Differences in Graduate and Undergraduate Performance in a Core Research Course

In an effort to determine research content appropriate to the undergraduate and graduate degree programs, this study describes differences between undergraduate and graduate social work students and identifies predictors of achievement in an introductory research course. In general, graduates were older, had higher undergraduate grade point averages, were more likely to be male, and did better in the research course than undergraduates. The best predictors of achievement were undergraduate grade point average, interest in the class, and, for graduate students, prior experience in research.     

Book reviews

The Patient and the Analyst: The Basis of the Psychoanalytic Process. Joseph Sandier, Christopher Dare, and Alex Holder. (New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1973)

The Writings of Anna Freud, Volume III, 1939–1945; Infants Without Families, Reports on the Hampstead Nurseries. Anna Freud. (New York: International Universities Press, Inc., 1973)     

Reference compensation: a transfer of reference price theory to human resource management

The topics of compensation in human resource management and pricing in marketing theory both involve a monetary component that is important for companies to manage. While the role that price perceptions play for consumers is the subject of the well-established reference price theory, human resource management theory lacks any related concept for the compensation perceptions held by employees. This paper transfers reference price theory to HR management in the form of reference compensation, conceptualized as an individual’s compensation norm, including normative and predictive compensation expectations. Possible measures to influence employees’ reference compensation are suggested and avenues for further establishing the concepts in research and practice are developed. As a first empirical attempt to support the relevance of the concept, we present results of an exploratory study among 88 part-time students. We show that employees apply references when judging compensation, and that the applied references vary with different employment situations.     

Verteilungskoalitionen und Demokratische Staatsstrukturen als Determinanten der wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung?

This comment critically focuses upon Volker Kunz’s (KFfSS Vol. 52, 2000: 195–225) empirical findings concerning the political and institutional underpinnings of economic development in the OECD world. It is argued that a most similar systems design is inappropriate to explore the political sources of economic growth. Reanalyzing the determinants of economic growth rates in a cross-section of 21 OECD countries provides little evidence for a political dimension of economic development. More specifically, I cannot replicate his findings that consensus democracy and distributional coalitions hamper economic growth. It is shown that long-term economic growth rates first and foremost are determined by economic catch-up resulting from differentials in initial levels of economic development.     

Dangerous Issues and Public Identities: The Negotiation of Controversy in Two Movement Organizations*

Social movement organizations frame not only their target issues, but their own organizational identities. In doing so, they are sometimes forced to make difficult decisions that pit principle against considerations of image. This article compares and contrasts episodes from two different movements: (1) Amnesty International's (AIUSA) expansion of its human rights agenda to include death penalty abolitionism and (2) the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) endorsement of drug legalization. Based upon documentary and interview data, I demonstrate that Amnesty's decision to work toward the abolition of capital punishment provoked intense internal debate based upon the prevalence within AIUSA at that time of a narrow conception of human rights, concern about the effect of anti‐death penalty projects on the group's priorities, and the fear that the carefully crafted image the organization had built would be damaged by anti‐death penalty work. The ACLU's endorsement of drug legalization provoked some of the same concerns, but issues of public identity management were far less evident. Instead, internal debates focused on the proper breadth of the organization's anti‐prohibitionism. I suggest that the differences between the two cases may be understood in terms of contrasting organizational cultures, framing vocabularies, and membership profiles.     

Das Theorie-Praxis-Verhältnis in den Sozialwissenschaften im Kontext professionellen Handelns

This paper discusses some issues concerning the transfer of scientific knowledge to action in professional contexts. Traditionally, this transfer is studied on two premises: Firstly, transfer is an action in which knowledge is applied for practical purposes. Secondly, scientific knowledge is distinguished from practical knowledge by a higher standard of rationality. The authors argue for a different view: Theoretical knowledge will only become practically effective if actors engage in a process of interpretation and re-interpretation in which they acquire scientific findings and transform them to cope with specific problems of their practice context. In systems of scientific production there are traditions and operations which support the rationality of their products, but also traditions and operations which obstruct it. From this point of view it makes sense to conceive the relationship between theory and practice as non-hierarchical.     

Corporate campaigns: The perversion of the regulatory process

Conclusion Regulatory agencies thus play a major role in union comprehensive corporate campaigns. The willingness of these agencies to adopt the union-assistance role is sometime motivated by bias, often by ignorance of the union’s true purpose, and sometimes by the legislation involved. Even when the last is the case, there is little excuse for some regulatory action in the union behalf. For example, the NLRB’s lopsided actions in the Caterpillar case challenge both common sense and common considerations of fair play. The EPA’s role in rushing to the aid of unions when state agencies, after laborious examinations of the issues, found no violations or impediments, calls loudly for congressional action. And OSHA’s rush to inspect facilities where a labor dispute exits, but where no serious safety or health faults were previously found or complained about, needs to be rethought and revamped. Most of all, the action of the current Congress, particularly the House of Representatives, in reexamining, rethinking, and hopefully successfully rewriting regulatory legislation so that it comes closer to meeting its purpose rather than continuing to degenerate into labor dispute tactics to harass industry and to befuddle the public, promises to be a proper move for the public good.