Uncertainty as a common ground for a dialogue between economics and sociology

The article focuses on inter-firm relations, primarily seen as protective devises crafted for keeping at an arm's length various kinds of uncertainties involved in boundary transactions. Taking a holistic view, it proposes the notion of relational habitat, which refers to the relatively durable constellation of relations that connect a given firm to its main business partners. Performing a double-edged protective function, this constellation both stabilizes and simplifies the immediate operational domain of the firm and, thereby, diminishes to manageable levels the complexity of the relevant parts of the environment. By expanding the control of the firm beyond its organizational borders, relational habitat reduces the constraining impact of boundary uncertainty and enhances the action capacity of the firm – facilitating the materialization of its chosen line of action and its desired objectives. The article specifies this notion in detail and highlights some of its implications, both for the theoretical development of economic sociology and for its relation to economics.     

Economic sociology as disequilibrium economics: a contribution to the critique of the new economic sociology

This paper analyses the problem of the asocial view of the market at the theoretical core of contemporary economic sociology. Despite much emphasis on the apparent interpenetration of society and the economy, contemporary economic sociology is rooted in an analytical distinction between the two spheres. The implicit reliance on the neoclassical economic conception of the market helps to explain why the ‘new economic sociology’ often collapses into disequilibrium economics, where disequilibrium becomes the central but unstated prediction of a good deal of the work in the paradigm. Using a sample of contributions from the field, I demonstrate that a strong tendency running through much of the new economic sociology tends to understand society as a fundamentally distortionary force. To resolve this problem, I argue that an independent field of economic sociology necessitates a distinction between social relationships and social relations.     

Uncertainty: the Curate's egg in financial economics

Economic theories of uncertainty are unpopular with financial experts. As sociologists, we rightly refuse predictions, but the uncertainties of money are constantly sifted and turned into semi‐denial by a financial economics set on somehow beating the future. Picking out ‘bits’ of the future as ‘risk’ and ‘parts’ as ‘information’ is attractive but socially dangerous, I argue, because money's promises are always uncertain. New studies of uncertainty are reversing sociology's neglect of the unavoidable inability to know the forces that will shape the financial future. ¹      

Modelling the economics of gaming in South Africa

This paper considers the application of two models for determining the optimal location and characteristics of a casino in a post-apartheid South Africa. The intention in developing the models was to allow provinces a facility for considering how to maximize the return to the stakeholders in the license award process, namely society at large, as represented by the provincial government, and the casino operator. The Allocation Model works on an estimate of total potential gambling spend and how that may be best distributed amongst a number of casinos. The Profitability model takes the estimated gaming spend from the allocation model and assesses the appropriate size and characteristics of the casino best suited to this level of gaming spend. It can then simulate levels of profitability for different proposed sizes and characteristics of proposed casinos. Together these models represent a powerful assessment mechanism for a country considering the introduction or radical changing of gaming legislation.     

All the News That Fits to Print: Desk Competition for Front‐Page Space at The New York Times1

Where sociologists find resources, they infer power or status. However, sometimes resources are fleetingly held rather than enduringly controlled, and then status only translates into resources given impetus, or the motivation and momentary capacity to make resource claims. Status then rests on relations of impingement, whereby one actor gains resources and another loses them when the former’s impetus surges. These ideas are developed through an analysis of desk competition for front‐page space at The New York Times (1980–2005), where impetus is operationalized as the total number of newsworthy articles at each desk’s disposal on a given day. Statistical analysis reveals that all desks impinge and are impinged upon, though not equally, but also that a desk’s ability to impinge (efficacy) and susceptibility to impingement (vulnerability) are subject to change through time. This helps explain the most striking change in front‐page composition during this period: the sharp increase in national front‐page articles, and a corresponding decline in foreign front‐page articles, in the early 1990s.     

Evaluation of a drug and alcohol safety education program in aviation using interrupted time series and the Kirkpatrick framework

Compliance with drug and alcohol regulations are required by 14 CFR Part 120/ and 49 CFR Part 40. These regulations affect approximately 7200 aviation-related companies and their associated services. Consequences for noncompliance can include loss of revenue from imposition of civil penalties, suspension, or revocation of the company’s certificate to conduct business. Front End Analysis (FEA) was conducted to determine specific performance problems and provide five tailored educational interventions to address them. Program evaluation was conducted using Interrupted Time Series (ITS) modeling. Results showed significant (p < .05) decreases in nonconformities across all five models with small to moderate effect sizes. Based on the relative effects, values for reductions in civil penalty costs between 16% and 47%, were predicted. Actual sanction reductions from the pre-to-post-intervention periods were confirmed to be 24.21%. The study supported the efficacy of the ITS approach for implementation of level four Kirkpatrick evaluation.     

