Gender‐Related Opportunities and Turnover: The Case of Medical Sector Employees

This study examined the relationships between gender, objective and perceived work‐related opportunities, and turnover behavior. This was achieved using an interdisciplinary approach that combined the macro‐level perspective on opportunities in internal and external labor markets, with the micro‐level perspective of individual perceptions of opportunities. The results revealed that the opportunities–turnover linkage is gender‐specific rather than gender‐neutral. Women's turnover behavior was affected by their ‘perception’ of employment opportunities in the organizational and local labor markets. By contrast, men's turnover behavior was affected by ‘objective’, organizational and local labor market conditions. These findings indicate that the objective opportunities of the work market may be compatible with men’s, but not women’s, work needs and hence question existing assumptions of a ‘gender‐neutral’ effect of opportunities on turnover decisions.     

The History of SHSAAMc: Student Health Services at Academic Medical Centers

This article presents an historical review of the organization known as Student Health Services at Academic Medical Centers (SHSAAMc). The authors discuss characteristics of health service directors as well as the history of meetings, discussion, and leadership. The focus of the group is the healthcare needs of health professions students at academic medical centers.     

Executive Turnover and the Legal Environment: The Case of California Hospitals, 1960–1995

Examinations of executive turnover have analyzed whether poor organizational performance predicts changing leadership. However, few have examined environmental factors affecting turnover. Applying event history analysis to a random sample of California hospitals, we find that poor performance prompts executive turnover and that the legal environment impacts turnover in three ways. First, the legal form of hospitals shapes evaluation and replacement of executives. Second, a shift in the legal definition of not-for-profit hospitals affects turnover. Finally, turnover increases when hospitals change from for-profit to not-for-profit and vice versa. These findings persist in the presence of numerous control variables.     

Elder Abuse in a Land of Tradition: The Case of Israel's Arabs

ABSTRACT

This study attempted to assess the scope and nature of elder abuse and neglect in one traditional group currently undergoing change: the Arabs in Israel. One hundred and twenty-eight human service and health professionals in northern Israel were asked to report about all cases of elder abuse and neglect they had encountered for a period of 18 months prior to the study. Findings showed that overall Arab elders in Israel have a 2.5% rate of abuse and neglect (excluding self neglect). This figure is somewhat lower than that reported in the literature for either developed or developing societies. Rates were higher in urban areas, somewhat lower in suburban areas, and lowest in isolated villages. These results lend some support to modernization theories of aging and elder abuse. The profile of the abused elder is not significantly different from that of his Western counterpart. Among alleged perpetrators, however, sons and daughters-in-law rank highest, reflecting cultural patterns in some traditional societies. The article makes some early recommendations in the area of worker training and service enhancement.     

Organizational Support in the Workplace: The Case of Korean Hospital Employees

This paper tests three hypotheses on who getsmore support from his or her work organization: (1) Thevalidation hypothesis predicts that employees withgreater social support from their co-workers and supervisors receive more organizationalsupport, because their support validates or legitimizesorganizational support; (2) the positive affectivityhypothesis predicts that employees high on positiveaffect receive more organizational support, becausethey are more likable; and (3) the moderation hypothesispredicts that positive affect and social support do notgenerate organizational support independently, but each acts on the other to affectorganizational support. An assessment of the hypothesesover a sample of 1882 hospital employees in Koreaprovided strong support for the validation hypothesisand partial support for the moderation hypothesis. Contraryto the positive affectivity hypothesis, employees' gooddisposition in itself works against the bringing forthof relevant organizational support, net of support from their supervisors and co-workers.Additional findings related to the unique features ofthe current hospital employees in Korea are alsoreported. Finally, we discuss cross-cultural research implications of the study in moredetail.     

The Nonprofit Sector at a Crossroads: The Case of America

Despite some encouraging trends, America's nonprofit sector stands at a crossroads because of an interrelated series of challenges. Government budget cuts beginning in the early 1980s have eliminated a significant source of nonprofit revenues and created a serious fiscal squeeze for many organizations. Although the sector as a whole managed to replace this lost revenue, it has done so largely through fees and charges that have attracted for-profit businesses into traditional fields of nonprofit action, creating a serious economic challenge to the sector. Simultaneously, important questions have been raised about the effectiveness and accountability of nonprofit organizations, and about what some see as the overprofessionalization and bureaucratization of the sector. All of this has undermined public confidence in the sector and prompted questions about the basic legitimacy of the special tax and legal benefits it enjoys. To cope with these challenges, American nonprofits could usefully undergo a process of renewal that revives the sector's basic values, reconnects it to its citizen base, and creates a better public understanding of its functions and role.     

