The continuing relevance of class analysis — comments

Conclusion If the evidence I discuss above is correct, then it certainly seems premature to declare the death of class. Class may not be the most powerful or fundamental cause of societal organization, and class struggle may not be the most powerful transformative force in the world today. Class primacy as a generalized explanatory principle across all social explananda are implausible. Nevertheless, class remains a significant and sometimes powerful determinant of many aspects of social life. Class boundaries, especially the property boundary, continue to constitute real barriers in people's lives; inequalities in the distribution of capital assets continue to have real consequences for material interests; capitalist firms continue to face the problem of extracting labor effort from non-owning employees; and class location continues to have real, if variable, impacts on individual subjectivities.     

No going back: A review of the literature on sustaining organizational change

Why do some organizational changes persist, while others decay? The sustainability of change can be defined broadly as the process through which new working methods, performance goals and improvement trajectories are maintained for a period appropriate to a given context. However, sustainability has received limited attention, although the concept reflects Lewin's concern with ‘refreezing’ ( Lewin. K. 1951 . Field Theory in Social Science: Selected Theoretical Papers by Kurt Lewin, UK edition published 1952, ed. D. Cartwright, London: Tavistock). In an uncertain environment, working practices that fail to adapt are targets for change, and stability has been regarded not as a condition to be achieved, but as a symptom of inertia, a problem to be solved. This paper reviews the emerging literature, seeking to develop a provisional model of the processes influencing change sustainability and decay, as a platform for further research. This review suggests that sustainability is dependent on multiple factors, at different levels of analysis: substantial, individual, managerial, financial, leadership, organizational, cultural, political, processual, contextual and temporal. The relative significance of those factors cannot be determined a priori, raising questions concerning the properties of the sustainability process with regard to different types of change in different contexts.     

A "READER'S THEATER" INTERVENTION TO MANAGING GRIEF: POSTTHERAPY REFLECTIONS BY A FAMILY AND CLINICAL TEAM

The sudden and accidental death of a child can be one of the most devastating events in the life of a family. This paper describes one couple's reflections of their grief and mourning following the death of their adolescent son as well as the clinical team's reflections of therapy. The uniqueness of this paper is that it offers a "reader's theater" intervention that enabled further change to occur. The clinical team used a belief model, emphasizing that altering constraining beliefs is at the heart of healing from such tragedies as sudden death (Wright, Watson, & Bell, 1996). This approach is operationalized through therapeutic conversations between family members, clinician, and clinical team. Interventions such as reflecting teams, therapeutic letters, and "homework tasks" were used to modify or challenge constraining beliefs of both the family members and the clinical team members. However, the intent to co-author a paper with this couple provided the serendipity intervention of a "reader's theater" that further served to identify, affirm, and solidify facilitating beliefs.     

A method for estimating age-specific reference intervals ('normal ranges') based on fractional polynomials and exponential transformation

The age-specific reference interval is an important screening tool in medicine. Put crudely, an individual whose value of a variable of interest lies outside certain extreme centiles may be suspected of abnormality. We propose a parametric method for constructing such intervals. It provides smooth centile curves and explicit formulae for the centile estimates and for standard deviation (SD) scores (age-standardized values). Each parameter of an exponential–normal or modulus–exponential–normal density is modelled as a fractional polynomial function of age. Estimation is by maximum likelihood. These three- and four-parameter models involve transformations of the data towards normality which remove non-normal skewness and/or kurtosis. Fractional polynomials provide more flexible curve shapes than do conventional polynomials. The method easily accommodates binary covariates facilitating, for example, parsimonious modelling of age- and sex-specific centile curves. A method of calculating precision profiles for centile estimates is proposed. Goodness of fit is assessed by using Q–Q -plots and Shapiro–Wilk W -tests of the SD scores, and likelihood ratio tests of the parameters of an enlarged model. Four substantial real data sets are used to illustrate the method. Comparisons are made with the semiparametric LMS method of Cole and Green.     

Using Daydreams in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy

Daydreams, long recognized as containers of unarticulated, unrecognized and/or unconscious material, can be subtle but powerful tools for introducing clients to the process of exploring internal experience. They offer a crucial, relatively non-threatening path to self-understanding for individuals who come into therapy without the capacity for introspection, tolerance of affect, and sense of agency that are requisite for the process of psychodynamic psychotherapy. In part because they are often available to conscious awareness, they are an amazingly useful medium through which to help many of these clients gain access to their internal world. They encourage the development of the capacity to symbolize, to play, and eventually to embrace the potential space of internal experience that makes it possible to have a rich and fulfilling life in the external world. In this article, the author introduces the use of daydreams in psychodynamic psychotherapy, focusing specifically on three specific areas: resistance, somatization, and transference.     

