Flexible Work Options and Mothers' Perceptions of Career Harm

Whether or not mothers, who often struggle with balancing work and parenting responsibilities, perceive that they face career harm in exchange for control over flexible work options at their jobs is an unanswered question. Using 2009 original data from a random‐digit‐dial telephone survey of 441 mothers located across the United States, this study focuses on how control over two latent variables measuring flexibility, flexible work arrangements (such as scheduling and place of work) and time‐off options, influences mothers' career harm perceptions in a total of three work domains: (1) wages/earnings, (2) raises or promotions, and (3) job evaluations. We find perceptions of career harm among only one‐fifth of mothers; in addition, control over time‐off options reduced perceived career damage related to parenting duties. Mothers may have less to fear than previously hypothesized about the potential sacrifices they have to make when they have significant control over certain flexibility options.     

Time orientations and emotion-rules in finance

This article explores how Anglo-American financial firms since the 1980s have operated and acted in an increasingly deregulated, risky, and uncertain arena. I look at these firms and their actions with a particular focus on “temporality” and requisite “emotion-rules,” where variations in emotion-rules correspond with organizational definitions of uncertainty. Firms impose specific emotion-rules, depending on national policies, official duties, and interpretations of each risk. In finance, caveat emptor (i.e., buyer or lender distrust) is an emotion-rule set in screening policies and data collection for credit risks and risks of fraud by personnel, and it gives rise to actual emotions. I argue that three time-orientations are significant in creating emotion-rules. If a past, present, or a long-term future is deployed to construct a future, that creates and frames an institution’s attempts to manage uncertainty. Looking exclusively at Anglo-American corporate finance policies and strategies (often deemed the international “one best way”), six modes of certainty constructions are presented. Each is assessed against the dispositions and emotional strategies required in highly-skilled careers, in specific organizational settings. The relative influence of individual perspectives, institutional rules and general typologies of social action is assessed and found to comprise one past view, three present views, and one future-oriented perspective towards the future. Implications are outlined for emotion-rules relevant to financial careers and office. This article was written before the full financial crisis unfolded, which the argument here substantially foreshadows.

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Risk Perception of the "Mad Cow Disease" in France: Determinants and Consequences

Since 1996, when bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) was assessed as a possible human transmissible disease, a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), French people have entered into a long period of fear and avoidance of beef and bovine byproducts, which produced an unprecedented collapse in the beef market. This article deals with the perceived risk of the "mad cow disease" (MCD) in the French general population. Two surveys were conducted on a representative sample of the adult population, the first one in 2000 during the peak of the crisis and the second one 13 months later in a quieter period. The main assumption we made was that changes in beef consumption are strongly related to the perceived risk of MCD, which we defined as people's cognitive and affective responses to hazard. Our objective was to identify the determinants and consequences of this perceived risk and to compare them in different sociopolitical contexts. The results issued from a bivariate and multivariate analysis show that: (i) the distribution of most of the variables significantly related to the perceived risk identified in the first survey had changed in the second survey, in relation with the reduction of worry and the resumption of national beef consumption; (ii) the propensity for self-protection through avoiding or ceasing beef eating was more related to feelings of worry than to subjective vCJD risk assessments; and (iii) the main determinant of less avoidance to beef products was the preference for beef, a feeling identified prior to emergence of the risk of MCD, remaining unchanged in various contexts.     

The therapeutic misconception: a threat to valid parental consent for pediatric neuroimaging research

Neuroimaging research has brought major advances to child health and wellbeing. However, because of the vulnerabilities associated with neurological and developmental conditions, the parental need for hope, and the expectation of parents that new medical advances can benefit their child, pediatric neuroimaging research presents significant challenges to the general problem of consent in the context of research involving children. A particular challenge in this domain is created by the presence of therapeutic misconception on the part of parents and other key research stakeholders. This article revierws the concept of therapeutic misconception and its role in pediatric neuroimaging research. It argues that this misconception can compromise consent given by parents for the involvement of their children in research as healthy controls or as persons with neurological and developmental conditions. The article further contends that therapeutic misconception can undermine the research ethics review process for proposed and ongoing neuroimaging studies. Against this backdrop, the article concludes with recommendations for mitigating the effects of therapeutic misconception in pediatric neuroimaging research.     

No time to think: protecting the reflective space in children's services

Over the past few years, first line managers in child care have faced mounting pressure on their time from both the national performance management agenda and the professional demands associated with the Framework for the Assessment of Children in Need and their Families and Working Together to Safeguard Children: A Guide to Inter‐Agency Working to Safeguard and Promote the Welfare of Children. This paper briefly discusses the policy context surrounding this period of unprecedented change and focuses on the potential erosion of the reflective space in supervision as first line managers struggle to cope with the ever‐increasing expectations. An argument is made for the creative use of multi‐agency action learning/ research projects within the workplace to supplement individual supervision and promote reflective multi‐agency child care practice; some examples of successful projects are given. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Emergence and the Effects of Therapeutic Factors in Groups

ABSTRACT

This article explores the emergence of therapeutic factors in domestic violence men's group, as well as their effects on participants and the group. The authors conducted semistructured interviews with 72 men from groups in Quebec, after their fourth session. Thirty-eight of these men were met again, following their 16th session. A critical incident technique permitted us to identify various therapeutic factors. Three key factors are discussed: imparting information, hope, and cohesion. The authors found different processes influencing their development, particularly the roles of the worker, other members, and the group as a whole. These factors helped members meet their objectives and by their interdependency also contributed to group development. The authors made links with mutual aid and identified implications for research and practice.     

Unfinished business: ongoing ethical exceptionalism in the oversight of human pluripotent stem cell research in Canada

In this article, we critically examine the arguments for and against the exceptional status given human pluripotent stem cell research in Canada (through the latest [December 2010] revision of the Tri-Council Policy Statement: Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans), and conclude that this exceptionalism is unwarranted and ethically unsound. In our view, the three federal research granting agencies should honor their longstanding commitment that researchers, research sponsors, and Research Ethics Boards in Canada have access to "a single reference document for all research involving humans conducted under the auspices of institutions eligible for Agency funding." As well, responsibility for the development, interpretation, and implementation of Canada's research ethics guidelines should be under the authority of a single oversight body that is independent of the federal research granting Agencies.     

Challenging gendered power: How sexual harassment perpetrators respond to victim confrontation

Sexual harassment is a problem that continues to plague mostly women in the American workforce today. One tool that victims can use in these situations is confrontation, either through verbal or physical means. Yet, understudied to this point is how perpetrators respond to confrontation, which is highly salient as to whether this is an effective tool for victims. This study uses grounded theory methods to analyze 31 accounts of sexual harassment from within the fashion industry that recorded perpetrators' responses to victim confrontation to clearly unwanted, abusive behavior. I argue that specific features of the fashion industry, or a “display work culture,” embolden perpetrators to effectively thwart any type of confrontation. Indeed, this study finds that these predominantly male perpetrators of sexual harassment moved to reassert their dominant position over their female victims in the moment of confrontation, immediately after being confronted, and even later, well beyond confrontation, as they aimed to reestablish normal business practices as usual. This research thus dispels a significant sexual harassment myth that victims working within this culture are able to stop perpetrators simply by speaking up and/or fighting back and points to the need for the development of sexual harassment theory to incorporate work culture-related risk factors and remedies.