Banks winners in tournaments are difficult to recognize

Given a tournament T, a Banks winner of T is the top vertex of any maximal (with respect to inclusion) transitive subtournament of T. In this technical note, we show that the problem of deciding whether some fixed vertex v is a Banks winner for T is NP-complete. Received: 22 February 2002/Accepted: 20 June 2002 Supported by the START program Y43-MAT of the Austrian Ministry of Science. I would like to thank two thank the referees for a careful reading of the paper, for helpful remarks, and for many suggestions how to improve the presentation.     

The gambling market in the Federal Republic of Germany and the helpseeking of pathological gamblers

The development of the gambling market in the Federal Republic of Germany since the middle of the seventies and data on pathological gamblers seeking help are described. The continuously increasing supply, together with increases in turnover, was followed-with some temporal delay-by an increase in the number of gamblers who sought advice and treatment. Preliminary measures taken by the health authorities as well as some consequences of pathological gambling are discussed.This article is a translation of a German article published in: Deutsche Hauptstelle gegen die Suchtgefahren (1990): Jahrbuch '91 zur Frage der Suchtgefahren. Hamburg: Neuland-Verlag.     

Self-generated fertility waves in a non-linear continuous overlapping generations model

In this paper, Samuelson's simplified version of the Easterlin theory (Samuelson 1976) is extended to a continuous-time model with three age groups. This approach enables one to apply the qualitative theory of non-linear differential equations to show the existence of Easterlin-type cycles. In contrast to the discrete time model we obtain information about the period length of the cycle.This research was supported by the Austrian Science Foundation under grant P6601.     

Leveraging middle managers’ brokerage for corporate entrepreneurship: The role of multilevel social capital configurations

Building on recent efforts to bring a socio-political perspective to social capital research, we develop and test a multilevel framework that explains why middle managers who occupy brokerage positions differ in their ability and willingness to engage in entrepreneurial behavior. More specifically, we provide a contextualized understanding of the links among middle managers' brokerage, their political-support ties, and their personal initiative. Results derived from data on 383 middle managers and 72 top managers in 34 business units indicate that political-support ties with top managers strengthen the relationship between middle managers’ brokerage and personal initiative. However, this positive effect depends on the social capital resources available in the focal business unit. It is attenuated in business units with a supportive and trusting social context and amplified in business units with high levels of internal connectedness. By uncovering these incompatibilities and complementarities, our study demonstrates the value of accounting for different social capital configurations and the interplay of their inherent social capital resources when examining the effects of brokerage on corporate entrepreneurship.     

Coaching als Instrument zur Aufrechterhaltung der Machtstellung von Männern in Organisationen

The author discusses the question why the counseling format coaching was able to achieve such a dominant position in the market compared with other formats like supervision or organizational counseling. A point of view specific to power-and gender-related issues and the sociological concept of hegemonial masculinity (Connell) form the starting point to explore this question. Due to its origin from the field of competitive sport and based on its objective target as an instrument for human resources development (Schreyögg) the counseling format coaching serves values and role models typically attributed to men (successful, winner, potent) in an ideal way. Therefore it nourishes established models of hegemonial masculinity in organizations thus contributing to consolidate and safeguard the position of power of men, when it is used in an unreflective modality. With this in mind coaching acts in particular through segregation and as a place to reinsure masculine role models.     

(When) Is job-finding via personal contacts a meaningful concept for social network analysis? A comment to

Chua (2011) argues that in a meritocratic context, institutions restrict the usefulness of social networks in exerting influence on job seekers’ earnings. Regressing job-finding via personal contacts on earnings, he finds negative effects of influence via personal contacts, especially for the well-educated and individuals working in the state sector. In this comment, I argue that these results are ambiguous because (1) the analysis does not sufficiently distinguish between job ‘search’ methods and job ‘finding’ methods, (2) job-finding method indicates information flow rather than a personal contact's influence, and (3) it remains unclear whether Chua's analysis reflects the effect of network usage in job search per se or the effect of self-selection into network usage by individuals with low earning potential.     

Führung in Familienunternehmen: Besonderheiten der Entscheidungsfindung und Verhaltenssteuerung und deren Auswirkung auf den Unternehmenserfolg

This paper draws on a survey design to investigate whether family ownership and leadership have an influence on the decision-facilitating and decision-influencing roles of management control. Moreover, we investigate whether the more intuitive decision making in family firms which is often said to be caused by a lack of professionalism, is indeed a disadvantage. The results indicate significant differences in the use of management controls between family firms and non-family firms. However, in contrast to the prevailing view in literature, the performance of family firms is not affected negatively by their specific way of making decisions and by their more centralized management style. According to our data, the prevailing characterization of family firms as being less professionally managed seems questionable.     

Gender‐Specific Migration from Eastern to Western Germany: Where Have All the Young Women Gone?

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, open migration from East to West Germany became possible. Between 1989 and 2007, roughly 10 per cent of the East’s population at the time of reunification migrated from east to west. The emigrants were predominantly young and female. This selective migration pattern led to a tremendous deficit of females in the 18–29 year old age group in eastern Germany. Overall, the sex ratio in that age group is as low as 89 females per 100 males in the east. In some rural counties, the sex ratio is 80 females per 100 males. We find that excess female emigration at the county level is associated with gender disparities in educational attainment that favour women, a labour market structure that favours men and the lower availability of potential partners with similar levels of education in eastern Germany.