Axiomatizations of public good indices with a priori unions

We provide axiomatizations for six variants of the Public Good Index (PGI) for games with a priori unions. Two such coalitional PGIs have been introduced and alternatively axiomatized in Alonso-Meijide et al. (Working paper 18, 2008b). They assign power in two steps. In the first step, power is distributed between unions according to the PGI of the quotient game. In a second step, the Solidarity PGI splits power equally among union members while the Owen Extended PGI takes into account so-called essential parts. The other four coalitional PGIs have been introduced in Holler and Nohn (Homo Oeconomicus 26, 2009). The first variant elaborates the original idea of Holler (Political Studies 30:262–271, 1982) that the coalitional value is a public good and only minimal winning coalitions of the quotient game are relevant. The remaining three variants also use the two-step distribution where, however, on the member stage they take into account the possibilities of players to threaten their partners through leaving their union.     

Messung der Qualität in Dienstleistungscentern – am Beispiel eines Flughafens

The study shows that customers’ perception of overall quality in services centers is driven by two components: the service encounter quality and the quality of the servicecape. Thus, customers’ overall evaluation of service quality in a services center is a function of n service encounter qualities (k?=?1…n) and the quality of the servicecape. Furthermore, it is of great importance for the quality management of a services center that there could be (1) direct effects between the quality dimensions and the overall service quality as well as (2) direct effects between the quality dimensions themselves. The above mentioned study had been carried out exemplarily at the EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg. The survey results suggest that servicecape quality has a significant effect both on the overall service quality and on the service encounter qualities. Moreover, the study shows that key quality indicators of the service center apply to the perception of security as well as to the service environment (for instance, arrangement of check-in/security desk, comfort of seats, ambience of waiting area).     

Hochschulentwicklung und Bürgerrechte in der BRD und der DDR

The universities in the Federal Republic of Germany are expanding more or less continuously since the 1950s; the expansion of those in the German Democratic Republic, by contrast, stagnated since 1971. The two patterns of educational development are due to different normative concepts of the social order. Educational policy in socialist East Germany gave institutional expression to the belief in objective laws of social development and hence in an objective demand for highly qualified manpower. In this normative context higher education took on a particular meaning and functions, provoked serious social conflicts and was finally reduced by political decree. In the Federal Republic, by contrast, freedom of educational and occupational choice prevailed, and the former elitist academic education was popularized. At the same time the culture of professionalism expanded in the world of work. In this process higher education turned into a matter of universal social interest.     

Sektion Kultursoziologie

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

„...ja, was willst du viel mitbestimmen?” — Partizipationschancen im entgrenzten Arbeitsfeld mobile Pflege

Based on empirical research on mobile care services in Vienna, the article discusses the issue of participation and democracy at work. More precisely, it explores the impact that work place characteristics such as field work, flexible working hours or the utilisation of subjectivity have on participation, i. e. the worker’s chance to co-determine working conditions. According to the findings presented in the paper workers actually have little chance to exert any influence on the temporal, economic and organisational conditions of their jobs, due to growing pressure as a result of cost-cutting measures.     

Committing to cultures of creativity: the significance of transdisciplinarity

As Mittelman rightly observes, neoliberal practices of repurposing universities in pursuit of the impossible goal of world-class standing – the gold standard for educational policy in the global age – have put the soul of the academy at risk. He also makes an important point when he argues that necessary ‘corrective steps’ must push far beyond the palliative rhetoric of ‘reformist reforms’ clothed in neoliberal platitudes about greater ‘stakeholder’ input and the saving grace of digital technology. Still, this article extends Mittelman’s constructive discussion of ‘plausible alternatives’ by making the case for the significance of transdisciplinarity in the practical realization of one of his five corrective steps: the ‘commitment to cultures of creativity’. Indeed, a deep and enduring commitment to transdisciplinarity must play a major role in pushing back against the prevailing neoliberal academic order.