Publikationsliste KOPS

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dc.contributor.author: Nazio, Tiziana

Studying the so-called refugee crisis in Germany, this article asks about the effectiveness of crisis management by a large number of local administrations, each acting upon the same crisis impulse of a high number of asylum seekers who entered the country in 2015 and 2016. Instead of theorizing the exact administrative design features fit for an effective crisis response, the focus is on the ability of administrations to adjust. We conceptualize such shifts in administrative practices as informal and temporary (latent) deviations from routine action along two dimensions of organizational behavior typically dominant in private and nonprofit sector organizations, respectively: internal flexibility and citizen participation (hybridity). Novel survey data from 235 out of 401 German district authorities are reported. We test the effects of different forms of latent hybridization on administrative effectiveness using regression modeling. Findings indicate that changes in administrative practices towards more flexible and participatory action had a positive impact on self-reported crisis management effectiveness. The effect of flexible action was especially pronounced in districts that were allocated higher shares of asylum seekers. These findings advance theory on crisis management and bottom-up implementation, highlighting the ability of local agencies to shift practices as a key explanatory factor for effective administrative action in exceptional situations.

Bureaucratic representation theory holds that civil servants are not “neutral” in a Weberian sense. Bureaucrats are thought to “actively” represent their communities by trying to make them better off. This article proposes an alternative understanding of individual behavior in representation that emphasizes knowledge sharing instead of patronage, but leads to similar outcomes: Their societal background provides officials with advanced social knowledge about the group(s) they represent, including both informational knowledge (facts about culture, history, politics) and relational knowledge (how people interact). Bureaucratic knowledge linkage is the process of sharing information and managing relations internally and with citizens. An extreme case serves to illustrate knowledge linkage empirically: Survey data from an international organization yield high levels of knowledge asymmetries within staff bodies and subsequent observation of knowledge linkage mechanisms. In generalizing findings, the risks (knowledge distortions) and benefits (attaining public value) of knowledge linkage are discussed for both international and domestic administrations.

Many educational systems are characterized by segregation between a general and vocational educational track. When adolescents must decide on their postcompulsory education at the end of lower secondary school, the different programs are typically embedded in one of these two main tracks. Prior career choice theories postulate that vocational interests, as structured by the six-dimensional RIASEC model of Holland (1997), play a crucial role in educational and vocational transition processes. However, regarding the question of general versus vocational education, previous studies have mainly focused on the effects of social background. Therefore, this paper examines the impact of vocational interests on the choice of Baccalaureate School (BAC, general track), Vocational Education and Training (VET, vocational track) or the Federal Vocational Baccalaureate (FVB), a hybrid qualification that links elements of both tracks. The sample consists of N = 609 students at the end of lower secondary school in Switzerland. The results of multinomial logistic regression analyses show that all six dimensions of Holland’s interest model are significant predictors for the three postcompulsory tracks, even when controlling for school variables (e.g., grades) and variables of social background. While the realistic and social dimensions are positively interrelated with the choice of VET, the artistic, investigative and enterprising dimensions predict the choice of BAC. The conventional dimension is the only one positively linked to the choice of FVB. The results are discussed with special attention to segregation between more practical and more theoretical types of interests.

Addressing heterogeneity in the classroom by adapting instruction to learners’ needs challenges teachers in their daily work. To provide adaptive instruction in the most flexible way, teachers face the problem of assessing students’ individual characteristics (learning prerequisites and learning needs) and situational states (learning experiences and learning progress) along with the characteristics of the learning environment. To support teachers in gathering and processing such multidimensional diagnostic information in class, we have developed a client–server based software prototype running on mobile devices: the Teachers’ Diagnostic Support System. Following the generic educational design research process, we (1) delineate theoretical implications for system requirements drawn from a literature review, (2) describe the systems’ design and technical development and (3) report the results of a usability study. We broaden our theoretical understanding of heterogeneity within school classes and establish a basis for technological interventions to improve diagnostic accuracy in adaptive instructional strategies.

