Suchergebnisse

Though highly visible, top corporate executives are not accessible. Surrounded by gatekeepers, leverage is often needed to gain access, & that done, the researcher is in foreign territory; unless fully prepared, inaccurate or scripted information can result. Personal or professional contacts, personalization of the research, & accommodating the interviewee's schedule can help lower barriers to access. The researcher can maximize the probability of obtaining useful information by: (1) having a clear agenda; (2) clarifying ground rules for the interview; (3) using a semistructured interview format; (4) supplementing the interview with other data; & (5) establishing the opportunity for follow-up access. 29 References. D. Generoli

'Eine Vielzahl spezieller Studien belegt, dass die Persönlichkeit der Befragten einen bedeutsamen Anteil der Varianz von Umfragedaten erklären kann. Bislang ist eine routinemäßige Erfassung der Persönlichkeit in Umfragen jedoch deshalb nicht möglich, weil sie mit sehr unfangreichen Itembatterien gemessen wird. In der vorliegenden Untersuchung wird nun gezeigt, dass die grundlegenden fünf Persönlichkeitsdimensionen mit jeweils nur einem Item hinreichend reliabel und valide erfassbar sind. Die Ergebnisse einer Pilotstudie deuten darauf hin, dass diese Single Items vergleichbare Zusammenhänge mit Outcome-Variablen aus dem Arbeitskontext aufweisen wie herkömmliche Multi- Item-Verfahren. Einschränkende Faktoren, wie die hohe Bearbeitungsdauer und die Anfälligkeit für sozial erwünschtes Antwortverhalten, werden diskutiert.' (Autorenreferat)

Modern political campaigning is becoming increasingly professionalized to the extent that in Australia today the major parties use electoral databases to assist with their campaigns. The electoral databases of the Coalition (Feedback) & the Australian Labor Party (Electrac) store information on the constituents of each House of Representatives seat. The information gathered in the databases, such as the policy preferences & party identification of individual voters, are used by candidates for House seats to tailor correspondence to swinging voters, & to identify potential party supporters. Party organizations aggregate the information in the databases & use it to conduct polls & focus groups of swinging voters, & to tailor policy development & campaign strategies. Electoral databases have the potential to improve the level of communication between elected representatives & their constituents. There are, however, a number of ethical problems associated with their use. While the usefulness of the databases to the major political parties is undeniable, their use underlines the trend in modern campaigning towards targeting swinging voters at the expense of the majority of the electorate. Considerable public resources are devoted to the smooth operation of the databases. They would be much less effective were political parties not exempted from the Privacy Act. The use of personal information collected by members of parliament by political parties should be more closely regulated. Despite the wishes of the major political parties to keep their operation a secret, the advantages & disadvantages of the use of electoral databases should be more widely debated. 33 References. Adapted from the source document.

Article empirically examines the question of the existence and magnitude of economies of scale in the provision of hospital services. A variety of econometric techniques are employed to statistically estimate structural and behavioral cost functions from disaggregated state data. Implications for antitrust policy are discussed.

'Im Gefolge der Anschläge vom 11. September 2001 zeichnen sich neue Gefährdungen von Privatheit in den USA ab. Um diese besser zu begreifen wird der (rechtshistorische) Hintergrund amerikanischer Konzepte von 'Privacy' (Privatheit, Privatsphäre) erläutert. Zu diesem Zweck rekonstruiert der Artikel zunächst Konzepte von Privacy in der amerikanischen Verfassungsrechtsprechung und skizziert die vorhandene amerikanische Privacy-Gesetzgebung. Im Anschluss werden die rechtlichen Entwicklungen nach dem 11. September (vor allem im USA Patriot Act) geschildert und dabei der Themenkomplex der Datenüberwachung und -auswertung herausgegriffen, um die Auswirkungen auf den Schutz der Privatsphäre sowie die Schwierigkeiten, die sich aus der spezifisch amerikanischen rechtlichen Tradition in diesem Bereich ergeben, zu erläutern. Abschließend werden verschiedene Ansätze diskutiert, mit der neuen Qualität von Datenüberwachung in den USA umzugehen und die Möglichkeit eines positiven Rechtes auf Privatheit besprochen.' (Autorenreferat)

