Der Aufstieg der Beratung zur transnationalen Regierungsform im Feld des Managements

In the twentieth century management consulting has become a transnational form of governing the firm. Seeking advice from consultancy is part of everyday corporate governance, having worked for a consultancy is a guarantee for sought after skills in once career and management concepts developed in consulting contexts are accepted as genuine management knowledge even in academic terms. This development is the outcome of a process of professionalizing management and management consulting, at the heart of which stands a discursive redefining of the firm and its governance. The discursive change of the field of management coincides with the transnationalization of the political field, a development that opens up a whole new bunch of possibilities for professional service firms such as management consultancies to engage in professionalization projects. As a result management consultancies have become decisive agents and a power of consecration in an increasingly autonomous field of management. The research is conducted by using an analytical framework that draws on Bourdieu’s heuristics on practice fields and his studies on the field of power as well as on Foucault’s concept of governmentality.     

Free choice of legal fee shifting rules?

In every country in the world parties to private litigation are subject to a predetermined fee shifting regime. While there are no institutionalized opt-out provisions so far, we demonstrate that such provisions could improve welfare. We argue that private negotiations are not a viable alternative to such opt-out provisions. We derive the conditions under which welfare improvements occur and suggest an applicable design for such an opt-out scheme.     

Severance payments for dismissed employees in Germany

This contribution investigates severance payments for dismissed employees in Germany. Particularly, it responds to two questions: “Who receives severance payments?” and “By which characteristics is the level of severance payments determined?”. Individual and collective dismissals are analyzed separately. This is the first study on this issue using individual representative data—the German Socio-Economic Panel—and multivariate methods. The results indicate that rather women, persons with many years of tenure and working in large firms receive severance payments. There is a huge variance in the size of the payments. The most important determinants are the previous wage, tenure and age.     

REACH revisited—Der Verordnungsvorschlag zur Reform des Chemikalienrechts als Beispiel einer neuen europäischen Vorsorgestrategie

Die europäisch motivierte Reform des Chemikalienrechts hat in den Medien zunächst für einige Aufmerksamkeit gesorgt; in der Folgezeit wurde es jedoch immer stiller um dieses weitreichende—und daher mit erheblichen Konsequenzen für die gesamte Industrie verbundene—Reformprojekt. Der Beitrag befasst sich mit dem im Anschluss an das vieldiskutierte Weißbuch1 erlassenen Verordnungsvorschlag (VV) der Kommission2. Dieser Vorschlag, dem—trotz Kritik im Einzelnen—konzeptionell große Durchsetzungschancen eingeräumt werden, unterwirft das Chemikalienrecht einer neuen Vorsorgestrategie, die eine teilweise Beweislastumkehr vorsieht. * Christian Calliess ist Inhaber des Lehrstuhls für Öffentliches Recht und Europarecht an der Universität Göttingen sowie Direktor des dortigen Instituts für Völkerrecht und des Instituts für Landwirtschaftsrecht; Martina Lais ist Doktorandin und Wiss. Mitarbeiterin am Lehrstuhl.