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Consciousness for fair consumption : conceptualization, scale development and empirical validation
(2013)
Sustainable consumption means that consumers act in an environmentally and socially responsible manner. Compared with the vast amount of studies concerning environmentally conscious consumer behaviour, relatively little is known about socially conscious consumption. The present paper focuses on fair consumption as an important aspect of social consumption. In our study, consciousness for fair consumption (CFC) is defined as a latent disposition of consumers to prefer products that are produced and traded in compliance with fair labour and business practices. A scale to measure CFC was conceptualized and tested in three independent empirical studies. Two studies were conducted at European universities (2010 and 2012) and used 352 and 362 undergraduate business students respectively. The third study, conducted in 2011, used 141 employees at a European university. The results confirmed the reliability and validity of the new CFC scale across samples. While being moderately related to other aspects of sustainable consumption such as ecological concern and moral reasoning, CFC was significantly distinct from those concepts. Most importantly, it was established that the CFC, as measured by the new CFC scale, is a strong determinant of consumption of fair trade products that has been neglected in existing research.
The “triple bottom line” concept (planet, people, and profit) represents an important guideline for the sustainable, hence future-oriented, development of societies and for the behaviors of all societal members. For institutions promoting societal change, as well as for companies being confronted with growing expectations regarding compelling contributions to sustainable changes, it is of great importance to know if, and to what extent, consumers have already internalized the idea of sustainability. Against the background of existing research gaps regarding a comprehensive measurement of the consciousness for sustainable consumption (CSC), the authors present the result of a scale development. Consciousness was operationalized by weighting personal beliefs with the importance attached by consumers to sustainability dimensions. Four separate tests of the CSC scale indicated an appropriate psychometric quality of the scale and provided support for this new measurement approach that incorporates the environmental, social and economic dimensions of sustainability.
Purpose
This chapter is aimed at contributing to the question of how institutional reforms affect multi-level governance (MLG) capacities and thus the performance of public task fulfillment with a particular focus on the local level of government in England, France, and Germany.
Methodology/approach
Drawing on concepts of institutional evaluation, we analytically distinguish six dimensions of impact assessment: vertical coordination; horizontal coordination; efficiency/savings; effectiveness/quality; political accountability/democratic control; equity of service standards. Methodologically, we rely on document analysis and expert judgments that could be gleaned from case studies in the three countries and a comprehensive evaluation of the available secondary data in the respective national and local contexts.
Findings
Institutional reforms in the intergovernmental setting have exerted a significant influence on task fulfillment and the performance of service delivery. Irrespective of whether MLG practice corresponds to type I or type II, task devolution (decentralization/de-concentration) furthers the interlocal variation and makes the equity of service delivery shrink. There is a general tendency of improved horizontal/MLG type I coordination capacities, especially after political decentralization, less in the case of administrative decentralization. However, decentralization often entails considerable additional costs which sometimes overload local governments.
Research implications
The distinction between multi-purpose territorial organization/MLG I and single-purpose functional organization/MLG II provides a suitable analytical frame for institutional evaluation and impact assessment of reforms in the intergovernmental setting. Furthermore, comparative research into the relationship between MLG and institutional reforms is needed to reveal the explanatory power of intervening factors, such as the local budgetary and staff situation, local policy preferences, and political interests in conjunction with the salience of the transferred tasks.
Practical implications
The findings provide evidence on the causal relationship between specific types of (vertical) institutional reforms, performance, and task-related characteristics. Policy-makers and government actors may use this information when drafting institutional reform programs and determining the allocation of public tasks in the intergovernmental setting.
Social implications
In general, the euphoric expectations placed upon decentralization strategies in modern societies cannot straightforwardly be justified. Our findings show that any type of task transfer to lower levels of government exacerbates existing disparities or creates new ones. However, the integration of tasks within multi-functional, politically accountable local governments may help to improve MLG type I coordination in favor of local communities and territorially based societal actors, while the opposite may be said with regard to de-concentration and the strengthening of MLG type II coordination.
