Abusive Supervision and Well-Being of Filipino Migrant Workers in Macau: Consequences for Self-Esteem and Heritage Culture Detachment

Abusive supervision in the workplace has been shown to have important direct consequence in work and work relationship, and also indirect consequences to workers’ well-being and relationships outside work. Consequences of abusive supervision have not been studied among migrant workers whose status in the host country of work is dependent on maintaining the work contract. This study investigates abusive supervision in 247 Filipino migrant workers in Macau, who hold temporary work contracts and work visas to engage in various low-skilled work (e.g., domestic helper, security guard, etc.). The study tests a model representing the indirect consequences of abusive supervision on the self-esteem and acculturation orientation of migrant workers, in particular, on the tendency to reject their heritage culture in their attempt to acculturate in the host country. Mediation analysis indicated that abusive supervisory perceptions led to lower self-esteem (b = ?.19), which in turn relates to tendency to reject their heritage culture as part of acculturation (b = ?.45) [indirect effect = .08, 90 % CI .04, .15]. The rejection of heritage culture is interpreted as a coping response to the negative indirect consequences of abusive supervision perceptions that may be partly attributed to being a migrant Filipino worker. The results are discussed in terms of how the acculturation of migrant workers reflects aspects of their well-being that may be adversely affected by vocational-related stress in the host country.     

Marxistische Theoriearbeit in der Krise

The economic as well as political and ideological crises and transformations of capitalist social formations have created a crisis for Marxist approaches. This affects their assumption about the necessity, desirability and possibility of social transformation, but also about the actors fighting them out and their activities. Thus, a far reaching reformulation of its fundamental epistemological and theoretical assumptions is necessary. This contribution argues that the crisis of Marxism demands a self-reflective engagement with conditions of Marxist theoretical work. The acknowledgement of the fundamental openness and incompleteness of Marxist social critique as well as its contested production is indispensable to avoid authoritarian forms of politics and to be implicated into the legitimation of domination again. The encompassing character of the crisis tendencies of capitalist social formations and the multiplication of fields of conflict demands to overcome a monistic interpretation of social dynamics. To conceptualise capitalist social formations as relation of relations is an indispensable precondition for the analysis of the connections between different social structures and relations of power and dominance. Furthermore, the ability of capitalist social formations to change, which has been shown by the recent crises and transformations, demands a fundamental dynamisation of the Marxist concept of reproduction. The dynamisation of relative surplus production in knowledge based capitalism moves the adaptability of the subjects and their capacity to work centre stage. Only against this background can the plurality of perspectives for emancipation and social struggles come into view for Marxist theoretical work.     

Assessment of Distraction From Erotic Stimuli by Nonerotic Interference

Distraction from erotic cues during sexual encounters is a major contributor to sexual difficulties in men and women. Being able to assess distraction in studies of sexual arousal will help clarify underlying contributions to sexual problems. The current study aimed to identify the most accurate assessment of distraction from erotic cues in healthy men (n = 29) and women (n = 38). Participants were assigned to a no distraction, low distraction, or high distraction condition. Distraction was induced using an auditory distraction task presented during the viewing of an erotic video. Attention to erotic cues was assessed using three methods: a written quiz, a visual quiz, and a self-reported distraction measure. Genital and psychological sexual responses were also measured. Self-reported distraction and written quiz scores most accurately represented the level of distraction present, while self-reported distraction also corresponded with a decrease in genital arousal. Findings support the usefulness of self-report measures in conjunction with a brief quiz on the erotic material as the most accurate and sensitive ways to simply measure experimentally-induced distraction. Insight into distraction assessment techniques will enable evaluation of naturally occurring distraction in patients suffering from sexual problems.     

Non-parametric estimation of reciprocal coordinate subtangent for right censored dependent scheme

The concept of reciprocal coordinate subtangent (RCST) has been used as a useful tool to study the monotone behavior of a continuous density function and for characterizing probability distributions. In this paper, we propose a non-parametric estimator for RCST based on the censored dependent data. Asymptotic properties of the estimator are established under suitable regularity conditions. A simulation study is carried out to examine the performance of the estimator. The usefulness of the estimator is also examined through a real data.     

