Institutionelle Unabhängigkeit als Freiheit vom Recht?

Die politische Unabh?ngigkeit der Europ?ischen Zentralbank wurde in den entsprechenden Vertr?gen gesichert. Wie sieht es aber mit ihrer Rechtsbindung aus? Wer kann die EZB vor Gericht aufgrund von Pfl ichtverletzungen verklagen und ist dies grunds?tzlich überhaupt m?glich? Diesen Fragen geht der Autor hier nach. Er widmet den Beitrag Ernst-Joachim Mestm?cker zu seinem 85. Geburtstag am 25. September.     

Multilevel marketing: optimizing marketing effectiveness for high-involvement goods in the automotive industry

International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal - With a surge in communication channels increasing the complexity of today’s media landscape, companies face new challenges concerning...     

Knowledge diversity and coordination: The effect of intrafirm inventor task networks on absorption speed

Research Summary: We combine the absorptive capacity and social network theory approaches to predict how intrafirm “whole” network characteristics affect the firm's speed of absorption of external knowledge to produce inventions. We start from the widely accepted view that distant, externally‐developed knowledge is difficult to absorb into the focal firm's own knowledge production. We suggest that high levels of intrafirm inventor task network diversity and task network density are essential for a diversity of knowledge inputs and coordinated actions regarding knowledge transfer, which in turn, reduces problems related to the absorption of knowledge—especially in the case of knowledge that is distant from the focal firm. The results of an event history study of 113 pharmaceutical firms that engaged in technology in‐licensing from 1986 to 2003 provide general support for our hypotheses. Managerial Summary: Firms keen to keep up with an uncertain and ever‐changing industry environment, can benefit from the speedy introduction of inventions. We examine how firms absorb licensed‐in technologies to nurture the rapid development of own related inventions. We show that a firm's absorption speed depends on the characteristics of the internal collaboration networks among the firm's inventor employees. More specifically, technologically diverse and well‐connected inventor networks improve the firm's ability to absorb external technologies quickly. This applies especially to externally acquired technologies that are unfamiliar to the firm. Depending on the distance of the acquired technology from the focal firm combined with speed‐inducing inventor network characteristics, our estimates suggest that firms can reduce the time needed for absorption by several months.     

Wissenschaftsformate des deutschen Fernsehens im internationalen Vergleich

This article explores factors which influence volume and structure of science programming by German TV broadcasters, focusing on influences of the national channel pattern. Based on a comparison of the German market with ten others, it identifies three factors as relevant especially for the large volume of science programming in Germany:

1. The comparably large segmentation of the public TV market.
2. The comparably high number of mid-sized commercial channels with market shares between 5 and 10 %.
3. The comparably low dependency of public service channels on advertising income.

From a European perspective, Germany together with Finland and Sweden has market structures which sustain a large volume and high variety of science programme offers.     

Ist mehr Innovativität im Marketing besser? Achtung,nicht-lineare Effekte!

Wie innovativ sollten Unternehmen ihr Marketing gestalten? Ist mehr Innovativit?t immer sinnvoll? Antworten auf diese Fragen gibt dieser Beitrag. Ausgew?hlte Fallstudien und eine empirische Studie belegen, dass zus?tzliche Innovationsanstrengungen ab einem bestimmten Ma? negativ wirken k?nnen.     

Mulaik on atomism, contraposition and causation

Causal inference using statistical models plays a central role in many areas of behavioral science, but the underlying metatheory of causal explanation remains poorly developed. Mulaik’s work on causation offers a useful foray into this topic. Evaluation of two negative arguments applied to a broad range of theories of causation offer overdue critical assessment of this contribution. More broadly, the critical evaluation of Mulaik’s arguments speak to the need for better integration of substantive theories and statistical models in causal research.     

Nadelstichverletzungen: Kleiner Pieks mit großer Wirkung

Arbeitsschutz als Führungsaufgabe - Eine kurze Unachtsamkeit oder unglückliche Verkettung von Ereignissen und schon ist es passiert: Die Kanüle trifft das Pflegepersonal. Aber: Nadelstichverletzungen lassen sich durch die Verwendung sicherer Produkte und Injektionstechniken reduzieren. Dabei ist die Verbesserung des Arbeits- und Gesundheitsschutzes des medizinischen und pflegerischen Personals eine wichtige Aufgabe der Führungskr?fte.