Who Promotes More Innovations? Outside versus Inside Hired CEOs

in Industrial and Corporate Change (2015), 24

Who will care for me?

in Trends in Family Caregiving in European Countries. Invited Keynote at the 20th Alzheimer Europe Conference „Facing dementia together“. Luxembourg, Luxembourg. (2010)

Who’s that girl? Body image, self-recognition, and self-concept in young women with high vs. low risk for eating disorders

Scientific Conference (2012)

The WHO-5 Well Being Index – Validation based on item response theory and the analysis of measurement invariance across 35 countries

Scientific Conference (2021, July 23)

The five-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) is a frequently used brief stan- dard measure in large-scale cross-cultural clinical studies. Despite its frequent use, some psychometric ... [more ▼]

The five-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) is a frequently used brief stan- dard measure in large-scale cross-cultural clinical studies. Despite its frequent use, some psychometric questions remain that concern the choice of an adequate item response theory (IRT) model, the evaluation of reliability at important cutoffpoints, and most importantly the assessment of measurement invariance across countries. Data from the 6 th European Working Condition survey (2015) were used that collected nationally representative samples of employed and self-employed individuals ( N = 43,469) via computer-aided personal interviews across 35 European countries. An in-depth IRT analysis was conducted for each country, testing dif- ferent IRT assumptions (e.g., unidimensionality), comparing different IRT-models, and calculating reliabilities. Furthermore, measurement invariance analysis was conducted with the recently proposed alignment procedure. The graded response model fitted the data best for all countries. Furthermore, IRT assumptions were mostly fulfilled. The WHO-5 showed overall and at critical points high reliability. Measurement invariance anal- ysis revealed metric invariance but discarded scalar invariance across countries. Analysis of the test characteristic curves of the aligned graded response model indicated low levels of differential test functioning at medium levels of the WHO-5, but differential test functioning increased at more extreme levels. The current study has no external criterion (e.g., structured clinical interviews) to assess sensitivity and specificity of the WHO-5 as a depression screening-tool. The WHO-5 is a psychometrically sound measure. However, large-scale cross-cultural studies should employ a latent variable modeling approach that accounts for non-invariant parameters across countries (e.g., alignment). [less ▲]

The WHO-5 Well-Being Index – Validation based on item response theory and the analysis of measurement invariance across 35 countries.

in Journal of Affective Disorders Reports (2020)

Background: The five-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) is a frequently used brief standard measure in large-scale cross-cultural clinical studies. Despite its frequent use, some ... [more ▼]

Background: The five-item World Health Organization Well-Being Index (WHO-5) is a frequently used brief standard measure in large-scale cross-cultural clinical studies. Despite its frequent use, some psychometric questions remain that concern the choice of an adequate item response theory (IRT) model, the evaluation of reliability at important cutoffpoints, and most importantly the assessment of measurement invariance across countries. Methods: Data from the 6th European Working Condition survey (2015) were used that collected nationally representative samples of employed and self-employed individuals ( N = 43,469) via computer-aided personal interviews across 35 European countries. An in-depth IRT analysis was conducted for each country, testing different IRT assumptions (e.g., unidimensionality), comparing different IRT-models, and calculating reliabilities. Furthermore, measurement invariance analysis was conducted with the recently proposed alignment procedure. Results: The graded response model fitted the data best for all countries. Furthermore, IRT assumptions were mostly fulfilled. The WHO-5 showed overall and at critical points high reliability. Measurement invariance analysis revealed metric invariance but discarded scalar invariance across countries. Analysis of the test characteristic curves of the aligned graded response model indicated low levels of differential test functioning at medium levels of the WHO-5, but differential test functioning increased at more extreme levels. Limitations: The current study has no external criterion (e.g., structured clinical interviews) to assess sensitivity and specificity of the WHO-5 as a depression screening-tool. Conclusions: The WHO-5 is a psychometrically sound measure. However, large-scale cross-cultural studies should employ a latent variable modeling approach that accounts for non-invariant parameters across countries (e.g., alignment). [less ▲]

WHOQoL Psychological and employability skills among students at the universities of Luxembourg and Liege (Belgium).

