Private thoughts and public actions:: A commentary on articles dealing with ethical issues in evaluation

This commentary represents a personal reaction to seven articles on ethical issues in evaluation. The author of the commentary begins with two assumptions: (1) Professional evaluators might not have the vocabulary and constructs to analyze their thoughts and actions in ethical terms, and (2) professional evaluators have often confronted troubling situations that probably contain ethical issues embedded within them. Consequently, she queries the seven articles individually and collectively in terms of the following questions: 1. What is the range of ethical problems I might encounter as an evaluator; and how do I recognize the ethical characteristics of professional dilemmas? 2. How do I describe troubling evaluation problems I have encountered that seem to have an ethical component? 3. What are some approaches I have used or might use in thinking about a proper course of action? 4. How do I know if, in a given situation, I have behaved ethically? 5. Where do we go from here?     

What’s Your Reality? Evaluating Sources and Addressing “Fake News”

It is important to know where the 2020 presidential candidates stand on today’s issues, but it’s also critical to know how they mobilize evidence to arrive at these opinions. What are their media diets? How do they decide what’s news? And how do they evaluate what news is true? What forms of expertise do they privilege in making decisions about reality? Sociologists, as experts ourselves, hold a particular stake in the answers to these questions. But when it comes to deciding what’s real, we also occupy a somewhat precarious position. We simultaneously privilege empiricism while recognizing the precarity and contingency of all knowledge.     

Mental Health Law: Innovations in Education and Representation

What do we know about the lives of people with learning difficulties? What do we know about the lives of people who have used mental health services? People require legal representation to obtain access to the basics of life. Legal representation for people with mental disabilities or learning difficulties also provides a forum for client empowerment. Legal representation has historically been dominated by professionals trained in traditional methods. A mental health law clinic, based upon consumer objectives, provides an opportunity to apply critical legal theory to the practice of law. Legal and citizen advocacy are combined to provide maximum participation in obtaining results. In this article, the author traces the development of a mental health law clinic by documenting the value of clinical legal education and the necessity of commitment to consumer-centred representation.     

Bonuszahlungen an Geschäftsführungen: Wodurch werden Gerechtigkeitsurteile von Erwerbstätigen beeinflusst?

Managerial compensation in large companies is subject to many critical concerns; this holds particularly for bonus payments. Empirical evidence shows that nearly three quarter of the German population perceive managers’ incomes as unfairly high. Based on an own survey, we examine what drives fairness perceptions of bonus payments for managers: When do employees assess bonus payments for managers within their own company as unfairly high? Under which conditions do they accept high bonus payments? The analyses show that acceptance decreases with the estimated amount of bonus paid. It increases, however, if aspects of procedural and distributive justice are taken into account.     

Der Masterplan und sein Weg durch die Organisation

Organizations in the public sector, like the German police, are under increasing pressure to change in the face of new challenges. We discuss the complexity of change projects based on qualitative interviews with future top managers in the police. It emerges that employees do not faithfully implement top down change plans. Instead, they subject change plans to various adaptations based on their active sense-making which is influenced by cognitive and behavioral patterns of the organizational members. These micro processes of change severely restrict the plan-ability of change projects. Flexible and reflective procedures are required to successfully manage change, as plans are more often adapted as their champions ever intended.     

The Mechanistic Structure Shift and Strategic Reorientation in Declining Firms Attempting Turnarounds

Past researchers have observed that decliningorganizations often experience mechanistic structuralchanges that centralize authority, increase reliance onformalized procedures, and reduce the amount of information flowing to top managers. Many haveproposed that this “mechanistic shift” indeclining organizations reduces their adaptivecapability by making innovative organizational change in response to decline less likely. However,despite much research on declining firms and theirturnaround attempts, many questions about mechanisticshifts remain, such as: (1) To what extent do declining firms become systematically mechanistic whentrying to recover from decline? (2) What aspects ofdeclining firms' situations make mechanistic shifts morelikely? (3) Do mechanistic shifts reduce the likelihood of large-scale strategic reorientation asdeclining firms attempt to recover? We sought answers tothese questions through an analysis of data fromin-depth interviews with top managers (mostly CEOs) at 29 U.S. firms attempting turnarounds fromdecline. Our primary finding was that mechanisticstructure shifts did restrict firms' abilities to changetheir strategic orientations in response to decline. Highlighting the important role of the contextof turnaround attempts, we further found the averagedeclining firm attempting a turnaround did not becomemore mechanistic, but that turnaround attempts launched from financial crises were significantly morelikely to lead to mechanistic shifts. Also, we foundthat the common practice of replacing the firm's CEOduring turnaround attempts had conflicting andparadoxical effects on firms' abilities to enact strategicreorientations.     

