Volunteerism and social capital in policy implementation: evidence from the Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program

We assess the link between a program's volunteer support and state social capital in the case of the joint implementation of the federal Long-Term Care (LTC) Ombudsman Program by state and federal authorities. This program, which is designed to prevent elder abuse and ensure quality care in long-term facilities, is implemented at the state and local levels and relies heavily on volunteer staff. First, we find that volunteerism is vital to the efficacy of the program's monitoring and investigative functions. Second, we find that volunteerism in this program is tied to broader level conditions of a state's social capital. Last, we discuss the implications of our findings for volunteer-based programs devolved to the states.     

Devolution of employment and training policy: the case of older workers

The case for the devolution of employment and training programs has traditionally been based on the supply side argument that state and local governments are in the best position to assess the training needs of their disadvantaged workers. We provide a different perspective by focusing on the demand side of the labor market and the link between aiding older workers and fostering economic growth. We illustrate the importance of this focus by examining the labor market in Massachusetts, where the full employment economy of the late 1990s resulted in serious labor supply bottlenecks. Older workers, whose ranks are growing rapidly, provide the largest known labor reserve for meeting these labor supply deficits in the next decade. Tapping this reserve, however, means improving skills, deferring retirement, bringing older persons back into the labor market, and increasing full-time employment. Massachusetts already has the policy tools needed to train older workers to fill emerging job needs, but these policies will need to be substantially upgraded and reoriented. Too little funding, an emphasis on short-term programs, lack of coordination among programs, weak linkages to the private sector, and the limited flexibility of human resources practices in both the private and public sectors have left both government programs and employers ill-prepared to utilize fully the older worker labor reserve.     

Reviewing portfolio strategy

In our work on corporate-level strategy we have often claimed that many, if not most, large corporations are over-diversified. This, we claim, accounts for the popularity of MBOs, LBOs, spinoffs, demergers, unbundling and many other ways of reducing diversification. This article explains, in the form of a letter to a fictitious chief executive, why some forms of diversification lead to value destruction while other forms lead to value creation.     

Going to extremes: Family structure, children’s well-being, and social science

In this article I argue that public discussions of demographic issues are often conducted in a troubling pattern in which one extreme position is debated in relation to the opposite extreme. This pattern impedes our understanding of social problems and is a poor guide to sound public policies. To illustrate this thesis I use the case of social scientific research examining how children are affected by not living with two biological parents while they are growing up. Over the last decade, I maintain, most of the public, and even many social scientists, have been puzzled and poorly informed by this debate. In particular I consider Judith Wallerstein's clinically based claims of the pervasive, profound harm caused by divorce and, at the other extreme, Judith Rich Harris's reading of behavioral genetics and evolutionary psychology, which leads her to dismiss the direct effects of divorce. Neither extreme gives a clear picture of the consequences of growing up in a single-parent family or a stepfamily.     

Rating the Polls: The Views of Media Elites and the General Public

To measure the credibility of the polls in 1984, Gallup conductedtwo surveys, one of the press and one of the general public.Results of the press survey indicated a favorable reaction tothe accuracy of the preelection polling in 1984, although therewas a division of opinion about whether the polls were betterat explaining the vote than predicting it, and whether the pollsenhanced or interfered with the electoral process. The public'sperception of the polls was a generally positive one both asto their accuracy and their overall effect.     

Contents to Volume 15, 2002

Volume Contents

Contents to Volume 15, 2002     

Sustained Monopolistic Business Relationships: An Interdisciplinarity Case

Business‐to‐business relationships within sustained monopolies, such as those within UK defence procurement, have received scant attention by management researchers. This is unusual because under these market circumstances there appear to be few incentives to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes despite their strategic policy importance. This paper argues that an understanding of the monopolistic environment using a transaction cost economics theoretical framework and supply‐chain management, relationship marketing and transaction cost economics concepts provides an innovative, interdisciplinarity approach to solving this problem as well as testing aspects of these disciplines empirically in a novel area. This paper describes the results from a substantial research project to test this hypothesis in the UK defence procurement situation. It reveals a number of key dynamics within the sustained monopolistic relationships surveyed and suggests considerable potential for further research.     

中国金融业盈利之路

中国的金融业正在蓬勃发展。以前，金融业滞后于移动通信、汽车等行业，因为政府较早放松了对那些行业的监控，并且接受了国外投资者的注资。然而，中国的银行、保险及证券业目前正受到世界瞩目。2005年海外金融机构在中国银行业投资了142亿美元，到2005年底，世界许多最大的银行或者选择一个伙伴，或者选择多个，共同进入新兴的中国金融市场。上述举措发生在银行业的同时，在保险、资产管理与证券业的投资也在连续不断地增加。