Resource management schemes

Every large management organization undergoes the cyclic progress of planning, programming, budgeting, and rating of work tasks of projects to be accomplished by priority in the light of resource constraints controlling personnel strenghts and operating funds by fiscal periods. This is true, especially of governmental departments that are commodity oriented. There must be some ultimate goal of fine grain visibility that management can attempt to achieve or at least approach in order for the functional directors within the organization structure to relate and report most readily to provide required data for proficient resource management. Two essential requirements are visibility and integrated reporting as herein prescribed. Following the ascertainment of resource requirements in the light of projected work effort, some logical procedure should be employed in the rationale of resource adjustments. The Tolerance Box technique is herein described.     

Getting back into the labor market: the effects of start-up subsidies for unemployed females

Low female labor market participation is a problem many developed countries have to face. Beside activating inactive women, one possible solution is to support the re-integration of unemployed women. Due to female-specific labor market constraints (preferences for flexible working hours, discrimination), this is a difficult task, and the question arises whether active labor market policies (ALMP) are an appropriate tool to help. It has been shown that the effectiveness of traditional (ALMP) programs—which focus on the integration in dependent (potentially inflexible) employment—is positive but limited. At the same time, recent evidence for Austria shows that these programs reduce fertility which might be judged unfavorable from a societal perspective. Promoting self-employment among unemployed women might therefore be a promising alternative. Starting their own business might give women more independence and flexibility to reconcile work and family and increase labor market participation. Based on long-term informative data, we find that start-up programs persistently integrate former unemployed women into the labor market, and the impact on fertility is less detrimental than for traditional ALMP programs.     

Influence of alliance portfolio diversity on innovation performance: the role of internal capabilities of value creation

In this study, we suggest a new perspective on the linkage between alliance portfolio diversity and innovation performance based on a contingency approach. Using a longitudinal data set on alliance portfolios and patents of 182 firms in the U.S. manufacturing industries, we examined that alliance portfolio diversity has a U-shaped relationship with firm-level innovation. Internal value creation capabilities in terms of routine and ability are found to moderate the relationship between alliance portfolio diversity and innovation performance: organizational search routine strengthens the relationship of alliance portfolio diversity and innovation performance while technological capabilities weaken and flip the relationship.

     

Lag order selection for an optimal autoregressive covariance matrix estimator

A good parametric spectral estimator requires an accurate estimate of the sum of AR coefficients, however a criterion which minimizes the innovation variance not necessarily yields the best spectral estimate. This paper develops an alternative information criterion considering the bias in the sum of the parameters for the autoregressive estimator of the spectral density at frequency zero.     

Expectations of Career Counseling and Their Effect on Client Satisfaction

Although there has been growing attention to clients' expectations of career counseling, more research is necessary to clarify the role of these expectations in shaping client satisfaction at the end of the intervention. On the basis of expectation confirmation theory, this study examined the indirect effect of clients' initial expectations on overall satisfaction through the perceived performance and final confirmation of expectations. We also explored whether this indirect effect is dependent on counselors' initial expectations. Longitudinal data were collected on 83 counselor-client dyads involved in a career counseling intervention in northeast Italy. Results confirmed that clients' initial expectations predicted overall satisfaction with the intervention through the subsequent mediation of perceived performance and confirmation of clients' expectations. The moderating role of the counselors' initial expectations was not confirmed. These findings imply that career counselors should invest their efforts in managing clients' expectations.     

