Completed egoism and intended altruism boost healthy food choices

Based on the self-licensing literature and goal theory, we expected and found that completed (im)moral actions lead to markedly different food choices (Studies 1 & 2) than intended (im)moral actions (Study 2). In Study 1, people more often chose healthy over unhealthy food options when they recalled a completed egoistic action than when they recalled a completed altruistic action. Study 2 confirmed this finding and furthermore showed that the self-licensing effect in food choices is moderated by the action stage (completed vs. intended) of the moral or immoral action. This article extends the existing self-licensing literature and opens up new perspectives for changing consumers’ food consumption behavior.

Forget about theory - practice is all? - Student teachers' learning in practicum

In 1999, all student teachers at secondary I level at the University of Bern who had to undertake an internship were asked to participate in a study on learning processes during practicum: 150 students and their mentors in three types of practicum participated—introductory practicum (after the first half‐year of studies), intermediate practicum (after two years of studies) and final practicum (after three years of studies). At the end of the practicum, student teachers and mentors completed questionnaires on preparing, teaching and post‐processing lessons. All student teachers, additionally, rated their professional skills and aspects of personality (attitudes towards pupils, self‐assuredness and well‐being) before and after the practicum. Forty‐six student teachers wrote daily semi‐structured diaries about essential learning situations during their practicum. Results indicate that in each practicum students improved significantly in preparing, conducting and post‐processing lessons. The mentors rated these changes as being greater than did the student teachers. From the perspective of the student teachers their general teaching skills also improved, and their attitudes toward pupils became more open. Furthermore, during practicum their self‐esteem and subjective well‐being increased. Diary data confirmed that there are no differences between different levels of practicum in terms of learning outcomes, but give some first insight into different ways of learning during internship.

Innovation, Coordination, and Positioning: Locational Policies of Secondary Capital City Regions

Capital cities that are not the economic centers of their nations - so-called secondary capital cities - tend to be overlooked in the field of political science. Consequentially, there is a lack of research and resulting theory describing their political economy and their formulated policies. This paper analyzes how secondary capital cities try to develop and position themselves through the formulation of locational policies. By linking three different theoretical strands - the Regional Innovation System approach, the concept of locational policies, and the regime perspective - this paper proposes a framework to study the the economic and political dynamics in secondary capital cites.

Applications of random set theory in econometrics

In recent years, the econometrics literature has shown a growing interest in the study of partially identified models, in which the object of economic and statistical interest is a set rather than a point. The characterization of this set and the development of consistent estimators and inference procedures for it with desirable properties are the main goals of partial identification analysis. This review introduces the fundamental tools of the theory of random sets, which brings together elements of topology, convex geometry, and probability theory to develop a coherent mathematical framework to analyze random elements whose realizations are sets. It then elucidates how these tools have been fruitfully applied in econometrics to reach the goals of partial identification analysis.

The Territoriality of Fiscal Solidarity: Comparing Swiss Equalisation with European Union Structural Funding

This article theorises the territorial solidarity and fiscal federalism and compares Switzerland with the European Union. While inter-territorial solidarity is a prerequisite for legitimate fiscal equalisation, such equalisation in turn also contributes to the legitimacy of and solidarity within federal political systems. By cutting across territorial and ethno-national communities, fiscal transfers often contribute to both a “civic” sense of belonging and a “cosmopolitan” identity. After placing types and degrees of (inter-)territorial solidarity at the heart of our conceptual perspective, we discuss the effects of such solidarity through an analysis of two different forms of “federal” equalisation. Comparing the recently reformed Swiss fiscal equalisation system with the EU structural funds allows us to infer if, and how, the fiscal dimension of federalism matters for feelings of solidarity, reciprocity, unity and, ultimately, for the legitimacy of the very (nation-state or Union) structures that are to contribute to the ever-growing prosperity and happiness of their people(s). In Switzerland, a civic understanding of nationhood and cross-cutting cleavages were necessary conditions for extensive, effective and legitimate fiscal equalisation. We infer that, for the EU, this means that strengthening the equalisation component of the structural funds would contribute to an ever closer Union in a political sense: because fiscal equalisation and inter-territorial solidarity are interdependent, reinforcing the one also means cementing the other. Future studies of the EU and federal-type arrangements are advised to pay more explicit attention to the solidarity-element of territoriality – or the territoriality of (fiscal) solidarity.

