Die Auflösung von Schreibblockaden durch Introvision: Ergebnisse einer Pilotstudie

The present pilot study explored the structure of writer’s blockades under consideration of the theory of subjective imperatives within an educational-psychological trial. The pilot study had two goals: (1) to test if introvision can be applied to writer’s blockades, and (2) to analyze by means of case studies which subjective imperatives respectively imperativic structures can form the basis of writing blockades. Six student subjects (five female, one male) were counseled individually with the objective of bringing an end to imperative processes that impede writing. The counseling interviews were recorded and transcribed first and subsequently analyzed sentence by sentence on the basis of the ‘theory of (subjective) imperatives’ text analysis method with respect to subjective imperatives, conflict dodging strategies (KUS) and core imperatives. The results revealed layers of subjective imperatives, beginning with imperatives related to writing in the topmost layer. Each of the six subjects showed core imperatives in the bottom layer that were linked to some form of fear of death or similar existential negative emotions and that presumably affect other aspects of live and personality as well.     

Kooperation zwischen Organisationen

The success of organizations stands very often in direct correlation to other organizations. The more differentiated, the more subtlety organizations and their tasks are the more this applies: and this applies equally for both profit and non-profit organizations. The way an organization behaves and co-operates with other organizations crucially influences the success factor. And must, as such, be taken extremely seriously and placed in the focal point of organizations’ management strategies and their dynamic processes of change.This contribution is the product of the joint reflections of the authors advisory functions in and with organizations, and closely examines the process of helping to build successful co-operative relationships between organizations. They (the authors) will present their opinions upon what makes co-operative relationships work effectively. The authors will refer to the theory of company control and the systemic development of co-operative strategies, as well as a dynamic group understanding of social dynamics. And demonstrate that the coming together of these various standpoints, results in a new and tenable form of productive co-operation between organizations. In consequence, it furthermore exhibits, how innovative possibilities, like the construction of the co-operative relationship, with adequate control instruments, can be appropriately supported: In concrete terms we will present the from the authors developed intermediary balanced scorecard (BSC). The last section of our article is devoted to the discussion of effective success factors, which, from practical experience, can be regarded as relevant in the forming of the processes of co-operation.     

Beratung virtueller Teams im interkulturellen Kontext – ein Bericht aus der Praxis

Tasks are nowadays increasingly assigned to teams composed of members from different cultures who have to work together regardless of country borders or time zones. This causes special challenges for all parties involved in such work settings. Consultancy has accordingly to face the resulting increase of complexity: within the scope of an intercultural consulting process it becomes vital to take into consideration the often postulated focus on both differences and commonalities as well as to consider the dynamics within team processes. This article tries to reflect our work with “virtual teams” which consist of members having different cultures. We try to combine popular intercultural models with a systemic-constructivistic approach as well as with knowledge about group dynamics in order to make sure that a productive outcome is possible in a consulting process. In doing so we work on three levels: individual reflection with the participants’ own culture which is then combined with those of the other team members and then finally the group’s specific team culture is addressed and discussed. At the end of the article we summarize implications for consulting and management when working with virtual teams in an intercultural setting.     

Das internationale Führungsparkett – Herausforderungen,Haltegriffe und hilfreiche Schrittfolgen

Managers and executives are increasingly facing the challenge of being successful in an complex international context. This article explains the specific demands international co-operation poses on leading executives. It offers encouragement as well as methods which could be used as ‘helping grips’ when observing and coming to terms with situations in this special working environment, with the objective of offering the involved players a larger spectrum of possible action. The first part describes concrete action fields of international co-operation that managers should pay attention to in their daily international work. The second part of the article dedicates itself to the fields of intercultural competencies that are helpful for leading executives. The concluding part deals with some highly demanding general challenges of international co-operation, which managers sometimes describe as surprising and overwhelming, and which are therefore good and quite helpful to know in advance.     

