Optimal Social Insurance with Endogenous Health*

In this paper, I analyze optimal insurance against unemployment and disability in a private information economy with endogenous health and search effort. Individuals can reduce the probability of becoming disabled by exerting prevention effort. I show that the optimal sequence of consumption is increasing for a working individual and constant for a disabled individual. During unemployment, decreasing benefits are not necessarily optimal. The prevention constraint implies increasing benefits while the search constraint demands decreasing benefits while being unemployed. However, if individuals respond sufficiently to search incentives, the latter effect dominates the former and the optimal consumption sequence is decreasing during unemployment.     

Involvement and opinion leadership in tourism

Nature-based tourism, science tourism, and ecotourism are some of the emerging and growing trends in special-interest tourism. This study utilized a southeastern sample of the United States who had an interest in travel and the environment. A modified Dillman total design method survey was used to collect the data. The study demonstrated that widely used concepts of marketing are applicable for nature-based tourism. Results indicate that highly involved nature-oriented travelers tend to be more receptive to information concerning the travel product or destination and spread that information willingly. Findings of this study suggest that opinion leaders take more trips and use slightly more information sources.     

Goal Multiplicity and Innovation: How Social and Economic Goals Affect Open Innovation and Innovation Performance

Integrating insights from the strategic goal literature and the knowledge‐based view of the firm, this article proposes that the pursuit of social and economic strategic goals by commercial firms affects their innovation performance through different knowledge sourcing activities. The strategic goals, knowledge sourcing practices, and innovation performance of 1257 Belgian firms are investigated. Results show that both social and economic strategic goals are associated with the use of external information sources, but only the pursuit of social goals inspires firms to engage in external collaboration. No evidence is found of an inherent conflict between social and economic strategic goals. Instead, the two types of goals are independent of each other, that is, an emphasis on social goals does not preclude an emphasis on economic goals and vice versa. Moreover, firms’ external knowledge sourcing and innovation performance benefit most when strongly held social goals align with strongly held economic goals. These findings offer new insight into the nature and the effects of goal multiplicity among commercial firms. They open up a new perspective on the potential positive effects of the joint pursuit of social and economic strategic goals instead of seeing them as inherently conflicting, as past research has typically done. We illustrate how social strategic goals can deliver unique benefits to a firm, independently of and in addition to economic strategic goals. Our findings also contribute to the open innovation literature by revealing strategic goals as a driver of firms’ knowledge sourcing practices. Our findings suggest that solely emphasizing economic goals may be one reason why firms struggle to implement open innovation practices and do not reap their full benefits. The practical implications of our research are discussed.     

Socialising employees’ trust in the organisation: an exploration of apprentices’ socialisation in two highly trusted companies

We present here our investigation into how corporate employers deliberately seek to foster and build employees’ trust in the organisation through socialisation tactics. Interestingly enough, such deliberate development of employees’ trust in the organisation has hitherto rarely been addressed in academic research. Using qualitative case study research methods, we have closely observed the trust socialisation process experienced by entrant employees, namely apprentices in two separate and highly trusted German companies. Our findings are consistent with former trust socialisation research in that they indicate the importance of high levels of perceived organisational support and of a convincing communication of organisational values and principles. However, our research emphasises further aspects of trust socialisation, such as psychological empowerment, the efficacy of formal organisational rules and especially sensegiving activities.     

Der Zukunftsmarkt gehört dem Alter

Das Evangelische Geriatriezentrum Berlin (EGZB) ist eine über die Grenzen Berlins und Brandenburgs hinaus bekannte Einrichtung für Altersmedizin. Dafür sorgt nicht nur ein in der Fachwelt beachtetes abgestuftes interdisziplin?res Versorgungskonzept. Auch im Umgang mit dem Stamm- und Nachwuchspersonal haben die Berliner ihre Prinzipien.     

Eggo Müller: Paarungsspiele. Beziehungsshows in der Wirklichkeit des deutschen Fernsehens

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Therapie bei Verstopfung

Zusammenfasung  Die Behandlung — Aufgrund der multifaktoriellen Ursachen der chronischen Obstipation ist in der Regel ein ganzheitliches Behandlungskonzept zu erstellen. Besonders wichtig: Alle Therapieschritte müssen zwischen ?rzten, Pflegepersonal und Patienten beziehungsweise Angeh?rigen abgestimmt werden.     

So werden Sie PDL

Zusammenfassung  Sprung auf der Karriereleiter — Haben Sie Spa? an Kommunikation? Lust auf mehr Verantwortung? Oder wünschen Sie bessere Arbeitsbedingungen für das Pflegepersonal? Dann kann eine Pflegedienstleitung genau die richtige Herausforderung für Sie sein.     

Using choice experiments to assess smallholder farmers' preferences for pig breeding traits in different production systems in North-West Vietnam

Livestock form key components of the livelihood strategies of many of the world's poorest people. However, despite the potential to alleviate poverty and improve food security through livestock development interventions, the lack of smallholders' participation in the planning and design of breeding programs has often been a major cause of the failure of such programs. Particularly in developing countries where livestock production is still mostly subsistence-oriented and livestock fulfil manifold functions a considerable number of livestock breeding programs have failed. The development of adequate tools to characterise these functions, bearing in mind that these are expressed only rarely in properly functioning markets, is therefore important.This paper seeks to advance the application of such methodologies to the smallholder pig sector in Vietnam. A choice experiment was applied across 140 households involved in pig breeding in order to assess farmers' preferences and the trade-offs for a list of adaptive and productive traits. These included growth, reproduction, disease resistance, feed requirements and appearance.The findings indicate that smallholders highly value both adaptive and performance traits, particularly in resource-driven (i.e. subsistence) production systems. Performance traits were more highly valued in the demand-driven (i.e. market-oriented) systems. These findings have implications for breeding program breed choice and breeding objectives.