Silent Partners: Women in Farm Magazine Success Stories, 1934–19911

Abstract Women's contributions to the farm and farm household have historically been undervalued. An analysis of farm magazine “success” stories through six decades indicates that these stories may be a vehicle for reproducing and transmitting a traditional domestic ideology that separates farm production from the rest of the farm household and that rarely portrays women as significant contributors to the economic well-being of either. Magazine stories depict women as spouses or farm helpers, but not as producers or decision-makers. Farm magazines thus offer few models of realistic gender relations for either farm women or farm men.     

The exponentiation formula of reliability and survival: Does it always hold?

In reliability and biometry, it is common practice to choose a failure model by first assessing the failure rate function subjectively, and then invoking the well known exponentiation formula. The derivation of this formula is based on the assumption that the underlying failure distribution be absolutely continuous. Thus, implicit in the above approach is the understanding that the selected failure distribution will be absolutely continuous. The purpose of this note is to point out that the absolute continuity may fail when the failure rate is assessed conditionally, and in particular when it is conditioned on certain types of covariates, called internal covariates. When such is the case, the exponentiation formula should not be used.     

India-born immigrants in Australia and Canada: a comparison of selected characteristics

"This article examines the Indian component of Asian immigration to Canada and Australia, reviews briefly the historical background of Indian immigration, discusses the characteristics of India-born immigrants and explores their social impact upon both nations. A comparative approach is adopted to highlight similarities and differences." (SUMMARY IN FRE AND SPA)     

Socioeconomic status,psychosocial factors and health in urban Guyana

Individuals of higher socioeconomic status live longer and enjoy better physical and mental health relative to individuals of lower social status. Socioeconomic status differences in health status persist over time. This paper examines the association between socioeconomic status, psychosocial factors, and health in Georgetown, Guyana. The major causes of death are cardiovascular and cerebrovascular disease; life expectancy at birth is 67.3 years for males and 72.3 years for females; and the infant mortality rate is 44 per 1000 live births. Data for the study were drawn from a probability sample of 654 adult residents of Georgetown. A significant inverse association was found between formal education and morbidity for four of the six measures of health status. The authors investigated the extent to which self-concept, health behaviors, stress, and social ties are linked to health status and socioeconomic status, and can explain socioeconomic status differences in health status. Psychosocial factors, especially the self-concept measures of self-esteem and mastery, were found to play a moderate role in accounting for educational differences in health status.     

Servant leadership

As corporations are eagerly pursuing reengineering and reorganization, leadership functions are changing to champion these efforts. Traditionally, organizations have had a "top-down" management approach, however, there is a gradual shift to other leadership models. Servant leadership is being successfully implemented in many settings. Servant leadership, first popularized by Robert Greenleaf in 1970, puts serving others as the number one priority. Ten characteristics of a servant leader include: Listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, conceptualization, foresight, stewardship, commitment to the growth of people, and building community. Both servant leadership and the chaos theory have in common the central tenet of relationships. Since America is now approximately 80 percent a "service-economy," servant leadership can greatly benefit the individual employees, as well as help to facilitate the organization's pursuit of its changing strategic plans.     

Markets,Networks, and Risk: An Analysis of Labor Remuneration in the Lake Victoria Fishing Industry

This study applies concepts from Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action to the problem of identifying the circumstances under which networks replace markets as the primary governance mechanism for economic activities. The suggestion derived from this theory is that markets govern economic activities tied to material phenomena; whereas networks control such activities when they are tied to social relationships. This suggestion is subjected to an empirical test. Labor transactions in the Lake Victoria fishing industry are used to test the hypothesis that risk factors arising from natural contingencies will distribute according to a risk market model, whereas those arising from social relationships will be distributed through a logic of social power tied to networks and identities. The hypothesis is generally supported by data on the effects of kinship and, more strongly, ethnicity.     

Being Volunteered? The Impact of Social Participation and Pro-Social Attitudes on Volunteering

While disagreeing over the reasons why the performance of civic obligations seems to be declining, conservatives and liberals agree that people need to be reminded of their duties as citizens for this decline to be halted. But do these exhortations work? This paper tests two theories about how people become volunteers. The “normativist” perspective assumes that volunteer behavior flows from socialization into pro-social attitudes; the “social practice” perspective stresses the formative role of practical experiences and social participation. Using a panel study of high school seniors who were reinterviewed in their mid-20s and again in their early 30s, we show that volunteer work undertaken in high school has long-term benefits as does social participation more generally but that socialization into pro-social attitudes has an even stronger influence on volunteering in middle age. The implications of our study are that mandatory community service programs can boost later volunteer efforts but that socialization into appropriate citizenship attitudes is of equal, if not greater, importance.

     

Putting the “Team” into Teamwork: Alternative Theoretical Contributions for Contemporary Management Practice

This paper establishes that teamwork is afunction of how team members perceive the team and theirrole in it. Social identity theory (Hogg & Abrams,1993; Tajfel & Turner, 1986) and self-categorization theory (Turner, 1987) offer explanations forthe cognitive, evaluative, and emotional processes whichmotivate individuals to join a social group and enhancetheir ability to contribute to the maximum of their ability, which would be desirable formany team tasks. Social identity theory posits that themotivation for thinking, feeling, and thus working as acohesive unit is socially constructed. Highly productive teamwork requires that team membersrecognize the team as a unit and as an attractive workarrangement. Fundamental assumptions of contemporarymanagement, and management research, are challenged to integrate social identityfindings.