Most models of word production converge on the assumption that selecting a specific word to name is a competitive process. Monolingual speakers experience lexical competition in their spoken language (i.e., within-language competition), but bilingual speakers who constantly juggle two sets of lexical items face within- and between-language competition. It has been argued that one of the reasons bilingual speakers perform poorly in linguistic tasks compared to monolinguals is the interference from the non-target language. However, this constant juggling of two languages has also been proposed to lead to better executive control abilities in bilinguals. The aim of this research was to determine the relationship between increased lexical competition as induced by semantic context manipulation in the blocked-cyclic picture naming paradigm, and executive control processes in bilingual and monolingual speakers. We implemented the blocked-cyclic picture naming paradigm to induce increased lexical competition and employed independent executive control tasks to understand its role in reducing increased lexical competition. We also computed delta plots – size of interference effects as a function of naming latencies – to investigate the type of inhibition involved in the blocked-cyclic picture naming paradigm. In this paradigm, objects to be named were presented in close succession, either from the same semantic categories (homogeneous: elephant, lion, deer, tiger, and cat) or different ones (heterogeneous: pear, shoes, lips, saw, and deer). Naming latencies are longer in the homogeneous context due to the heightened activation of competitors, and the difference in latencies between the homogeneous and heterogeneous contexts is referred to as semantic context effect. The participants were 25 young, healthy Bengali-English bilinguals and 25 healthy, age-, gender- and education-matched English monolinguals. All participants performed a blocked-cyclic naming task in English as well as three independent executive control tasks, tapping into their inhibitory control (Stroop task), mental-set shifting (colour-shape switch task), and working memory (backward digit span task). The key group differences were as follows: bilinguals showed less semantic context effect and more semantic facilitation on the first presentation cycle, applied more selective inhibition in both blocked-cyclic picture naming and Stroop tasks as measured by delta plots, showed better inhibitory control (Stroop task) and shifting abilities, but showed comparable working memory span. The correlation findings for both groups were as follows: slope of the slowest delta segment correlated with the magnitude of the semantic context effect in the blocked-cyclic naming task, no correlation between the slope and interference effect in the Stroop task, no correlation between slope of the two tasks, and no correlations between the semantic context effect with any of the measures derived from the independent executive control tasks. This is the first study to establish that bilinguals are less affected by semantic context manipulation and show a reduced interference effect for the longest naming latencies, compared to monolinguals. It also illustrates that even in a challenging linguistic task that heightens lexical competition, bilinguals performed better than monolinguals. This challenges the notion that bilinguals are disadvantaged compared to monolinguals in linguistic tasks, and we conclude that this study provides evidence for the advantage of bilingualism in linguistic tasks where executive control demands are higher.

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This paper studies how tax evasion in the self-employment sector affects aggregate outcomes and welfare. We develop a dynamic general equilibrium model with incomplete markets in which heterogeneous agents choose between being a worker or self-employed. Self-employed agents may misreport their business income but face the risk of being detected by the tax authorities. Our model replicates important quantitative features of the U.S. economy in terms of income, wealth, self-employment, and misreporting. Tax evasion alleviates credit constraints and leads to a larger self-employment sector but reduces the average size and productivity of self-employed businesses. Tax evasion generates positive welfare effects for the self-employed at the expense of the workers.

Do male‐biased labour demand shocks affect women's labour market outcomes? To study this question, we examine large oil field discoveries in the southern USA from 1900 to 1940. We find that oil wealth has an overall positive effect on female labour force participation that is driven by single women. While oil discoveries increase demand for male labour and raise male wages, they do not drive women out of the tradable goods sector or the labour force. Our findings suggest that the absence of any crowding out effects of oil wealth can be explained by compensating forces such as demand effects within the tradable sector, or by income effects that lead to growth in the non‐tradable sector.

Despite renewed interest in the role of business in shaping the welfare state, we still know little about how factions of capital adapt their strategies and translate these into political infighting and coalition building. Based on a detailed process tracing analysis of the political battle over German pension funds, this paper shows that cleavages within business do not necessarily run along the lines of finance vs. non-finance. While ‘financial challengers’ (banks and investment companies) advocated financialized pension funds, ‘financial incumbents’ (insurers) defended a conservative understanding of old age provision. Tremendous political momentum towards financialization notwithstanding, challengers remained largely unsuccessful. Incumbents elicited support from the wider business community by adjusting their strategic goals and engaging in discursive reformulations to effectively fight pension financialization from within capital. To accommodate such competition politics and coalition building, the paper argues for a more dynamic understanding of business strategizing and highlights the importance of discursive political strategies. It shows that some capitalists may act as antagonists of elements of financialization and problematizes the actual mechanisms of coalition building through which business plurality affects political outcomes.