Feminized Forestry: The Promises and Pitfalls of Change in a Masculine Organization

The gendering of forestry as a distinctly masculine profession has led to a wide range of negative outcomes, including legal actions concerning discrimination, poor public perceptions and poor environmental records. Forestry organizations have addressed these concerns by attempting to increase the number of women in the profession. These efforts have been largely ineffective. Using the case of community‐based forestry, I argue that when we begin to consider not only women but also normatively feminine values as agents of change, our understanding of the profession of forestry may be rejuvenated.     

Dimensions of Precariousness in an Emerging Sector of Self‐Employment: A Study of Self‐Employed Nurses

Changing economic ideologies and a new emphasis on entrepreneurial opportunities have led to a rise in self‐employment in Canada, especially among women. Although some people benefit from self‐employment, it is considered to be a precarious form of employment. Despite a growing body of literature on gender and self‐employment, there is more to learn about its precarious nature across industries and types of entrepreneurs. This ethnographic study examines the experiences of self‐employed nurses in order to better understand self‐employment in professional caring work. In some ways, these nurses' experiences fit with what is known about female self‐employment but this specific sector highlights how precariousness can take different forms across different areas of work. In particular, this study reveals new insights about the complexity and ambiguity of precariousness.     

Negotiating Gender Relations: Muslim Women and Formal Employment in Pakistan's Rural Development Sector

Drawing on evidence from qualitative field research, this article explores how Pakistani female development practitioners experience their work situations as they are shaped both by local sociocultural norms and globalized development agendas. In this context, policies at global and national levels demand that more female development practitioners work in remote rural places in Pakistan, thus creating new employment opportunities for some Pakistani women. This article argues that, in this work environment, these women are exposed to different expectations about their gender behaviour and that they therefore develop physical strategies on the one hand and discursive strategies on the other in order to negotiate gender relations in a way that allows them to engage in formal employment. This article adds to under‐researched debates on gender and work in Muslim countries as well as to debates in critical development and gender studies.     

Interdependence in Dating and Cohabiting Relationships: The Role of Cognitive Interdependence,Commitment, and Marital Intent

This study uses Interdependence Theory, specifically cognitive interdependence and the investment model of commitment, to further understand the impact of marital intent in cohabiting versus dating relationships. Contrary to the hypothesis posed, results revealed that individuals in cohabiting relationships and dating relationships experience similar levels of interdependence. However, people who report an intent to marry their partner, whether dating or cohabiting, have higher degrees of centrality of relationship, commitment, satisfaction, investments, and a lower level of perceived relationship alternatives than those who did not report marital intent. The results of this study suggest that marital intent may work similarly in dating relationships and cohabiting relationships, and that Interdependence Theory has utility for understanding why marital intent makes a difference in relational stability.     

Media Publicity and the Voluntary Sector: The Case of Nonprofit Organizations in New York City

Media publicity is an important resource for contemporary voluntary associations, but very little is actually known about the resources and organizational characteristics that are most important for getting media attention. To address this question, we collected and analyzed data on the organizational attributes and news publicity of 739 nonprofit organizations in New York City. We find that an organization's income, paid staff, membership size, and library resources are significantly related to getting media publicity, whereas the number of chapter affiliations is inversely related to publicity. Association type is also a significant factor that influences an organization's ability to get publicity. We discuss the implications that these findings have for current debates about advocacy and civic engagement in the nonprofit sector.     

Same job,different rewards: The gender pay gap among physicians in Italy

Women have made significant progress in the medical profession, but despite this trend towards equality, the gender pay gap persists. This study investigates the determinants of earning differentials among physicians in Italy. This analysis is based on a dataset of more than 1000 doctors working in five hospitals in the Lombardy region. Data were collected through an online survey with a response rate of 48.7 per cent. Women's concentration in the lower ranks of the career ladder, their lower propensity to work as private practitioners and their lower concentration in surgical specialties contribute to the gender income gap. Having children and a spouse or a cohabiting partner entails a premium on income for men, but no penalty for women, which suggests that positive discrimination towards fathers and husbands is stronger than negative discrimination towards mothers and wives. On the other hand, the gender gap associated with marital and parental status is stronger in public hospitals than in private hospitals, at least up to the second child. Once differences in characteristics are controlled, women earn 18 per cent less than men. This penalty should be ascribed to employer's discrimination and/or unobserved characteristics. These findings challenge the human capital perspective by calling for attention into the role of structural mechanisms in producing inequalities.     

Consumerism in Health Care: The Case of a U.K. Voluntary Sector HIV Prevention Organization

This paper examines the potential for, and the contradictions inherent in, voluntary sector health service providers acting as consumer representatives. The paper examines a U.K. gay men's HIV prevention organization to consider whether members are united by their experiences of using services, whether their work involves consumerist strategies, if so whether these are influential, and what tensions emerge from the dual provider/consumer role. Fieldwork was carried out in 1997–98, examining, via documents and interviews, activity between 1992 and 1997. Qualitative analysis was performed. Consumer action is shown to emerge not so much from abstract constructions of consumer interest, but more from the particularities of consumption, which become politicized more powerfully through their attachment to other interests and ideologies.     

