Multinational companies in the EU and European Works Councils

In June the EU Council of Ministers (excluding the UK) took up a common position concerning European Works Councils. The establishment of such Councils would grant certain information and consultation rights to the workers of multinational companies. The following paper looks at the importance of MNCs in the EU and tries to assess the extent to which European Works Councils could cope with the social problems arising in these MNCs.     

Multilateral finance and development

This article presents an outline of major international financial institutions, i.e. the Bretton Woods organisations. The focus of analysis is on the conceptions that have shaped the posture of these institutions on development issues and on their corresponding activities and problems.     

Corporate morality called in question: The case of Cabora Bassa

This article presents a case study of a big German enterprise (Siemens) facing a large wave of public critique and protest activities. The public was concerned about the political circumstances surrounding the construction of the Cabora Bassa hydroelectric dam in Mozambique in which Siemens was largely involved.This study reports the escalating protest against the firm over three years (1970–1972) and the firm's responses during that period. The analysis of the case focusses on the behaviour of the firm which is interpreted in the light of the business social responsibility doctrine. The article proposes that the firm experienced a legitimation crisis and responded by reorienting its philosophy of business.Georg Schreyögg is Professor of Management at the Department of Business at Fern Universität Hagen. He has written five books on Quality of Working Life, Organizational Theory and Business Strategy, and several articles, published in various business journals. His recent research has addressed strategic control.Horst Steinmann is Professor of Management at the faculty of business at Universität Erlange-Nürnberg. He has written several books and a number of articles. His most recent research interest focusses on business ethics and the philosophy of dialogue.Our case is based on an analysis of documents and on interviews. Because the project received wide public interest, many documents, handbills, memoranda, articles, etc. were available. In addition, we had access to internal Siemens documents (letters, internal memoranda, policy statements, delivered opinions, etc.). Much of the material was filed in the Cabora Bassa archive of Siemens which was kindly opened to the researchers. Reconstructing the flow of events was facilitated by interviews with Siemens managers then responsible for the project. The company approved of the publication of the internal memoranda and data cited. Special thanks are due to Wilhelm Forstmann for his support and his willingness to answer all our questions in a series of interviews.     

Company reputation and its influence on consumer trust in response to ongoing CSR communication

There is considerable disagreement in academic scholarship and beyond as to whether, in cases of bad reputations, companies will want to communicate corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities because this kind of communication is likely to increase consumers’ skepticism. In this regard, the two empirical studies discussed in this article examine the influence of prior company reputation on consumers’ trust in response to CSR communication in general and the development in response to continuous CSR activities and their ongoing communication by companies as well as by the media in particular. The two studies show that consumers’ trust in companies’ CSR activities increases after a second presentation of information by companies even in instances when companies had prior negative reputations. The second study in particular fills a gap in the literature on underlying mechanisms of consumers’ reactions to CSR communication. The results suggest that companies with prior negative reputations do not need to remain silent about their CSR activities; instead, CSR communication can help improve consumers’ trust in companies. However, the findings of these two studies also suggest that this positive development is short-lived. Consumers’ developing trust in companies’ CSR activities decreases significantly if they are exposed to negative information on these companies.     

Gemeinsame Verantwortung macht stark

Familienorientierung in der h?uslichen Kinderkrankenpflege - J?hrlich werden circa 10.000 Kinder und Jugendliche von Diensten der h?uslichen Kinderkrankenpflege gepflegt. Wie wichtig ist dabei die Einbeziehung der Familie in den Pflegeprozess und wie gelingt sie?     

Verification of Web Service Compositions: An Operationalization of Correctness and a Requirements Framework for Service-oriented Modeling Techniques

Web service compositions coordinate Web services of different enterprises. They are expected to constitute the foundation of service-oriented architectures, to improve business processes as well as to foster intra- and inter-organizational integration. Especially in inter-organizational contexts, quality of service referring to non-functional requirements and conformance to functional requirements are becoming vital properties. With Web service compositions being asynchronous and distributed systems, the latter property – which is also called correctness – can be shown best by verification. This paper examines from a system-theoretic perspective how correctness can be operationalized for Web service compositions. It also proposes a requirements framework for service-oriented modeling techniques so that correctness can be shown by verification and Web service compositions can be modeled intuitively. In order to show the framework’s principle applicability, an example approach is analyzed with respect to the corresponding requirements.     

The Effect of Regulation on Insurance Pricing: The Case of Germany

This article analyzes the impact of policy form regulation on the unit price of insurance and determinants of premium changes using the 1994 deregulation of the German property–liability market as a natural experiment. Our result show that policy form regulation did not increase prices above competitive levels. Factors influencing premium changes are significantly different for the two time periods, pre‐ and post‐deregulation, indicating that regulation affects insurance pricing. Focusing on highly competitive lines after deregulation, we find a significant price decrease, and this decrease is offset by higher prices in the remaining other lines.     

Taxing Large Businesses: Cooperative Compliance in Action

Intereconomics - Cooperative compliance represents a shift in thinking for tax administrations, away from a deterrence approach where taxpayers are coerced to comply with tax rules and threatened...     

Conceptual underpinnings for transformative research in a service ecosystems context to resolve social issues – framework foundations and extensions

ABSTRACT

A number of services within society are designed to improve the well-being of its members and transform lives. Some services focus on the protection and support of vulnerable members of society, for example, those suffering the effects of drug use, mental health conditions, violence or poverty. Clients of such social services may also come from minority or marginalised cultural backgrounds. Typically, social services aim to reduce disparities and enhance individual and population well-being. A major challenge for social policy-makers and social service providers is to establish and maintain constructive engagement between the social services and those they are intended to serve. Some of these vulnerable clients are deemed ‘hard-to-reach’ (HTR) by policy-makers and service providers. Yet, the transformation of lives requires the involvement of the focal actor (client) and their service or activity system, as well as the engagement of other actors, such as the social worker embedded in their service or activity system. This paper aims to further unpack a novel approach, called integrative transformative service framework. This contribution extends its conceptualisation which fuses mainly three different approaches, namely Transformative Service Research (TSR), (Cultural-Historical) Activity Theory (CHAT) and (Regulatory) Engagement Theory (RET).     

The Headmaster Ritual: The Importance of Management for School Outcomes

We estimate the impact of individual principals on school outcomes by using panel data that allow us to track principals over time. We find that individual principals have a substantive impact on school policies, working conditions, and student outcomes. In particular, students who attend a school that has a one standard deviation better principal improve their achievement by between 0.05 and 0.1 standard deviations. Despite rich background information on principals, it is difficult to characterize successful management, suggesting that innate skills are central. We find that the scope for discretion is larger among voucher schools and in areas with school competition.