Innovation networks in eastern germany — a still under-utilised potential for human capital formation in the region

Conclusion In regard to easing the shortage of skilled labour the networking of protagonists in the InnoRegios is not, as yet, sufficient on the whole. In particular, companies are not sufficiently involved. The potential for networking to close the human capital gap is apparently still not being fully utilised in the innovation networks. One explanation could be the low implementation rate of the planned basic and advanced training projects so far. It must also be borne in mind that companies could assess the risks of cooperation as greater than the possible advantages, as they are competing on the labour market. Another explanation is that the participants in the networks expect technological projects to offer greater success.     

Glyphosate—A love story. Ordinary thoughtlessness and response‐ability in industrial farming

More than 8.6 billion kilograms of glyphosate have been used worldwide since the 1970s. Herbicide tolerant crops became the lynchpin of the technological revolution for large‐scale farming first in the United States and Canada, and now in Europe. Zero‐till farming, as a production scheme and a world view, is based on simplifications promoted by a handful of transnational corporations with the complicity of politicians looking for easy solutions for problems, such as climate change, erosion and the hunger in the world. At the same time, the massive use of glyphosate is branded as an endocrine disrupter, causing cancer, male sterility and infertility. It interferes with soil bacteria and acts on the equilibrium of soil fungi. Glyphosate resistant crops connect farmers to far away consumers ingesting the food they grow together with the traces of chemicals. Farmers intra‐act with the myriads of life‐forms of the soil eco‐system. How do they perceive the life in the soil, when they spray chemicals? The article explores the political dimensions of the agency of both humans and non‐humans to understand the effects of the modernizing project of zero‐till, as well as to identify spaces and scales of possibility from where alternatives can emerge.     

The Impact of Pleasure‐Evoking Colors on the Effectiveness of Threat (Fear) Appeals

Research has established that colors can influence a person's attitude toward an ad. In this article the knowledge about the effects of colors on the perception of ads is linked to a specific type of ads, namely threat appeals. The objective of this study is to examine whether the color used in the background of such a threat appeal can influence its effectiveness. More specifically, the aim is to investigate whether the usage of less or more pleasure‐evoking colors affects threat and efficacy appraisals, evoked fear, and the behavioral intention. Moreover, it is tested whether the impact of the background color on the effectiveness of threat appeals is moderated by the threat level presented in the threat appeal. The findings confirm that the background color does indeed have an impact on its effectiveness. The more pleasing blue color was found to have a more positive impact on the respondents’ feelings of severity and susceptibility than the less appealing yellow. An analysis of the processing patterns subsequently showed that perceived severity has a positive effect on the behavioral intention. This intention is also influenced by the evoked feelings of fear, which are also induced by the respondents’ perceived severity. An interaction effect with threat level indicates that the more appealing background color only increased vulnerability in case of a low threat. Color thus seems to be used more as a peripheral cue to process less involving (low‐threat) messages. In case of a more involving high‐threat message, the processing seems to occur more centrally and less through the color cue. These findings illustrate the importance of color in the design of threat appeals.     

Wie beeinflusst der demografische Wandel die privaten Verkehrsausgaben?

The level as well as the structure of private consumption is influenced by the age structure of the population. This is shown for Germany by an age-specific analysis of consumption patterns on the basis of household data of the German consumer income and budget survey. According to the gained data and with respect to the changing shares of age cohorts induced by demographic effects, the demand for consumption goods and services in the field of transport will lose significance. This is especially true for private transport expenditures such as the purchase of cars as well as the demand for goods and services related to the use of cars. In contrast, the expenditures for (public) transport services are projected to be unchanged over the lifecycle of a private household.     

Optimal Dynamic Control of Visitors and Endangered Species in a National Park

To enable visitors to enjoy nature while protecting endangered species is the key challenge for national parks around the world. In our optimal dynamic control model, a park management maximizes tourism revenues and conservation benefits net of control costs by choosing optimal dynamic levels of conservation and visitor management. The optimization is constrained by an extended food chain model representing species-habitat-visitor interactions. We illustrate for a game bird in an Alpine national park that ecotourism can indeed lead to ecosystem degradation when the park management is more concerned about increasing tourism revenues than about achieving the conservation target and if the endangered species is unknown to most visitors. If, however, the park management is well aware of the potentially negative consequences of ecotourism and hence cares for species conservation, limited ecotourism can provide funding for species conservation which ensures population levels above the uncontrolled steady state.     

A test of the HRM model: good for employers and employees

Some of the assumptions made by the proponents of the strong version of HRM are tested, using social identity theory and group processes. In particular, the author explores the proposed link between the HRM characteristics integration, commitment, quality and flexibility and examines their relationships to employee satisfaction, intention to stay and organisational performance. Based on a survey conducted among bank employees, correlational and multiple regression analysis, both at individual and at branch level, confirm the connection between integration, commitment, quality and flexibility. Commitment emerges as the central variable. It is closely related to work satisfaction and intention to stay and, most importantly, makes a significant contribution to branch performance.     

Climate policy targets in emerging and industrialized economies: the influence of technological differences, environmental preferences and propensity to save

Although emerging economies claim that industrialized countries need to reduce their carbon emissions first, stabilization of the future global climate system requires immediate action by all countries. In a stylized two-country intertemporal general equilibrium model, we derive welfare maximizing emission caps in emerging and industrialized countries, taking account of country differences in technology, environmental preferences and propensity to save. Simultaneous target setting is compared to a sequential one in which the industrialized country commits itself to binding targets first. In the latter case, when the industrialized economy has stronger environmental preferences and a lower relative pollution production share, the industrialized economy can increase its joint economic and environmental welfare by setting a laxer target. On the other hand, when the emerging economy has considerably higher environmental preferences, our results suggest that the industrialized economy will choose a more restrictive target in a sequential setting than in a simultaneous one, contrary to first thought that a first mover is always pursuing a ‘symbolic’ policy with a lax target.     

Womit befassen sich kommunikationswissenschaftliche Abschlussarbeiten?

Transfer is an e-journal of the German academic association of journalism and communication (DGPuK), publishing abstracts of excellent theses in communication in German speaking countries. Since 1999, more than 1.000 abstracts have been collected. This article presents a content analysis of all abstracts published between 1999 and 2008 (n?=?1.056). The objective is to contribute to the ongoing debate about the identity of German speaking communication research and thus adding results to existing studies on journal publications and surveys among researchers. The content analysis examines the issues, the media analyzed, the use of theoretical and empirical approaches and the dominance of public communication as issue – as compared to interpersonal communication – of the studies, based on the abstracts published. Results show that the issues analyzed and the methods applied have not changed much over the years. A somehow alarming result is the fact that only very few abstracts explicitly refer to a theory. This raises the question of the deceasing relevance of theories in today’s communication research.     

A model of task demands,social structure,and leader–member exchange and their relationship to job satisfaction

In the present study, we examine task demands, leader–member exchange, and social structure in their relationship to job satisfaction. Based on the reflections of Seers and Graen in their dual attachment model, in the present study we combined task demands, leader–member exchange, and social structure in a model of antecedents of job satisfaction. The resulting model was tested using structural equation modelling. While task demands and leader–member exchange are related to their respective equivalents in job satisfaction, social structure is positively related to a latent factor job satisfaction, indicating that the social structure of a job has an impact on different facets of job satisfaction. The results are discussed with respect to sample characteristics.