The Behavioral Equilibrium Exchange Rate of the Czech Koruna

The behavioral equilibrium exchange rate (BEER) model of the Czech koruna is derived in this paper and estimated by three methods suitable for nonstationary time series. The considered potential determinants of the real equilibrium exchange rate are the productivity differential, the interest rate differential, the terms of trade, net foreign direct investment, net foreign assets, government consumption, and the degree of openness. We find that the Czech koruna was on average undervalued over the period from 1994 to 2004 by about 7 percent with respect to the estimated BEER. The significant determinants of the equilibrium exchange rate of the Czech koruna appear to be the productivity differential, the real interest rate differential, the terms of trade, and the net foreign direct investment.     

Chapter 5. Accommodating the Elderly

ABSTRACT

The stigmatizing effects of the “elderly” label in obtaining community accommodation were examined, in a sample of 120 individuals advertising rooms or flats for rent in two Canadian cities, Windsor and London, Ontario. Telephone enquiries were made by an adult male (two conditions), young adult female, and an elderly (female) individual, who were ostensibly in search of rental accommodation. Rooms were significantly more likely to be described as unavailable when the caller was elderly, or when enquiries were made on her behalf. Comparisons are made to similar previous research and to current perspectives about community reactions to stigmatizing conditions.     

Division of Labor in German Dual‐Earner Families: Testing Equity Theoretical Hypotheses

On the basis of 52 German dual‐earner couples with at least 1 child younger than 5 years, we tested the effects of an unequal division of labor on relationship satisfaction. We analyzed diary reports of time allocated to productive activities according to the actor‐partner‐interdependence model. Hierarchical linear models showed that rather than individual time allocated to household work, the absolute difference in partners’ contribution to productive activities influenced relationship satisfaction. This reduction in satisfaction disappeared after accounting for perceived social appreciation of individual contributions. Models with gender‐specific slopes showed the effect of input and output to be different for women and men. The findings indicate that a relative equity model best explains the effects of an unequal division of labor.     

Legal financial obligations in the United States: A review of recent research

In the United States, legal financial obligations (LFOs) include many types of monetary sanctions. For example, fines are tied to specific offenses and imposed at conviction and fees charge people for the “use” of courts, prisons, and other public services. With the rise of mass incarceration, millions of people across the U.S. owe billions of dollars in LFOs. Yet despite the widespread use of monetary sanctions, it was not until the last decade that research began to uncover the vast system of LFOs embedded throughout U.S. laws and understand their far-reaching socioeconomic consequences. This paper reviews recent research on LFOs across three areas: (1) the political development of LFOs, (2) their implementation and enforcement, and (3) the consequences of LFOs on people, broader social networks, and the functioning of public institutions. We conclude with recommendations for future research that explores the hidden processes connecting these three areas and accounts for the fractured nature of the U.S. government.     

Reconstructing and re-conceptualising social work in the emerging milieu

Abstract

As we approach the twenty first century, social work as a collective activity is experiencing considerable uncertainty. This paper argues that the strategy embodied in promoting traditional professionalism, while moderately successful in the past, has become increasingly problematic. Similarly, the ongoing utility of current approaches to practice theory as a key part of the professional project is questioned. Identifying key challenges emerging in the environment, the paper suggests that an active debate about both the organisation and conceptualisation of Australian social work is vital for its future.     

Completing the Circuit: Routine,Reflection, and Ethical Consumption

Efforts to explain why some people incorporate ethical concerns into everyday shopping for food and household goods, while many do not, have so far left significant variation in “ethical consumption” unexplained. Seeking to move beyond explanations that rely mainly on differences in consumers' social class, gender, and political engagement, I draw on concepts associated with “practice theory” to argue that ethical consumption is closely tied to people's willingness and ability to spend time, while shopping, on distinct activities associated with breaking old routines and establishing new ones. The central insight of practice theory is that most consumption is the product of unconscious routine. And it is precisely because consciously departing from routine is, according to my study, a fundamentally time‐consuming process, that lack of time emerges as a crucial obstacle to translating abstract ethical concerns into concrete action as a consumer.     

Beyond Being on Call: Time,Contingency, and Unpredictability Among Family Caregivers for the Elderly

This article explores contingency as a central yet underappreciated feature of care work. It does so by focusing on family elder care and the complex temporal interactions between caregiver, care receiver, and healthcare institutions in the U.S. context. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with 19 family caregivers for an elderly relative, I show that their experience of time is, paradoxically, systematically unpredictable. It is shaped by three dimensions: uncertain futures (not knowing how long, or how much, they will have to care), conflicting rhythms (mediating between the temporalities of institutions and that of the elderly relative), and flooded time (ongoing expectations of interruption). Focusing on caregivers’ experiences of unpredictability highlights their exclusion from broader social temporalities and the obstruction of their possibilities to craft their own futures. I therefore suggest that the experience and management of contingency may constitute its own form of inequality and is a fruitful site for exploring the temporal relations between paid and unpaid labor. Also, sociological theories of time and labor may benefit from foregrounding care work to advance understandings of the complex and hierarchical interactions between multiple temporal orders in post‐Fordist economies.     

