Centres and peripheries: the political culture of dependency*

Cet étude examine les variations du sentiment d'efficacité politique externe des Canadiens face à leur situation régionale dans le système centre-périphérie. Dans les régions périphériques du Canada, le manque d'autonomie, qui reste la marque la plus sure de la dépendance, est indiqué par la perception des résidents qu'il est difficile d'influencer le processus politique. Le Québec francophone se distingue du reste du Canada par le manque d'impact que même une des régions avantagées percevoit avoir face a la réponse gouvernementale. Divers modèles log-linéaires sont comparés dans le but d'examiner l'impact de la classe sociale et de la province. Cet ètude indique qu'à l'intérieur de chaque province, il existe des variations importantes dans le sentiment d'efficacité externe. This study relates variations in Canadians' feelings of external political efficacy to their region's location in the centre-periphery system. In Canada's peripheral regions, the lack of autonomy that is the hallmark of dependency is reflected in residents' perceptions that little can be done to influence the political process. Francophone Quebec is shown to be distinctive in the lack of impact of even an advantaged regional location on perceptions of government responsiveness. A variety of ordinal loglinear models are developed to examine the impact of social class and province. The study points to important variations in feelings of external efficacy within provinces.     

Towards a Theory of Network Facilitation: A Microfoundations Perspective on the Antecedents,Practices and Outcomes of Network Facilitation

Firms cooperate in inter‐firm networks to foster their competitiveness and improve their innovation outcomes. In many cases, network facilitators who are either embedded in a lead firm or a third‐party organization manage the cooperation among the network firms. This qualitative study adopts a microfoundations perspective to investigate the behavioural antecedents of the network facilitators, their facilitation practices and the related network‐level outcomes. Results show that lead‐firm facilitators more strongly invest in trust‐building measures since they are considered deficient in benevolence and integrity. Without these investments, they run the risk that conflicts of interest hinder the stimulation of positive network‐level outcomes. Third‐party facilitators, by contrast, enjoy certain credits of trust and focus on balancing firm interests from the network's activation, but need to invest in enhancing their competencies and skills with regard to the industry the firms operate in. The findings contribute to developing a theory of network facilitation by providing a nuanced understanding of how network‐level outcomes can be reduced to individual‐level factors.     

Measuring Ontario's increasing housing affordability problem

This empirical study measures the prevalence and incidence of housing affordability problems in Canada in 1972, 1976, and 1983. It shows the affordability problem has not been improved by the major effort the Canadian governments made during the 1970s. Rent controls have not been adequate in reducing affordability problems. Moderate intervention in the housing market are not enough to help low income households attain affordable housing. The problem's resolution may require a major effort to stimulate housing supply, and by direct government involvement, adjustment in creating new methods and institutions for building and delivering housing services. Housing affordability problems will remain unresolved in the absence of major income redistribution programs.     

Household structure and childhood immunization in Niger and Nigeria

In this study, we use data from the Demographic and Health Surveys to examine the relationship between household structure and childhood immunization in Niger and Nigeria. We show that household structure is an important determinant of childhood immunization in Nigeria: Children from nuclear, elementary polygynous, and three-generational households are worse-off than those from laterally extended households. However, the lower odds of full immunization among children from three-generational and elementary polygynous households are attributable to low economic status and low maternal education levels, respectively. In Niger, household structure does not have a significant effect on children’s likelihood of being fully immunized.     

The role of empathy in case management: a pilot study

Little research has been done on the benefit of empathy for social workers in the actual practice of their profession. This prompted an exploration of the interplay between empathic ability and the skills practitioners draw on for case management. Two cohorts of social work students, in their final semester, reflected on an authentic social work scenario and suggested a plan for intervention before completing a scale measuring empathy. The results revealed that different dimensions of empathy, to a varying degree, underpin the process through which students come to a decision on how to intervene. The findings provide empirical support for the assumption that empathy plays an essential role in the practice of social work. They also suggest the need for further investigation, particularly given the potential use of increased knowledge on what determines the skills needed to take on the oftentimes complex and demanding reality of social work.     

Scheduling and packing malleable and parallel tasks with precedence constraints of bounded width

We study the problems of non-preemptively scheduling and packing malleable and parallel tasks with precedence constraints to minimize the makespan. In the scheduling variant, we allow the free choice of processors; in packing, each task must be assigned to a contiguous subset. Malleable tasks can be processed on different numbers of processors with varying processing times, while parallel tasks require a fixed number of processors. For precedence constraints of bounded width, we resolve the complexity status of the problem with any number of processors and any width bound. We present an FPTAS based on Dilworth’s decomposition theorem for the NP-hard problem variants, and exact efficient algorithms for all remaining special cases. For our positive results, we do not require the otherwise common monotonous penalty assumption on the processing times of malleable tasks, whereas our hardness results hold even when assuming this restriction. We complement our results by showing that these problems are all strongly NP-hard under precedence constraints which form a tree.     

Examining Secondary School Choice Processes as a Predictor of Adjustment After the School Transition

The secondary school transition is an important moment in adolescents' lives. Taking a prospective approach, the present study examined whether educational identity regarding a secondary school choice and own and parental expectations during the last year of primary school predicted post-transition school and psychological adjustment in Dutch adolescents (N = 314, M_age = 11.58). Additionally, the study qualitatively examined the reasons adolescents gave for their school choice, and linked these reasons to exploration behavior and post-transition adjustment. Identity processes and expectations predicted adjustment. Adolescents mostly reported multiple reasons for their school choice, with educational, practical, and social aspects of secondary schools appearing most important. The number of reasons mentioned was associated with pre-transition exploration behavior.