Winning a Battle but Losing the War? Third Sector and Social Policy in Latin America: The Case of Uruguay

This paper analyzes some aspects of the third sector’s involvement process in the provision of public social services. Using evidence garnered in previous research based on in-depth interviews, I offer elements toward an assessment of the consequences this process has produced not only in terms of the gains and losses it has produced for social policy, but also for the very identity and constitutive characteristics of the third sector. The evidence hereby compiled strengthens skepticism toward the hypothesis that sees a transformative potential in the role of the third sector in social policy in Latin America. This skepticism arises from issues detected by involved actors themselves and that are linked to the weakness of the sector as a whole.     

The Relationship Between Corporate Volunteering and Employee Civic Engagement Outside the Workplace in Russia

This paper discusses the relationship between corporate volunteering and civic engagement outside the workplace in Russia, proceeding from a mixed-method approach. The quantitative findings are based on a comparison between employees in 37 Russian companies who participated in corporate volunteering (N = 399) and those who did not (N = 402). Using binary logistic regression analysis, we demonstrate that employee participation in corporate volunteering is positively related to four forms of civic engagement outside the workplace: informal volunteering, formal volunteering, formal monetary donation, and informal monetary donation. In addition, we draw on information obtained from interviews with 10 corporate volunteers, as well as with all 37 company corporate volunteering managers, to develop a general explanation for why corporate volunteering might lead to civic engagement. We identify three primary explanations. First, trust in companies can be converted into increased trust in social institutions. Second, corporate volunteering can expose employees to other realities, thereby leading them to rethink their priorities. Third, corporate volunteering socializes employees to volunteering, thus making them more likely to incorporate volunteering into their personal repertoires of activities. Corporate volunteering appears to be an effective mechanism for stimulating civic engagement and volunteering infrastructure in post-communist countries.     

Determinanten des Informationsgehalts von Managementprognosen – eine empirische Untersuchung anhand der DAX und MDAX-Unternehmen

In this article the characteristics and determinants of the information content of management earnings forecasts of the German DAX and MDAX companies between 2002 and 2005 are analyzed. As proxy for the information content I use the precision of the wording of a forecast. I can show that the forecasts of MDAX companies are more precisely formulated than those of DAX companies. Furthermore forecasts are formulated more precisely, when companies have, (1) a lower percentage of intangible assets, (2) lower market capitalization, (3) lower volatility of earnings and (4) a higher need for external financing.     

Managing cohesion in transnational organizations: an introduction

Aesthetic approaches seek to enrich knowledge about the ‘sensible’ aspects of experience. The ‘aesthetic dimension’ of shipboard organizational life is evoked and co‐created through multiple aesthetic categories such as the agogic, the sacred, and the sublime rendered through multiple sensory experiences of life aboard. A researcher and sailor‐informant co‐authored aesthetic reading contributes to a growing niche of aesthetic‐based research within organization studies. Our article explores collaboration as an important element of the aesthetic project. Possibilities for future aesthetic inquiries are also considered.     

Childcare costs and the demand for children—evidence from a nationwide reform

Exploiting the exogenous variation in user fees caused by a Swedish childcare reform, we are able to identify the causal effect of childcare costs on fertility in a context in which childcare enrollment is almost universal, user fees are low, and labor force participation of mothers is very high. Anticipation of a reduction in childcare costs increased the number of first and higher-order births, but only seemed to affect the timing of second births. For families with many children we also find a marginally significant negative income effect on fertility.     

Liberalisierungspolitik

Political-economic classics of different schools agreed that capitalism inherently and inevitably leads to a decline of market principles. We analyze indicators of liberalization policies for 21 OECD-countries in five economic and social policy fields and demonstrate that western industrialized countries are subject of a convergent trend towards market-creating policies??in stark contrast to the theoretical expectations of several political economy authors. At the latest during the first half of the eighties, the western democracies entered a new phase of economic liberalization, which continues up to the present. A methodological implication of our findings suggests that the methods of causal analysis of convergent liberalization policies may not be the same as those who have been applied for the analysis of development and consolidation of the varieties of capitalism in the postwar era.     

A time-varying measurement error model for age of onset of a psychiatric diagnosis: applied to first depressive episode diagnosed by the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI)

A substantial degree of uncertainty exists surrounding the reconstruction of events based on memory recall. This form of measurement error affects the performance of structured interviews such as the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI), an important tool to assess mental health in the community. Measurement error probably explains the discrepancy in estimates between longitudinal studies with repeated assessments (the gold-standard), yielding approximately constant rates of depression, versus cross-sectional studies which often find increasing rates closer in time to the interview. Repeated assessments of current status (or recent history) are more reliable than reconstruction of a person's psychiatric history based on a single interview. In this paper, we demonstrate a method of estimating a time-varying measurement error distribution in the age of onset of an initial depressive episode, as diagnosed by the CIDI, based on an assumption regarding age-specific incidence rates. High-dimensional non-parametric estimation is achieved by the EM-algorithm with smoothing. The method is applied to data from a Norwegian mental health survey in 2000. The measurement error distribution changes dramatically from 1980 to 2000, with increasing variance and greater bias further away in time from the interview. Some influence of the measurement error on already published results is found.     

Generic charisma - Conceptualization and measurement

In these times, when fame is available to almost anyone, it is worth being able to measure the extent and dimensions of a person's charisma. Most of the research on charisma to date is restricted to the area of leadership. In this article, however, charisma is generalized to take in all human beings and is conceptualized as a multi-dimensional cognitive-affective phenomenon. The article presents a pilot study aimed at providing an adequate operational definition of the construct as well as an initial tool for its measurement. A following literature review shows how authors have developed the concept of charisma and its initial operational dimensions for empirical research. A questionnaire is developed in three stages. The factor analyses applied in stages two and three point towards a six-factor solution (i.e. six dimensions of charisma). Further analysis reveals that the developed instrument is reliable and viable as well as applicable for future theoretical and practical work.     

Reliability analysis of consecutive k-out-of-n systems with non-identical components lifetimes

In recent years, the study of reliability properties of consecutive k-out-of-n systems has attracted a great deal of attention from both theoretical and practical perspectives. In this paper we consider linear and circular consecutive k-out-of-n systems. It is assumed that lifetimes of components of the systems are independent but their probability distributions are non-identical. We study the reliability properties of the residual lifetimes of such systems under the condition that at least (n−r+1), r≤n, components of the system are operating. We also investigate the probability that a specific number of components of the above-mentioned system operate at time t, t>0, under the condition that the system is alive at time t.