Coopetition in New Product Development Alliances: Advantages and Tensions for Incremental and Radical Innovation

Coopetition (collaboration between competitors) can facilitate product innovation, but there is still debate about how it is suited to radical or incremental innovation. This paper argues that the early and later phases of coopetitive new product development (NPD) pose different benefits and risks for the innovation types. Building on the tensions approach to value creation and appropriation, we develop a series of hypotheses on the role of coopetition in NPD alliances and focal firm's innovation output. The hypotheses are tested on a quantitative data set of 1049 NPD alliances in the German medical and machinery sectors. The results show that, while coopetition is advantageous for incremental innovation in both pre‐launch and launch phases, radical innovation benefits from coopetition in the launch phase only.     

A Grounded Theory of Sexual Minority Women and Transgender Individuals’ Social Justice Activism

Psychosocial benefits of activism include increased empowerment, social connectedness, and resilience. Yet sexual minority women (SMW) and transgender individuals with multiple oppressed statuses and identities are especially prone to oppression-based experiences, even within minority activist communities. This study sought to develop an empirical model to explain the diverse meanings of social justice activism situated in SMW and transgender individuals’ social identities, values, and experiences of oppression and privilege. Using a grounded theory design, 20 SMW and transgender individuals participated in initial, follow-up, and feedback interviews. The most frequent demographic identities were queer or bisexual, White, middle-class women with advanced degrees. The results indicated that social justice activism was intensely relational, replete with multiple benefits, yet rife with experiences of oppression from within and outside of activist communities. The empirically derived model shows the complexity of SMW and transgender individuals’ experiences, meanings, and benefits of social justice activism.     

Does a universal non-contributory social pension make sense for rural China?

China’s pension reform during the past three decades has allowed a majority of China’s population to be covered by a pension scheme. Of particular note has been the New Rural Pension Scheme (NRPS), a voluntary programme introduced starting in 2009. One goal of our analysis is to assess that pension scheme, using a variety of sources of information including data drawn from recent (2013 and 2015) nationwide China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Surveys (CHARLS). Our analysis involves an exploration of differences between the generosity and structure of the NRPS and other pension schemes currently in place. We also explore the feasibility of reforming the current “quasi-social pension” component of the NRPS by substituting a universal non-contributory social pension pillar. In connection with our assessment of the NRPS, we note the unusually low benefit levels for rural China.     

A Simulation Study of Some Biasing Parameters for the Ridge Type Estimation of Poisson Regression

This article proposes several estimators for estimating the ridge parameter k based on Poisson ridge regression (RR) model. These estimators have been evaluated by means of Monte Carlo simulations. As performance criteria, we have calculated the mean squared error (MSE), the mean value, and the standard deviation of k. The first criterion is commonly used, while the other two have never been used when analyzing Poisson RR. However, these performance criteria are very informative because, if several estimators have an equal estimated MSE, then those with low average value and standard deviation of k should be preferred. Based on the simulated results, we may recommend some biasing parameters that may be useful for the practitioners in the field of health, social, and physical sciences.     

Price bias and common practice in option pricing

Generally, the semiclosed-form option pricing formula for complex financial models depends on unobservable factors such as stochastic volatility and jump intensity. A popular practice is to use an estimate of these latent factors to compute the option price. However, in many situations this plug-and-play approximation does not yield the appropriate price. This article examines this bias and quantifies its impacts. We decompose the bias into terms that are related to the bias on the unobservable factors and to the precision of their point estimators. The approximated price is found to be highly biased when only the history of the stock price is used to recover the latent states. This bias is corrected when option prices are added to the sample used to recover the states' best estimate. We also show numerically that such a bias is propagated on calibrated parameters, leading to erroneous values. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 48: 8–35; 2020 © 2019 Statistical Society of Canada