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The common argument for the small business is that there simply is no strategy; that small businesses react heuristically to events, guided by the whims and passions of the owner-manager. Strategy, however, can be looked at from a behavioural perspective, as opposed to the more normative strategic planning schools that small firms rarely abide by. This concept of strategy as 'behaviour' encompasses the actions of the owner-manager, the context of the small firm, and the consequences of the actions taken. It looks at strategy as part deliberate and part emergent, allowing for the inclusion of both external influences and internal decision making. Grounded theory research on small firms in Malta has in fact shown strategy to be a dynamic phenomenon, one that can be viewed as a set of defined pathways between identifiable life cycle states. The paper shall outline the research findings that have identified five distinct patterns of small firm strategic behaviour, each with its own unique trajectory and performance implications. Understanding which strategic pathway a small firm belongs to allows for a comprehensive insight into the firm's competitive behaviour, and a prediction of the consequences of that behaviour.

Why did the US prefer multilateral alliances in Europe, but bilateral alliances in Asia after World War II? Rationalists and constructivists debate the impact of power, institutions, and identities in explaining this highly contested question. We introduce a new argument embedded in prospect theory from political psychology -- a prospect-threat alliance model -- to account for the variation in US alliance strategy toward Europe and Asia after World War II. Through setting the threat level as a reference point for leaders' prospects of gains or losses, we suggest: (1) high threats frame decision-makers in a domain of losses, and multilateral alliances become a favorable alliance choice because states are more likely to take the risk of constraining their freedom of action in return for more help from multiple allies as well as for avoiding further strategic losses; (2) low threats position leaders in a domain of gains, and bilateral alliances win out because states are risk-averse in terms of maintaining their freedom of action in seeking security through alliances with fewer allies. US alliance policy toward Asia after World War II is a within-case analysis that tests the validity of the prospect-threat alliance model. [Reprinted by permission; copyright Sage Publications Ltd. & ECPR-European Consortium for Political Research.]

Why did the US prefer multilateral alliances in Europe, but bilateral alliances in Asia after World War II? Rationalists and constructivists debate the impact of power, institutions, and identities in explaining this highly contested question. We introduce a new argument embedded in prospect theory from political psychology — a prospect–threat alliance model — to account for the variation in US alliance strategy toward Europe and Asia after World War II. Through setting the threat level as a reference point for leaders' prospects of gains or losses, we suggest: (1) high threats frame decision-makers in a domain of losses, and multilateral alliances become a favorable alliance choice because states are more likely to take the risk of constraining their freedom of action in return for more help from multiple allies as well as for avoiding further strategic losses; (2) low threats position leaders in a domain of gains, and bilateral alliances win out because states are risk-averse in terms of maintaining their freedom of action in seeking security through alliances with fewer allies. US alliance policy toward Asia after World War II is a within-case analysis that tests the validity of the prospect-threat alliance model.

Der rezente 'material turn' fordert mehr kritische Aufmerksamkeit für Textur, Haptik, materielle Beschaffenheit von Medien sowie die Einbeziehung von nicht-menschlicher agency in Analysen von Interaktionen zwischen Mensch und Objekt. Der vorliegende Beitrag beleuchtet das Potenzial dieser Öffnung zur Materialität für eine feministische Auseinandersetzung mit amerikanischem Exploitation- und Trash-Kino ab den späten 1960er Jahren. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf exzessiven Sound-Materialitäten: auf Störgeräusch, Verschmutzung, Verzerrung und Abnutzung in der Tonspur von Herschell Gordon Lewis ' Biker-Exploitation-Klassiker She-Devils on Wheels (1968). Mit Blick auf spätere queere und feministische Film- und Videoarbeiten (v.a. von Michael/Meredith Lucas), welche direkt auf exzessive Sound-Texturen in Lewis' Werk Bezug nehmen, thematisiert der Beitrag zwischen Bedeutung und Affekt oszillierende Resonanzen, welche Dichotomien von Sprache und Materialität zu sprengen versprechen. Current developments in cultural studies and queer feminist theory point towards a 'material turn', which calls for addressing the material bases of media etc. as significant and potentially agential in political and cultural dynamics. This turn aims towards a deconstruction of modern binaries (mind vs. body, culture vs. matter, meaning vs. affect), which also shape hegemonic conceptions of sex, gender and desire.This paper explores the critical potential of this turn for a feminist engagement with American exploitation cinema of the later 1960s. I focus on excessive sound textures: on noise, distortion, dirt and wear in the audio track of Herschell Gordon Lewis' She-Devils on Wheels. By tracing the affective-meaningful resonances sonic dirt may activate, I ask how material criticism provides productive perspectives in dealing with two central, yet problematic categories in feminist cultural criticism: agency and the sovereign subject.