Flexibility, Hierarchy, Markets

The conclusion that organizations need to become more strategically flexible as a response to increasing environmental dynamism and uncertainty has been an important feature of recent contingency theories of organization design. In this literature organizations have been analysed from the perspective of the development of networks of organizations concentrating on their core competencies and contracting among themselves on a stable long-term basis. This model of inter-firm relationships provides an alternative mode of organizational structuring to that arising from vertical integration, which, by contrast, is seen as fostering strategic inflexibility. In the literature on corporate restructuring and changes in ownership form arising from the markets and hierarchies perspective, we see a similar emphasis on the dysfunctional consequences of large-scale bureaucratic organization. Changes in ownership form are seen as a major means of providing more effective managerial control. In this paper we argue that linking the literature on flexibility emanating from contingency theories of organizational design and the markets and hierarchies perspective provides important new insights into current and emerging forms of organization.     

Marriage Following Adolescent Parenthood: Relationship to Adult Well‐being

Research suggests that adult marriages confer benefits. Does marriage following a teenage birth confer benefits similar to those observed for adults? Longitudinal data from a community sample of 235 young women who gave birth as unmarried adolescents were used to examine this question. Controlling for socioeconomic status and preexisting “benefits,” we found that marriage conferred small, though statistically significant, benefits with regard to less economic adversity and less marijuana and polydrug use but no observable benefits with regard to alcohol or other drug use, poverty, psychological well‐being, or high school completion, in contrast to prior findings. We conclude that in addition to the marriage benefits observed, stable intimate relationships, whether marital or not, appear to confer psychological benefits in this sample.     

Attitudes Toward Gay Marriage in States Undergoing Marriage Law Transformation

This study examines attitudes toward gay marriage within the context of concern over the weakening of heterosexual marriage. We use data from a three‐state survey conducted in 1998 – 2000 and designed to explore attitudes toward marriage and divorce reform (N = 976). We find that women, Whites, and younger persons are more approving of gay marriage than men, Blacks, and older persons. Nonparents with cohabitation experience are most approving, whereas parents with no cohabitation experience are most opposed. Heterosexual marriage preservation attitudes are key predictors, net of religiosity and political conservativism. We interpret these findings with theories about vested interest in upholding marriage as an institution and ambivalence resulting from conflicting core values of the sanctity of marriage versus the valorization of individualism.     

Cohesiveness and goals in agency networks: Explaining conflict and cooperation

This paper examines principal and agent networks. We focus on networks because business research has placed far greater emphasis on the agency problem at the individual level. Our interest is in exploring the agency relationship at the group or network level. There are many variables at the group or network level which are absent when analyzing agency relationships at the individual level. Traditional theories of finance and economics do not adequately address or explain a host of behaviors that are inherent in human interactions that constitute organizational life. We include a sociological or behavioral approach in understanding this complex relationship. Using cohesiveness and shared goals as antecedents, we develop a theoretical model that predicts a range of relationship outcomes between principals and agents, as well as their impact on organizational goals. We explain that a range of relationships – including conflict, domination, exploitation, collaboration, and cooperation – is possible when networks of principals and agents interact.We argue that the social context is a key determinant of the relationship between actors in a network, and it has an important role in impacting cohesiveness and goal mutuality. The degree of cohesiveness within and between networks, and the extent to which goals are shared or are in conflict are the principal predictor variables we examine. We posit that cohesiveness and shared goals are necessary and sufficient conditions for agency problems between networks to be alleviated. Both necessary and sufficient conditions need to be met in order to overcome the problems of agency. The relationships we examine through the model include cooperation, collaboration, domination, opportunism, exploitation, and conflict. We present a number of propositions that theorize on the nature of the agency relationship and their impact on organizational goals. Implications for research and practice are also discussed.     

Corporate strategy at Admiram Manufacturing Company: An Iranian case study

In this article, corporate strategy is delineated for an Iranian firm, Admiram Manufacturing Company. Environmental and corporate resources are conceptualized upon which Admiram's corporate strategy formulation and implementation are based.