How to mitigate corruption in emerging markets: The case of Russia

Russian CEOs are arguably the most experienced managers in the world when it comes to working in corrupt environments. For our analysis, we gathered data from the CEOs and owners of 111 local and international companies operating in Russia. We asked them to assess their experiences with informal practices, including the extent to which their businesses are dependent on informal deals and the strategies they deploy to mitigate business corruption. The list of specific practices and strategies assembled in the pilot interviews and media content analysis has been cross-checked with the existing typologies of corruption in post-communist societies and verified through in-depth interviews. This study presents the outcomes of our analysis, one of which is that companies tend to blame officials for corrupt activities while hiding their own internal corruption from public view. Both are dependent on the industry in which they operate, however. The paper also includes the approach we developed to understand the less reprehensible but more widespread forms of corruption such as collusion, conflict of interest, cronyism and nepotism, fraud, gifts and hospitality, lobbying, abuse of power or office, and influence peddlin

An essay on virtue and survival: dead end leadership and the therapeutic alternative

Russian higher education is facing a multitude of pressures from various directions. The entire system headed by the Ministry of Education and Research, strives to integrate into the European higher education space, individual universities are under pressure to maintain quality control, whilst facing budgetary pressures (Volkov, Livanov, Fursenko, 2007). At the same time the demographic situation in the country leads to shrinkage of the student body, whilst university funding follows each individual student (Denisova-Schmidt and Leontyeva, forthcoming). This puts HEIs under pressure to retain the current cohort of students at all costs. Although the pressures may appear similar to those faced in other national contexts by HEIs, the specific adaptations that universities and individual academic undertake, we argue, are quite unique to Russian context and hence, deserve special consideration. This paper will seek to explain how the constellation of pressures leads to formation of institutionally ingrained mechanisms that trap everyone involved in a perpetual limbo of ambivalence, unresolved conflicts and corruption. We question the role of leadership in the current context. How do Russian present realities shape the fundamental goals of leadership? What conceptualisations of leadership are most helpful in this context

Informalität oder Korruption Kritik der quantitativen Korruptionsforschung = Informality or corruption A critique of quantitative corruption research

Die Bekämpfung der Korruption genießt weltweit Aufmerksamkeit. Doch wie misst man Korruption? Viele Sozialwissenschaftler setzen auf quantitative Methoden. Doch diese haben eine Schwäche. Sie sind blind für den jeweiligen sozialen und lokalen Kontext, in dem Menschen informelle Praktiken anwenden. Auch ist nicht jedes informelle Handeln Korruption. Um die Grenzen exakt zu bestimmen sowie Formen und Ursachen von Korruption erfassen zu können, sollte die Korruptionsforschung stärker qualitative Methoden und Ansätze der Ethnographie nutzen

The potential of microvessel density in prediction of infarct growth: A two-month experimental study in vessel size imaging

Objectives: Vessel size imaging is a novel technique to evaluate pathological changes of the microvessel density quantity Q and the mean vessel size index (VSI). As a follow-up study, we assessed these parameters for microscopic description of ischemic penumbra and their potentials in predicting lesion growth. Methods: Seventy-five patients with a perfusion-diffusion mismatch were examined within 24 h from symptom onset. We defined three regions of interest: the initial infarct (INF), the ischemic penumbra (IPE), and the healthy region (HEA) symmetric to the IPE. For 23 patients with a 6th-day follow-up, IPE regions were divided into areas of infarct growth and areas of oligemia. Result: The median values of Q and VSI were: for INF 0.29 s-1/3 and 15.8 µm, for IPE 0.33 s-1/3 and 20.6 µm and for HEA 0.36 s-1/3 and 17.4 µm. The Q in the IPE was significantly smaller than in HEA, and VSI was significantly larger. The Q with a threshold of 0.32 s-1/3 predicted the final infarction with a sensitivity of 69% and a specificity of 64%. Conclusions: The reduced Q and increased VSI in the IPE confirmed our previous pilot results. Although Q showed a trend to identify the severity of ischemia in an overall voxel population, its potential in predicting infarct growth needs to be further tested in a larger cohort including a clear status of reperfusion and recanalization

Portrait of Governor Thomas Bibb

This is a circa 1820 portrait of Governor Thomas Bibb, who was the second governor for the State of Alabama

Publisher Correction to : Background invertebrate herbivory on dwarf birch (Betula glandulosa-nana complex) increases with temperature and precipitation across the tundra biome

The above mentioned article was originally scheduled for publication in the special issue on Ecology of Tundra Arthropods with guest editors Toke T. Høye . Lauren E. Culler. Erroneously, the article was published in Polar Biology, Volume 40, Issue 11, November, 2017. The publisher sincerely apologizes to the guest editors and the authors for the inconvenience caused