Controlling in ?sterreichischen Familienunternehmen – dargestellt am Bundesland Ober?sterreich

Zusammenfassung Trotz der hohen volkswirtschaftlichen Bedeutung zeichnet sich das Controlling durch eine im Vergleich geringe Besch?ftigung mit dem Thema Familienunternehmen aus. Ausgehend von der Hypothese, dass Familienunternehmen in h?herem Ausma? sozio?konomische Ziele verfolgen und in geringerem Umfang Controlling-Instrumente einsetzen als Nicht-Familienunternehmen, werden die Ergebnisse einer empirischen Untersuchung für die Region Ober?sterreich pr?sentiert. Als Ergebnis dieser Studie zeigt sich, dass die Ziele der befragten Familienunternehmen – abgesehen von der H?he der geforderten Eigenkapitalrenditen – kaum von jenen der Nicht-Familienunternehmen differieren. Andererseits ist bei Familienunternehmen ein hoher Professionalisierungsgrad im Bereich des Einsatzes von Controlling-Instrumenten erkennbar.      

Ernährung bei Niereninsuffizienz

Zusammenfassung  Gezielte Auswahl bestimmter N?hrstoffe — Dialysepatienten müssen viele ihrer Lebensgewohnheiten umstellen. Das f?llt den meisten Betroffenen schwer, insbesondere wenn es um die konsequente Umstellung des Ern?hrungs- und Trinkverhaltens geht. Mit den richtigen Tipps k?nnen Sie Ihre Patienten dabei unterstützen.     

Pflegeverträge prüfen!

Vertr?ge richtig gestalten – Zahlreiche Vertragsklauseln in Pflegevertr?gen wurden nach Klagen des Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverbands gerichtlich für unwirksam erkl?rt. Pflegeanbieter, die sich davor schützen wollen, sollten ihre Pflegevertr?ge auf den Prüfstand stellen. Auf welche Punkte kommt es dabei besonders an?     

Representative voice in different organizational contexts: a study of 40 departments of a Dutch childcare organization

‘Representative voice’ can be defined as actions in which one or more speakers represent others when speaking up about a problem at the workplace or making a suggestion. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of representative voice, assess the frequency of its occurrence and examine department characteristics associated with its frequency. We present a theoretical framework and develop and test hypotheses about the effects of characteristics of the departmental context on the frequency of representative voice. Our focus is on organizational design features, i.e. characteristics that can be directly implemented by management. Data on 40 departments of a large Dutch childcare organization suggested that representative voice occurred in most of the organization's departments, although not frequently. Multilevel analyses showed that representative voice was best predicted by the presence of shared problems. Further, representative voice was more frequent in departments in which employees worked directly with clients (i.e. children), and in larger departments. Frequent contact with the department's manager and among the department's employees had no effect.     

Price transmission and local market power: empirical evidence from the Austrian gasoline market

We analyse the impact of local market power on price margins and different dimensions of price adjustment dynamics (speed and asymmetry of price transmission) using data for a large number of individual gasoline stations in Austria. Specific attention is paid to threshold effects in price adjustment. Our results clearly suggest that the speed of price transmission between the Brent crude oil index and retail diesel prices is higher in a more competitive environment. While evidence on the relationship between local market power and asymmetries in the speed of price adjustment is mixed, our findings regarding asymmetries in price thresholds are clear: in regions where competition from neighbouring rivals is weak and/or consumers’ price elasticity of demand is low (stations located on the highway), positive thresholds significantly exceed negative ones, which corresponds to the ‘rockets and feathers phenomenon’. As expected, we observe that prices are lower in more competitive local markets.     

Das Paradox der Medienwirkung auf Nichtnutzer

The article presents data from a secondary analysis of the project »Wählerwanderungen und Politikverdrossenheit« from 1994. The data allow to conduct time series analysis on a day-to-day basis. The focus is agenda setting in combination with a thesis formulated by Marcus Maurer — published in Publizistik 2004 — on the paradox of media effects on non-users. In contrast to Maurer, the paper is not concerned with the methodological but the theoretical paradox: Can there be such a thing as media effects on media non-users? The hypothetical effect is analyzed in comparison of daily and less than daily TV news users. The analyzed models confirm the agenda-setting effect: The media agenda affects the public agenda at later points in time, but the public agenda does not have effects on the later media agenda. In addition, there are indirect effects on people who seldom use TV news. As they do not watch every day, there is no direct immediate effect of the media input on them. But there is a significant effect some days later, which we interprete as a consequence of conversation. The effect of the media on the daily users is passed on to less frequent users by interpersonal communication.     

Does North-South horizontal intra-industry trade really exist? An analysis of the toy industry

Does North-South Horizontal Intra-Industry Trade Really Exist? An Analysis of the Toy Industry. — In a combination of a case study approach and econometric analysis, bilateral intra-industry trade between high income countries and low income countries in the toy industry is investigated. In a number of products there is important bilateral intra-industry trade between both groups of countries. Econometric analysis in which a number of the explanatory variables used were quantified on the basis of the information supplied by the industry-spokesmen yields results which strongly support the view that the bilateral IIT between the high income countries and the low income countries in the toy industry is determined significantly by horizontal product differentiation and economies of scale.     

A note on the space of preference relations

The space of irreflexive, transitive, and continuous binary relations of R^l endowed with the topology of closed convergence, and subsets of defined by various other properties of the relations are investigated. It is shown that the subsets defined by properties, which one often assumes in general equilibrium theory, have nice topological properties such as compactness or G₈-ness.     

The 'Skill-oriented' Strategies of German Trade Unions: Their Impact on Efficiency and Equality Objectives

In the present debate about options for the modernization of trade unions, the predominant argument being propounded is that trade unions and workers' representatives at plant level should take more 'responsibility' for the competitiveness of the firms. Among other things, they are advised to enter into 'alliances' with management at the level of qualification politics. This paper considers some important collective bargaining arrangements which the German trade unions have negotiated over the last few years in order to improve mutually beneficial further training decisions within German firms. The emphasis is on the potential of different agreements for achieving efficiency and equality objectives in the context of contemporary changes in production and restructuring processes.