Originality/value
The chapter addresses a missing linkage in the existing MLG literature which has hitherto predominantly been focused on the political decision-making and on the implementation of reforms in the intergovernmental settings of European countries, whereas the impact of such reforms and of their consequences for MLG has remained largely ignored.
This article introduces the concept of sustainability-rooted anticonsumption (SRAC), which refers to consumers' anticonsumption practices of voluntary simplicity in living and, on a smaller level, collaborative consumption and boycotting with the goal of supporting sustainable economic development. The SRAC measurement approach is validated based on three empirical studies. Results of a representative German sample (Study 2) reveal that SRAC is predominantly negatively linked to consumer overconsumption dispositions. Exemplary, voluntary simplification and boycott intention may result in declining levels of indebtedness. Study 3 shows that psychosocial well-being is positively related to SRAC and overconsumption. However, a simplified lifestyle and a greater willingness to boycott are not necessarily associated with psychosocial well-being. This article provides insights for practitioners and policymakers to leverage existing SRAC values via “new” business models (sharing offers) or to influence the existing level of consciousness to effectively pave the way for solid progress in the sustainability movement.
Balancing the Moods
(2018)
Quality management (QM) has spread around the world and reached higher education in Europe in the early 1990s (Mendel, 2006, 137; Kernegger and Vettori, 2013, 1). However, researchers were rather more interested in national quality assurance policies (macro-level) and accreditation systems (meso-level) than in intra-organizational perspectives about the day-to-day implementation of quality assurance policies by various actors (micro-level). Undoubtedly, organizational change is a challenging endeavor for all kinds of groups. On the one hand, it provides the opportunity of further development and innovation, but on the other hand, it exposes organizations and actors to the risk of losing established structures and accepted routines.
Like in many other organizations, actors may not necessarily perceive change as a promoter of innovation and development. Instead, they may consider change as a threat to the existing status quo or, as March points out, as an “interplay between rationality and foolishness” (March, 1981, 563). Consequently, change provokes either affective or behavioral actions (Armenakis and Bedeian, 1999, 308–310), such as, for example, resistance. Anderson (2006, 2008) and Lucas (2014) have shown, for example, that academic resistance is an important issue. However, Piderit characterizes resistance as a multidimensional construct (Piderit, 2000, 786–787) subject to a wide variety of issues related to quality and QM. Although QM has been described as a “fashion” (Stensaker, 2007, 101) in the higher education sector that provokes many different reactions, its implementation in higher education institutions (HEIs) is still a rather unexplored field. Thus, the evidence provided by Anderson (2006, 2008) and others (Newton, 2000, 2002; McInnis et al., 1995; Fredman and Doughney, 2012; Lucas, 2014; etc.) needs to be expanded, because they only consider the perspective of academia. In particular, the view of other actors during the implementation of quality assurance policies is a missing piece in this empirical puzzle. Nearly nothing is known about how quality managers deal with reactions to organizational change like resistance and obstruction. Until now, only a few studies have focused on intra-organizational dynamics (see, for example: Csizmadia et al., 2008; Lipnicka, 2016).
Besides the lack of research on the implementation of quality assurance policies in HEIs, quality managers seem to be an interesting subject for further investigations because they are “endogenous” to institutional processes. On the one hand, quality managers are the result of quality assurance policies, and on the other hand, they influence the implementation of quality assurance policies, which affect other actors (like academics, administrative staff, etc.). Here, quality managers, as members of an emerging higher education profession, are involved in various conflict lines between QM, HEI management and departments, which need further research (Seyfried and Pohlenz, 2018, 9).
Therefore, the aim of our paper is twofold: firstly, to answer the question of how quality managers perceive resistance, and secondly, which measures they take in situations of perceived resistance. We offer a new research perspective and argue that resistance is not merely provoked by organizational change; it also provokes counter-reactions by actors who are confronted with resistance. Thus, resistance seems to be rather endogenous.
