Comparing children's experiences of schools-based bullying across countries

We make use of a newly-available international data set from a survey of children aged 8 to 12 years old across 16 diverse countries to explore variations in rates of schools-based bullying of children and the associations between experiences of being bullied and child subjective well-being, both within and between countries. The analysis is consistent with previous international studies in showing very substantial variation in rates of bullying at the country level. There are also between-country variations in the rates of different types of bullying. In terms of individual variations, we find significant variations in the likelihood of being bullied according to age, gender and deprivation, although the influence of these factors varies by country. There was no apparent link at a country-level between rates of bullying and mean life satisfaction scores. On the other hand, in almost all countries, children who had been bullied had significantly lower subjective well-being than children who had not. However there were substantial differences in the strength of association across countries. We find some tentative evidence to suggest that being bullied may make a greater contribution to explaining variations in child subjective well-being in rich countries than in poor countries. The implications of the findings and directions for future research are discussed.     

Social mobility and personal satisfaction: evidence from ten countries

This paper examines survey data relating class mobility to satisfaction and dissatisfaction with seven different domains of everyday life among nationally representative samples of men and women living in ten industrialized nations. The evidence is set against competing pessimistic and optimistic accounts of the mobility experience found in earlier literature. Results show that individuals who move from working-class origins to middle-class destinations are no more likely to be systematically satisfied or dissatisfied with life than are the socially immobile or even those downwardly mobile from advantaged backgrounds into the working class. Indeed, in all nations, the overall association between class experience and satisfaction with life is both weak and uneven across the different life-domains. The study also serves to illustrate an important principle of research methodology more generally.     

Stakeholder Performance Measurement in Nonprofit Organizations

According to recent findings, nonprofit organizations should address the relationships of nonprofit service quality, satisfaction, loyalty, and organizational identification when planning and evaluating donor surveys. This article presents a donor satisfaction barometer that can be used to gain insights into the strength of these key relationships and thereby establish a basis for calculated relevant indices. With such indices, nonprofit organizations can compare stakeholder performance over time and benchmark themselves against other organizations. Data from 2,599 blood donors to one section of the German Red Cross, collected through the proposed donor satisfaction barometer, show that service quality drives satisfaction, and donor satisfaction and organizational identification both exert significant positive effects on donor loyalty. Therefore, nonprofit organizations should use a combined strategic approach that improves both donor satisfaction and organizational identification to increase donor loyalty. The successful application of the donor satisfaction barometer also suggests its value for other nonprofit industries and offers important insights for managers.     

Modelling financial satisfaction across life stages: A latent class approach

We explore the determinants of financial satisfaction using a modelling framework which allows the drivers of financial satisfaction to vary across life stages. Given that financial satisfaction is measured as an ordered variable, our modelling approach is based on a latent class ordered probit model with an ordered probit class assignment function. Our analysis of household survey data indicates that four life stages are supported by the data. Our results suggest that such flexibility is important in understanding the drivers of financial satisfaction over the life cycle since there is a substantial amount of parameter heterogeneity across the four classes.     

Quality of work and job satisfaction: comparing female part-time work in four European countries

Adding to the debate on the integrative or marginalizing nature of female part-time work, this article provides a comparative analysis of the implications of female part-time work for different intrinsic job quality dimensions and job satisfaction. Drawing on national micro-data from Britain, Germany, the Netherlands, and Sweden, our multivariate analyses show cross-national similarities in terms of lower job learning opportunities for female part-timers. We found a significantly higher incidence of repetitiveness only among Swedish female part-timers and lower degrees of task discretion among British, Dutch, and Swedish women working part-time hours. Female part-timers were either equally satisfied with their work as female full-timers or even more satisfied. This held true also after accounting for the lower intrinsic job quality of part-time work. While women working part-time hours were as affected by their job quality characteristics as were full-timers, we conclude that the shorter hours of work per se provide an important additional source of job satisfaction.     

Relationships between psychological capital,job satisfaction,and organizational commitment in the Saudi oil and petrochemical industries

During the past decade, Saudi Arabia experienced a significant social, economic, and organizational change. The rapid economic growth created a need for seasoned management professionals and necessitated the development of human capital. Psychological capital, a newly developed construct by academics and practitioners, is defined as the extent to which an individual operates in a positive psychological state, and this state is characterized by high self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resiliency. By measuring the positive psychological constructs, an organization can learn about employees’ positive psychological states and how training and support can promote positive psychological states. Improving the positive psychological capital can lead to better organizational commitment, favorable organizational citizenship behaviors, lower employee absenteeism, and higher job satisfaction. This quantitative study examined the relationship among psychological capital, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment through a sample of managers in the Saudi Arabian oil and petrochemical industries.     

