Treading new ground in household sector innovation research: Scope,emergence, business implications,and diffusion

Individual consumers in the household sector increasingly develop products, services and processes, in their discretionary time without payment. Household sector innovation is becoming a pervasive phenomenon, representing a significant share of the innovation activity in any economy. Such innovation emerges from personal needs or self-rewards, and is distinct from and complementary to producer innovations motivated by commercial gains. In this introductory paper to the special issue on household sector innovation, we take stock of emerging research on the topic. We categorize the research into four areas: scope, emergence, implications for business, and diffusion. We develop a conceptual basis for the phenomenon, introduce the articles in the special issue, and show how each article contributes new insights. We end by offering a research agenda for scholars interested in the salient phenomenon of household sector innovation.     

Demands and Job Resources in the Child Care Workforce: Swiss Lead Teacher and Assistant Teacher Assessments

Center-based child care has been struggling with poor health and high turnover rates of child care staff and their adverse impact on care quality for decades. Yet little is known about personal and structural antecedents of job resources and job demands that are valid predictors of health and turnover in the child care workforce. Research Findings: This study investigated job resources and job demands among child care staff of different education levels (491 lead teachers and 310 assistant teachers) from Switzerland. Results from t-tests and hierarchical regression analyses indicated slightly higher job resources and job demands for lead teachers than for assistant teachers but similar antecedents of job resources and job demands. Overall, center characteristics shaped job resources and job demands more strongly than staff characteristics. More specifically, job resources were predicted by structural characteristics associated with professionalism in child care work, whereas job demands were primarily dependent on adequate staffing. Practice or Policy: The findings suggest that center characteristics (e.g., work environment and staffing levels) should be targeted in order to increase job resources and reduce job demands, which would in turn promote health and lower turnover rates among child care staff.     

The influence of business strategies on technological network activities

This paper investigates the impact of business strategy on technological interweavement. Based upon a sample of 451 manufacturing companies, five empirical business strategy types are identified with the help of a cluster analysis, namely the technological leader, the customer-focused developer, the cost leader, the specialiser and the dissipater. It is shown that these types differ significantly in regard to structure and intensity of their technological network. Furthermore, the findings show that there is no overall superior type of network, but that a network must match the business strategy.     

Mechanismen der Elitebildung im deutschen Bildungssystem

The German education system is currently experiencing two contrasting trends: On the one hand, social opening, e.g. through the introduction of a partially-integrated secondary school system, compensatory all-day-schooling. On the other hand, an increasing vertical hierarchy in certain educational phases, e.g. through the explicitly encouraged introduction of private kindergartens and primary schools and the establishment of prime (academic track) Gymnasien and elite universities. In line with these structural changes, next to equality, the principle of excellence is gaining an increasing significance as a justification argument. This contribution will present the situation from an education-policy perspective, discuss theoretical discourses, and the national and international state of research on the topic of elitism and education. It will close with future research challenges.     

Between ‘enrichment’ and ‘endangerment’: ‘cultural diversity’ and the politics of belonging in the Berlin school choice discourse

Even though choice is not officially a feature in the German primary school system, some parents intervene in determining which school their child attends. Especially in urban contexts, the informal school market is growing. This demand is based on promises with respect to a certain quality of education as well as on issues that prevail in certain inner city schools. In looking at Berlin, as a global city, this article shows how contrary school choice practices gain traction in the face of ‘cultural differences’ that those practices produce discursively. Cultural semantics are activated with regard to the composition of the student body, when parents chose schools with a bilingual profile, but also when parents engage in the practice of ‘group enrolment’ into schools in inner city hotspots perceived as problematic. Our research shows how school choice practices may become acceptable despite being a public taboo, if parents argue by appeal to ‘cultural differences’.     

The outcomes of university education: Some empirical findings on aims and expectations in The Federal Republic of Germany

Aims and expectations of three groups, the population in general, university graduates, and legislators and university representatives, are described and compared. Social status advantages (allocation function) and extra professional qualities (socialization function) are the main outcomes taken into account. The data stem from representative surveys, surveys of university graduates and highly qualified non-graduates, and an analysis of documents. The quality expectations which the public has of university graduates and the norm that graduates bear a particular social responsibility form an interrelated pattern, which can be regarded as a social role. As compared to public opinion, graduates' own conception of their qualities and responsibilities displays characteristic additions, which point toward a cultural elite of critical intellectuals. On the other hand, graduates fail to identify with some of the educational aims put forward by the university and its legislators. Graduates' personal experiences at university match their generalized conception of the outcomes of higher education, since they report socialization effects and attribute especially the acquisition of cognitive skills and rational and critical habits to university rather than to other educational contexts.