Work of Full‐Time Mothers: Putting Voice to the Relational Theory of Working

The purpose of this qualitative research was to explore the work experience of middle‐class, Korean full‐time mothers in their 50s. Interviews, observations, and photographs were collected from 11 Korean full‐time mothers to understand their work and career experiences. The data were analyzed by a case study qualitative method of inquiry. The themes that emerged from the data were paths to becoming full‐time mothers, multiple working roles from relationships, dialectical characteristics of work, meaning of full‐time mothering, and regrets and internalized biases for full‐time motherhood. The findings illustrate how full‐time mothers experience a sense of meaning and mattering from their work; how relationships and work are intertwined in their lives; and how gender, social class, and culture influence the work and relationships of full‐time mothers. Implications for counselors and researchers are discussed.     

Living in the Past: Savage Nights, Bisexual Times

This paper argues that one cannot see bisexuality as present at all times and in all civilisations (as in the Freudian approach popularised in Marjorie Garber's recent book Vice Versa), but must see it as a socially specific conception of desire, composed of particular understandings of gender, sexuality, and selfhood. One such element of a contemporary bisexual identity is fluidity, a capacity to change one's sense of self over time, which plays an important part in contemporary bisexual discourse. In particular, the author looks at how such bisexual narratives use modernity's language of a relentless progress through time towards absolute self-realisation. The author then considers Cyril Collard's film Savage Nights as an example of this concern with the attainment of a stable identity, in order to show how a bisexual notion of fluidity may not be as radical as many contemporary bisexual writers hope.     

The Widening Education Gap in Developmental Child Care Activities in the United States, 1965–2013

Past research shows that time spent in developmental care activities has been increasing in the United States over recent decades, yet little is known about how this increase is distributed across parents with different levels of education. Have children born into different socioeconomic groups been receiving increasingly equal developmental care from their parents, or is the distribution of parental time investment becoming more unequal? To answer this question, the author analyzed the American Heritage Time Use Study (1965–2013) and showed that the gap between high‐ and low‐educated parents' time investment in developmental child care activities has widened. An increasing absence of fathers in households with low‐educated mothers has exacerbated the trend. This study documents growing inequality in parental time inputs in developmentally salient child care activities in the United States.     

Free time,gender and the pandemic: An exploration of children's daily routines in the times of COVID-19 in Chile

This article discusses the differentiation by gender displayed by children between 8 and 12 years old on how they used their free time during the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile. This study had a qualitative approach, where 43 in-depth interviews were conducted with children from three different regions of the country, using participatory photo-elicitation as the central tool. The main results of the study show a configuration of free time based on gender stereotypes, showing that boys are the ones who most adhere to such stereotypes, triggering a crisis in the identity construction of masculinities during childhood. The study also suggests that socioeconomic and territorial differences between children configures different experiences of the use of free time.     

Considering the practical implementation of constructivist grounded theory in a study of widening participation in Irish higher education

This paper considers the practical implementation of constructivist grounded theory principles in a study of widening participation in Irish higher education. Following a brief introduction to the research study upon which this paper draws, a rationale is provided for the use of grounded theory and the objectivist–constructivist nexus is examined. Grounded theory was regarded as a valuable methodology to employ in the area of social justice-oriented widening participation research; however, objectivist approaches were found to be problematic. This paper identifies key principles informing a constructivist grounded theory research design and subsequently focuses on what these principles might ‘look like’, in practice, through an exploration of three key processes I employed in my grounded theory study. These processes provide examples of how researchers might adapt grounded theory methods, in a constructivist fashion, to better align the methodology with social justice-oriented research.     

When publics collide: Developing the dual orientation conflict model in inter-public conflict

Inter-public conflict has largely been neglected in PR research. When left to fester, such conflict may perpetuate prejudice, injustice, inequality, and other societal ills. From a PR standpoint, organizations may find it increasingly difficult to operate in the resulting climate of hostility. This piece aims to shift focus from managing direct, organization-public conflict to navigating indirect, inter-public conflict, thus broadening conflict management perspectives. Based on contingency and social identity theories, we test the dual orientation conflict model (DOCM) in the field of government public relations. The model posits two dimensions (embracing/excluding and in-group/out-group) and categorizes four types of conflict orientation (adaptation, in-group adoption, out-group adoption, and avoidance). The proposed four-factor model, comprised of 16 items, was found to be reliable and valid in an online survey of 2498 South Korean citizens across different conflictual problems. Theoretical and strategic implications are discussed.     

The Role of Theory in the Assessment of Sex Offenders

SUMMARY

No generally accepted theory of sex offender behavior exists at this point. As clinical experience and research findings interact within an evolving theoretical framework, the picture of what is important, as well as what is possible to know about a sex offender, is rapidly changing. It is vital that mental health professionals, the legal system, social service agencies, and other consumers and providers of sex offender assessments be aware of both what is possible to learn about an offender as well as the limitations on that knowledge and its application. Prominent theories that influence the assessment of offenders in North America and Europe are presented and examined. Uses and limitations of each theory are discussed. Several trends emerge which could influence the future of sex offender assessment, treatment, management, and policy.