Sheltered Employment Strategies In Five Countries

The paper outlines sheltered employment strategies drawn from five countries (USA, Sweden, The Netherlands, Britain, and New Zealand) with a view to articulating policy options. The focus for the study was at the level of individual organizations in each country and personnel at all managerial levels were interviewed to ascertain their orientation with respect to the organisation of sheltered employment at three individual, yet interdependent structural levels: the national industry, the individual enterprise, and work itself. Work activity was observed and official documentation was studied to strengthen the validity of interview data. The results indicate that successful workshops were not only well informed of the dominant industry philosophy but also had their own clearly articulated interpretation of that philosophy. A number of policy options were seen to emerge from the patterns observed.     

A Technological Science Perspective for Sociology1

Abstract The traditional positivist model is an inadequate foundation for sociology as a science. The phenomena of society differ from the phenomena assumed by positivism and existing in the world of nature in ways that prevent the successful use of that traditional approach. Agency, the ability to choose among alternatives where the choice makes an important difference, exists in social phenomena but has no counterpart in nature and cannot be dealt with adequately by positivism. A technological science perspective is suggested as an alternative for a science of sociology that can deal with the reality and importance of agency. Eight differences between the traditional perspective and the alternative are sketched. The alternative requires changes in the kind of generalized knowledge produced and the way it is produced, accumulated, and refined. The changes, though seemingly small, would produce a major reconstruction of much of sociology; such changes could result in important progress by the field of sociology.     

Community Development in the 21st Century: A Case of Conditional Development

During the last 5 years, the UK government has increased supportfor and resources to community development projects and strategies.These interventions have been deployed to assist the state addresskey issues of social exclusion notably at neighbourhood level.The thrust for tackling social exclusion and therefore the growthin community development can be linked to New Labour’sadherence to a neo-liberal agenda. The two articles and theworking paper considered here reflect this expansion of activityand articulate some of the central issues and challenges facingcommunity development. The central problem for community developmentappears to be that whilst it has secured a more prominent placewithin contemporary social policies, it is in danger of losingits ability effectively to address the expressed needs of localcommnuitties. Hence the development we are witnessing can beconsidered to be a case of conditional development.     

Regional Variations in the Realignment of American Politics, 1944–2004*

Objective. Perennial questions in electoral studies are what constitutes realignment, and when and where do realignments occur? Using the concepts of critical and secular realignments as a framework, we model change in the end product of realignment, election outcomes. We test for secular and critical changes in partisan strength across six geographic regions of the United States, focusing on office‐holding data at both the federal and state legislative level. Methods. Using an interrupted time‐series model, we examine evidence for secular realignment and posit five critical interventions that have affected American politics since World War II. Results. Our findings suggest that there are elements of both critical and secular realignments at work with different patterns in each region, and that different regions have been affected by a variety of elections associated with critical events since 1944. Conclusions. The collapse of Republican hegemony in the Northeast and Pacific West has gone largely unnoticed, buried in the intense examination of the growth of the Republican Party in the American South. The 1994 election is the most prominent in terms of its impact on seat holding by the parties at both the state and national level, and constitutes a realigning election.     

The relationship between work/family benefits and earnings: A test of competing predictions

Using data from a random statewide telephone survey, this study examines the relationship between four specific types of work/family benefits (child care, flextime, and two types of flexible leaves) and employee earnings. The research is guided by two competing theoretical perspectives. One—compensating wage differential theory—is based on the presumed cost of the benefits, and the other is based on their potential productivity enhancing effects. Despite the prevalence of the former perspective for guiding work on the impact of job characteristics on earnings, we found limited supporting evidence. Instead, earnings more closely related to work/family benefits were likely to have a positive impact on productivity, but only among those groups that stood the most to gain. Building on the findings of this study, suggestions are made to examine further how and in what ways this important new class of benefits might affect employee earnings.     

Examining Equality between Public- and Private-Sector Wage Distributions

Most comparability studies examine average pay differences, but this article explores differences in the distribution of public- and private-sector wages. Applying a new type of decomposition method, the results indicate that the difference in average wages is only a small part of wage incomparability, whereas differences in the variance of the differential are a much more important factor explaining incomparability. Further results find that differences in wage structure and unobservable factors determining wages have distinct effects in different parts of the wage distribution.     

Children's Influence on Internet Access at Home: Adoption and use in the family context

In this study, an integrated quantitative and qualitative research design was employed. From over 900 telephone interviews a typology of family types based on possession of media appliances was constructed, then divided into 'traditional' (low media density), 'intermediate' (average media density) and 'multimedia' (high media density) families. This typology was then used as a basis for selecting thirty-eight families for in-depth interviews. Of these, thirty-one contained children and it is these that form the basis for this article. The results of the family interviews indicate that children are a very important factor in the acquisition and use of the Internet. It was apparent from our interviews that Internet access and use become major issues in family discussions and conflicts - both between parents and children and between siblings.     

The intersection of leadership and entrepreneurship: Mutual lessons to be learned

Leadership scholars are quite familiar with the often convoluted and problematic path that leadership theory has taken. Despite these challenges, leadership is currently considered a “mature field” [Hunt, J.G., & Dodge, G.E. (2000). Leader Deja Vu all over again. The Leadership Quarterly, 11 (4), 453–458] even though this maturity has not been achieved without considerable growing pains. Similar to the path that leadership scholars have taken, those who study entrepreneurship also struggle with issues associated with a field in its early stages. This review examines the intersection between the fields of leadership and entrepreneurship with an emphasis on how the path taken by leadership research can inform entrepreneurship and possibly lessen this young field's growing pains. We first identify several areas where these fields theoretically converge (both in the models employed and the research questions addressed). Next, we take a historical perspective of leadership and entrepreneurship by identifying the life cycle stage of each construct or domain. Finally, we conclude with some thoughts on how the entrepreneurship field may avoid (or is avoiding) the pitfalls experienced by those who study leadership.     

Work study techniques in UK manufacturing industry

This paper presents some of the results of a large survey on the usage of work study techniques in British manufacturing industry. Detailed comparisons are made between various sizes of companies, companies of different nationality of ownership—particularly American vs British—and the types of company surveyed. The results reveal that, in spite of available knowledge, industry in the UK makes surprisingly low use of work study and that usage is significantly higher in American owned companies than British ones. Comments are made with respect to the improvements required in the teaching of work study.