To theorize our argument, we apply parts of the work of Christine Oliver (1991), which provides theoretical insights into strategic responses to institutional processes, ranging from acquiescence to manipulation (Oliver, 1991, 152). We, therefore, investigate the introduction of QM in teaching and learning, and the emergence of quality managers as higher education professionals as one of the results of quality assurance policies. Consequently, the introduction of QM may be considered as an institutional process provoking reactions and counter-reactions of various organizational units within HEIs. These circumstances are constitutive for how quality managers deal with resistance and other reactions toward organizational change. We use this theoretical framework to analyze the German higher education sector, because this particular case can be considered as a latecomer in New Public Management reforms (Schimank, 2005, 369) and Germany is a country where academic self-governance plays a very important role, and strongly influences academics’ behavior when it comes to organizational change (Wolter, 2004).
Our empirical results are based on a mixed-methods research design and integrate half-structured interviews and a nationwide survey at the central level in German HEIs, which excludes faculty members of QM (decentral level). They reveal that quality managers take different types of action when resistance occurs during the implementation of quality assurance policies. Furthermore, quality managers mainly react with different tactics. These tactics seem to be relevant for convincing academics and for the enhancement of their commitment to improve the quality of teaching and learning, instead of provoking further resistance or avoidance practices.
This article proceeds as follows: the next sections describe the context and explain our main theoretical concepts referring to the work of Oliver (1991) and others. After that, we present our case selection and the methodological framework, including the data sources and the operationalization of selected variables. Finally, we provide our empirical results about quality managers’ perceptions on resistance and we draw conclusions.
Although the low-wage employment sector has enlarged over the past 20 years in the context of pronounced flexibility in restructured labor markets, gender differences in low-wage employment have declined in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In this article, the authors examine reasons for declining gender inequalities, and most notably concentrate on explanations for the closing gender gap in low-wage employment risks. In addition, they identify differences and similarities among the German-speaking countries. Based on regression techniques and decomposition analyses (1996-2016), the authors find significantly decreasing labor market risks for the female workforce. Detailed analysis reveals that (1) the concrete positioning in the labor market shows greater importance in explaining declining gender differences compared to personal characteristics. (2) The changed composition of the labor markets has prevented the low-wage sector from increasing even more in general and works in favor of the female workforce and their low-wage employment risks in particular.
Labour market entry poses enormous challenges for recently arrived refugees, ranging from language barriers, devaluation of human capital, unfamiliarity with customs of the job search process to outright discrimination. How can refugees overcome these challenges and quickly enter gainful employment? In this paper, we draw on interviews with 26 male and female refugees from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran, conducted in 2017 and 2018, who came to Austria in 2015 and 2014 and who have successfully entered employment. We depict refugees’ own perspectives on and strategies for fast job entry and integration. Personal agency and a proactive approach of seeking and seizing opportunities are key for overcoming initial barriers and entering upon positive integration pathways. At the same time, refugees’ personal agency is essential for establishing social ties to the host society, which also play a crucial role in early labour market integration. Finally, institutions of the Austrian labour market (the ‘apprenticeship’-system) interact with refugees’ agency in most intricate ways, both setting up nearly insurmountable barriers but also providing specific opportunities for refugees.
The social stratification systems of major cities are transforming all around the globe. International research has been discussing this trend and focus on changing occupational classes. However, the precise effects on urban households, taking social welfare and different family arrangements into account, as well as the precise effects on people with a migration background, remain unclear. Using the example of Vienna, this article examines immigration as a key dimension for social stratification. Although household income structures in Austria have remained comparatively stable over the past two decades, the middle-income share in Vienna (as the sole metropolis in Austria) has dramatically decreased. This predominantly affects people from migrant backgrounds. Using a comprehensive dataset (two waves, N = 16,700 participants, including N = 4,500 migrants), we systematically examine the role of (a) migration-specific and (b) education- and employment-related factors to explain the decline of middle-income migrants. The results of multinomial logistic regression and decomposition analyses suggest that transformations in the labour market is the main driving force. Changing migrant characteristics have counteracted this process. If today's migrants displayed similar showed characteristics (e.g., origin and educational levels) to those prevalent in the past decade, the ethnic stratification disparities would have been even stronger.
