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.     

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.     

The changing role of the supervisory board chairman: the case of the Netherlands (1997–2007)

Over the last ten years, the corporate governance context in most Western countries has changed as a result of irregularities, increased regulation, heightened societal expectations and shareholder activism. This paper examines the impact of the changing context on the role of chairmen of supervisory boards in the Netherlands. Based on a combination of thirty semi-structured interviews with board members of leading Dutch corporations and secondary data on the position of supervisory board chairmen at the top-100 listed firms in the Netherlands, the study reveals that board chairmen have become increasingly involved in both their control and service roles. While the demographics (i.e., age, tenure, gender and nationality) of chairmen have hardly changed over the last decade, chairmen are spending considerably more time on boards and committees, have reduced the number of board interlocks and have become more active on the forefront of the corporate governance discussion. The paper highlights several implications for scholars and practitioners.     

The impact of investor sentiment on the German stock market

This paper develops a broad-based sentiment indicator for Germany and investigates whether investor sentiment can explain stock returns on the German stock market. Based on a principal component analysis, we construct a sentiment indicator that condenses information of several well-known sentiment proxies. We show that this indicator explains the return spread between sentiment sensitive stocks and stocks that are not sensitive to sentiment fluctuations. Specifically, stocks that are difficult to arbitrage and hard to value are sensitive to the indicator. However, we do not find much predictive power of sentiment for future stock returns.     

A multi-stage stochastic supply network design problem with financial decisions and risk management

In this paper, a multi-period supply chain network design problem is addressed. Several aspects of practical relevance are considered such as those related with the financial decisions that must be accounted for by a company managing a supply chain. The decisions to be made comprise the location of the facilities, the flow of commodities and the investments to make in alternative activities to those directly related with the supply chain design. Uncertainty is assumed for demand and interest rates, which is described by a set of scenarios. Therefore, for the entire planning horizon, a tree of scenarios is built. A target is set for the return on investment and the risk of falling below it is measured and accounted for. The service level is also measured and included in the objective function. The problem is formulated as a multi-stage stochastic mixed-integer linear programming problem. The goal is to maximize the total financial benefit. An alternative formulation which is based upon the paths in the scenario tree is also proposed. A methodology for measuring the value of the stochastic solution in this problem is discussed. Computational tests using randomly generated data are presented showing that the stochastic approach is worth considering in these types of problems.     

Messung von Wertorientierungen: Ranking oder Rating?

In a methodological study recently published in this journal (No. 3, Vol. 51, 1999: 550–564), Klein and Arzheimer compared two competing methods for the measurement of personal value orientations, namely, rating and ranking. Focussing on postmaterialist value orientations, they concluded that ratings are superior. In this article, it is argued that this conclusion is based on a misleading interpretation of findings and a questionable research design. In particular, the authors do not address the validity of the two measurement methods, implicitly assuming that they both capture the same cognitive dimension. Since it is unclear whether or not this assumption holds, a broader research approach is suggested here, which allows assessment of both the validity and the reliability of the competing methods. Given the lack of empirical evidence regarding these points, theoretical considerations, briefly outlined in the last section, are crucial for the selection of an appropriate measurement strategy.