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The Global Legislators Database : Characteristics of National Legislators in the World’s Democracies
No full textThis article describes the Global Legislators Database, a new cross-national dataset on the characteristics – party affiliation, gender, age, education, and occupational background – of nearly 20,000 national parliamentarians in the world’s democracies. The database includes 97 electoral democracies with comprehensive information on legislators who held office in each country’s lower or unicameral chamber during one legislative session in 2015, 2016, or 2017. The GLD is the largest individual-level biographical and demographic database on national legislators ever assembled, with a wide range of potential applications. In this article, we provide multiple types of validity checks of the GLD to document the integrity of the data. We also preview three potential applications of the dataset and note other possible uses for this one-of-a-kind resource for studying representation in the world’s democracies.publishe
Two BEs or not two BEs : the progressive passive puzzle in English
No full textEnglish before 1750 does not allow being to occur in the progressive, a fact that has remained mysterious. In this paper I propose that this absence is due to semantic-pragmatic factors, and that the rise of progressive being reflects the innovation of a new BE of activity in modern English. I investigate these developments using diachronic corpora, and discuss some loose ends that arise.publishe
Strategic ambiguity : a systematic review, a typology and a dynamic capability view
No full textPurpose
While strategic ambiguity has increasingly been used as a communication practice in response to crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic and global conflicts, its proactive role in shaping organizations remains underexamined. Moreover, a comprehensive investigation into its antecedents, moderators, mechanisms, and outcomes – aligned with specific strategic ambiguity aims – is still lacking. We investigate how organizations deploy strategic ambiguity to shape their environment and identify the factors that affect the effectiveness of strategic ambiguity in achieving diverse strategic aims.
Design/methodology/approach
We conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) of 22 empirical studies on strategic ambiguity in organizational communication. We analyzed articles using the Gioia method to identify its key components – antecedents, mechanisms, moderators, and outcomes – based on the pursued aim.
Findings
We reframe strategic ambiguity as a dynamic capability and, building on this, we introduce a novel typology of strategic ambiguity based on two key dimensions: organizational flexibility (centralized vs decentralized) and environmental responsiveness (proactive vs reactive). Four distinct aims of strategic ambiguity, each with specific antecedents, mechanisms, moderators, and outcomes, emerge: (1) collaboration and engagement, (2) flexibility and adaptability, (3) control and influence and (4) reputation and legal protection.
Originality/value
We reframe the understanding of strategic ambiguity by positioning it as a dynamic capability rather than merely a strategic communication practice. By introducing a typology that outlines antecedents, mechanisms, moderators, and outcomes for each specific aim, we offer a structured framework for comprehensively understanding and leveraging strategic ambiguity.publishe
Emergent feedback between symbiosis form and population dynamics
No full textSymbiotic relationships represent prolonged physical interactions between different species and include various forms such as mutualism, commensalism, exploitation, and competition. Here, we show that the form of symbiosis may change with the densities of the symbiotic partners as they influence the costs and benefits each species experiences. In turn, the form of symbiosis is ex-pected to influence species persistence, population dynamics, and ultimately ecosystem stability. Based on this, we introduce the theoretical concept of a density–symbiosis feedback, where population densities affect the form of sym-biosis, and symbiosis form in return affects population dynamics. This dynamic interplay calls for a re-evaluation of traditional ecological concepts and a frame-work considering the flexibility in symbiosis forms.publishe
Lunar synchrony and reproductive strategies of intertidal-breeding fishes
No full textWhen is the best time to breed? This is an important question, especially for fishes that breed in the intertidal zone, a dynamic habitat where conditions change rapidly and cyclically. Many intertidal fishes reproduce during the spring tides (during the new and full moons when tidal fluctuations are strongest). However, we use long-term field data to present a counter example, the toadfish, Porichthys notatus, which spawns more often during the neap tides (during the quarter moons when tidal fluctuations are weakest). We hypothesize that if a species’ reproduction involves time-consuming tasks, such as courtship, mate selection, nest preparation, and prolonged egg-laying, and if these activities must occur underwater, then such species will align their reproduction with neap tides rather than spring tides. To examine the prevalence of neap tide spawning, we conducted a comprehensive literature review to explore the diversity of reproductive strategies and timings in intertidal fishes. Because some species must leave the intertidal zone or find refuge when the tides recede, whereas others exhibit amphibious lifestyles and can even breathe air, we paid specific attention to different species’ requirements for submersion to perform their reproductive behaviours. We gathered data on 131 fish species and ultimately highlight a scarcity in data on reproductive timing in intertidal fishes. Our literature survey provides preliminary support for our hypothesis, and we now call on researchers to directly examine lunar synchrony of reproduction in intertidal fishes to better understand how reproductive strategies are shaped by the tides.publishe
Klärung der Ursache spektraler Fluktuationen in kolloidalen Quantenpunkten mittels Einzelpartikelspektroskopie
No full textpublishe
Digitalization and the green transition : Different challenges, same policy responses?
No full textHow do citizens perceive labor market risks related to digitalization and the green transition, and how do these risk perceptions translate into preferences for social policies? We address these questions in this paper by studying the policy preferences of individual workers on how governments should deal with the two labor market challenges of digitalization and the green transition. Employing novel cross-country comparative survey data including a vignette experiment for six advanced postindustrial economies, we probe to what extent the different labor market challenges are associated with differences in preferences, distinguishing between support for social investment policies on the one hand and compensatory policies on the other. A first finding is that even though individuals perceive different levels of labor market risk due to the green transition and digitalization, their preferences for social policy responses do not differ systematically across the two risks. Instead, we find that social policy preferences are affected by individual-level and, to some extent, country-level contextual factors. Confirming previous work, higher perceived labor market risk is associated with more support for compensatory policies but less support for social investment.publishe