”Technisierung und Subjektivierung. Zur Veränderung des Arbeitshandelns in der Wissensgesellschaft“ Workshop der Akademie für Technikfolgenabschätzung in Baden-Württemberg, 28./29.11.2002

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

The effect of accounting standards on Big Bath behavior

This paper investigates the influence of accounting standards on systematic earnings understatement. To isolate the effect of reporting regulations from those of other institutional drivers of earnings management, Holthausen (2003) proposes analyzing reporting practices in a country undergoing a transition in accounting standards. We respond to this call by analyzing earnings management practices of large German-listed companies before and after their transitions from German GAAP to IFRS. Specifically, we focus on Big Bath behavior following Chief Financial Officer turnovers between 1999 and 2006. Our findings provide evidence of the effect of accounting standards on the existence of this particular earnings understatement pattern. However, while we detect Big Bath behavior for our sample of German GAAP firms, we find no such indication for those firms reporting under IFRS. Controlling for alternative explanations such as self-selection bias does not change our findings. We conclude that accounting standards seem to have a considerable influence on earnings management behavior, independent of managers’ and auditors’ incentives.     

Affirming, Transforming, or Neglecting Gender? Conceptualizing Gender in the Pension Reform Process

This article analyzes the gender visions adopted by policy actorsin pension reform debates. Based on the work of Fraser (Fraser, N. 1994."After the Family Wage: Gender Equity and the Welfare State."Political Theory 22 : 591–618; Fraser, N. 1995. "FromRedistribution to Recognition? Dilemmas of Justice in a ‘Post-Socialist’Age." New Left Review 212:68–93), four gendered visionsof public pensions are introduced and then applied to pensionreforms in Belgium and Sweden. In line with international trends,both cases seek to integrate women within a pension system thattreats men and women the same regardless of their nonmarketactivities. However, in both cases, some compensation is introducedto acknowledge the caring functions performed mainly by women.Based on Fraser's typology, this arrangement leads to one ofthe worst-case scenarios since it legitimizes pension systemsthat are predominantly geared toward full-time contributorsand penalizes those individuals most likely to spend sometimesaway from the labor market. The Belgian case emphasizes thenegative role of the EU in retrenching pension rights and benefitsfor women. The Swedish case is interesting because of the scopeof its reform and the fact that women in the service sectorend up supporting the principle of tying benefits to contributions.     

Almost the same stories: narrative patterns in EU treaty referendums

ABSTRACT

The article analyses narratives that favoured or opposed European integration in three referendum debates held during the constitutional process of the 2000s: in France and the Netherlands in 2005 (Constitutional Treaty) as well as the first vote in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty in 2008. In all debates examined, speakers used similar narratives of European integration. While most narrative patterns have transnational character, however, they are also remarkably country-specific. They depend on the specific cultural context and the social positions of the speakers articulating them.     

Book review

W.G.Cochran: Sampling Techniques, 3rd. Ed. John Wiley & Sons, New York-Santa Barbara-London-Sydney-Toronto 1977. 428 S., £ 12.50; $21.50.

H.Toutenburg: Vorhersage in linearen Modellen. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1975, VIII, 176b S., 3 Tab., 28,– M.

O.Kallenberg: Random Measure. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1975; Academic Press, London 1976. 104 pp., 28,– M.     

Einsatz von Simulationspatienten im Kommunikations- und Interaktionstraining für Medizinerinnen und Mediziner (Medi-KIT): Bedarfsanalyse — Training — Perspektiven

Communication skills are of central importance within daily medical life providing effective treatment. In the modern high-tech field of medicine, trustful conversations play a prominent role. In order to help students of the Heidelberg Medical Faculty to be ready for their highly responsible role as communication partner, training is carried out in the framework of HeiCuMed (short for Heidelberger Curriculum Medicinale) using specially trained simulation patients. The communication and interaction training program (referred to as Medi-KIT) enables to practice conducting conversations with challenging communication partners and grave conversational content in difficult situations. Feedback from the standardized patients, as well as from peers and tutors represents a central didactic element.In order to secure knowledge transfer into daily clinic life and as well to build a relation to cognitive knowledge transfer, all medical students are assigned, alongside Medi-KIT lessons, to a ward, and training units are coordinated in terms of content to correspond with symptom-oriented lectures and parallel POL-groups (problem-oriented learning groups). In addition, communication learning objectives are examined at the end of the semester in the form of a clinical practical exam (OSCE: Objective Structured Clinical Examination) and at patient’s bedside (Mini-CEX: Mini Clinical Examination). The goal in imparting communication skills within medical education is that the longitudinal communication curriculum be maintained and continued in subsequent medical specialization studies.     

Pitfalls in multi-national long-range planning

The authors of this article argue that too many companies are not getting the benefits which should be produced by their long-range planning systems. Of the many possible explanations for this, the authors concentrate on the major pitfalls which should be avoided in order to ensure good results. The article is based upon the results of a survey of planning pitfalls among corporations in six industrialized countries.