In the wake of the attacks of September 11, 2001, new dangers to privacy have emerged in the US. To better understand these, this article explains the legal background of American concepts of "privacy." For this purpose, it first reconstructs concepts of privacy in American constitutional law jurisprudence & outlines existing American privacy legislation. It then describes legal developments since September 11 (especially in the USA PATRIOT Act), focusing on the issues of data surveillance & analysis, in order to illustrate their effects on protection of the private sphere & the difficulties that arise from the specific American legal tradition in this area. Existing or future data mining programs are described, &, finally, the article discusses various ways of approaching the new quality of data surveillance in the US & the possibility of a positive right to privacy. 57 References. Adapted from the source document.

Analysis of data from the 1987/88 National Study of Intercollegiate Athletes are used to examine differences in educational performance between revenue- & nonrevenue-producing athletes at the collegiate level & the extent to which this gap is a function of background attributes & institutional pressures surrounding athletic participation. Given the disproportionate concentration of African Americans in big-money collegiate sports, racial implications of these patterns are also considered. Ordinary least squares & logistic regression techniques reveal disparities among revenue- & nonrevenue-producing athletes in terms of proximate academic difficulties & long-term academic achievement. While these patterns are partially a function of the concentration of poorer & African American students in revenue-generating sports, they are also due to institutional pressures, including time use & level of competitive intensity. Implications for whether collegiate sports provide a straightforward educational opportunity or whether, in fact, contradictory institutional pressures undermine potential academic success are discussed. 4 Tables, 49 References. Adapted from the source document.

This paper discusses the evaluation problem using observational data when the timing of treatment is an outcome of a stochastic process. We show that the duration framework in discrete time provides a fertile ground for effect evaluations. We suggest easy-to-use nonparametric survival function matching estimators. These estimators can be used to estimate the time profile of the treatment. We apply one of the estimators to evaluate the effects of an employment subsidies program. The longer run program effects are positive. The estimated time profile suggests locking-in effects while participating in the program and a big upward jump in the employment hazard upon program completion.

Black mayoral fortunes across America's big cities improved dramatically in the 1990s. There is speculation on how to explain this shift—whether the factors known to affect black mayoral success have seen wholesale changes or whether this shift derived from marginal changes occurring within these known factors. The author examines pooled cross-sectional data. Black mayoral service was positively associated with black composition in the electorate, city size, and white education; black service was negatively associated with southern location. Marginal changes in factors known to affect black mayoral service accounted for big-city black mayoral success in the early 1990s.

"Some economists argue that the neoclassical growth model cannot account for the macroeconomic effects of big fiscal shocks. This paper reassesses this view. We test the theory using data from World War II, which is by far the largest fiscal shock in the history of the United States. We take observed changes in fiscal policy during the war as inputs into a parameterized, dynamic general equilibrium model and compare the values of all variables in the model to the actual values of these variables in the data. Our main finding is that the theory quantitatively accounts for macroeconomic activity during this big fiscal shock"--Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis web site

The debate on nanotechnology within the Dutch community is of recent time, the last two years seeing it take off slowly but steadily. In this complex arena the Rathenau Institute has played a central role, collecting data, collating thinking, building up arguments, and organising interactive activities such as workshops, focus groups, meetings and newsletters. These all led to the first major public meeting on nanotechnology entitled "Small technology - Big consequences" held on 13 October 2004, and organised in collaboration with the parliamentary Theme Commission on Technology Policy. Nanotechnology in the Netherlands is receiving political attention. This article reviews various activities of the Rathenau Institute in the field of nanotechnology and highlights their results. It also seeks to give the reader insight into the (inter)national context in which the question of nanotechnology is being debated and the factors influencing current views on the subject.