Shift-Share Analysis with Spatial Structure: an Application to Italian Industrial Districts

Shift-share analysis is a well-known and widely used tool for spatial data analysis, though it presents some weaknesses and limitations. In this paper we aim to extend this technique by introducing a spatial structure in the particular case of Italian industrial districts. This extension is possible due to the use of enterprise legal status, together with activity information, available on the Italian Register of Businesses at the Chambers of Commerce. As far as spatial analysis is concerned, in this work we give a more precise territorial meaning to the theoretical concept of neighbourhood.     

Dimensions of Marital Therapy: A Comparative Analysis*

This paper offers a comparative analysis of the process of conjoint marital therapy within the three major contemporary models of treatment: psychoanalytic, behavioral, and systems theory. The specific dimensions of the treatment process that are examined are: (1) the role of the past and of the unconscious; (2) the nature and meaning of presenting problems and the role of assessment; (3) the relative importance of mediating vs. ultimate treatment goals; and (4) the nature of the therapists roles and functions. On the basis of this comparative analysis, some thoughts toward the future of the marital therapies are offered.     

中国农业上市公司多元化经营文献综述

寻找农业上市公司多元化经营行为对企业效益的影响规律,可以发挥新型农业经济组织的优势,这会为中国农业企业的发展提供借鉴,加快农业现代化的进程,还会吸引更多的社会资源到该领域,壮大中国农业产业的力量。近年来,农业上市公司背农现象较严重,发展很不稳定。本文从不同角度对农业上市公司多元化经营方面的有关研究进行分析,并提出什么才是真正有意义和有价值的多元化经营发展行为。     

汽油价格变化与城市蔓延:基于中国四大直辖市的实证分析

国外研究表明,汽油价格变化是影响城市蔓延的重要因素之一。本文以我国的北京、上海、天津和重庆等四个直辖市为例,实证检验了在直辖市层面上的汽油价格变化对城市蔓延的具体影响。研究结果表明:(1)汽油价格上升对城市蔓延具有显著的抑制作用;(2)与汽油价格密切相关的柴油价格变化对城市蔓延的影响并不显著;(3)除了汽油价格之外,公共交通、房地产投资和工业发展对城市蔓延也具有明显的影响。在此基础上,得出了一些相应的政策启示。     

Dimensions of Family Assessment: A Critical Review*

A review of the literature on dimensions of family assessment is presented. Assessment strategies are grouped into four types: single concept notions, theoretical notions, broadly based clinical lists, and empirically derived approaches; and each is critically reviewed. A summary of major assessment dimensions and an ordering of these dimensions using cultural and developmental principles as contextual assessment categories is presented.     

A Latent Class Analysis of Behavioral and Psychosocial Dimensions of Adolescent Sexuality: Exploring Race Differences

Adolescent sexuality is a multidimensional concept involving sexual behavior as well as aspects of youth’s sexual self-concept and sexual socialization. The current study used latent class analysis (LCA) to examine patterns of adolescent sexuality, with data from a nationally representative sample of youth (Add Health; n = 13,447), incorporating information on behavioral and psychosocial dimensions of adolescent sexual experiences. LCA results highlighted that youth may exhibit similar sexual behaviors but vary on psychosocial dimensions, including sexual self-efficacy, knowledge, and views about sex. Sociodemographic characteristics, family factors, mental health, and substance use emerged as predictors of membership into different latent classes of sexuality. Given persistent racial differences in sexual outcomes and sexually transmitted infection (STI) rates, the current study also examined how adolescent patterns of sexuality may help mediate racial differences in sexual outcomes by young adulthood. Results suggested that racial differences in adolescent patterns of sexuality help mediate racial differences in the number of sexual partners by young adulthood but not differences in STI diagnosis. Findings highlight the need for research on multiple aspects of adolescent sexuality to understand linkages with later outcomes and group differences.     

The Effect of Revenue Diversification on Output Creation in Nonprofit Organizations: A Resource Dependence Perspective

Nonprofits continue to be faced with financial challenges to fulfill their missions. Both the academic literature and nonprofit practitioners have explored revenue diversification and concentration strategies to meet these challenges. While these two strategies are essentially antagonistic, both have received support as being viable strategies to create better outcomes for the organization. This article examines whether revenue diversification or concentration strategies lead to greater mission outputs in a nonprofit context. Using resource dependence theory as a guiding framework, two opposing hypotheses are tested to gain more insight into the diversification versus concentration dilemma. A unique dataset is built and utilized to estimate a zero-inflated negative binomial regression model to assess the correlation between revenue diversification and mission outputs. Results indicate that revenue diversification (and not concentration) is associated with an increase in organizational outputs.     

