Narratives and Performance - The Case of Stock-broking

The performance of individual stockbrokers differs. This paper aims at explaining these differences, or at least at making some sense of them. In a study of fourteen stockbrokers, the high performing brokers described their working life in a systematically different way, compared to the low performing brokers. The high and low performing brokers gave fundamentally different accounts of what, from an outsider’s viewpoint, seemed to be very similar work and working conditions. The brokers’ different accounts are interpreted and reconstructed into two opposing narratives of stockbrokers’ world of working. In an ideal typical sense these two narratives explain, or at least make sense of, the stockbrokers’ different levels of performance.narratives; performance; stock-broking; phenomenography; competence; work; interaction; alienation

Boundaryless Management - Creating, transforming and using knowledge in inter-organizational collaboration. A literature review

Current literature on organizations often argues that firms are becoming increasingly dependent on knowledge residing outside their own boundaries requiring organizations to increase their entrepreneurial abilities and make their boundaries more flexible and permeable. This paper reviews the literature on what might be called interorganizational knowledge work. Implied in this focus is an assumption of clear organizaitonal boundaries. Rather than taking these boundaries and their importance for granted, the current review, however, aims at relativizing these boundaries. By focusing the empirical phenomenon of collaboration between individuals in different organizations, four different streams of literature with different constructions of the organizational boundary and its importance were identified: the literature on learning in alliances and joint ventures, the literature on collaboration in industrial networks, the literature on social networks and communities of practice and finally the literature on geographical clusters and innovation systems. The above four streams of the literature are reviewed with a special focus on the following three questions: 1. What is the role of (organizational) boundaries in interorganizational knowledge work? 2. What do we know about how these boundaries can be overcome? 3. What are the implications for managing interorganizational knowledge work spelled out in the literature?Interorganizational collaboration; Knowledge Management; Literature review

A Black Phase Female in the Historical Breeding Range of Canadian Swallowtails (Lepidoptera: Papilionidae)

A black phase female, collected in 2000 in Isabella Co., MI, in the historical range of Papilio canadensis Rothschild and Jordan, could be a result of recent introgression by P. glaucus L. If so, black females may become widespread, though infrequent, in the northern Lower Peninsula

Is the political business cycle for real?

This paper's macroeconomic model combines features from both real and political business cycle models. It augments a standard real business cycle tax model by allowing for varying levels of government partisanship and competence in order to replicate two important empirical regularities: First, that on average the economy expands early under Democratic presidents and contracts early under Republican presidents. Second, that presidents whose parties successfully retain the presidency have stronger-than-average growth in the second half of their terms. The model generates both of these features in conformity with U.S. post-World War II data.Business cycles

Is the Political Business Cycle for Real?

This paper constructs and examines a macroeconomic model which combines features from both real and political business cycle models. We augment a standard real business cycle tax model by allowing for varying levels of government partisanship and competence in order to replicate two important empirical regularities: First, that on average the economy expands early under Democratic Presidents and contracts early under Republican Presidents. Second, that Presidents whose parties successfully retain the presidency have stronger than average growth in the second half of their terms. The model generates both of these features that conform to U.S. Post World War II data.Political business cycle

The commodity-consumer price connection: fact or fable?

The recent surge in commodity prices has rekindled interest in their power to predict consumer price inflation. But is this interest warranted? In examining the empirical relationship between commodity prices and consumer price inflation, this article finds that commodities' reputation as useful leading indicators of inflation is actually based more on fable than fact. Testing eight commonly used indexes, the authors conclude that although commodities had some predictive power in the past, the commodity-consumer price connection has broken down in the more recent period. They argue that this shift primarily reflects the diminished role of traditional commodities in U.S. production and the "sterilization" of some inflation signals by offsetting monetary policy actions.Prices ; Consumer price indexes ; Inflation (Finance)

The expression of non-actual motion in Swedish, French and Thai

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.Dynamic descriptions of static spatial situations, such as the road goes through the forest have attracted a lot of attention across different semantic theories. Analyses in terms of fictive motion and subjective motion have proposed that such expressions are strongly motivated by universal cognitive and conceptual factors. I present theoretical arguments for the conflation of several different motivations in the literature. Instead of a single general motivation, three distinct experiential motivations are presented under the term non-actual motion. These experiential motivations are used to design an elicitation tool for investigating non-actual motion cross-linguistically. Elicited descriptions from speakers of Swedish, French and Thai suggest that such descriptions are conventionalized in all three languages, which supports the universal character of non-actual motion across languages. However, in expressing non-actual motion, the language-specific resources for expressing actual motion are used

