Determinants of Women's Decision-Making Authority in Nigeria: The Ethnic Dimension

Using data from a 1991 survey of five ethnic groups in Nigeria, we look at the determinants of wife's decision-making authority. Our analysis shows that ethnicity plays a very important role in shaping wife's decision-making authority and is even more important than wife's individual-level characteristics as a determinant of authority. The ethnic effect occurs both by shaping the levels of resources that women achieve and by shaping the relationships of wife's achieved characteristics to family decision-making. To the extent that characteristics other than ethnicity make a difference for authority, we find that wife's contributions to household expenditures are important. That factor significantly increases wife's authority, as does wife's formal education, age, and work for pay outside the home. The findings underscore the importance of looking at ethnic social differentiation in the African context and advancing educational and employment opportunities for women.     

The Smart-Seller Challenge: Exploring the Determinants of Privatizing Public Nursing Homes

This study investigates the determinants of local governments'decisions to privatize public nursing homes. According to theOnline Survey, Certification, and Reporting (OSCAR) 2004 data,more than 100 counties in the United States have recently divestedtheir nursing facilities through change of ownership to nonprofitor for profit or through termination. The theoretical modelused in this study proposes four broad categories of antecedentsof the privatization decision: market failure, government failure,and monetary and institutional factors. County governments areviewed as rational actors, affected by a range of external andinternal pressures and striving to maximize the attainment oftheir complex missions. The data used in this study come fromthe OSCAR 2004 file and several other sources. Using logisticregression analysis, the baseline (1998–2000) measuresof all independent variables for 622 county-owned homes wereregressed on the dummy dependent variable, indicating whetherthe nursing home was privatized by 2003 or not. Quantitativeanalysis was supplemented with two exploratory case studies.Local market competition, occupancy level, condition of thephysical plant, staffing, the prevalence of privatization inthe neighboring counties, and the proportion of elderly in thecounty were found to be significantly associated with the likelihoodof nursing home divestment. The analysis supports the idea ofa complex framework of managerial decision making: countiesappear to be smart sellers by divesting when occupancy declines,when the physical environment deteriorates, and when privatemarkets are relatively more competitive. They are also foundto be smart owners by sustaining public ownership of thrivingpublic facilities surrounded by failing private markets.     

A Question of Genesis: An Analysis of the Determinants of Public Authorities

One of the central questions in the study of special purposegovernments is how to explain their proliferation over the pastfifty years. Of particular concern to scholars has been therise of a hidden government that is not highly accountable throughregular democratic processes. This article looks specificallyat one form of special purpose government, known as a "publicauthority," and amends the conventional explanation that localgovernments principally create public authorities to addresspublic finance concerns. First, I argue that full "service publicauthorities," which administer and make policy about a particularservice arena, raise different concerns about democratic accountabilityfrom a "conduit authority" and are a nonparsimonious solutionto a public finance problem. Second, drawing on an archivalsurvey of the institutional choices of county governments indealing with solid waste policymaking in New York State, I findthat while public finance is a driver in the choice to createa service public authority, equally, if not more important,are the needs of local government to resolve a policy problemin a politically competitive environment.     

An Analysis of the Influence of Public Relations Department Leadership Style on Public Relations Strategy Use and Effectiveness

A survey of Public Relations Society of America members (N = 885) suggests that 2 leadership styles are present in public relations environments. Inclusive leaders are collaborative, share decision making, and engage in participative practices. Transformational leaders have a clear vision for the future, motivate change, are good policy makers, inspire others through communication, and are innovative risk takers. Results indicate that inclusive leadership style is positively related to use of facilitative and cooperative problem solving strategies and effectiveness of informative and facilitative strategies. Transformational leadership style is positively related to use of power strategies and effectiveness of persuasive and cooperative problem solving strategies.     

再论新世纪中国青年的发展

传统的注重经济增长的发展观往往忽视人的发展,以致社会经济无法获得持续发展的原动力.事实证明,社会的发展就是人的发展和为人的发展.因此,新世纪中国青年的发展重心应放在现代化新人的培养上,为社会发展形成一种持续有效的推动力量.     