Comprehensive Family Services and customer satisfaction outcomes

Comprehensive Family Services (CFS) is a strengths-based and partnership-oriented approach to casework implemented through multiple initiatives. This study examines the relationship between the practice of CFS and satisfaction of clients, foster parents, and community partners. CFS indicators are paired with statewide customer satisfaction survey results. CFS practices are associated with significantly higher customer satisfaction that improved over time for all groups. Although causality cannot be determined, the relationship is consistent, robust, and meaningful.     

Place attachment,residential satisfaction,and life satisfaction: Traditional and renewed kibbutz

Economic crisis in the early 1980s, followed by heavy debt, challenged the existence of the kibbutz. In order to prevent disintegration, rigorous privatization-related economic and structural reforms were implemented. In this study, we evaluate if these transformational changes affected the perception and emotional ties of kibbutz members. Specifically, we examined differences between traditional and renewed kibbutz in terms of life satisfaction, place attachment, and residential satisfaction. The results indicated that members of the renewed kibbutz reported higher levels of place attachment than those of the traditional kibbutz. However, no significant differences were observed for residential satisfaction and life satisfaction. Moreover, place attachment and residential satisfaction were significantly associated with life satisfaction. Finally, kibbutz type moderated the indirect effect of residential satisfaction on life satisfaction through place attachment.     

Differences in the job satisfaction of high-paid and low-paid workers across Europe

Data from six waves of the European Community Household Panel (1996–2001) in 11 countries suggest that low-paid employees are significantly less satisfied with their job than the high-paid in southern Europe, but not in the northern countries. Proxying job satisfaction for job quality, the authors show that while low-paid employment does not necessarily mean low-quality employment, workers in some countries suffer the double penalty of low pay and low job quality. Such dualism across European labour markets, they argue, reflects different country-level approaches to the trade-off between flexibility and security, calling for a policy focus on the latter to enhance job quality.     

The impact of internal communication satisfaction dimensions on job satisfaction dimensions and the moderating role of LMX

This paper presents the results of the research on the predictive role of internal communication satisfaction dimensions on job satisfaction dimensions of middle managers from 131 companies in Serbia and the moderating influence of the leader member exchange relationship between middle managers and their supervisors (LMX) on that role. The research has shown that some internal communication satisfaction dimensions have statistically positive impact on job satisfaction dimensions and the moderating effect of LMX has also been noticed.     

Social connectedness and life satisfaction: Comparing mean levels for 2 undergraduate samples and testing for improvement based on brief counseling

ABSTRACT

Objectives: Comparing the mean levels of social connectedness and life satisfaction, and analyzing their relationship for 2 undergraduate samples, and testing for an increase in their means for a brief counseling sample. Participants: Between October 2013 and May 2015, 3 samples were collected: not-in-counseling (NIC; n = 941), initial counseling session (ICS; ie, triage session only; n = 168), and brief counseling (BC; ie, median of 4 additional counseling sessions; n = 28). Methods: Online surveys measuring demographic and background control variables, social connectedness, and life satisfaction. Results: NIC students exhibited higher social connectedness and life satisfaction than ICS students. Social connectedness significantly explained life satisfaction beyond controlled-for variables for both samples. There was a significant increase in social connectedness and life satisfaction for the BC sample. Conclusions: Social connectedness is an important antecedent of life satisfaction for undergraduates. Brief counseling can increase transition students' social connectedness and life satisfaction.     

The determinants of strikes over time and across industries

This paper presents a pooled time-series, cross-section analysis of strike activity across 27 major industry groups over the years 1970–1980. While numerous studies have analyzed the time-series behavior of strike activity and fewer studies have analyzed the cross-sectional pattern of strikes, little work has been done to combine both perspectives into one empirical analysis. This paper improves on this by incorporating variables into one regression model that is capable of explaining both dimensions of the variation in strike activity. The regression results suggest that strikes over time and across industries are affected by a wide range of economic, organizational, institutional, occupational, demographic, market structure, political, and other variables.     

Public relations aspects of brand attitudes and customer activity

Featuring the role of public relations in brand equity research and best practices, this study investigates how product, non-product, and customer–business relationship attributes affect customer-based brand equity (i.e., brand attitudes and customer activity). Analysis reveals customer–business relationships are central to a causal model linking evaluation (brand attitudes) and activation/motivations (customer activity). Findings demonstrate that for service businesses (e.g., banks), customer–business relationships are the primary, rather than minor, predictor of brand equity. These findings demonstrate how public relations scholarship and practice plays a central rather than peripheral role in customer satisfaction.     