Identity control of dogs and cats

Permanent identitetsmärkning måste utföras på hundar, men är ej obligatorisk på katter. Hundars ägare måste dessutom enligt lag registreras hos Jordbruksverket, men många väljer att också registrera ägarskapet i andra register, vilket ökar möjligheterna för att en bortsprungen hund ska kunna återförenas med sin ägare. Detta arbete beskriver hur märkning med mikrochip och tångmärkning går till. Mikrochipmärkning får göras av den som genomgått en särskild utbildning, men tångmärkning måste göras av djursjukvårdspersonal. Vidare nämns också de största registren för hund och katt i Sverige. Mikrochipmärkning är säkert och pålitligt även fast det finns vissa sällsynta komplikationer. Den allra vanligaste komplikationen är att mikrochippet migrerar. För resa utomlands krävs ett sällskapsdjurspass, utöver märkningen. Arbetet beskriver också vad som kan göras om en hund eller katt upphittas. Resultaten från en mindre enkätundersökning angående hundar och katter ID-märkning presenteras också. 100 % av hundarna och 75 % av katterna var märkta

Yrittäjyyskasvatus : case: Luksia

Opinnäytetyön tavoite on kuvata Länsi-Uudenmaan koulutuskuntayhtymä Luksian yrittäjyysopintojen Yritystoiminnan suunnittelu -verkkokurssin suunnittelua. Työ korostaa yrittäjyyskasvatuksen ja opiskelijayrittäjyyden tukemisen tärkeyttä. Liiketalouden opintoihin kuuluu kaikki yrittäjyyteen tarvittava, joten yrittäjyyteen tulisi kannustaa myös liiketoiminnan perustamisen mahdollistavalla kurssilla. Työn tietoperusta pohjautuu sekä opetusalan ammattilaisten ja yrittäjien näkökulmiin, että opiskelijoiden antamiin kyselyvastauksiin. Opiskelijoilla teetetty kysely on laadullinen tutkimus. Kurssia kuvaava materiaali on opinnäytetyön tekijän keräämää dataa kurssin suunnittelutiimin tapaamisista ja jakamasta sisällöstä. Osa kyselyyn vastanneista liiketalouden opiskelijoista eivät ole kiinnostuneita yrittäjyydestä, mutta kokivat yrittäjyysopinnot yleissivistävästi hyödyllisiksi. Yli puolet olivat sitä mieltä, että yrittäjyys on nykypäivänä varteenotettava vaihtoehto työllistymiselle ja yrittäjyysopinnot ovat hyödyllisiä, mielenkiintoisia ja niitä tulisi olla tarjolla kaikille aloille toisen asteen koulutuksessa. Tulos on yrittäjyysaiheinen verkkokurssi Luksian kaikkien alojen opiskelijoille. Kurssilla opetettavat aiheet ovat jaettu niistä vastaavien opettajien kesken. Nämä aiheet ovat yrityksen perustamiseen tarvittavia taitoja, kuten talouden hallintaa, johtamista, markkinointia ja yrityksen perustamista konkreettisesti. Jatkotutkimusehdotus tälle opinnäytetyölle on toteutuneen yrittäjyyskurssin toiminnan ja tuloksien tutkiminen. Kurssia kehittää kehitysehdotuksen pohjalta ja opetusta lisätä.The objective of this functional thesis was to describe the planning of an online course called “Planning a business”. It takes place in Luksia, Western Uusimaa Municipal Training and Education Consortium. The thesis emphasizes the importance of supporting entrepreneurship education and student entrepreneurship. Business studies include everything needed for entrepreneurship, so students should be encouraged to entrepreneurship by a course that enables business creation. The theoretical part of the thesis is based on the perspectives of education professionals and entrepreneurs, as well as responses provided by the students in a qualitative survey. The author of the thesis also has experience in the entrepreneurship education in Luksia. The material describing the course is the data collected by the author of the thesis during the course planning team's meetings and shared information. Some of the business students who responded to the survey were not interested in entrepreneurship, but felt that entrepreneurship studies are useful in general. More than a half believed that entrepreneurship is a viable option toward employment, and entrepreneurship studies are useful, interesting and should be available to all sectors of secondary education. The result is an entrepreneurial online course for students in all fields in Luksia. The subjects taught in the course are allocated to the respective teachers. These topics are the skills needed to set up a business, such as financial management, management, marketing and the establishment of a company in concrete terms. A further research proposal is to study the activities and results of the entrepreneurship course in order to develop the course