Corporate social responsibility: an assessment of the enlightened self-interest model

Much recent discussion of corporate social responsibility has concerned operationality. Many activities subsumed under corporate social responsibility can be shown to be public or partially public goods. The theory of public goods can clarify and explain some complex problems of operationalizing the social responsibility doctrine. An examination of philanthropy provides some behavioral applications.     

Franz Oppenheimer (1926), Die soziologische Staatsidee. (Die Eroberung) [The Sociological Idea of the State (The Conquest)]

F. Oppenheimer's System der Soziologie is a multivolume publication that contains a general sociology as a common basis for all social sciences; a theory of development; as well as specialized sociologies: sociology of the economy, of law, of the state, etc. Oppenheimer conceived sociology as a historically grounded universal science. Ibn Khaldun came into play in relationship with Oppenheimer's state theory. His approach directly built on Gumplowicz's “sociological state theory”. An overview on Oppenheimer's works shows that Ibn Khaldun was by no means the starting point of theorization on the state. We do not find any reference to him in an earlier publication, Der Staat (1912), that already contained the full elaboration of Oppenheimer's theory. Nevertheless, his reception of Ibn Khaldun is important: Ibn Khaldun was mobilized within the framework of a scholarly debate that was ongoing amongst European sociologists at the time, and whose key representative, Ludwig Gumplowicz, contributed significantly to his reception in the concerned period. In this context, Oppenheimer did not merely mention Ibn Khaldun in an encyclopaedic endeavor to present a complete overview on “precursors” of sociology, but as a representative and contributor to a theoretical approach which, Oppenheimer believed, they both shared.     

The same and the other: male childcare workers managing identity dissonance

As childcare workers, men are in a contested position. On the one hand, they are in danger of being depicted as the pedophile; on the other hand, they are expected to bring something new and innovative to the thus-far female-dominated field. These men are experiencing ‘identity dissonance’ and have to find ways to manage and facilitate legitimate subject positions as both childcare workers and as men. Applying a perspective of discursive positioning, this article discusses men's positioning practices in nine qualitative interviews conducted with male childcare workers in German-speaking Switzerland. We identified a total of six discursive practices that men engage in to manage identity dissonance and construct a legitimate subject position. We found that men are engaging in a greater variety of practices than have been discussed so far. Unlike findings from other studies of men in female-dominated occupations, ours do not point to a clear-cut typology with regards to hegemonic and alternative masculinities; instead they show a variety of practices that are mobilized throughout all interviews.     

Data gold mining

The Motorway Incident Detection and Automatic Signalling (MIDAS) system data are summaries of traffic volumes, speeds and vehicle types, derived from loop detectors that sense traffic passing over them. These sensors are being rolled out across the UK's strategic highway network (motorways and major A-roads) and data from portions of one of the busiest motorways, the M25, now go back 10 years. Richard Gibbens and Wiebke Werft describe a journey time predictor based on MIDAS and explain how the data can shed light on topical issues such as road pricing.     

Status Attainment and Social Mobility

This paper discusses why and how the consideration of inter-individual genetic variation can enhance the explanatory power of sociological inquiries of status attainment and social stratification. We argue that accounting for genetic variation may help to address longstanding and in some cases overlooked causality problems in explaining the emergence of social inequalities—problems which may interfere with both implicit and explicit interpretations of a society as “open” or “closed,” as meritocratic or non-meritocratic. We discuss the basic methodological tenets of genetically informative research (Sect. 2) and provide empirical examples and theoretical conceptualizations on how genetic variation contributes to status attainment (Sect. 3). This is followed by a discussion of gene-environment interplay in relation to more abstract ideas about social mechanisms that generate inequality, touching on normative implications of these ideas as well as considerations from a social justice perspective (Sect. 4). Finally, we briefly review the potential benefits as well as pitfalls of incorporating genetic influences into sociological explanations of status attainment. As we will argue, understanding how social influences impinge on the individual and how genes influence our lives requires sophisticated research designs based on sound sociological theory and methodology (Sect. 5).     

Relationship Preferences Among Gay and Lesbian Online Daters: Individual and Contextual Influences

There is currently little knowledge about what gay men and lesbians seek in a romantic relationship. This study extends the literature on gay men and lesbians' partnership preferences by engaging in the first large‐scale empirical study of the long‐term dating intentions and monogamy beliefs of gay and lesbian online daters across 53 regions in 8 European countries (N = 24,598). Looking at profile and preference information, the authors examined both individual and contextual determinants in a series of multilevel logistic regression analyses. They show that lesbians give more importance to monogamy but show less interest in starting a long‐term relationship. The data also reveal the importance of life course aspects such as relationship history and presence of children. Finally, the authors empirically demonstrate that social tolerance and legal recognition of same‐sex unions are associated with higher long‐term dating intentions and stronger monogamy beliefs.     

Gleichmäßige Bewertung von Mietwohngrundstücken durch das neue steuerliche Ertragswertverfahren? Eine empirische Analyse

This paper deals with the question if the new valuation procedure for rental property established by the German Inheritance Tax Reform Act 2009 provides more consistent tax values than the previous valuation procedure which has been abolished as a result of the jurisdiction of the German Federal Constitutional Court. Our empirical findings show no improvement of the valuation results in terms of statistical spread. The only effect of the new valuation procedure is increasing tax values on average, and hence, tax values often exceed market values. But higher tax values could have been achieved with less effort by simply raising the multiplier of the previous valuation procedure. The findings of this contribution and the results of other papers suggest there is no standardised valuation procedure for rental property which provides a proper performance. Valuation of real estate remains one of the unsolved and presumably permanent problems of the inheritance tax in particular and of capital-based taxation in general.     

Pathological Gambling: Influence of Quality of Life and Psychological Distress on Abstinence After Cognitive-Behavioral Inpatient Treatment

The aim of this study is to understand the influence of psychological distress and quality of life on the maintenance of therapy success during a 1 year follow-up in pathological gamblers after inpatient cognitive-behavioral treatment. In a sample of 281 pathological gamblers (247 men, 34 women) the following measures were taken: psychological distress (beginning and end of treatment, and follow up), quality of life and abstinence from gambling. The results showed that relapsed pathological gamblers suffer of higher psychological distress at discharge and of lower quality of life during follow-up than abstinent gamblers. In a mediator analysis the causal relations between the three variables could be clarified: psychological distress has an impact on abstinence during follow-up, and quality of life can be considered a mediator variable for the relation between psychological distress and abstinence from pathological gambling.