concerned with the formal education of children will have to become equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to initiate and facilitate optimal learning in a multicultural context. What is needed is an innovative and studious predisposition, cultural reappraisal, and the acceptance of co-ownership in building a new democratic dispensation for South Africa. Teachers within multicultural school contexts need to bring about this conceptual paradigm shift in the hearts and minds of young people.     

Estimations of parental and self intelligence as a function of parents’ status: A cross-cultural study in Germany and Spain

With reference to the extensively reported gender differences in estimated intelligence, we used a cross-cultural study to investigate whether employment status and education of mothers and fathers (at the time of data collection, in early childhood, and in later childhood) influenced the estimation of parents’ general intelligence. Data showed that mothers’ as well as fathers’ general intelligence was significantly predicted by their education and current employment status. We additionally found a similar relationship between women’s (men’s) and mothers’ (fathers’) intelligence compared with the relationship of intelligence ascribed to their fathers (mothers). Furthermore, women’s self-estimated intelligence was significantly predicted by their mothers’ current employment, whereas men’s self-estimated intelligence was predicted by their fathers’ education. We furthermore investigated how women’s and men’s estimations differ between Germany and Spain. Results indicate that the more pronounced gender segregation in Spain was not expressed in larger gender differences in self- or parents’ intelligence estimations.     

Psychosocial risks: acting upon the organisation by ergonomic intervention

In this paper we discuss the possibilities of acting on psychosocial risk (PSR) factors by modifying the way in which an organisation operates. On the basis of an ergonomic intervention in an insurance company, we were able to show that the health problems observed by the operators were mainly the result of their inability to produce work of quality. Next, our analyses revealed the links between poor perceived quality, production difficulties and the rigidity of the organisational structure. After setting up working groups to deal with production difficulties, we were able to identify and test an organisational form that was better adapted to managing day-to-day production constraints and which was ultimately better able to be attentive to individual difficulties which had given rise, in the long term, to intrapsychic conflicts.     

Editorial

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Integrationstandems und Supervised Networking mit geflüchteten Menschen in studentischen Gruppen durch Service LearningIntegration Tandems and Supervised Networking with Refugees in Student Groups through Service Learning

This contribution reports on a pilot project which took place during the winter semester 2015/16 at the University of Göttingen based on the concept of Service Learning. As part of service learning, students assume practical tasks from the social environment and apply academic knowledge. With this new didactical approach, personality development of the students as well as civil and democratic values in society should be enhanced.     

Evaluation in South Africa: An introduction

This article provides a brief background to the articles in this edition on evaluation in South Africa. The overall background is self-evident: South Africa is a country which has undergone a political revolution, with a government of national unity in place. The formulation and implementation of new policies, and the programs which form part of them, will be an important part of South African politics in the years to come.These articles also appear against the more immediate background of trying to place evaluation on a surer footing in this country. In this introduction the efforts of a group of South African evaluators to position themselves and their activities in such a way as to make evaluation an accepted part of the organizational landscape, and to play a useful role in a future South Africa, are described as well.     

Community health needs, community participation, and evaluation research

The values which underlie a social program, and the ways in which they are realized in the program itself, are often left unspecified by the program planners. Two procedures to give practical effect to social values in a community health project are discussed in this paper: careful and systematic assessment of need; and community participation and involvement.