Atheism,Secularity, and Well‐Being: How the Findings of Social Science Counter Negative Stereotypes and Assumptions

What do we currently know about atheists and secular people? In what ways are atheism and secularity correlated with positive societal outcomes? This article offers a thorough presentation and discussion of the latest social scientific research concerning the identities, values, and behaviors of people who don’t believe in God or are non‐religious, and addresses the ways in which atheism and secularity are positively correlated with societal well‐being.     

The Pleasures of Computer Gaming: Essays on Cultural History,Theory and Aesthetics

How do editorial cartoons represent gambling? What can visually oriented thinking give to gambling research? The answers are rooted in the expanding research about visual culture, methodologies and data in social sciences and cultural studies. The discussion about 170 editorial cartoons from the Finnish print media, from 1961 to 2005, shows how the cartoons profile the Finnish gambler and what emotions are associated with gambling. The discussion then turns to Finnish gambling culture and gambling's role in society. Space, communication, power relations, and the use of gambling as a political metaphor are highlighted. The assessment demonstrates the value of popular-cultural data for gambling studies. The examination complements the existing cartoon research and visual-cultural studies and has interdisciplinary pedagogical potential.     

COACHING TEAM PRODUCTION

The actual function of managers is the subject of much debate. Using data on more than 3000 male college basketball players, their coaches, and their skill levels, we find a positive and significant relation between our ability to replicate an individual coach's allocation of playing time across players and his winning percentage. Although this result does not answer the central question of just what it is that managers contribute, the results do support the property rights paradigm: managers are the employees of workers; and more generally, sports data can be used to help understand related economic processes where quantifiable measures of inputs and outputs are more costly to obtain. “What is meant by performance? Input energy, initiative, work attitude, perspiration, rate of exhaustion? Or output?…sometimes by inspecting a team member's input activity we can better judge his output effect…It is not always the case that watching input activity is the only or best means of detecting, measuring, or monitoring output effects of each team member, but in some cases it is a useful way.”     

In search of the glass ceiling: gender and recruitment to management in Norway's state bureaucracy1

There are still fewer female than male managers in Norway's state bureaucracy. This article asks if there are organizational barriers which prevent women from entering these positions. Is there really a glass ceiling, or must one look outside the organizational environment to find an explanation? Is it rather the case that the scarcity of female managers is caused by women's own preferences or their life situations outside work? Or do both contribute to the situation? The study shows that female managers are treated just as well as male managers in central parts of the state bureaucracy. Employers give equal shares of respect and attention to both genders. Female managers are encouraged to apply for the same number of jobs as men and are offered an equal number of jobs as men when they apply; in fact, women are offered more jobs than men, when one controls for the number of job applications. This indicates that organizational barriers are not the problem. The study also shows that there are no differences in work orientation between male and female managers. Female managers are just as ambitious as male managers. Nor do female managers find it more difficult than male managers to combine work and family life. So, how can one explain the low number of female managers? The study shows that one reason can be that female managers apply for management jobs less often than their male colleagues. The cause of this seems to be anticipated discrimination rather than lack of ambition or self‐confidence. However, this slows down women's movement into higher management positions in the state bureaucracy.     

Women and Top Leadership Positions: Towards an Institutional Analysis

Women remain under‐represented in top leadership positions in work organizations, a reality that reflects a variety of barriers that create a glass ceiling effect. However, some women do attain top leadership positions, leading scholars to probe under what conditions women are promoted despite seemingly intractable and well‐documented barriers. Previous scholarship tends to posit individual‐level explanations, suggesting either that women who attain top leadership positions are exceptional or that potential women leaders lack key qualities, such as assertiveness. Much less scholarship has explored institutional‐level mechanisms that may increase women's ascension to top positions. This analysis seeks to fill this gap by testing three institutional‐level theories that may shape women's access to and tenure in top positions: the glass cliff, decision‐maker diversity, and the saviour effect. To test these theories we rely on a dataset that includes all CEO transitions in Fortune 500 companies over a 20‐year period. Contrary to the predictions of the glass cliff, we find that diversity among decision makers — not firm performance — significantly increases women's likelihood of being promoted to top leadership positions. We also find, contrary to the predictions of the saviour effect, that diversity among decision makers increases women leaders' tenure as CEOs regardless of firm performance. By identifying contextual factors that increase women's mobility, the paper makes an important contribution to the processes that shape and reproduce gender inequality in work organizations.     

Elder Abuse and Neglect: A Survey of Clergy Awareness,Knowledge, and Intervention Preferences

This article explores the research question: What is the perceived level of elder abuse and neglect awareness and knowledge among Protestant clergy members in Kentucky? Of the 300 clergy contacted, 160 participated, for a response rate of 53.3%. Pearson Chi-Square analyses were used to determine statistical significance, and phi coefficient correlations examined the strength of the associations between variables. Findings indicate that approximately 44% of clergy members in this study report some “awareness” of elder abuse and neglect. However, 56% of clergy respondents do not know that Kentucky is an “any person” mandatory reporting state. Specifically, participating clergy appear poorly informed about legal requirements for reporting elder abuse and neglect and perceive types of abuse differently. Untrained clergy with little formal training indicate a willingness to provide therapy to victims despite reporting that they do not feel qualified to do so.     