The Significance of Race in the Private Sphere: Asian Americans and Spousal Preferences

Using qualitative analysis of narratives of United States-born Asians, this article examines how spousal preferences and views on interracial couples are affected by racial status inequalities. It argues that racial inequality affects those who prefer Whites, those who prefer Asians, those indicating no racial preferences, and those whose preferences changed through the life course. The dynamics of racialized preferences are explained by introducing the concept of racialized relationship capital, specifically the appeal of Euro-American vs. ethnic-racial relationship capital. The paper concludes by questioning the popular notion that high rates of interracial marriage indicate successful assimilation for groups such as Asian Americans.     

Medical examinations for child sexual abuse in Scotland: good enough practice?

This questionnaire survey of a representative sample of practitioners in Scotland sought to establish speci?cally how widely guidance on child protection issued by the Scottish Executive Health Department was being followed by practitioners, NHS Trusts and health boards. It aimed to identify the medical practitioners involved and the range of current practice in child sexual abuse examinations throughout Scotland. The results suggest that the medical assessment of children who disclose sexual abuse is a low‐volume, highly specialized activity, practised by about one in ?ve paediatricians and forensic medical examiners in Scotland. Most (79%) are aged between 41 and 60 years; 59.8% have less than 10 years' experience in the ?eld; and the majority (86.3%) perform fewer than two examinations per week. Available guidance is comprehensive and uniform, highlighting the importance of joint specialist working, use of the colposcope for photodocumentation, training and continuing professional development in this specialized area of work. Despite this, the results of our survey of practitioners show that throughout Scotland, the care offered to children and the service provided to the courts are suboptimal. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Re-inscribing Gender in New Modes of Medical Expertise: The Investigator-Coordinator Relationship in the Clinical Trials Industry

This article analyses the ways in which research coordinators forge professional identities in the highly gendered organizational context of the clinic. Drawing upon qualitative research on the organization of the clinical trials industry (that is, the private sector, for profit auxiliary companies that support pharmaceutical drug studies), this article explores the relationships between predominantly male physician-investigators and female research coordinators and the constitution of medical expertise in pharmaceutical drug development. One finding is that coordinators actively seek to establish relationships with investigators that mirror traditional doctor-nurse relationships, in which the feminized role is subordinated and devalued. Another finding is that the coordinators do, in fact, have profound research expertise that is frequently greater than that of the investigators. The coordinators develop expertise on pharmaceutical products and diseases through their observations of the patterns that occur in patient-participants' responses to investigational drugs. The article argues, however, that the nature of the relationships between coordinators and investigators renders invisible the coordinators' expertise. In this context, gender acts as a persistent social structure shaping both coordinators' and investigators' perceptions of who can be recognized as having authority and power in the workplace.     

Practical knowledge and occupational control: The professionalization of architecture in the United States

An analysis of the formation of a discipline of architectural design in the United States in the first part of the 19th century emphasizes the relationship between the substantive content of professional expertise and the social structure of professional practice. As a newly constructed practice of design was threatened by broad changes affecting the structure of occupational control, explicit professionalizing projects emerged from the ideological organization of professional work itself. This paper identifies limitations of the market monopoly model and outlines an alternative view that focuses on the way the rhetorical dimensions of professional work organize the efforts of actors within a self-reproducing structure of occupational control. Analysis of the production of practical knowledge opens up new directions for research, incorporating the cultural dimensions of work into a macrostructural account of a profession and the processes of professionalization.     

The Body that Does Not Diminish Itself: Fat Acceptance in Israel's Lesbian Queer Communities

This article follows Charlotte Cooper's call to widen fat studies scholarship to contexts outside the United States, and Adrianne Hill's call to locate historically specific connections between lesbian communities and promotion of fat acceptance. Three in-depth interviews were conducted with Jewish-Israeli fat women. Through the development of their ability to appreciate their fat body and the fat bodies of other women, participants employed a mixture of disparate feminist-lesbian and queer discourses, in a similar, albeit not identical manner to the one used in the U.S. context. One of the major differences is that queer/lesbian communities in Israel are not in contact with the Israeli fat acceptance movement.     

新加坡医疗体系优势及其对上海的启示

新加坡在医疗保健领域取得令人信服的成就,发展出三级医疗服务体系、3P医疗机构体系、六大区域医疗集团、四级病房体系和3M医疗保险体系,成效显著,赢得本国民众和国际社会的高度评价。上海可借鉴新加坡医疗保健领域取得的成功经验,组建区域性医疗联盟,加速医疗信息化进程,引进国际医学院,适度发展国际医疗和私人医疗,加速推进上海国际医学园区建设。