What drives adult personality development? A comparison of theoretical perspectives and empirical evidence

Increasing numbers of empirical studies provide compelling evidence that personality traits change across the entire lifespan. What initiates this continuing personality development and how does this development proceed? In this paper, we compare six theoretical perspectives that offer testable predictions about why personality develops the way it does and identify limitations and potentials of these perspectives by reviewing how they hold up against the empirical evidence. While all of these perspectives have received some empirical support, there is only little direct evidence for propositions put forward by the five-factor theory of personality and the theory of genotype→environment effects. In contrast, the neo-socioanalytic theory appears to offer a comprehensive framework that fits the empirical findings and allows the integration of other, more specialized, perspectives that focus on specific aspects of personality development like the role of time, systematic differences between categories of social roles or the active partake of the person himself or herself. We draw conclusions on the likely driving factors for adult personality development and identify avenues for future research.

On the similarity of Sturm-Liouville operators with non-Hermitian boundary conditions to self-adjoint and normal operators

We consider one-dimensional Schrödinger-type operators in a bounded interval with non-self-adjoint Robin-type boundary conditions. It is well known that such operators are generically conjugate to normal operators via a similarity transformation. Motivated by recent interests in quasi-Hermitian Hamiltonians in quantum mechanics, we study properties of the transformations and similar operators in detail. In the case of parity and time reversal boundary conditions, we establish closed integral-type formulae for the similarity transformations, derive a non-local self-adjoint operator similar to the Schrödinger operator and also find the associated “charge conjugation” operator, which plays the role of fundamental symmetry in a Krein-space reformulation of the problem.

Electoral and Financial Bookkeeping: A Comparison of Pre-Electoral Pledges on Public Spending and the Outcome of Post-Electoral Budget Debates

In the wake of the financial crisis, budgetary discipline has taken centre stage in politics. More than ever a country's budget mirrors the true policy preferences of the legislative majority beyond all political discourse and cheap talk. The paper sheds light on mandate fulfilment in the field of public spending and fiscal policy in general. Based on previous work on pledge fulfilment in Switzerland the paper compares publicised pre-electoral statements of MPs on public spending and the development of the public finances with their post-electoral legislative behaviour during budget debates and votes. The findings of the paper confirm the results of the aforementioned earlier studies and point to the potential of budgetary statements for future mandate fulfilment research.

Ready for a crisis? How supervisory boards affect the formalized crisis procedures of small and medium-sized family firms in Germany

Overcoming a crisis situation in which the socioemotional wealth (SEW) of a family is at risk can be threatened by a lack of formal crisis procedures, which can increase the probability of organizational decline. Thus, not being prepared for a crisis situation may be a critical factor in the long-term survival of family firms. From a corporate governance perspective, supervisory boards may achieve higher levels of crisis readiness. Applying the resourced-based view and SEW theory, we analyze the relationship between family ownership and formalized crisis procedures in 150 small and medium-sized German firms. Our results show that formalized crisis procedures decrease as family ownership increases. Including supervisory boards in our analysis, we find a significant moderating effect of supervisory boards on the relationship between family ownership and formalized crisis procedures. Specifically, our results suggest that family firms with supervisory boards show similar levels of formalized crisis procedures as non-family firms with supervisory boards. In contrast, family firms without supervisory boards exhibit lower levels of formalized crisis procedures compared with non-family firms without supervisory boards. We also discuss managerial implications, limitations, and future research.

Balancing Control and Coaching in CSO Governance : A Paradox Perspective on Board Behavior

How can governance of civil society organizations be conceptualized more adequately by accounting for the dual and simultaneous requirements of controlling and coaching in board behavior? Empirically, we seem to agree that effective governance of a civil society organization is crucial to its sustained viability. Conceptually, however, we observe a lack of consensus on how to best conceptualize CSO governance. By critically juxtaposing two major theoretical lenses to conceptualize governance, namely agency and stewardship theory, we identify a number of challenges conceptualizing board-management relations that deserve our attention. While agency theory privileges controlling behavior, stewardship theory emphasizes the coaching behavior of boards. The purpose of this paper is to offer a concept of governance that is informed by a paradox perspective advancing a subtler, more adequate conceptualization of board governance that accounts for the often conflicting demands on CSO governance. Drawing on a longitudinal interpretive case study, we exemplify our propositions empirically. The paper concludes with discussing the implications of our argument for CSO governance research and practice.