Work, family, and managerial attitudes and practices in the European workplace: comparing Dutch, British, and Slovenian financial sector managers

Managers are key actors shaping employees’ capabilities to utilize work–life policies. However, most research on managers’ implementation of these policies has been conducted in liberal welfare states and ignores the impact of institutional context. In this study, we situate managers within specific workplace and national layers of context. We investigated how managers in financial organizations in the Netherlands, UK, and Slovenia talk about the utilization of work–life policies. Managers’ discourses stressed disruption and dependency considerations in these case studies, as in the US research. However, a further management discourse of the moral case or right thing to do also emerged. The lack of resources for replacing staff on leave creates disruption and reduces managers capability to support the use of work–life policies, even when they are statutory or if managers are inclined be supportive (dependency or moral argument). This is likely to impact on parents' capabilities.     

用于研究细胞入侵的基质降解实验

在细胞正常发育、发炎和肿瘤转移研究中有一个关键步骤,就是通过多层的细胞外基质入侵细胞。在传统的研究方法中,研究者们已经发展了自己的检测方法,就是利用荧光标记的凝胶来研究基质降解,其中伴随着细胞的入侵。这篇文章探索了研究细胞入侵的新方法,能得到比传统方法更一致的结果。研究者们利用这些方法来研究降解时间过程,扫描在降解过程中潜在的活化剂或者抑制剂,探索细胞入侵的通道。     

Age cohort differences in the developmental milestones of gay men

As the social context in which gay men live changes due to greater visibility, greater acceptance, and easier access to gay subculture, gay males may self-identify and take part in gay social activities at earlier ages than in the past. This study examined whether developmental milestones associated with sexual orientation for gay men have changed over the past several decades. A large and diverse sample of 2,402 gay men who responded to a 1994 survey published in a national magazine provided retrospective information on the age at which they reached individual psychological, social, and sexual behavior developmental milestones. We found evidence that individual psychological and sexual behavior milestones (e.g., awareness of attraction to males, having an orgasm with other male) are slowly moving toward earlier chronological ages (by 1 year of age every 8-25 years, p < 0.05), whereas social milestones (e.g., coming out) are moving more rapidly in a similar direction (by 1 year of age every 2-5 years, p < 0.001). The authors perform an innovative sensitivity test to demonstrate the persistence of the finding after correcting for the bias attributable to underrepresentation of those who have not yet self-identified as gay in such samples.     

Sizing Up a Superstorm: Exploring the Role of Recalled Experience and Attribution of Responsibility in Judgments of Future Hurricane Risk

Research suggests that hurricane‐related risk perception is a critical predictor of behavioral response, such as evacuation. Less is known, however, about the precursors of these subjective risk judgments, especially when time has elapsed from a focal event. Drawing broadly from the risk communication, social psychology, and natural hazards literature, and specifically from concepts adapted from the risk information seeking and processing model and the protective action decision model, we examine how individuals’ distant recollections, including attribution of responsibility for the effects of a storm, attitude toward relevant information, and past hurricane experience, relate to risk judgment for a future, similar event. The present study reports on a survey involving U.S. residents in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York (n = 619) impacted by Hurricane Sandy. While some results confirm past findings, such as that hurricane experience increases risk judgment, others suggest additional complexity, such as how various types of experience (e.g., having evacuated vs. having experienced losses) may heighten or attenuate individual‐level judgments of responsibility. We suggest avenues for future research, as well as implications for federal agencies involved in severe weather/natural hazard forecasting and communication with public audiences.     

Gender,the Work‐Life Interface and Wellbeing: A Study of Hospital Doctors

Long and unsociable hours and intensive work pressure have been dominant features of the medical profession, especially in hospital work. The increased presence of women in medical occupations, however, has stimulated debate about the nature and consequences of such work practices on doctors' wellbeing. Against the backdrop of this debate the article explores how factors relating to the work–lfe interface affect the wellbeing of a sample of hospital doctors. A key aim is to assess whether gender differences are discernible in the pattern of factors associated with perceptions of job burnout and intentions to quit. The research suggests that female doctors were more likely to experience job burnout than male doctors. It also shows that aspects of the work–life interface affect the wellbeing of all doctors but women tend to rely on different forms of social support from men to alleviate burnout and reduce the likelihood of leaving their job.     

Military Deployment of an Adult Child: Ambiguous Loss and Boundary Ambiguity Reflected in the Experiences of Parents of Service Members

ABSTRACT

This study explored the experiences of parents of service members, military family members who are often overlooked even though they are likely a vital source of support for their military adult-children. Reflections on deployment of military adult-children were gathered from 21 parents in semistructured group interviews. A framework of ambiguous loss, boundary ambiguity, and ambivalence was used to analyze comments reflecting pre-deployment, deployment, and post-deployment experiences. Pre-deployment anticipation of leave-taking was associated with boundary ambiguity and ambivalence for parents, tempered by safety concerns. During deployment ambiguity in parental role expectations and parameters complicated parents’ attempts to manage physical absence and maintain psychological presence. Post-deployment challenged parents with ambiguous psychological presence and disruption of family boundaries, complicated by changes associated with the effects of war.     

The effects of management practices on union election returns

This paper examines the importance of management suppression tactics on union activity in the United States. NLRB data on individual certification elections which have recently become available for the period 1972–1976 are merged with structural, demographic, and industry characteristics of the 96 largest SMSAs to ascertain the role of strategy versus structure in explaining union outcomes. The measures of election-generated membership outcomes are voter participation, the margin of pro-union votes, and union wins. Union suppression practices under study include consent elections, election delays, formal objections after unions win a certification election, elections overruled because of management unfair labor practices, elections held by management petition, and the number of unfair labor practice charges per representation election. Five of the six measures of suppression are significant determinants of some facet of union expansion after adjusting for structural characteristics of the area work force.