The Electoral College and Conflict in American History and Politics

The historical relationship between the electoral college and controversial U.S. presidential elections, specifically with respect to conflict, is examined. The elections of 1800, 1824, 1860, 1876, 1888, 1968, and 2000 are examined. Aside from the 2000 election, there has been essentially no conflict in American history due to the electoral college. The constitutional structure and thinking behind the form of the electoral college is given, with emphasis on the federal aspects of the structure. The current movement to abolish the electoral college in favor of direct popular vote is depicted, along with the arguments against making that change. The conclusion is that we as a nation are far better off to retain the status quo than to make the called-for change.     

Generationswechsel im Management ost- und westdeutscher Unternehmen

Currently, in the top-management of German enterprises a generational shift is taking place. The paper looks at the consequences of this change concerning the future of the ‘German model of capitalism’. Are the managers of the new generation still holding on to the traditional German management culture or are they orienting themselves more strongly towards the US-American shareholder-value model? In order to clarify this question, the existing empirical results of management research are systematically evaluated. According to the results of this analysis we are not going to face a far-reaching Americanization of the management culture. However, under the pressure of globalization a significant differentiation between management culture in large enterprises on the one hand and management culture in small and medium-sized enterprises on the other hand occurs. While managers of large enterprises adopt elements of the American management model to a great degree, German management seems to become even more accentuated in the culture of small and medium-sized enterprises. In the context of this recent development existing differences between the management in Eastern and Western German enterprises dissolve along with the alternation of generations.     

On the Evolution of Competitive Balance: The Impact of an Increasing Global Search

The Coase theorem maintains that where free-market precepts exist, the allocation of property rights does not impact the distribution of resources. An application to Major League Baseball suggests that institutions such as free agency and the reverse-order amateur draft would not impact player distributions and therefore would not impact competitive balance. The present study finds that the distribution of wins is generally consistent with the precepts of the Coase theorem and therefore suggests a course for those who wish to alter the level of competitive balance: Major League Baseball should increase its focus on expanding the size of its labor pool. (JEL O15 , L83 , C22 )     

Interpersonal dependency of preferences

Standard decision theoretic models disregard the phenomenon of interpersonal dependency of preferences. In this paper it is argued that interpersonal dependency of preferences is a serious challenge for standard utility theory. First we sketch the more philosophical aspects of the problem and then, using a simple, formal model for the two-person case, we show that interpersonal dependency of preferences generally results in indeterminacy of preferences (resp. of subjective utility).     

Warum und wodurch Coaching wirkt

The contribution reviews the state oft the art of the research on general success factors in the coaching process. Research in the field of psychotherapy on basic variables of client centered counseling and general therapeutic change mechanisms set an example. Results of first studies on these and modified factors show that the coaching outcome depends on observed esteem and emotional support by the coach, resource activation and support of transfer into practice. Process analysis of nonverbal interactions between coach and client demonstrate that goal attainment influence goal attainment. Finally, the paper focuses on limitations, of the studies, scientific and practical conclusions as well as future perspectives.     

THE COMPETITIVE RETURNS TO THE GLOBAL SEARCH FOR TALENT: PROFESSIONAL SPORTS MARKETS AND FOREIGNERS

We examine the geographical and racial diversity of a market's labor supply. While the likely impact of expanding supply is to increase the level of productivity, it is not obvious what impact the expansion would have on the overall level of competition. If the added labor increases productivity differentials or are disproportionately populated on high achieving firms, then the likely result would be greater imbalance. We find that while increases in the foreign‐born component are associated with an increase in the overall level of competition, the impact has diminished across time. (JEL C22, D23, D30)     

Verwerfungslinien in Organisationen – die Wirkung von Kontextfaktoren auf die Verbundenheit in Organisationen

The importance of commitment from the point of view of companies or organizations is discussed controversially in recent years. On the one hand, a key competitive advantage is seen in the field of human resources. At the same time, very different forms of employment flexibilization can be observed. These different approaches are shown in this article and the versatile embedding of work such as the perception of disposition possibilities in terms of time, individual room for maneuver or even the experienced social justice. All of these dimensions have the potential to portray themselves as faultlines in organizations and thus have an impact on the binding in organizations.     

Signaling to Partially Informed Investors in the Newsvendor Model

We analyze a signaling game between the manager of a firm and an investor in the firm. The manager has private information about the firm's demand and cares about the short‐term stock price assigned by the investor. Previous research has shown that under continuous decision choices and the Intuitive Criterion refinement, the least‐cost separating equilibrium will result, in which a low‐quality firm chooses its optimal capacity and a high‐quality firm over‐invests in order to signal its quality to investors. We build on this research by showing the existence of pooling outcomes in which low‐quality firms over‐invest and high‐quality firms under‐invest so as to provide identical signals to investors. The pooling equilibrium is practically appealing because it yields a Pareto improvement compared to the least‐cost separating equilibrium. Distinguishing features of our analysis are that: (i) we allow the capacity decision to have either discrete or continuous support, and (ii) we allow beliefs to be refined based on either the Undefeated refinement or the Intuitive Criterion refinement. We find that the newsvendor model parameters impact the likelihood of a pooling outcome, and this impact changes in both sign and magnitude depending on which refinement is used.