The growing global demand for meat is being thwarted by shrinking agricultural areas, and opposes efforts to mitigate methane emissions and to improve public health. Cultured meat could contribute to solve these problems, but will such meat be marketable, competitive, and accepted? Using the Delphi method, this study explored the potential development of cultured meat by 2027. Despite the acknowledged urgency to develop sustainable meat alternatives, participants doubt that challenges regarding mass production, production costs, and consumer acceptance will be overcome by 2027. Considering the noticeable impacts of global warming, further research and development as well as a change in consumer perceptions is inevitable.
This paper seeks to address the relationship between social capital and perceived social origin in contemporary Austria. While the concept of social capital has been widely adopted in social sciences, so far research on the (pre)structured shape of social capital by social origin is scarce. Our aim is to close this gap. Therefore, we use the network-as-capital approach by following the “position generator” and apply latent class analysis (LCA) and path modelling on the basis of the 2018 Austrian Social Survey. The dataset comprises a representative sample of the Austrian residential population aged 18 and older. Our findings show that the diversity of social capital, and access to networks of people in more highly ranked positions is strongly influenced by one’s social background. The higher respondents assess their social origin, the greater the probability of being in this type of network. Furthermore, education and occupation have effects on membership in a class-specific network.
The gendered division of occupations is a persistent characteristic of the Austrian labour market. Furthermore, we can observe more flexible employment biographies, where sequential employment episodes and occupational transitions become an important part. On this account, the article argues that both gender inequalities and labour market movements need to be examined simultaneously. The authors therefore analyse gender-(un)typed horizontal occupational transitions and their influence on the vertical positioning, based on the Austrian Micro Census (2008–2018). The results reveal that gender-typed occupational transitions are regaining relevance and that the gender effect is reversing in that women increasingly leave gender-untyped occupations. The findings also demonstrate that this gender-typed horizontal movement yields a significant decline in occupational status for women, which even increases when women become mothers. Based on their models the authors find no negative effects for fathers.
It is a relatively new phenomenon in the context of urban development in Buenos Aires that citizens from the middle class have been increasingly claiming empowerment in local decision making. In this paper, we analyze the spatial-political outcome of protests against high-rise construction and demolitions of the urban heritage in Buenos Aires. Based on a frame analysis, the results of the paper show that the citizens’ initiatives under study have been able to incorporate several key issues into the agenda of the public debate: the relevance of the urban heritage, the negative effects of market-oriented municipal politics, and deficient citizen participation. Moreover, the controversies surrounding high-rise constructions in the 2000s and early 2010s disclose a clear degree of politicization. A permanent struggle for primacy in municipal policy models has been sparked, in which victory and defeat alternate, and attention is drawn to more fundamental societal issues beyond urban development
Justice as relationality
(2020)
By introducing a notion of socio-ecological justice, this article aims to deepen the relationship between environment and justice, which has already been firmly established by environmental justice movements and scholarship. Based on extensive fieldwork on local community struggles against small-scale run-of river hydropower plants in Turkey, it expands the justice frame of environmental justice scholarship by going beyond the established conceptions of environmental justice as distribution - of environmental hazards and benefits, recognition and representation. Drawing on ethnographical fieldwork conducted in the East Black Sea region of Turkey, the article introduces the notion of socio-ecological justice to translate the relationality of the social and the ecological, of human life and non-human world, to the vocabulary of justice. It aims to extend the strictly humanist borders of social justice by maintaining that our intrinsic and intimate relations with the non-human world are an essential part of our well-being, and central to our needs to pursue a fair, decent life. It also seeks to contribute to the broader debate to facilitate a 'progressive composition' o f a common, more-than-human world.
