Upgrading change management

Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO) - Claus Otto Scharmer is a Senior Lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)...     

Behavioral responses of rural and urban greater white-toothed shrews (Crocidura russula) to sound disturbance

Urban Ecosystems - The development of urban areas imposes challenges that wildlife must adapt to in order to persist in these new habitats. One of the greatest changes brought by urbanization has...     

We are not in control—embrace uncertainty and trust in what emerges. Peter Senge on the legacy and future of Change Management

Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. Zeitschrift für Angewandte Organisationspsychologie (GIO) - Peter Senge is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and founder of...     

Varieties of liberalism: A comparative analysis of family policy and poverty outcomes across the 50 United States

The United States is generally recognised as an exemplar of liberal policy regime types. However, given evidence of state-level divergence in social policy, this article investigates to what extent such variation is present and relevant in state-level family policy. To this end, we pose a primary and secondary research question. Our primary question is whether varieties of liberalism exist across the 50 states in the United States. Our secondary question is whether these varieties of liberalism correspond to variety in social indicators of families' economic well-being. To answer our primary question, we first construct a family policy index that scores the relative generosity and coverage of state-administered social programmes that contribute to the (de)commodification and (de)familialisation of households with children. We then perform a cluster analysis to group states by shared decommodifying and defamilialising features. To answer our secondary question, we investigate how our family-policy clusters are associated with social indicators of families' financial security. Our findings suggest that varieties of liberalism do, indeed, exist within the United States. With the exception of Vermont, which stands out with respect to its comparatively generous family policies, we classify states into two groups: those with ‘soft’ liberal family policy in states featuring relatively generous and accessible policies and ‘hard’ liberal family policy in states achieving little of either. We find that these differences help explain state-level heterogeneity in levels of economic security among households with children, particularly single-mother households.     

Contract design and insurance fraud: an experimental investigation

This paper experimentally examines the impact of contract design on insurance fraud. We test how fraud behavior varies for insurance contracts with full coverage, a straight deductible or claim-dependent premiums (bonus-malus contracts), in a setup where rational and selfish individuals have an incentive to always claim the maximum possible indemnity. We find a substantial impact of contractual arrangements: Deductible contracts lead to a greater extent to claim build-up than full coverage contracts. In contrast, bonus-malus contracts that entail the same net gains from fraud as deductible contracts do not increase claim build-up. Thus, our results indicate that bonus-malus contracts may be superior to deductible contracts for behavioral reasons.     

Estimation of Several Intraclass Correlation Coefficients

An intraclass correlation coefficient observed in several populations is estimated. The basis is a variance-stabilizing transformation. It is shown that the intraclass correlation coefficient from any elliptical distribution should be transformed in the same way. Four estimators are compared. An estimator where the components in a vector consisting of the transformed intraclass correlation coefficients are estimated separately, an estimator based on a weighted average of these components, a pretest estimator where the equality of the components is tested and then the outcome of the test is used in the estimation procedure, and a James-Stein estimator which shrinks toward the mean.     

The Shifting Meanings of Popular Engagement in Swedish Society

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - The aim of this article is to contribute to the Swedish debate on popular engagement by studying changes in popular...     

Use of Experiential Learning,Reflective Writing,and Metacognition to Develop Cultural Humility Among Undergraduate Students

This study discusses the use of experiential learning, reflective writing, and metacognition to develop cultural humility among undergraduate students enrolled in a social and economic justice course. Students participated in an activity that challenged them to learn about people who may have different social identities and experiences from their own such as attending a service in a religion different from their own. Then students wrote a reflective essay in which they used the margin of the paper as a safe space to write anything that came to mind during the writing process. A thematic analysis of students’ comments suggests that students used the space to examine their emotions, seek understanding of self and others, and recognize their privilege.     

Mapping movement landscapes in South Africa

ABSTRACT

The concept of a movement landscape is used to analyse continuities and changes in popular mobilization since the end of formal apartheid. Focusing on four different episodes of protest since 1997, the article examines their relationship to the ANC movement and traditions, and their organizational forms. It finds a general theme of fluid and ephemeral organization, and a distrust of formal hierarchal organization, that is relatively new in South Africa. The Marikana strikes produced the most far-reaching organizational realignments, while the student struggles generated the most innovative re-imaginings of political forms and discourses. It concludes that although there have been critiques of and challenges to the ANC tradition, and experiments with new forms of organizing, they have not produced alternatives that have lasted or dislodged the dominant approaches defined and popularized by the ANC movement.     

The disinterested state: negative diasporic policy as an expression of state inclusion and national exclusion

ABSTRACT

This article engages with the understudied phenomenon of the ‘disinterested, denouncing’ diaspora state (Levitt, P., and N. G. Schiller. 2004. “Conceptualizing Simultaneity: A Transnational Social Field Perspective on Society.” International Migration Review 38 (3): 1002–1039. doi:10.1111/j.1747-7379.2004.tb00227.x) or ‘indifferent’ diaspora state (Ragazzi, F. 2009. “Governing Diasporas.” International Political Sociology 3 (4): 378–397. doi:10.1111/j.1749-5687.2009.00082.x). Focusing on U.S. citizens abroad, the article argues that there is negative diasporic outreach on the part of the state – ‘disinterested’ from the state's perspective, but ‘denouncing’ from that of the diaspora. Negative diasporic outreach is exemplified by the 2010 FATCA legislation, which sought to root out tax evaders resident in the U.S., but has, instead, affected millions of American emigrants through increased financial control and the repercussions of those policies, and has resulted in sharply higher citizenship renunciation figures. Impact on an American diaspora was not considered in the law's proposal, debate and passage into law. Second, the article argues that this negative diasporic outreach, in combination with the continued facilitation of the right to vote, is a reflection of the inclusion of these American emigrants in the American state, but their simultaneous exclusion from the American nation.