The Dimensions of Subjective Well-Being Among Black Americans:

This study examined the factorial structure of subjective well-being (SWB) among black Americans. A multiple indicator structural equation model that includes 17 items (observed indicators) and four first-order factors was proposed to account for the dimensionality of subjective well-being encompassing strain, life satisfaction, self-esteem and self-efficacy. Data for the research came from the 1980 National Survey of Black Americans. Analysis of covariance structures, or LISREL, was used to evaluate three alternative measurement models of subjective well-being. The findings revealed that the four factor model was not supported and consistently replicated across two randomly divided subsamples. The results suggest that subjective well-being among black Americans tends to be multidimensional. Implications of the results for future are discussed.     

Encouraging a Spatial Perspective in Third Sector Studies: Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis and Spatial Regression Analysis

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Geographic space or location is an important aspect of many research topics in the third sector. Methodological advances...     

Social and Ecological Dimensions of the Alternative‐Conventional Agricultural Paradigm Scale

Abstract This paper is an empirical test of the dimensionality and predictive value of the alternative‐conventional agricultural paradigm (ACAP) scale developed by Beus and Dunlap. While recognizing that this scale may be appropriate and useful in studies of the agricultural intelligentsia (agricultural scientists, farm policy makers, organization leaders, and farm people actively following and participating in policy deliberations), our data suggest several shortcomings of this scale among a more general sample of farm operators. Initially, the scale is not satisfactorily unidimensional; instead, relatively clear‐cut environmental and family‐farmist dimensions emerged in our analysis of farmer attitudes. Separate environmental and family‐farmist subscales performed better than an omnibus (or paradigmatic) scale in predicting farm operator behaviors.     

Spatial structure in a shift-share decomposition: new results for the Italian industrial districts case

In a previous work, a spatial shift-share model was proposed. That model took into account both the activity information of the territory and the legal status of the enterprises working inside it. The model presented, which had a twofold form, developed and came together into a unique formulation. The present proposal is able to suitably catch the neighborhood’s effect on the variation of an economical variable measured on the examined territory. This paper does not intend to repropose the aspects regarding the theoretical evolution of the first model. Instead, the principal goal is to make a comparison ceteris paribus between the results obtained with the new model and those reached through the application of the previous one, so to highlight the role of the association between the two factors included inside the decomposition. Italian industrial districts represent the economical context for this application since each model proposed is applicable to each district case without modifying the theoretical structure which is related, to the neighborhood definition. The application proposed here focuses on data on the chair industrial district located in the border region Friuli Venezia Giulia, with reference to the entire period 2000–2004.     

The Veils of Clio: Dimensions of a Behavioral Narratology

This paper outlines a behavior-analysis approach to the field of narratology, the study of the narrative or story, with emphasis on nonfiction stories and the processes by which such stories distort the world they describe. Stories are described in terms of (a) a behavior-analysis adaptation of Todorov''s (1977) analysis of the plots of stories in terms of states of equilibrium/disequilibrium and (b) Grant''s (2005) analysis of the structure of stories in terms of establishing operations and escape contingencies. These two sets of concepts are applied to understanding how and why stories lead to distortions of the events they report.     

The Structure of Social Cohesion: An Analysis of Its Levels and Dimensions in Mexico City1

This article aims to conceptualize and assess social cohesion in Mexico, taking into account their multilevel and multidimensional nature. To measure social cohesion levels and dimensions, we used the Social Welfare Survey (N = 2871) for the 16 municipalities in Mexico City. Then, we employed the distance method to construct a social cohesion index. In addition, we define social cohesion degrees (very high, high, medium, and low) to explore the relevance of each indicator. The findings suggest that the objective and subjective indicators at the meso‐level has the highest contribution, regardless of the territory or degrees of cohesion. This finding suggests that neighborhoods are well organized for solving everyday problems. Meanwhile, the willingness to help both friends and members of one’s network was not a priority, which can be explained by the suspicion toward other people and the prevalent economic conditions.     

