Diversification and Work Satisfaction: Testing a Claim by Marx and Engels for Farmers

In conventional economics, a great deal of energy has been devoted to empirical validation of the benefits of specialization in terms of efficiency, in fields including the agricultural sector. Marx and Engels's claim that the diversification of working lives would increase work satisfaction has gained attention among social scientists but has never been verified for the agricultural sector, despite a growing body of literature on the determinants of work satisfaction. Based on a survey of Swiss and northeast German farmers, this study shows that farm diversification significantly increases work satisfaction. This applies both to the lines of agricultural production pursued on a farm and to the farm's nonagricultural activities.     

Determinants of species richness within and across taxonomic groups in urban green spaces

Urban green spaces provide habitat for numerous plant and animal species. However, currently we have little knowledge on which determinants drive the species richness within and across taxonomic groups. In this paper we investigate the determinants of total, native, and endangered species richness for vascular plants, birds, and mammals within and across taxonomic groups. We examined a stratified random sample of 32 urban green spaces in Hannover, Germany. Species inventories for plants and birds were generated on the basis of line transect surveys. Mammals were surveyed by means of point counts using camera traps. Using a principal component analysis and multiple regression models, we tested 10 explanatory variables for species-area effects, distance effects, and the effects of habitat structure of green spaces on species richness. When analyzing single explanatory variables, we determined that the species richness of all groups was significantly positively correlated to patch area, number of habitat types, and a short distance to the nearest green space. Testing combined effects of variables showed that patch area in combination with habitat heterogeneity was most important for plants (total, native, and endangered), birds (total and native), and overall species richness. This emphasizes the importance of the species-area effect and the effects of habitat structure on species richness in urban green spaces. We conclude that, in the context of urban planning, it is important to conserve large green spaces that include a high diversity of habitats to maintain high species richness.     

Looking for ‘social work’ in school social work

School social workers can be seen as a professional group operating on the margin of an educational logic that dominates schools as institutions. This conditions what tasks they are assigned and what aspects of social work knowledge they will find relevant. On the other hand, the role as a sole professional and relative outsider in the organization provides a potential for school social workers to transcend established theories of social work practice. This article aims to investigate how social work theory is applied in school social work. Twelve semi-structured interviews with school social workers were analysed in terms of how they relate to four knowledge approaches derived from the literature: task-centred, systems theory, strengths and anti-oppressive. Contrary to claims within the sociology of professions that social work practice is formed largely by organizational context rather than a discipline-specific knowledge base, the interviewees seemed to lean on a robust professional foundation within social work theory. Interviewees strongly emphasised their role as working for the individual pupil and positioned themselves as somewhat in opposition to a somewhat oppressive school environment.     

Critical proximity

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between critical distance and the idea of proximity. In times that are often described as ‘global’, ‘24/7’, ‘connected’, ‘networked’ and ‘immersive’, distance seems ever reduced and proximity omnipresent. The contemporary impression of ubiquitous proximity might constitute a threat to the survival of critical distance understood either as a cornerstone of enlightened and humanist critical practice or as a key metaphysical ‘technology’. The resulting ‘crisis of critical distance’ produces the question of how to position oneself with regard to the ‘other’ in a time that lacks distance and privileges proximity? In tracking the ambiguity (or the ‘aporia’) that surrounds proximity – the desire to be near and the need to maintain a distance – this article rereads some key Heideggerian and Derridean texts in order to attempt a deconstruction of the opposition of distance and proximity at work in the ‘metaphysics of presence’.     

Variation in job opportunities for men and women in the Swiss labor market 1962–1989

For the period of the 1960s to the late 1980s, this paper examines variation in job opportunities for men and women in the occupationally segmented and highly gender-segregated Swiss labor market. Job opportunities are defined as the volume of job openings potentially accessible to individuals with given skills and other desired characteristics. They are conceptualized within the queuing approach, taking into account the structure and cyclical fluctuations of the Swiss labor market.     

Population forecast accuracy: does the choice of summary measure of error matter?

