Agilität als Chance für einen neuen Anlauf zum demokratischen Unternehmen?

There has been a long-standing discussion since the 1980s about the question whether new production models harbor a potential for extended employee participation and involvement, in most cases with disillusioning results. This paper is concerned with so called “agile methods”, which play an important part in the area of knowledge work in the course of the digital transformation. On the basis of two case studies from software development and industrial R&D, the paper examines the concrete implementation of these methods and the employees’ perspective upon them and their consequences. The result is that agile methods present a potential for extended employee participation and involvement; however, the realization of this potential depends on the concrete way how the agile concept of “empowerment” is implemented.     

Preis der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufsätze

Mitteilungen und Berichte

Preis der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufs?tze     

Zur Charakteristik Italiens als „verspätete Nation“. Helmuth Plessners Idealtypus und die Diagnose der Gegenwartslage eines EU-Gründungsmitglieds

Italy’s current crisis conceals a sociological issue that deserves qualified attention: The plurality of European modernity. Starting from a critical assessment of Shmuel N. Eisenstadt’s concept of multiple modernities the paper deals with the internal differentiation of the classical model of European modernity. Plessner’s concept of “belated nation” allows a survey of different components and speeds of modernisation processes. Applying Plessner’s model to Italy’s current situation presupposes however to work out more precisely its ideal typical structure and sociological foundation. Furthermore, the normative bias of Plessner’s study on Germany has to be put methodologically in parenthesis, so that Plessner’s analytical frame can be used beyond its original context. First, the article elaborates Plessner’s model ideal typically and differentiates between its political-, economical-, religious-, intellectual- and culture-sociological issues. In the second step, the implicit references to the sociological work of Karl Mannheim and Max Weber are reconstructed. In the third step, the paper evaluates the fruitfulness of Plessner’s approach with regard to its application to Italy’s current crisis. Concluding it retraces the limits of Plessner’s analysis and indicates which further inquiries are necessary to develop an ideal typical concept of the plurality within the European modernity.     

Kongress der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (SGS) an der Universität Zürich vom 1. bis 3. Oktober 2003 zum Thema „Triumph und Elend des Neoliberalismus“

Mitteilungen und Berichte

Kongress der Schweizerischen Gesellschaft für Soziologie (SGS) an der Universit?t Zürich vom 1. bis 3. Oktober 2003 zum Thema „Triumph und Elend des Neoliberalismus“     

Das Chinesisch-Deutsche Hochschulkolleg an der Tongji-Universitt als Beispiel für eine erfolgreiche Zusammenarbeit zwischen Deutschland und China im Bildungssektor

Der Verfasser versucht die Errungenschaften des nun seit fast 10 Jahren bestehenden Chinesisch-Deutschen Hochschulkollegs der Tongji-Universitt als Hochschulbildungsanstalt zusammenzufassen und zu analysieren.     

Disziplinäre Rituale – Bericht zum Jubiläumskongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie

Mitteilungen und Berichte

Disziplin?re Rituale – Bericht zum Jubil?umskongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie     

Ost und West, Nord und Süd: Zur räumlichen Verteilung und theoretischen Erklärung der Gewaltkriminalität in Deutschland

The research reported here follows up on the long-standing discussion concerning the regional distribution of violent crime in Germany. It focuses on assault and robbery rates reported by the official German crime statistics for the years 2005–2007 in each of the 413 communal districts (“Kreise”). The discussions commonly contrast the eastern region (till 1990 the territory of the communist ruled “German Democratic Republic”) with the northern and the southern region of the (now) western part of the “Federal Republic of Germany”. It becomes obvious, however, that crime rates vary much more within than between these regions. More than half of the overall variation can be explained by two composite measures of relative deprivation and the level of urbanization. A number of additional variables have been tested for their explanatory power, including a newly constructed measure of disintegrative individualism. It successfully identifies a specific criminogenic potential associated with certain structural elements of a developing “knowledge society” and the rapid expansion of higher education. Apart from ordinary regression analyses various techniques of spatial data analysis have also been applied.     

Preis der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufsätze des Zeitschriftenjahrgangs 1998

Mitteilungen und Berichte

Preis der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufs?tze des Zeitschriftenjahrgangs 1998     

Preis der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufsätze des Zeitschriftenjahrgangs 1999

Mitteilungen und Berichte

     

Preis der Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für sozialwissenschaftliche Aufsätze des Zeitschriftenjahrgangs 2001

Mitteilungen und Berichte

     

31. Kongress der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie vom 7. bis 11. Oktober 2002 an der Universität Leipzig

Mitteilungen und Berichte

     

Die Organisation von Wertzuschreibungen: Zur Bedeutung von Drittparteien für die Signalisierung moralischer Qualitäten in Märkten

Moral qualities of food are usually communicated through labels. Such quality signalling serves to increase the value of a given product. However, the signalled qualities are uncertain and presume a significant degree of trust. The article examines how moral qualities are developed procedurally and analyses the advanced landscape of labelling in Swiss retail trade. It is shown that the construction of moral qualities is based on the involvement of various third parties. These include (1) charitable organizations which are responsible for defining the different quality standards, (2) competing profit-oriented certification organizations which attest conformity with their respective standards, as well as (3) public authorities which accredit the certification organizations and thereby provide them with legitimacy. The article shows that the interplay of third parties conceals the uncertainty of valorized products and reveals that values based on moral quality standards are developed in the valuation processes upstream of the actual market transaction.     