Reconsidering the role of the digital in global production networks

Global production networks (GPNs) have become a key framework in conceptualizing linkages, power and structure in globalized production. However, this framework has been less successful in integrating the influence of digital information and ICTs in production, and this problematic in a world where relationships and power are increasingly mediated by digital information flows and resources. We thus look to adapt the GPN framework to allow more substantive analysis of ‘the digital’. Primarily, this is done through a theoretical analysis of the three core categories of the GPN framework – embeddedness, value and networks – to highlight how these categories can better integrate a more dynamic and contested conceptualization of the digital. Illustrations from research on the digitalization of tea sector GPNs in East Africa highlight how these theoretical advances provide new insights on the digital and its expanding role in economic production.     

Reconsidering the Case for Enhancing Accountability Via Regulation

This paper considers dangers and pitfalls associated with a range of oversight options and scenarios, including self-regulation, government regulation, donor monitoring and community participation. The paper outlines the blind spots and sources of potential bias associated with each of these oversight mechanisms. Examining the Ugandan case study we find that perceptions of corruption and ineffectiveness tarnished the reputation of the sector, but at this stage the proposed peer review mechanism and stricter government regulation are unlikely to improve NGO sector outcomes. Government regulation is anticipated to be ineffectual due to poor design and insufficient resource allocation, but both of these factors may be attributable to the underlying political motivations. Similarly, not much is expected from the peer review mechanism because participation is voluntary, offers few benefits and the list of guidelines is too long and contains too many vague and intangible quality standards. The paper argues for more empirical research to inform the design of oversight mechanisms and to monitor the impact of self-regulation and government regulation on the NGO sector. This may also help to expose and limit opportunistic interventions by government, often thinly concealed under the conceptual cloak of accountability and oversight.     

The Art of Restraint: How Experienced Program Leaders Use Their Authority to Support Youth Agency

The staff of youth development programs perform a delicate balancing act between supporting youth agency and exercising necessary authority. To understand this balancing in daily practice, we interviewed 25 experienced (M = 14 years) leaders of arts, leadership, and technology programs for high‐school‐aged youth. We obtained accounts of when, how, and why they gave advice, set limits, and “supported youth when disagreeing.” Qualitative analysis found surprising similarities across leaders. They used authority to give advice and set limits, but did so with reasoned restraint. Maximizing youth's opportunities to learn from experience was central in their decision making. They described employing authority in intentional ways aimed at helping youth's work succeed, strengthening youth's agency, and building skills for agency (e.g., critical thinking, “clarifying intent”).     

Predicting Indonesian Journalists' Use of Public Relations-Generated News Material

Abstract

The news media are the main channel for public relations practitioners to get messages across to their publics. In recent years, little research was conducted on predicting journalists' use of public relations news material. As the largest Southeast Asian and the world's most populous Muslim nation, Indonesia presents a complex media and public relations environment. This study found fundamental tenets in journalism, however, which remain the most important factors in predicting the use and acceptance of public relations-generated news materials. At the same time, however, business interests have highly significant effect on journalists. Informal relations can also influence their use.     

Authority,Autonomy, and Deception: Evaluating the Legitimacy of Parental Authority and Adolescent Deceit

This research examined adolescents’ judgments about lying to avoid parental control over different types of activities. Participants (N = 66, M_age = 16.38, 73% European American) were interviewed about hypothetical situations describing adolescents who defied parental directives and lied about their defiance. Judgments about the legitimacy of parents’ directives and protagonists’ deception differed by types of parent relationship with adolescents (mutual or unilateral). Directives were least accepted, and deception was most accepted, in the context of unilateral relationships. Judgments also differed by domain of the action (personal, prudential, or conventional). Participants were least accepting of parental directives, and most accepting of deception about personal activities. Findings indicate that adolescents value honesty and parental authority, but sometimes give priority to concerns with autonomy and mutuality.     

Institutional Activism: Reconsidering the Insider/Outsider Dichotomy

Social movements are conventionally understood as a means by which groups seek to resolve collective grievances outside of the regular political process. With this in mind, I explore the important role of “institutional activists”– insiders with access to resources and power – who proactively take up causes that overlap with those of grassroots challengers. This article focuses on the history of, and recent developments in, the study of institutional activism, situating the concept within existing social movement theory and providing examples of the varying roles of institutional activists in mobilization.     