Evaluating Efficiency-Equality Tradeoffs for Mobile Source Control Strategies in an Urban Area

In environmental risk management, there are often interests in maximizing public health benefits (efficiency) and addressing inequality in the distribution of health outcomes. However, both dimensions are not generally considered within a single analytical framework. In this study, we estimate both total population health benefits and changes in quantitative indicators of health inequality for a number of alternative spatial distributions of diesel particulate filter retrofits across half of an urban bus fleet in Boston, Massachusetts. We focus on the impact of emissions controls on primary fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) emissions, modeling the effect on PM_2.5 concentrations and premature mortality. Given spatial heterogeneity in baseline mortality rates, we apply the Atkinson index and other inequality indicators to quantify changes in the distribution of mortality risk. Across the different spatial distributions of control strategies, the public health benefits varied by more than a factor of two, related to factors such as mileage driven per day, population density near roadways, and baseline mortality rates in exposed populations. Changes in health inequality indicators varied across control strategies, with the subset of optimal strategies considering both efficiency and equality generally robust across different parametric assumptions and inequality indicators. Our analysis demonstrates the viability of formal analytical approaches to jointly address both efficiency and equality in risk assessment, providing a tool for decisionmakers who wish to consider both issues.     

Discriminatory language in the workplace: unmasking prejudices and stereotypes / El lenguaje discriminatorio en contextos laborales: desenmascarando prejuicios y estereotipos

The link between language, communication and open discrimination has been the focus of numerous studies. For many years, language has been a vehicle of prejudice and negative stereotypes. However, in the last few years, overt verbal aggressions have diminished thanks to the implementation of equality policies and awareness-raising initiatives. Despite that, negative attitudes against protected groups might not have disappeared and may instead be transmitted subtly, such as through uncivil language. The goal of this research is to study the relation between language and subtle discrimination against lesbian and gay (LG) workers. With this goal in mind, 39 in-depth interviews were conducted. The analysis showed that LG people are victims of subtle discrimination and that language is one of the most common vehicles of prejudice and negative stereotypes. Jokes, inappropriate comments and questions are the expression of negative attitudes, which are probably present at an implicit level. Due to the ambiguity of these expressions and the settings where they have been studied — the workplace — these acts could be defined as uncivil behaviours. Practical implications, limitations and directions for future research are discussed.     

Does culture matter for the economic performance of countries? An overview of the literature

From the point of view of economic development, the world is far from being homogeneous. Among the possible causes of such uneven evolution, culture is starting to attract the attention of a growing number of scholars. The present paper surveys some of the most important contributions on culture and economics, with a particular focus on the definition and measurement of culture and on the impact of different cultural traits on economic variables. According to this review of the literature, cultures emphasising individual effort while providing equal opportunities for everyone are more likely to encourage sustained economic growth.     

COVID: Using the DAN Model with Couples to Increase Family Resilience

The COVID‐19 pandemic has massively impacted our society, affecting both wider systems and smaller ones alike. Families across the world have had to adapt to a new style of living, dominated by uncertainty, which is testing their resilience. Within this context, we have asked ourselves, as systemic therapists, what can be done to provide support and a sense of understanding to families. In this article, it is argued that therapeutic tools taken from a manualised intervention to promote resilience in couples can provide valuable help to families who are struggling in this difficult time. This intervention, developed at the Iscra Institute in Modena, Italy, is called Digital, Analogic, and Narrative (DAN). The tools used in the DAN model are described in this paper and their application in practice is illustrated through a case study.     

Sexual Prejudice in Sport Scale: A New Measure

ABSTRACT

This study describes the process of developing and validating the Sexual Prejudice in Sport Scale (SPSS), which is a multidimensional instrument developed to assess attitudes toward lesbians and gay men (LG) in sports. The authors conducted two studies: first, to establish the factor structure of the SPSS on 297 heterosexual athletes; and, second, to test the reliability and validity of the resulting 19-item scale on a sample of 311 heterosexual and 160 LG athletes. Exploratory factor analysis of an initial item pool yielded three factors: open rejection, which assesses the blatant prejudice expressed toward LG people; denial of visibility, which evaluates attitude toward the coming out of LG people; and gendering performance, which corresponds to gender stereotypes about performance/skills of LG people. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to assess the stability of the SPSS. The authors documented internal consistency, test-retest stability, and convergent/divergent validity. Implications and directions for future research are discussed.