Hat sich der Risikostrukturausgleich in der GKV bewährt?

Seit zw?lf Jahren geh?rt der Risikostrukturausgleich zu den Grundlagen eines auf Kassenwahlfreiheit gestützten Systems der Gesetzlichen Krankenversicherung (GKV). Der Mechanismus ist nicht zielgenau und daher einem st?ndigen Reformprozess ausgesetzt. Der Nutzen der Einnahmenreallokation wird aber auch grunds?tzlich in Frage gestellt. Welche Wirkungen hatte der Risikostrukturausgleich auf Beitragss?tze und Kassensystem? Welche Reformen wurden vorgeschlagen? Gibt es Gründe, seine Abschaffung zu befürworten? Susanne Erbe, 50, Dipl.-Volkswirtin, ist Mitarbeiterin in der Redaktion des Hamburgischen Welt-Wirtschafts-Archivs (HWWA).     

Cultural theory and risk perception: a proposal for a better measurement

Why do members of the public disagree – sharply and persistently – about facts on which expert scientists largely agree? We designed a study to test a distinctive explanation: the cultural cognition of scientific consensus. The ‘cultural cognition of risk’ refers to the tendency of individuals to form risk perceptions that are congenial to their values. The study presents both correlational and experimental evidence confirming that cultural cognition shapes individuals’ beliefs about the existence of scientific consensus, and the process by which they form such beliefs, relating to climate change, the disposal of nuclear wastes, and the effect of permitting concealed possession of handguns. The implications of this dynamic for science communication and public policy‐making are discussed.     

Optimal liquidation strategies regularize portfolio selection

We consider the problem of portfolio optimization in the presence of market impact, and derive optimal liquidation strategies. We discuss in detail the problem of finding the optimal portfolio under expected shortfall (ES) in the case of linear market impact. We show that, once market impact is taken into account, a regularized version of the usual optimization problem naturally emerges. We characterize the typical behavior of the optimal liquidation strategies, in the limit of large portfolio sizes, and show how the market impact removes the instability of ES in this context.     

Visible Reserves in Banks – Determinants of Initial Creation,Usage and Contribution to Bank Stability

The opportunity of building up visible “Reserves for General Banking Risks” by the bank management represents a peculiarity in the German financial accounting framework for banks. We investigate German banks' motives for the creation and usage of these reserves and assess their role in financial stability. We find that banks primarily create and use GBR reserves to build up Tier 1 capital for regulatory capital management and earnings management purposes. Most importantly, however, we also reveal that banks using these reserves are less likely to experience a future distress or a bank default event. We therefore conclude that the existence of GBR reserves within the financial accounting framework represents both a convenient capital and earnings management tool for bank managers and a beneficial regulatory instrument to enhance bank stability.     

An investigation into the roles of open innovation collaboration managers

The concept of open innovation has gained traction among practitioners and academics. Many different aspects of open innovation have been researched, but the question of how to manage open innovation collaboration in order to achieve the desired knowledge flow across organizational boundaries remains only partly answered. Consequently, this article argues for the need to complement prior firm-centric perspectives by investigating the roles of senior management in the postmodern form of organizing that characterizes open innovation collaboration. A more in-depth understanding of managerial roles in this context can increase the chances of fruitful collaboration. Thus, the article uses an inductive, interview-based approach to explore senior management roles in two institutionalized open innovation collaborations, thereby creating an initial conceptualization of the role of managers in open innovation and forming a basis for further studies on open innovation management. In this respect, the article identifies and discusses additional managerial roles that appear to be crucial for open innovation collaborations. These roles are those of a facilitator, tactician, and sensegiver.     

Action research for innovation management: three benefits,three challenges,and three spaces

Given that the innovation landscape is changing, and new forms of organization and management are emerging, this study discusses the potential benefits of action research for innovation management (IM) as it provides closeness to living emergent systems, generates rich insights as well as knowledge for both rigorous theory development and change in practice. Drawing from a large-scale action research study involving a complex collaborative organizational construct, we outline three challenges from employing action research: the process is both reflexive and progressive, the researcher is both an outsider and an insider, and the outcome is both general and specific. A model of three social spaces (the action research space, the academic space, and the practitioner space) is proposed to address the challenges and assist in navigating the multitude of processes, roles, and outcomes associated with action research. The study argues that action research for IM is well suited to exploring tacit aspects of practices and processes in the emergent or shifting study contexts to transform practices through interventions. Thus, if implemented carefully by experienced researchers, it can provide valuable data that are indispensable for theory development in the field of IM.     

Places and Spaces: The Role of Metonymy in Organizational Talk

Cultural meaning making as reflected in, and constituted by, organizational talk is an established field of interest in organizational analysis. However, the discursive mechanics of the process whereby this cultural meaning making is created and maintained are less well understood. The premise of this paper is that taken‐for‐granted assumptions embedded in organizational talk can be explored through the analysis of metonymy, a trope which is under explored in the linguistic turn in organization studies. This lack of focus on metonymy is, we believe, related to the fundamentally conventional nature of the trope in use, which expresses ideas, values and relationships that seem natural, normal and routine but which are culturally bound. We address this gap and carry out a metonymical analysis of organizational talk about physical places and spaces in one organization, to show how cultural norms and meanings are reflected, maintained, and potentially changed in these figures of speech. We show how metonymic chains based on buildings can reflect, reify and simplify the symbolic order of the organization, how these symbolic meanings can be transferred on to other inanimate objects and the constructions thereby spread, how people can be constructed within this symbolic chain, and how these metonymic chains can be invoked to potentially confirm, challenge or change the organizational order.