This paper seeks to address the relationship between social capital and perceived social origin in contemporary Austria. While the concept of social capital has been widely adopted in social sciences, so far research on the (pre)structured shape of social capital by social origin is scarce. Our aim is to close this gap. Therefore, we use the network-as-capital approach by following the “position generator” and apply latent class analysis (LCA) and path modelling on the basis of the 2018 Austrian Social Survey. The dataset comprises a representative sample of the Austrian residential population aged 18 and older. Our findings show that the diversity of social capital, and access to networks of people in more highly ranked positions is strongly influenced by one’s social background. The higher respondents assess their social origin, the greater the probability of being in this type of network. Furthermore, education and occupation have effects on membership in a class-specific network.
Strength of weakness
(2020)
The paper investigates quality management in teaching and learning in higher education institutions from a principal-agent perspective. Based on data gained from semi-structured interviews and from a nation-wide survey with quality managers of German higher education institutions, the study shows how quality managers position themselves in relation to their perception of the interests of other actors in higher education institutions. The paper describes the various interests and discusses the main implications of this constellation of actors. It argues that quality managers, although they may be considered as rather weak actors within the higher education institution, may be characterised as having a strength of weakness due to diverging interests of their principals.
Who makes the world?
(2020)
In this essay, we consider the role of academics as change-makers. There is a long line of reflection about academics' sociopolitical role(s) in international relations (IR). Yet, our attempt differs from available considerations in two regards. First, we emphasize that academics are not a homogenous group. While some keep their distance from policymakers, others frequently provide policy advice. Hence, positions and possibilities of influence differ. Second, our argument is not oriented towards the past but the future. That is, we develop our reflections on academics as change-makers by outlining the vision of a 'FutureLab', an innovative, future forum that brings together different world-makers who are united in their attempt to improve 'the world'. Our vision accounts for current, perhaps alarming trends in academia, such as debates about the (in)ability to confront post-truth politics. Still, it is a (critically) optimistic one and can be read as an invitation for experimentation. Finally, we sympathize with voices demanding the democratization of academia and find that further cross-disciplinary dialogues within academia and dialogues between different academics, civil society activists and policymakers may help in finding creditable solutions to problems such as climate change and populism.
This paper aims to investigate the possibility to include aspects of forgetting into business process modeling. To date, there is no possibility to model forgotten or to-be- forgotten elements beyond the mere deletion. On a first attempt, we focus on the individual level and model knowledge transformation within a single person. Using the Knowledge Model Description Language, we propose ways to include different forms of forgetting into the realm of modeling tools. Using data from an experimental setting within an assembly line production environment, the usability of those new modeling tools is tested. So far, the applicability of modeling features for forgetting on the individual level is mostly restricted to a research context. However, clear requirements to transfer the tools onto the team- and organizational level are set out.
Value research has a long and extensive history of theoretical definitions and empirical investigations using large scale quantitative surveys. However, the way the general population understands, defines, and relates to the concept of values, and how these views vary across individuals is seldom addressed. The present study examined subjective interpretations of the term through focus group interviews, and reports on the development of a Value Conceptualisation Scale (VCS) that distinguishes six dimensions of different views on values: normativity, relevance, validity, stability, consistency, and awareness. Focus group interviews (n = 38) as well as several surveys (n = 100, n = 1519, n = 903, n = 94) were used to develop, refine, and test the scale in terms of response variety, temporal stability, as well as convergent and discriminant validity. These systematic results show that views on values do indeed vary significantly between participants. Correlations with dogmatism, preference for consistency, and metacognition were found for corresponding dimensions. The VCS provides an original measure, which enables future research to explore this variation on the conceptualisation of values.
This paper argues that land and resource rights are often essential in overcoming colonial inequality and devaluation of indigenous populations and cultures. It thereby criticizes global welfare egalitarians that promote the abolition of national sovereignty over resources in the name of increased equality. The paper discusses two ways in which land and resource rights contribute to decolonization and the eradication of the associated inequality. First, it proposes that land and resource rights have acquired a status-conferring function for (formerly) colonized peoples so that possession of full personhood and relational equality is partially expressed through the possession of land and resource rights. Second, it suggests that successful internal decolonization depends on access to and control over land and resources, especially for indigenous peoples.