Population projections are judged primarily by their accuracy. The most commonly used measure for the precision component of accuracy is the mean absolute percent error (MAPE). Recently, the MAPE has been criticized for overstating forecast error and other error measures have been proposed. This study compares the MAPE with two alternative measures of forecast error, the Median APE and an M-estimator. In addition, the paper also investigates forecast bias. The analysis extends previous studies of forecast error by examining a wide range of trend extrapolation techniques using a dataset that spans a century for a large sample of counties in the US. The main objective is to determine whether the choice of summary measure of error makes a difference from a practitioner’s standpoint. The paper finds that the MAPE indeed produces error values that exceed the robust measures. However, except for situations where extreme outliers rendered the MAPE meaningless, and which are rare in real world applications, there was not a single instance where using an alternative summary measure of error would have led to a fundamentally different evaluation of the projections. Moreover, where differences existed, it was not always clear that the values and patterns provided by the robust measures were necessarily more correct than those obtained with the MAPE. While research into refinements and alternatives to the MAPE and mean algebraic percent error are worthwhile, consideration of additional evaluation procedures that go beyond a single criterion might provide more benefits to producers and users of population forecasts.

Die Professionalisierung der Professionalisierer?

There is a general agreement that central roles in organizations like manager and consultants cannot be professionalized. However, the development of coaching and supervision seem to show a slightly different picture. Because of their focus on persons the pressure to professionalize seems to be comparable to service providers in law, medicine, religion and education. This article reconstructs the professionalization pressure on coaching and supervision and analyzes their professionalization process.     

Feasible estimation in generalized structured models

This article introduces a feasible estimation method for a large class of semi and nonparametric models. We present the family of generalized structured models which we wish to estimate. After highlighting the main idea of the theoretical smooth backfitting estimators, we introduce a general estimation procedure. We consider modifications and practical issues, and discuss inference, cross validation, and asymptotic theory applying the theoretical framework of Mammen and Nielsen (Biometrika 90: 551–566, 2003). An extensive simulation study shows excellent performance of our method. Furthermore, real data applications from environmetrics and biometrics demonstrate its usefulness.     

Efficiency of internal control: evidence from Swiss non-financial companies

Internal control enables companies to ensure a reliable reporting, to comply with relevant laws and standards and to ensure the efficiency and effectiveness of business processes. However, until now few empirical contributions conceptualizing and empirically investigating the efficiency of internal control have been published. This study addresses this research deficit and develops a theory-based and empirically validated efficiency construct of internal control. From a practical and scientific point of view, there is an interest to identify relevant factors that determine efficient internal control. Overall, four factors have been derived and conceptualized based on theoretical foundations and empirical evidence. By means of an extensive empirical survey of Swiss companies and subsequent structural equation modelling, numerous significant correlations between determinants of internal control efficiency and the efficiency construct have been identified. The empirical results fully confirmed the hypotheses of correlation. Thus, the findings contribute to the body of practical knowledge by deriving specific efficiency criteria and recommendations on the design of internal control to the management. In essence, design parameters from the company’s internal environment and a reduced complexity of internal control structures mainly contribute to efficiency. The efficiency of internal control itself is heavily determined by criteria of target achievement, input–output ratio, coordination efficiency as well as its potential for organizational flexibility.     

Dependency of Crop Production between Global Breadbaskets: A Copula Approach for the Assessment of Global and Regional Risk Pools

As recent events have shown, simultaneous crop losses in different parts of the world can cause serious risks to global food security. However, to date, little is known about the spatial dependency of lower than expected crop yields from global breadbaskets. This especially applies in the case of extreme events, i.e., where one or more breadbaskets are experiencing far below average yields. Without such information, risk management approaches cannot be applied and vulnerability to extremes may remain high or even increase in the future around the world. We tackle both issues from an empirical perspective focusing on wheat yield. Interdependencies between historically observed wheat yield deviations in five breadbaskets (United States, Argentina, India, China, and Australia) are estimated via copula approaches that can incorporate increasing tail dependencies. In doing so, we are able to attach probabilities to interregional as well as global yield losses. To address the robustness of our results, we apply three different methods for constructing multivariate copulas: vine copulas, ordered coupling using a minimax approach, and hierarchical structuring. We found interdependencies between states within breadbaskets that led us to the conclusion that risk pooling for extremes is less favorable on the regional level. However, notwithstanding evidence of global climatic teleconnections that may influence crop production, we also demonstrate empirically that wheat production losses are independent between global breadbaskets, which strengthens the case for interregional risk pooling strategies. We argue that through interregional risk pooling, postdisaster liabilities of governments and international donors could be decreased.