The present study focuses on two case studies of social studies education, namely in Palm Beach County Florida and the Community of Madrid. A Grounded Theory approach is applied to the interpretation of government publications so as to develop two tentative emic models of social studies education. An overarching applied anthropological theoretical framework permeates the interpretation of texts so as to elucidate the intended role of social studies education in terms of constructing national and local identities. The study concludes that there are important similarities between the two social studies programs such as the incorporation of subjects dealing with world history as well as national history. One important difference is that the Palm Beach County program is more direct in proposing a model of civic engagement through the construction of a joint narrative about the founding of the nation, in this case the United States.

The critical illness of an adult constitutes a crisis for the patient's family. They relinquish primary responsibility for the physical well-being of the patient to health providers, but remain involved, working to get through the situation. What constitutes this "work"? Results of two grounded theory studies revealed that family members were engaged first in the pivotal work of gaining access because of their overarching need to be present with and for their critically ill relative. Other work included patient-related work, nurse/physician-related work, and self-related work. These findings extend our understanding of their experiences beyond current knowledge and paternalistic perceptions of burden, stress and coping, and need recognition and fulfillment. Critical care nurses are exhorted to support family members in their work by removing barriers to patient, staff, and information access and to partnering opportunities.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) was first discovered in China, spread to various countries including Indonesia in March 2020. Until 2021 Covid-19 has not disappeared. This of course has an impact that can harm the country and society. Therefore, the government made a policy of Large-Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB) with the aim of breaking the chain of the spread of Covid-19. One of the impacts felt by the community with its presence is the deactivation of employees carried out by several companies to workers on the grounds that they do not have the money to pay the workers. PT. XYZ has difficulty choosing which employees to deactivate. This research is based on these reasons, so the authors decided to use the Multi Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) method to help make decisions to choose employees who deserve to be deactivated with job prospects, age, length of work per year, education, dependents with an alternative number of 10 (Ten) ) employees. The use of the MAUT method is expected to determine the criteria for employees who deserve to be deactivated, because the MAUT method will perform a ranking process based on attributes with different weights so that the results are more optimal, then a ranking process will be carried out which will determine the optimal alternative as well. The 5 (five) alternatives that deserve to be deactivated are A2 with a result of 0,9303, A8 with a result of 0,5561, A4 with a result of 0,533, A9 with a result of 0,4978, and A1 with a result of 0,4867 is 5 a viable alternative to deactivate during the pandemic

Die CD-ROM "Systemtheorie verstehen" besteht aus 13 druckbaren Haupttexten von jeweils 10-20 Bildschirmfensterseiten (ca. 3-5 A4-Seiten) zu Hauptthemen der Systemtheorie, einem druckbaren Glossar, Interviews mit ausgewählten Vertreterinnen und Vertreten der Systemtheorie (BAUMANN, BAECKER, von FOERSTER, GLANVILLE, CETINA, KOCH, LUHMANN, NASSEHI, SCOTT und SERRES), nicht druckbaren Texten über die ausgewählten Vertreterinnen und Vertreter und einer Auswahl von Internetlinks. Die CD-ROM wird in der hypertextförmig aufgebauten Rezension auf der Grundlage der Theorie der didaktischen Navigation in Bezug auf die operative Logik, die Dramaturgie und die mediale Präsentation beurteilt. Weder die operative Logik noch die die Dramaturgie sind gelungen. Besser überzeugt die Qualität der medialen Präsentation, die den nicht unerheblichen Kaufpreis jedoch nicht rechtfertigt.

