How leader role identity influences the process of leader emergence: A social network analysis

Contemporary theories on leadership development emphasize the importance of having a leader identity in building leadership skills and functioning effectively as leaders. We build on this approach by unpacking the role leader identity plays in the leader emergence process. Taking the perspective that leadership is a dynamic social process between group members, we propose a social network-based process model whereby leader role identity predicts network centrality (i.e., betweenness and indegree), which then contributes to leader emergence. We test our model using a sample of 88 cadets participating in a leadership development training course. In support of our model, cadets who possess a stronger leader role identity at the beginning of the course were more likely to emerge as leaders. However this relationship was only mediated by one form of network centrality, indegree centrality, reflecting one's ability to build relationships within one's group. Implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Talking Prose All These Years: Agent‐Based Modeling as Process‐Oriented Analysis

This article considers the implications of an approach to computer simulation called agent‐based modeling for process‐oriented analysis. It argues that many theoretical and methodological debates found in the latter field can be effectively advanced by the former. The argument is presented and then extended using a ubiquitous agent‐based model proposed to improve understanding of ethnic residential segregation. The argument has three strands. The first is that theoretical and methodological debates are unlikely to progress unless they can be “cashed out” empirically. The second is that agent‐based modeling (and its distinctive methodology) has capabilities to do this that existing research methods lack and, in fact, that agent‐based models are a natural way to represent “social process” as apparently conceived by process‐oriented analysis. The third is that possibilities exist for productive synthesis between agent‐based modeling and process‐oriented analysis with the former clarifying, instantiating, and perhaps even testing notions of process developed by the latter.     

Suicide Attempts by Adolescent Latinas: An Exploratory Study of Individual and Family Correlates

Epidemiological data show high rates of suicide attempts among adolescent Latinas. Few studies have addressed the psychosocial, cultural and family correlates of suicide attempts among this age group of a rapidly growing population. The authors studied 31 adolescent Hispanic females who were receiving mental health services; 14 girls had attempted suicide in the previous five years and 17 had never attempted suicide. The two groups of girls did not differ significantly with respect to demographic profiles, levels of depression, family type, acculturation, or self-esteem. However, as hypothesized, the mutuality between girls and their mothers was lower among suicide attempters. Maladaptive coping skills of withdrawal and wishful thinking were more commonly used by attempters, and non-attempters used emotional regulation and problem-solving more frequently. Findings are discussed within the context of the empirical and theoretical literature and implications for practice are considered.     

Introduction: The Methodological Strengths and Dilemmas of Qualitative Sociology

Qualitative Sociology -     

Corporate Governance and Director Accountability: an Institutional Comparative Perspective*

This paper examines the role of boards of directors in light of institutional contingencies and recent best practice governance guidelines and regulation such as the United Kingdom Higgs Review and the United States Sarbanes‐Oxley Act 2002. Particular attention is paid to discussing the role of independent directors across countries, and the implications for corporate governance innovation. It concludes by posing questions about recent corporate governance transformations and providing suggestions for future research.     

Campus attitudes toward alcohol and drugs in a deep southern university.

In our zeal to deal with alcohol and drug abuse, we may have a distorted picture of what the majority of college students actually think about alcohol and drug use. Students in this study done at a public university located in the Deep South report being generally intolerant of substance abuse.     

Every Dot has a Meaning

Family therapy in Australia has recently begun a conversation with the indigenous people of this country. Part of this dialogue has involved family therapists listening to the stories of violence and oppression perpetrated against the Aboriginal people under the name of “protection”. This article is part of the ongoing exchange between family therapists and Kooris documenting the suffering of “the stolen generation”. Here two young people removed from their families as small children and raised in the same Aboriginal children's home, speak personally through their art, of an agonising search for family and cultural identity.     

Household debt and financial assets: evidence from Germany, Great Britain and the USA

Summary.  We explore the determinants of debt, financial assets and net worth at the household level by using survey data for Germany, Great Britain and the USA. To identify which households are potentially vulnerable to adverse changes in the economic environment, we also explore the determinants of a range of measures of financial pressure: the probability that a household has negative net worth; the debt-to-income ratio; mortgage income gearing; the saving-to-income ratio. Our empirical findings suggest that the poorest and the youngest households are the most vulnerable to adverse changes in their financial circumstances.