Entrepreneurship among Nonprofit Arts Organizations: Substituting between Wage and Flexible Labor

Nonprofit entrepreneurship is largely viewed through the lens of commercialization, overshadowing other ways that entrepreneurship manifests within the sector. One such way involves nonprofits' tendency to meet workforce needs by substituting flexible for wage labor, which may be especially attractive to arts organizations given the proclivity of workers in this sector to be self-employed. The authors examine the use of flexible versus wage labor by nonprofit arts organizations, relying on panel data to account for changes in organizational size over time. The results provide evidence of a substitution effect, in which the use of wage labor by arts organizations declines in response to greater reliance on flexible labor. The findings suggest that nonprofit arts organizations are innovative employers, responding to changes in their resource environments by adjusting their mix of wage and flexible labor while also providing outlets for freelance arts workers to pursue their chosen line of work.     

The 1999 Berlin land election

The Berlin election of 1999 resulted in the continuation of the city's Grand Coalition with the veteran CDU leader, Eberhard Diepgen, at the helm, and confirmed the PDS as the strongest party in East Berlin. This article examines the election campaign in Berlin and considers the key factors which determined the outcome. It also considers whether or not the ‘wall in the ballot box’, a political manifestation of the infamous ‘wall in the mind’, still exists over nine years after German reunification. The author argues that the unique history, demography and social make‐up of Berlin, coupled with the prevailing political mood throughout the Federal Republic, made another grand coalition inevitable. She demonstrates that, judging by voting behaviour, ‘inner unity’ remains elusive in Germany's new capital.     

Berlin‐Brandenburg? Nein danke! The Referendum on the Proposed Länderfusion

On 5 May 1996, a narrow majority of voters in Berlin voted in favour of a merger between Berlin and Brandenburg, while a decisive majority in Brandenburg voted against, causing the initiative to fail. In this article the principal arguments put forward by the leading advocates and opponents of the merger are examined. Then the results in East and West Berlin and Brandenburg are analysed in turn in an attempt to identify the primary factors which appear to have determined voting. What emerges is that subjective factors played a greater role than the objective arguments of politicians, producing a result which suggests that deep divisions continue to exist in Germany today.     

Catastrophizing Mediates the Relationship Between the Personal Belief in a Just World and Pain Outcomes Among Chronic Pain Support Group Attendees

Health-related research suggests the belief in a just world can act as a personal resource that protects against the adverse effects of pain and illness. However, currently, little is known about how this belief, particularly in relation to one’s own life, might influence pain. Consistent with the suggestions of previous research, the present study undertook a secondary data analysis to investigate pain catastrophizing as a mediator of the relationship between the personal just world belief and chronic pain outcomes in a sample of chronic pain support group attendees. Partially supporting the hypotheses, catastrophizing was negatively correlated with the personal just world belief and mediated the relationship between this belief and pain and disability, but not distress. Suggestions for future research and intervention development are made.     

After the Ivory Tower: Gender,Commodification and the ‘Academic’

This piece uses a feminist approach to explore various aspects of ‘commodification’ in the lives and work of those teaching and researching in UK universities, and in particular its gender dimensions. After setting a historical context for the radical transformation of UK universities during the 1980s, it considers how this transformation was experienced by academics in terms of alienation, anxiety and accountability. Key features of that experience are loss of autonomy and control to the external power of competition and managerialism, insecurity and casualization in employment, and exposure to increasing judgemental scrutiny. For women academics job insecurity and discrimination continue to be disproportionately important, although some of the challenges to old established academic convention and practice have opened up real possibilities to progress more pro-women agendas. In the future they will confront quite depressing developments in the reconstruction of academic identities and labour, but have the legacy of the gains/insights of feminist analysis and politics over the last twenty years with which to do so.