Acculturation and Prejudice in Germany: Majority and Minority Perspectives

This article explores the connections between prejudice and specific attitudes toward acculturation in Germany. Results of surveys confirm the hypothesis that prejudice is related to ideologies of assimilation and segregation among majority- group members. Moreover, experimental and correlational studies indicate that these attitudes are linked to discriminatory behavior. Further analyses of studies with ethnic minorities prove that prejudice and acculturation are linked within minority groups as well. Additionally it is shown that prejudice is functional in order for minorities to acculturate. These studies confirm the impression that there is a close link between macrosocial and microsocial levels of coping with migration.     

Psychodynamik von Geld und Besitz in mittelständischen Familienunternehmen

The author discusses experiences during a research project dealing with family businesses. In those businesses the individual psychodynamic of family members is closely confounded with the dynamics of necessary role behavior. One of the most critical situations is the successful succession of generations. Those processes are often subverted by an unconscious destructiveness resulting from unresolved, often gendered interpersonal conflicts and multiple insults. To support family businesses saving their future consultants have to be sensible not only for economical profit but for emotional gratification too, creating an atmosphere which allows all participants speaking freely about their hopes and fears. The article presents social configurations which a consultant must comprehend well if he wants to give reliable orientations to their clients.     

DEA,directional distance functions and positive,affine data transformation

In this paper we take up the problem of positive, affine data translation within a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) framework.     

Akzeptanz anbieterseitiger Integration in die Alltagsprozesse der Konsumenten: Erste empirische Ergebnisse

The processing of product usage data represents an exceptional variety of Web 2.0. It enables the users to get real-time services via web applications in order to optimize their consumption and usage processes. The collection of usage data in real time is currently provided mainly by so-called Ambient intelligence (AmI) applications, which at the same time offer completely new options for providers with regard to the marketing of their services. In particular, the “classic” customer integration is to be expanded towards a “provider integration” (PI), in which the providers are integrated into the everyday life processes of the customers. The paper identifies the key characteristics of the PI and investigates the acceptance of PI by the development and empirical testing of an adapted acceptance model. The results of this study show that a quite extensive use of PI can be expected in the future. This will be a motivation for further research activities in this area, as outlined in the end of this paper.     

Working Under a Black Cloud: How to Sustain Organizational Identification after a Merger*

This article argues against the merger folklore that maintains that a merger negatively affects well‐being and work attitudes primarily through the threat of job insecurity. We hold that the workplace is not only a resource for fulfilling a person's financial needs, but that it is an important component of the self‐concept in terms of identification with the organization, as explained by social identity theory. We unravel the key concepts of the social identity approach relevant to the analysis of mergers and review evidence from previous studies. Then, we present a study conducted during a merger to substantiate our ideas about the effects of post‐merger organizational identification above and beyond the effects of perceived job insecurity. We recommend that managers should account for these psychological effects through the provision of continuity and specific types of communication.     

Developmental Shifts in Parent and Peer Influences on Boys' Beliefs About Delinquent Behavior

This paper examines the relative shifts in parent and peer influences on the development of boys' beliefs regarding delinquency from early to middle adolescence. The paper also explores the influence that beliefs about delinquency have on subsequent changes in these social relationships. Structural equation modeling is used to analyze six annual waves of data for 481 boys from the youngest sample of the Pittsburgh Youth Study. Increased parent–adolescent conflict only predicted changes in beliefs about delinquency in early adolescence, while increases in peer delinquency was associated with adopting more tolerant beliefs about delinquent acts from early to middle adolescence. Changes in boys' delinquent peer group association were initially influenced by increased family conflict. However, in middle adolescence increasingly tolerant beliefs about delinquency were related to subsequent increases in delinquent peers. The potential implications for preventing the formation of beliefs favoring delinquency during adolescence are discussed.     

Wahlbeteiligung im Lebensverlauf

This empirical investigation attempts to answer the question whether the change in voter turnout at the German general elections is related to cohort specific voting behavior of political generations, also taking into account age and period effects. Furthermore, it is asked whether the decline of voter turnout after the 1972 German general election is a statistical artefact of official statistics. Both questions are investigated with retrospective life history data about voting behavior of individuals from several birth cohorts. It is analyzed that the voter turnout has really declined in the 1980s because of the increased number of determined non-voters. There is evidence that the changes of the voting behavior of younger individuals in successive political generations results in the social change of the general voter turnout. While the effects of the citizens’ age on the voter turnout are minimal for the whole period between 1953 and 1987, the impact of period effects are less important for the historical change of voter turnout as often assumed.