Critical Community Practice

How do we conceptualize community development? What are themajor practices and processes behind the development of communities?What is critical community practice (CCP)? What are its fundamentalvalues? What are the objectives of CCP? How is CCP differentfrom the other approaches of community development? How do weoperationalize CCP? Who are the major agents in promoting CCP?Is it true that the process of CCP induces the empowerment ofcommunities? Moreover, how does this process enhance the emancipationof individuals at grassroots level? Finally, what are the     

Nichts genaues weiss man nicht!?

What do voters really know about party platforms and how do they perceive the contents? Are there any relationships between party election platforms and electoral behavior? Despite of much research on parties, there are hardly any answers to these questions. If political parties devise programmes in order to influence political attitudes or electoral behavior, it will be necessary that these programmes are read by people. But it seems to be unclear if and how people do so. This article shows clearly that voters don’t know much about party manifestoes. Still, programmes are more important for voters than many people believe. Programmes are also an important factor for electoral behavior. But there is still a lack of data to get evident results.     

A growing tradition?

This article develops a basic knowledge of African American family foundations from which additional research can be generated. It addresses the following questions: From what types of professional backgrounds do the founders of African American family foundations hail? In which areas of the country are African American family foundations located? What is the range of assets possessed by African American family foundations, and how are these assets managed? How do African American family foundations use board members, employees, and volunteers to support their organizations? What are the overarching goals of African American family foundations? And in what areas are they concentrating their donations?     

Singing in Dangerous Places (Flores,Lamaholot, Indonesia)

At the eastern tip of Flores Island (Indonesia), there is a people whose members sing in special places, both inhabited and uninhabited, and at special times. Approximately four times a year, songs and dances are performed around a group of stones, in the dancing place. Singers move around these stones all night until dawn. They also sing in front of special trees when going out to their fields, or standing in circles around posts, stones or altars set up on the cultivated land. All these locations are named ‘dangerous places’. They are as far flung as seashores and forests. What relationships with these places do humans enter into? What kind of history and stories do these places mark? What potency do they bear? This paper shows that singing brings people into relationships with various categories of beings at certain places in every ceremonial domain of this peninsula.     

A Cultural Challenge: Understanding Evolution

Abstract

To what extent can what we know from science about the origins of the universe and of life in the universe influence our basic human quest for understanding? From modern science we know that the birth and death of stars is very important. If it were not happening, you and I would not be here. In order to get the chemical elements to make the human body, we had to have three generations of stars. Did we happen by chance or by necessity in this evolving universe? There is a third element here that is very important. It is what I call @opportunity.@ What this means is that the universe is so prolific in offering the opportunity for the success of both chance and necessary processes that such a character of the universe must be included in the discussion. Within such a universe all living things came to be through Neo-Darwinian evolution and the so-called Intelligent Design Movement is not a valid alternative.

If we confront what we know of origins scientifically with religious faith in God the Creator, in the senses described above, what results? I would claim that the detailed scientific understanding of origins has no bearing whatsoever on whether God exists or not. It has a great deal to do with my knowledge of God, should I happen to believe he exists.     

Girls,boys, money. Economic socialisation,gender, and generations in Italy

The aim of this article is to discuss the issue of economic socialisation in Italy from a gender perspective. What do boys and girls know about money and economy? How do they acquire this knowledge? What roles do the family, school, and the media play?

The empirical material making up the base of our observations is composed of in-depth interviews with a group of Milanese families on the questions of economic socialisation and practices of money management. Gender differences emerge in the construction of the relationship with money by children and young adults: girls, in particular, undergo the strongest pressure, i.e. they are still more driven towards discipline and self-control.

Our results also suggest the need to activate targeted, gender-sensitive training programmes in economic education.     

Internal Communication,Information Satisfaction,and Sense of Community: The Effect of Personal Influence

This study examined how employees of a multi-campus university view information flow from top administrators in positions of personal influence, employees' communication preferences (amount, channels, types of information), their sense of community within the organization, and the relationship between those perceptions and their willingness to advocate for the university. Open-ended interviews with 147 employees found the personal influence of the chancellor and top administrators has an effect on information satisfaction. Employees who have a relationship with the chancellor are more satisfied with the information they receive and feel a greater responsibility to advocate for the organization. Even the perception of a relationship with top administrators leads to satisfaction. The direction dimension of internal communication, as well as the channel dimension is important. Although e-mail is efficient for information exchange, the preference for communication among all groups of employees is face-to-face, interpersonal, dialogic interactions. Meetings, despite being acknowledged as time-consuming, were valued as a channel for feedback and providing face time with top managers. Electronic channels, if used thoughtfully, can flatten the traditional, hierarchical structure of internal communication and give employees at all levels of the organization the sense of hearing things first-hand, from the top.