Die Bedeutung institutioneller Regeln für das Handeln an Börsen. Eine soziologische Perspektive auf Aktienrückkäufe in Deutschland

The amendment of the German Stock Companies Act in 1998 regarding the repurchase of shares makes it possible to study the acceptance of a capital market strategy at managerial level as well as its effects on investors. Both are sociologically intertwined with the belief of the agents in the efficiency of share repurchases. In the U.S., this pattern has been observed ever since the prevailing of the “Agency Logic”. Based on the largest data set so far, the paper shows that repurchase programs have also been well established in the German business world in the meantime. Short-term market reactions are significantly positive and imply an informal, yet institutionalized rule of action for investors. However, both trends apply especially in times of negative markets and, generally, not in the long-run—which makes them a “bad signal” for private investors. The results present robust evidence in central aspects against the dominant economic explanation (the “Signalling Theory”) and suggest practical actions for politicians, entrepreneurs and investors.     

„…den Dämon finden, der seines Lebens Fäden hält.“ Theoretische Beiträge zur Funktionslogik von Lebensführung

Mitteilungen und Berichte

     

Auf dem Weg zu einem europäischen Verwaltungsfeld? Zur Soziologie der Bürokratisierung Europas am Beispiel des Gemeinsamen Europäischen Asylsystems

The article deals with the bureaucratization of Europe. Looking beyond the policy and judicial levels, it aims to ascertain whether the European integration process also affects the “street level” of administrative practices. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice and fields is used to transcend the institutionalist bias of previous research and focus more attentively on administrative practices. The analysis looks at the Common European Asylum System to illustrate that bureaucratization unfolds through the interconnection of practices between member states and the establishment of joint administrative procedures. Especially the Dublin Regulation has implemented cross-national administrative routines of record keeping, case management and responsibility sharing. These routines are highly formalized and objectified. They operate on the basis of electronic databases and software programs that standardize work processes and reduce the space of decision-making. The paper concludes with a discussion of the implications of these developments.     

Universitäre Leistungsbewertungen als Bedrohung der akademischen Identität? Ein subjektorientierter Blick auf die Beurteilung und Kontrolle wissenschaftlicher Leistungen im Zeichen von New Public Management

It’s been argued that the implementation of new performance measurement systems in universities profoundly affect university professors’ occupational life. Even though they’re members of a profession whose self-conception is likely to conflict with organizational attempts to evaluate their research and teaching performances, professors are nowadays expected to provide an account of their performance and to adhere to new evaluation criteria. The study examines the presumed tensions based on qualitative interviews conducted with concerned professors. The study, thus, demonstrates the conflicts between new performance management measures and academic identity concepts. Similarly, it shows the limits of new performance management measures as criteria for capturing professorial accomplishments and success. However, as the analyzed material implies, these conflicts and limits are somewhat ambivalent and anything but unidimensional. In fact, a complex and to some extent contradictory picture emerges, given that ambiguous and sometimes positive perceptions of new performance management co-exist with clearly dismissive responses. Hence, performance measurement practices are not per se perceived as a threat to academic identity.     

„Auch in unserer Zeit werden Götter in den Massen geboren“. Emile Durkheims Erklärungsansätze zur Entstehung gesellschaftlicher Ideale in der Moderne

The article focuses on Emile Durkheim’s complex and changing views concerning the evolution of morality and religion under conditions of modernity. While he foresaw a progressive weakening of traditional religions, Durkheim did not believe that modern societies would lose any sense of the sacred. He was convinced that a functioning morality needs a sacred object at its core. In modern times, with the increasing separation of religion and morals, the sacred object of morality is the human person. The article presents and discusses the account given by Durkheim of the emergence of the moral ideal of the person. It shows that Durkheim’s work contains two distinct accounts of this process: according to the course on Professional Ethics and Civic Morals, the modern ideal of the person is to a large extent a product of the state. In later texts, including the Elementary Forms of Religious Life, Durkheim increasingly emphasized the role of society itself: he tried to show, using examples from the French Revolution in particular, how ideals are forged in those particular moments of social excitation he used to call “collective effervescence”.