Der Beitrag des Beratungsinstruments „Kollegiale Fallberatung“ zur Praxisentwicklung von Kooperationskreisen Schule-Jugendhilfe

This article presents a method to guide intervision groups in schools about how to moderate ?case counseling among collegiates“ and shows in a developmental report how to transfer this kind of counseling to a cooperation of school and youth services.The contributions of the ?case counseling among collegiates“ which deal with the understanding of the case and the team development within the cooperation project, are discussed from the viewpoint of theoretical models of social constructivism, of experiential philosophy and neurosciences as well as of the authors practical experience of teams and cooperation. The emphasis is on the implicit influence this method has on expanding a psycho-social competence of the participating teachers and on developing a culture of communicating within the counseling team.     

„Politische Religionen“ (Eric Voegelin und Raymond Aron) — ein Begriff zur Differenzierung von Fundamentalismen?

The concept of ?political religion“ has been introduced in the late 1930s by Eric Voegelin and Raymond Aron in order to analyze the ?religious character“ of the new totalitarian political mass movements, i. e. Fascism, National Socialism and Communism, as ?collective religions of salvation“ from a critical perspective. Both abandoned the term later and replaced it by ?modern political gnosis“ or ?ersatz of religion“ (Voegelin) and ?secular religion“ (Aron). In this paper the concept and history of the term ?political religions“will be reconstructed, and the author examines the question, if it can be considered an appropriate tool of differentiation in the discussion of socalled fundamentalisms. This will be accomplished by using the example of ?radical Islamism“.     

Relative Performancebewertung und Produktmarktwettbewerb

Relative Performance Evaluation aims at reducing incentive risk imposed on a manager, and at influencing product market choices. Thereby, firm owners can choose stronger effort incentives, and they may reduce the degree of competition with the firm’s competitors. Within a principal/agent-model, we explore the interrelation between characteristics of product market competition, performance evaluation, and incentives. Our results show that a firm’s optimal performance evaluation significantly depends on the characteristics of product market competition. This implies that a firm’s optimal choice of performance evaluation is firm- and industry-specific. Hence, our results support the industry-selection-approach recently applied in empirical compensation studies.     

Die „4-Level-Evaluation“: Messen der Ergebnis- und Prozessqualität im Coaching

“4-Level-Evaluation”: Measuring coaching success. Introducing a general and valid evaluation methodology, the “4-level-evaluation”, which will secure measuring coaching success and coaching process –without any limitation in terms of special tools or methods – and which every client will understand and appreciate. How to create a realistic evaluation bottom line, how to manage expectations to avoid perhaps disappointments, how to define possible coaching goals and how to eventually evaluate grades of achievement are explained and applied to a practical coaching case.     

Herausbildung einer akademischen Elite?

Given a tendency to higher third-party funding, the mechanisms of distribution of research money become more and more relevant for individual academic careers as well as for scientific institutions at large. This article focuses on an empirical test of hypotheses on the impact of universities’ size and reputation on the chances of grant approval. Using multivariate analysis of register data provided by the German Research Foundation (DFG) for all applications for single grants from 1992–2004, individual chances of grant approval as well as success rates in departmental grant acquisition are estimated. The analyses detect neither strong context effects on individual chances of grant approval nor a clear tendency towards a higher concentration of research funding on fewer universities. Only scientists working in West German universities with a long standing tradition have a slightly better chance to get research funding. At the level of university departments, higher personnel resources translate into a higher number of applications and approvals only for very large institutions. Regarding funding of single grants, there is no trend of a growing inequality among the universities. Finally, these results are discussed with a specific reference to the recently launched “Initiative for Excellence” – a program designed in order to foster high level research in Germany – and are contrasted to some arguments of Richard Münch.     

Diversity Management – Mittel zur Anti-Diskriminierung,neoliberales Phänomen oder alter Wein in neuen Schläuchen?

Diversity Management is getting more and more popular. This development is being criticized by agents of the gender-approach. They object that the diversity approach lacks a sufficient theoretical foundation and that it is a neoliberal concept. In this article we try to analyze the concept of diversity management with the means of the sociological systems theory and to put it in relation to the gender approach. Thereby we show that diversity management is an approach of organizational development which can proof useful for both the employees and the company.