Child welfare clients and school satisfaction

Despite long-standing knowledge about child welfare clients' poor educational outcomes, we know less about these vulnerable young people's situation in school. This article addresses school satisfaction among upper secondary students who have been in contact with the child welfare services. These child welfare clients' school satisfaction is compared with their peers' satisfaction. The results from a survey indicated that the majority of child welfare clients were satisfied with school but that they were less satisfied with school than were their peers. The results showed that the association between school satisfaction and positive school experiences explains a large part of this difference. Among students who reported they were doing well in school, had supportive teachers and friends at school, the difference in school satisfaction between child welfare clients and others was small. Among students who did not report similar positive experiences in school, difference in school satisfaction between child welfare clients and their peers was more substantial. These results show that school can be a good place for child welfare clients, but that facilitating support from teachers, increasing opportunities for making friends at school, and working to develop the child welfare clients' academic performances are important as efforts to improve school satisfaction.     

Public relations and customer service: Employer perspectives of social media proficiency

Social media has enhanced integration between marketing and public relations. As such, public relations professionals have had to adapt and grow their knowledge and skillsets to stay relevant and current throughout the evolution of the digital landscape (Gesualdi, 2019). One of the growing areas of focus for public relations professionals has been customer service skills online. This specialization, often referred to as social care or social customer service, has been promoted and discussed heavily in industry circles and publications, but not in academic research. This study focuses on the survey results from 396 employers exploring the social media skills they most prefer university graduates to possess when entering the workforce. The results indicate that public relations and customer service are the social media skills most sought after by employers of university graduates ahead of proficiency in areas such as social media content production, strategy development and analytics. The potential implications of these findings to the public relations profession are examined and future research is also discussed.     

Retirement Village Resident Satisfaction in Australia: A Qualitative Enquiry

ABSTRACT

There has been limited research into the types of customer satisfaction experienced by residents in leisure-oriented retirement communities, particularly in Australia and the United Kingdom. Focus groups were conducted at a series of retirement communities. Results have lead to the development of a typology of retirement community resident satisfaction containing five different domains, including the Built Environment, the Financial Environment, the Service Delivery Environment, the Social Environment, and the Spiritual Environment. Furthermore, these five satisfaction domains encompass up to 24 distinct types or facets of customer satisfaction experienced by residents. This proposed typology of leisure-oriented retirement communities’ resident satisfaction is the most comprehensive investigation of retirement village customer satisfaction to date. Implications for both researchers and practitioners are discussed, including recommendations for the measuring, managing, and marketing of customer satisfaction with retirement community living.     

Ethical conflict and job satisfaction of public relations practitioners

This study attempted to explore the linkage between ethical conflict and job satisfaction, causes of ethical conflicts, and consequences of job dissatisfaction of public relations practitioners. The findings show that many practitioners confirmed the existence of ethical conflict in their workplace and suggest that ethical challenges are largely triggered by top management's ethical standard. Although practitioners resolved conflicts by leaving their companies, they also recognized the hope in resolving the ethical challenges that they had faced. Participants emphasized the importance of an open communication environment, the support of internal stakeholders, and a high professional standard.     

Levels of burden and satisfaction among Spanish foster carers

The aim of this study was to analyse the levels of burden and satisfaction among foster families in Spain, as well as the relationships between these variables and characteristics of the foster children and their carers. Participants were 86 foster families (comprising 71 foster fathers and 86 foster mothers) and the 104 children who they were fostering (56 boys and 48 girls). The instruments used were the Zarit Burden Interview and a questionnaire on foster carers' satisfaction with the preparation and support they had received. The results revealed low levels of burden among the families. Levels of burden were directly correlated with the amount of time the children had spent in residential care and with the age of foster fathers, and inversely correlated with how long the child had been with the current foster family. Higher levels of burden were reported by carers whose foster child was academically delayed. Regarding satisfaction, the highest ratings corresponded to items referring to the work of professionals, while the lowest were given for items concerning the information that foster families had received about the child's personality and the material and financial support available to them. The implications of the findings for professional practice are discussed.     

A bargaining model and empirical analysis of strike activity across industries

This study extends the analysis on the inter-industry propensity to strike found in Leigh (1983) by (1) developing a more elaborate model, (2) developing proxies for all the parameters of the model, and (3) testing the modified model on two new data sets. The results suggest that strikes are more frequent in hazardous industries employing few women and where the average level of schooling is low. In addition, the evidence suggests strikes and wages may be simultaneously determined.