Authenticity: The Sociological Dimensions of a Politically Consequential Concept

In this brief essay, I reflect on the concept of authenticity and its potential convergence with topics of sociological concern. I argue that sociologists should consider the topic of authenticity for two reasons: its problematic role in modern social life and its prominence in contemporary electoral politics. I then provide a brief survey of the concept’s historical development in Western thought and argue that the modern notion of authenticity exists in sharp contrast with its antecedents in classical thought. Where once authenticity was associated with external and transcendent goods, the rise of modernity transformed the concept into an individual and interior phenomenon. Thus, contemporary authenticity is coterminous with the sociological theories of dramaturgy and social performance. Finally, I argue that if sociologists integrate the notion of authenticity into dramaturgical analysis, the apparently perplexing role of authenticity in politics will be rendered more intelligible.     

Dimensions of Intimacy: The Interrelationships between Gender and Listening

In the introduction to their text on intimate relationships, Perlman and Duck (1987, p. 9) note that psychologists, sociologists, family scientists and communication experts “are all making important contributions” to the study of personal relationships, thereby reflecting the recent multidisciplinary aspect of this field. However, in many important works on intimacy and intimate relationships, the gender differences that often create barriers to intimacy, and how these differences are reflected in the communication process, have, until recently, been notably absent.¹ While alluded to repeatedly, nowhere, in fact, is the connection directly made between intimacy and the listening behavior of women and men. This paper therefore attempts to fill this absence by integrating into the literature on intimacy the salient aspects of listening that affect the quality of intimate relationships between women and men. Hopefully, such understanding will contribute to our knowledge of the concept of intimacy in our culture and will facilitate razing the barriers to intimate relationships that are a product of cultural expectations.     

Disconnected Geography: A Spatial Analysis of Disconnected Youth in the United States

Since the Great Recession, US policy and advocacy groups have sought to better understand its effect on a group of especially vulnerable young adults who are not enrolled in school or training programs and not participating in the labor market, so called ‘disconnected youth.’ This article distinguishes between disconnected youth and unemployed youth and examines the spatial clustering of these two groups across counties in the US. The focus is to ascertain whether there are differences in underlying contextual factors among groups of counties that are mutually exclusive and spatially disparate (non-adjacent), comprising two types of spatial clusters – high rates of disconnected youth and high rates of unemployed youth. Using restricted, household-level census data inside the Census Research Data Center (RDC) under special permission by the US Census Bureau, we were able to define these two groups using detailed household questionnaires that are not available to researchers outside the RDC. The geospatial patterns in the two types of clusters suggest that places with high concentrations of disconnected youth are distinctly different in terms of underlying characteristics from places with high concentrations of unemployed youth. These differences include, among other things, arrests for synthetic drug production, enclaves of poor in rural areas, persistent poverty in areas, educational attainment in the populace, children in poverty, persons without health insurance, the social capital index, and elders who receive disability benefits. This article provides some preliminary evidence regarding the social forces underlying the two types of observed geospatial clusters and discusses how they differ.     

A Coalition Perspective on Nonprofit Governance Quality: Analyzing Dimensions of Influence in an Exploratory Comparative Case Analysis

We answer the call that governance research should focus more on processes outside the boundaries of boards, especially for nonprofit organizations. In particular, we suggest and elaborate concrete steps with respect to the advantages of a leadership coalition perspective to focus more on the behavioral and informal aspects of governance. Through a comparative case analysis of five nonprofit organizations, we explore contingencies between characteristics of nonprofit leadership coalitions and governance quality. We identify two dimensions to classify leadership coalitions: centralized versus diffused influence and specific versus holistic influence. These dimensions are subsequently related with observed governance quality. We frame our finding in the existing literature on group faultlines, which are socially constructed dividing lines within groups, and we discuss the importance of establishing a balanced coalition between a weak or nonexisting and a strong dominant coalition to ensure high governance quality. We also present propositions on how governance quality and its various sub-dimensions can be studied as a complex, nonlinear intermediate concept between coalitional aspects of leadership groups and nonprofit organizational performance. Finally, we discuss concrete avenues for further testing and verification of our theoretical interpretation.     

Roads and Diversification of Activities in Rural Areas: A Cameroon Case Study

This article uses the 2001 Cameroon National Household Survey (ECAM II) to analyse how road access affects labour activities. It shows that one‐size‐fits‐all road investments are irrelevant because the effects of roads are neither systematic nor uniform: the impacts of isolation on household well‐being through labour‐market opportunities are heterogeneous and depend on local characteristics. In view of the diversification of activities in household strategy, it finds that better road access increases the number of activities within those households that are most isolated.