"Dieser Beitrag diskutiert eine fundamentale Theoriefrage der soziologischen Disziplin schlechthin: Die in zahlreichen Traditionen manifeste Kluft zwischen Handlungsautonomie und Strukturdetermination wird vor dem Hintergrund des erkenntnistheoretischen Potentials der Akteur-Netzwerk-Theorie (ANT) in den Blick genommen. Um die theoretische Leistungsfähigkeit der ANT reflektieren und beleuchten zu können, konfrontiert dieser Artikel Bruno Latours ANT-Ansatz mit dem Raumkonzept Pierre Bourdieus (1991/ 2005). Dabei sollen neben den bestehenden Differenzen auch mögliche Parallelen und Verbindungslinien zwischen den beiden Modellen ausgelotet werden. Am Ende stehen die Erkenntnis und der Vorschlag, durch eine Kombination, durch ein gegenseitiges Integrieren der beiden Ansätze die theoretische Kluft zwischen selbstbestimmter Handlungspraxis und handlungsdeterminierender Struktur zu verringern" (Autorenreferat)

Over the last decade, scholars have examined simultaneous polydrug use among illicit drug users; however, the co-ingestion of nonmedical prescription drug (NMPD) use and alcohol has been largely overlooked. Also overlooked have been the incorporation and testing of theoretical explanations for this type of substance use behavior. In the current paper, we test social learning theory as an explanation for NMPD use and the co-ingestion of nonmedical prescription drugs and alcohol on a Midwest university sample using a bivariate probit equation model. Support is found for the influence of differential association, social reinforcement, and definitions of use on the co-ingestion of NMPDs and alcohol.

"Der Beitrag argumentiert, dass Pierre Bourdieus Soziologie sich jenseits der Unterscheidung zwischen Struktur- und Handlungstheorien im Spektrum der Alltagstheorien verorten lässt. Gezeigt wird, wie auf sozialtheoretischer Ebene insbesondere das Konzept 'sozialer Felder' dazu dienen kann, die soziale Lebenswelt des Alltags als Ordnungszusammenhang zu verstehen, der durch ein starkes Eigengewicht feldspezifischer Institutionen geprägt ist. Mit Blick auf den gesellschaftstheoretischen Gehalt der Feldtheorie erweist sich das Feld der Hilfe als Testfall, anhand dessen eine Revision der allgemeinen Feldtheorie vorgeschlagen wird: Statt die Autonomie sozialer Felder über den Grad der Professionalisierung zu bestimmen, ist nach dem Beitrag von Laien zur Institutionalisierung der Felder zu fragen. Für die empirische Analyse erweist sich zudem eine Kombination mit Anselm Strauss' Soziologie sozialer Welten als fruchtbar." (Autorenreferat)

AbstractThe core promise of the modern concept of constituent power is to make the people-as-the-governed active participants in the shaping and ruling of political regimes. Its development was related to the consolidation of the modern state. Current circumstances, though, raise the issue of the possibility of a non-state based concept of constituent power, and of appropriate constituencies. The article argues that dominant views have made the people-as-the-governed capacity to act dependent upon state sovereignty, whereas the latter actually was informed by theses antithetical to popular sovereignty. In order to show how a non-state based concept of constituent power may be articulated, the article builds on a critique of Martin Loughlin's attempt to capture the structure of beliefs that frames the idea of the state and the function of constituent power within that structure. The first part of the article focuses on the main elements of such a theory in order to situate its basic assumptions about constituent power. The second discusses the issues raised by such a conception, amongst other things as to the status granted to the structure of beliefs that frames the idea of the modern polity in Loughlin's perspective; this discussion opens the way to an alternative conception of constituent power, one that stresses that the core fact of the political is that people are always already embedded in relations of power that are not restricted to the state, relations in the course of which they strive to achieve their civic freedom. Political power is not necessarily made public until the people-as-the-governed, in challenging the boundaries of the polity, claim it.