in Psychology and Health (2009), 26

To analyse the relationships between a psychological quality of life and employability skills among first-year students of social sciences at the universities of Luxembourg and Belgium. Method. 84 ... [more ▼]

To analyse the relationships between a psychological quality of life and employability skills among first-year students of social sciences at the universities of Luxembourg and Belgium. Method. 84 students initially registered at bachelor professional (Faculty LSHASE), and 91 at bachelor academic (Institut SHS Liege) completed questionnaires. Results Scores for psychological WHOQoL (74.3 vs 63.9 Liege) and environmental WHOQoL (73.3 vs 68.4) were better among the Luxembourg students, as was the score for employability skills (73.0 vs 68.3) than ISHS Belgium. Psychological WHOQoL score was correlated with perceived health, scores for social relationships and environmental WHOQol domains, and employability skills score (with the exceptions of the father’s professional status in Luxembourg and students age in Belgium). Effect between psychological WHOQoL and employability skills was only observed among Luxembourg students. Conclusion Good mental health is a key factor of possession of employability skills in Luxembourg where students are older and their studies are professional dies. [less ▲]

Whose law for sharing research tools?

in Nature (1998), 396(6711), 509

Why always me? (Says the European Union). Il referendum svizzero sull'immigrazione, le relazioni con l'UE e le ricadute sull'economia

in Quaderni della Società Italiana di Diritto Internazionale (2014), I

Why and when coalitions split? An alternative analytical approach with an application to environmental agreements

E-print/Working paper (2022)

We use a parsimonious two-stage differential game setting where the duration of the first stage, the coalition stage, depends on the will of a particular player to leave the coalition through an explicit ... [more ▼]

We use a parsimonious two-stage differential game setting where the duration of the first stage, the coalition stage, depends on the will of a particular player to leave the coalition through an explicit timing variable. By specializing in a standard linear-quadratic environmental model augmented with a minimal constitutional setting for the coalition (payoff share parameter), we are able to analytically extract several nontrivial findings. Three key aspects drive the results: the technological gap as an indicator of heterogeneity across players, the constitution of the coalition and the intensity of the public bad (here, the pollution damage). We provide with a full analytical solution to the two-stage differential game. In particular, we characterize the intermediate parametric cases leading to optimal nite time splitting. A key characteristic of these finite-time-lived coalitions is the requirement of the payoff share accruing to the splitting country to be large enough. Incidentally, our two-stage differential game setting reaches the conclusion that splitting countries are precisely those which use to benefit the most from the coalition. Constraining the payoff share to be low by Constitution may lead to optimal everlasting coalitions only provided initial pollution is high enough, which may cover the emergency cases we are witnessing nowadays. [less ▲]

Why are Higher Education Participation Rates in Germany so Low? Institutional Barriers to Higher Education Expansion

in Journal of Education and Work (2011), 24(1), 49-68

Countries around the world have witnessed educational expansion at all levels, leading to the massification of tertiary education and training. Tertiary education has become a major factor of economic ... [more ▼]

Countries around the world have witnessed educational expansion at all levels, leading to the massification of tertiary education and training. Tertiary education has become a major factor of economic competitiveness in an increasingly science‐based global economy and a key response to shifts in national labour markets. Within the EU, the reform of skill formation systems has been advanced by the Lisbon strategy, with the Bologna and Copenhagen processes in higher education (HE) and vocational education and training (VET) articulating and diffusing overarching goals in European skill formation. If European benchmarks call for at least 40% of all 30‐ to 34‐year‐olds to hold a tertiary‐level certificate, Germany exhibits a relatively low proportion of each cohort entering HE and attaining that qualification level (28%). We analyse this ‘German exceptionalism’, locating a range of factors in the educational system: the institutional logic of segregation, the structure of secondary schooling, the division or schism between the organisational fields of VET and HE, and limited permeability throughout. Regardless of isomorphic pressures that led Germany to quickly implement undergraduate bachelor's (BA) and graduate master's (MA) courses of study, these factors limit the extent of HE expansion visible among other European countries. [less ▲]