Reconsidering the Evolution of Nonlinguistic Communication: The Case of Laughter

Nonlinguistic communication is typically proposed to convey representational messages, implying that particular signals are associated with specific signaler emotions, intentions, or external referents. However, common signals produced by both nonhuman primates and humans may not exhibit such specificity, with human laughter for example showing significant diversity in both acoustic form and production context. We therefore outline an alternative to the representational approach, arguing that laughter and other nonlinguistic vocalizations are used to influence the affective states of listeners, thereby also affecting their behavior. In the case of laughter, we propose a primary function of accentuating or inducing positive affect in the perceiver in order to promote a more favorable stance toward the laugher. Two simple strategies are identified, namely producing laughter with acoustic features that have an immediate impact on listener arousal, and pairing these sounds with positive affect in the listener to create learned affective responses. Both depend on factors like the listener's current emotional state and past interactions with the vocalizer, with laughers predicted to adjust their sounds accordingly. This approach is used to explain findings from two experimental studies that examined the use of laughter in same-sex and different-sex dyads composed of either friends or strangers, and may be applicable to other forms of nonlinguistic communication.     

Authority and the pursuit of order in organizational performance

The paper seeks to examine the site of performance, the spatial context of the dramatic act, and to consider the various ways in which performance is regulated, ordered and sustained. In particular, the paper is concerned with the relationship between authority and propriety in the regulation of the performance site and with the transformational metaphors which sustain the trajectory of the performance. The basic premise on which the argument rests is that there is a equivalence of sign-imagery as appropriate to liturgical performance which is the basis of some forms of organisational behaviour and that this equivalence permits more than the mere playing out of ritualistic behaviour: it appropriates the image in the reproduction and re-presentation of its forms. Consequently, the significance of the elevation, for instance, of The Cross or the consecrated Host, the notion of ritualistic cleansing, of humiliation, of redemptive acts, of public confession, become emblematic means of achieving organisational incorporations and of achieving movement from the isolated “I” to the collective “We”.     

Determinants of the Egyptian labour migration

The objective is to summarize the pattern of Egyptian migration to Arab oil-producing countries (AOPC), to review some factors that are important determinants of labor movement based on theory, and to empirically model the migration rate to AOPC and to Saudi Arabia. Factors are differentiated as to their relative importance. Push factors are the low wages, high inflation rate, and high population density in Egypt; pull factors are higher wages. It is predicted that an increase in income from destination countries has a significant positive impact on the migration rate. An increase in population density stimulates migration. An increase in inflation acts to increase out-migration with a 2-year lag, which accommodates departure preparation. Egypt's experience with labor migration is described for the pre-oil boom, and the post-oil boom. Several estimates of labor migration are given. Government policy toward migration is positive. Theory postulates migration to be determined by differences in the availability of labor, labor rewards between destination and origin, and the cost of migration. In the empirical model, push factors are population density, the current inflation rate, and the ratio of income/capita in AOPC to Egypt. The results indicate that the ratio of income/capita had a strong pull impact and population density had a strong push impact. The inflation rate has a positive impact with a lag estimated at 2 years. Prior to the Camp David Accord, there was a significant decrease in the number of Egyptian migrants due to political tension. The findings support the classical theory of factor mobility. The consequences of migration on the Egyptian economy have been adverse. Future models should disaggregate data because chronic shortages exist in some parts of the labor market. Manpower needs assessment would be helpful for policy makers.     

Reconsidering the Unusual Suspect: Immigration and the 1990s Crime Decline

The United States experienced a dramatic decline in crime during the 1990s. A number of explanations for this decline have been put forth, including demographic shifts, economic trends, stricter gun control laws, and changes in drug markets. A widely reported explanation is that the surge of immigration during the 1990s was the main cause for that decade's crime decline. Although the claim has received considerable attention, it has yet to be tested empirically using national‐level data. In order to fully test the immigration‐1990s crime decline relationship, we use national‐level homicide and Census data from 1990 to 2000. Our results reveal four key findings: (1) crime declined for nearly all groups during the 1990s; (2) non‐Latino blacks contributed the most to the crime decline, by a wide margin; (3) both overall and black homicide declined the least in areas with the highest levels of immigration; and (4) we find no evidence that immigration indirectly lowered non‐immigrant crime rates by revitalizing communities. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings.