The Role of Internal and External Complexity in Global Factory Performance: An NKC Application

The global factory literature suggests that MNCs can take advantage of global operations by extensively offshoring and outsourcing activities. However, the added difficulty for the lead firm to coordinate the resulting complex structure is often underestimated. Evidence could be found in Boeing's 787 Dreamliner project, in which the external complexity disrupted MNC performance. Motivated by the gap between theory and practice, this study focuses on systems of MNCs connected with each other with supplier-client relationships and/or outsourcing. In particular it investigates the interplay of the internal and external complexity in such systems and how their balance affects the system performance. The study models the internal and external complexity by using the NKC-simulation methodology and adjusting it to the specific MNC context. The NKC methodology is widely used in organization theory to study complex systems. Simulations comparing the performance of MNCs that use outsourcing to different degrees indicate that a balanced level of internal and external complexity is beneficial in the context of global factory.     

Structured Voluntary Youth Activities and Positive Outcomes in Adulthood: An Exploratory Study of Involvement in Scouting and Subjective Well-Being

This study explores whether youth involvement in Scouting has positive consequences later in life. We examine whether the number of years of participation in Scouting is positively associated with human and social capital and recreational lifestyles in adulthood, and whether these are linked to subjective well-being: relational, emotional, and physical health. To explore this potential relationship, we estimated a structural equation model, analyzing data from a national sample of adult males. We found that youth involvement in Scouting is positively related to subjective well-being indirectly via the positive adult outcomes.     

Bringing Productivity Back In: Rising Inequality and Economic Rents in the U.S. Manufacturing Sector, 1971 to 2001

Using data on earnings and productivity for U.S. manufacturing industries from 1971 to 2001, we investigate economic rents and rising income inequalities. The results suggest that rents are most significant for managers, professionals, middle‐aged workers, and older workers. Conversely, negative rents are evident for women, Hispanics, single men, and blue‐collar workers. The underpayment of Hispanics appears to have increased while African Americans have gone from being underpaid to being overpaid. Workers with a college degree have become overpaid (i.e., “credentialism”) while “gift‐exchange” efficiency wages have declined. The marginal productivity of labor input has increased but is increasingly underpaid.     

Challenges in Meeting the Mental Health Needs of Urban Asian American Adolescents: Service Providers’ Perspectives

Although Asian American youth are often viewed as the model minority group who are doing well, research with youths, parents, and school personnel have documented significant unmet mental health needs among this population. However, little is known about the perspectives of service providers who work with Asian American youth in afterschool and mental health care settings with respect to what they perceive as challenges meeting the psychosocial needs of the population. The current exploratory study used Consensual Qualitative Research to analyze in-depth interviews with mental health providers, educators, and advocates working with Asian American youths in a multiethnic large urban environment. Results found that service providers were attuned to the multiple needs of the community but also spoke of challenges in meeting basic and psychological needs due to difficult family dynamics, structural stressors (e.g., economic and legal), and societal stigma and discrimination. We draw implications for providing more integrated services across different levels of urban Asian American adolescents’ ecological system to better meet the psychosocial challenges facing this population.     

The division problem with voluntary participation

The division problem consists of allocating a given amount of a homogeneous and perfectly divisible good among a group of agents with single-peaked preferences on the set of their potential shares. A rule proposes a vector of shares for each division problem. The literature has implicitly assumed that agents will find acceptable any share they are assigned to. In this article we consider the division problem when agents’ participation is voluntary. Each agent has an idiosyncratic interval of acceptable shares where his preferences are single-peaked. A rule has to propose to each agent either to not participate or an acceptable share because otherwise he would opt out and this would require to reassign some of the remaining agents’ shares. We study a subclass of efficient and consistent rules and characterize extensions of the uniform rule that deal explicitly with agents’ voluntary participation.     

Strategy-proof and anonymous rule in queueing problems: a relationship between equity and efficiency

We consider a relationship between equity and efficiency in queueing problems. We show that under strategy-proofness, anonymity in welfare implies queue-efficiency. Furthermore, by combining the result of Kayı and Ramaekers (Games Econ Behav 68:220–232, 2010) with ours, we also give a characterization of the class of rules that satisfy strategy-proofness, anonymity in welfare, and budget-balance.     

Balanced consistency and balanced cost reduction for sequencing problems

We investigate the implications of balanced consistency and balanced cost reduction in the context of sequencing problems. Balanced consistency requires that the effect on the payoff from the departure of one agent to another agent should be equal between any two agents. On the other hand, balanced cost reduction requires that if one agent leaves a problem, then the total payoffs of the remaining agents should be affected by the amount previously assigned to the leaving agent. We show that the minimal transfer rule is the only rule satisfying efficiency and Pareto indifference together with either one of our two main axioms, balanced consistency and balanced cost reduction.     

The effect of experience of childhood abuse among university students on self-perception and submissive behavior

Objective

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of experience of childhood abuse among university students on self-perception and submissive behavior.

Methods

The study group consisted of 646 students attending various departments of the Karadeniz Technical University Faculty of Education in Trabzon, Turkey. Participants were administered the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, the Social Comparison Scale and the Submissive Acts Scale in a classroom setting.

Results

Analysis revealed a significant negative correlation between self-perception and all forms of abuse (physical abuse, sexual abuse, and emotional abuse and neglect), and a positive correlation between submissive behavior and all forms of abuse. The students' emotional abuse and neglect scores varied significantly according to gender, with males having higher emotional abuse and neglect scores than those of girls. Additionally, males had higher physical abuse scores than girls.

Conclusion

Childhood abuse emerged as a significant predictor of negative self-perception and submissive behavior. In addition, with the exception of sexual abuse, other forms of abuse vary according to gender. The experiences of childhood abuse may have a long-term impact on various features of character and behavior.     

Implementation of comfort rooms to reduce seclusion, restraint use, and acting-out behaviors

The use of seclusion and restraint as methods to control acting-out behaviors by individuals with mental illness continues, despite deaths and other negative outcomes to both the clients themselves and the staff members applying these techniques. Additionally, client-to-client and client-to-staff assaults and self-injurious behaviors can lead to injury or possible fatalities to both parties.Thus, there is a need to find alternative approaches to mitigate or even eliminate some of these behaviors. The use of comfort rooms is one such approach. With the institution of comfort rooms, one small, rural, tertiary mental health hospital demonstrated a reduction in seclusion and restraint use and assaultive behaviors of clients. In addition, 92.9% of the clients who used these rooms found them to be helpful when they experienced increasing levels of distress. With the provision of an area for clients to go voluntarily to self-manage their distress,nurses play a role in promoting autonomy and person-centered care, while reducing environmental stress and potential negative outcomes.