Public pensions in transition

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze problems of financing an old-age insurance when birth rates are low and population declines or fertility fluctuates with time. A government then searches for optimal policies to cope with such problems. A first criterion could be seen in the Pareto principle. But we all know that there is no way out of PAYG unless at least one generation has to pay for the transition. Therefore an optimal policy is concerned with intergenerational redistribution and optimal growth.In the absence of public pensions the economy will in the long run converge to a steady state which is not optimal in the sense of a golden rule. This dynamic in-efficiency results from the decentralized decision making by the consumers and the firms. If the PAYG system influences the savings ratio of the economy, public pensions can be seen as an instrument to implement a modified golden rule.Paper presented at the ISPE-conference on The Fiscal Implications of an Ageing Population, Vaalsbroek, The Netherlands, May 30–June 1, 1990. I am obliged to Dieter Bös, Friedrich Breyer, Christian Keuschnigg, Wolfgang Kitterer, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. Financial support through Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, SFB 303 is gratefully acknowledged.     

The Determinants of Trust and Credibility in Environmental Risk Communication: An Empirical Study

This study examines a key component of environmental risk communication; trust and credibility. The study was conducted in two parts. In the first part, six hypotheses regarding the perceptions and determinants of trust and credibility were tested against survey data. The hypotheses were supported by the data. The most important hypothesis was that perceptions of trust and credibility are dependent on three factors: perceptions of knowledge and expertise; perceptions of openness and honesty; and perceptions of concern and care. In the second part, models were constructed with perceptions of trust and credibility as the dependent variable. The goal was to examine the data for findings with direct policy implications. One such finding was that defying a negative stereotype is key to improving perceptions of trust and credibility.     

Retrofitting Drucker: Knowledge work under cognitive capitalism

This article uses Peter Drucker's work vector-like, to carry the thesis of cognitive capitalism into the management field. Drucker's prophetic insights into the knowledge society are juxtaposed with recent, Italian autonomist Marxist-inspired analyses of capitalism's cognitive phase. If the capacity to create knowledge – or what autonomists call the ‘general intellect’ – is becoming the key productive force, arguably there is a need for a full-blown social form of knowledge management. Our reading of Drucker thus retrieves the one worthwhile thing from the rubble of normative knowledge management. It is the idea of society-level knowledge management premised on a universal and unconditional guaranteed basic income (GBI; or social wage). Basic income represents not just a social investment in knowledge, which Drucker himself called for, but also compensation for biolabour's augmented social productivity. With Drucker as the steppingstone, we conclude, the autonomist tradition merits greater attention from critical management and organisational scholars interested in factoring class and gender back into the knowledge management equation.     

Filmic public relations for a global audience: The United Nations and The Blue Vanguard

The project investigates the use of documentary film as a public relations tool by the United Nations (UN) for worldwide promotion of its first peacekeeping intervention in response to the Suez crisis of 1956. Specifically, it undertakes a historical investigation into the communicative purpose of the 1957 documentary film, The Blue Vanguard, which was made by the UN Department of Public Information (UNDPI). Beyond the interest connected with the intervention in the Suez crisis, the film is significant in the history of the UN’s global public relations since it was one of the first films made for the UN by UK film director, Thorold Dickinson, who arrived as Chief of Film at the UN in October 1956.The author argues that Thorold Dickinson used the documentary to make a radical public information proposition to a global audience on behalf of the United Nations. Specifically, the public relations discourse and cinematicity in The Blue Vanguard reminded a global audience that achieving peace required a new level of cultural tolerance and global co-operation, involving codes of judgement beyond the nationalistically-determined registers of the time.     

Use of Experiential Learning,Reflective Writing,and Metacognition to Develop Cultural Humility Among Undergraduate Students

This study discusses the use of experiential learning, reflective writing, and metacognition to develop cultural humility among undergraduate students enrolled in a social and economic justice course. Students participated in an activity that challenged them to learn about people who may have different social identities and experiences from their own such as attending a service in a religion different from their own. Then students wrote a reflective essay in which they used the margin of the paper as a safe space to write anything that came to mind during the writing process. A thematic analysis of students’ comments suggests that students used the space to examine their emotions, seek understanding of self and others, and recognize their privilege.     

The Protective Circle: Queer Fathers and Counselors

This article provides a review of the literature addressing the unique needs and experiences of queer fathers. Despite the growing number of queer fathers and families, and increasing scholarship on this topic, there is a major dearth in the counseling scholarship and practice related to queer families, or more specifically and especially, queer fatherhood. Thus, this article uses the concept of a “protective circle” to assist professional counselors to understand their vital role within a queer father and familial system. By understanding the experiences and needs of queer fathers, counselors can better conceptualize and assist this underserved and often silenced community.     

Towards a sociology of risk work: A narrative review and synthesis

In this article, we define the concept of “risk work,” which aims to make visible working practices to assess or manage risk, in order to subject these practices to sociological critique. This article reviews and synthesizes existing published literature to identify components of risk work: (a) translating risk into different contexts, (b) minimizing risks in practice, and (c) caring in the context of risk. We argue that these three components of risk work raise important tensions for workers that have been inadequately explored in the literature to date. We propose that future research should additionally focus on practitioner subjectivity and identity in risk work. In addition, we argue that comparative research—across type of risk and different contexts—and methodological and theoretical diversity would enhance this emerging field of research.