Culture and Organization: The Case of Transmanche-Link

The relationship between culture and organization has often been discussed, but rarely explored directly. This paper implements a cultural values instrument taken from Hofstede together with a behavioural instrument derived from Van de Ven to matched samples of British and French managers working on the Channel Tunnel project. The results largely replicate the findings of Hofstede regarding cultural values, but do not support the predicted implications for behaviour. In essence, the British were found to be more bureaucratic and more team-oriented than their French counterparts, who tended to be more fonceur and competitive. This indicates that the relationship between culture and behaviour might be more complicated than research to date suggests.     

南充市城区已婚育龄妇女二孩生育意愿研究

2018年4—5月在四川省南充市城区采用便利抽样,以已婚且未育或已育一个小孩的育龄妇女为研究对象,采用自制匿名问卷,以面对面的形式收集资料,了解实施全面二孩政策后南充市育龄妇女的生育意愿,为南充市的人口研究提供参考依据。在213名调查对象中,56人(26.3%)有二孩生育意愿,140人(65.7%)无二孩生育意愿,17人(8.0%)不确定是否生育二孩。南充市被调查者的理想子女个数均值为1.46,意愿子女个数均值为1.27。不同文化程度(χ2=7.512)、配偶月收入(χ2=12.641)、理想子女数(χ2=66.401)、一孩性别(χ2=5.441)的育龄妇女间二孩生育意愿差异有统计学意义(P<0.05)。Logistic回归分析显示,第一个孩子性别为女孩(OR=2.641,P=0.021)、丈夫月收入越高(OR=1.761,P=0.028)、理想子女数多于1个(OR=29.040,P<0.001)的育龄妇女更有意愿生育二孩。南充市城区二孩生育意愿处于较低水平,经济收入、理想子女数、一孩性别会影响育龄妇女的二孩生育意愿。全面二孩政策对于促进育龄妇女生育二孩的效应有限,应当建立相关的配套政策,以促进全面二孩政策的实施。     

Profession and Workplace Expectations of Social Workers: Implications for Social Worker Subjective Well-Being

The expectations people have of social workers, and those that social workers hold of themselves, can negatively affect social worker's perceived well-being, via work stress and strain and other negative workplace experiences. This qualitative research presents findings that help to better understand what aspects of these expectations have the greatest impact on the well-being of a sample (n = 19) of social workers with reported low levels of workplace and profession satisfaction. Our data support a conceptual framework of social worker's expectations that relate to outcomes of practice, social worker roles, the perceived functioning by other health-related professionals, conflict in direct practice with social worker identity and having to work in adverse situations, as all contributing to the well-being of social workers. Findings are discussed in relation to social work practice and the role and function of professional associations and educational programmes in addressing these issues that emerge in practice.     

Housing and children: simultaneous decisions?—a cohort study of young adults’ housing and family formation decision

This study contributes to earlier research on homeownership and childbearing by taking into account the potential simultaneity between these two life events. A dataset comprising three different Swedish birth cohorts suggests that these are events that are indeed simultaneous. Different tests indicate that taking this simultaneity into account gives an overall statistically significant improvement of the model fit. However, this result is most obvious for those young adults who faced increasing problems on the housing market. The childbearing decision of these cohorts also seems to be more sensitive to changes in the user cost.     

Unconditional government social cash transfer in Africa does not increase fertility

Among policymakers, a common perception surrounding the effects of cash transfer programmes, particularly unconditional programmes targeted to families with children, is that they induce increased fertility. We evaluate the Zambian Child Grant Programme, a government unconditional cash transfer targeted to families with a child under the age of 5 and examine impacts on fertility and household composition. The evaluation was a cluster randomized control trial, with data collected over 4 years from 2010 to 2014. Our results indicate that there are no programme impacts on overall fertility. Our results contribute to a small evidence base demonstrating that there are no unintended incentives related to fertility due to cash transfers.     

Can We Perceive Near Miss? An Empirical Study

Near misses are a special kind of reinforcement which increases one’s desire to play. The aim of this paper is to examine the perception of near misses in normal population. We used a slot machine simulation running on a PC, where participants had to play four rounds with different near miss ratios (0, 15, 30 and 45%). Our sample consisted of 159 individuals with mean age of 22.8 and with no or little gambling experience. For data analysis we used chi-squared goodness-of-fit test and exact binomial test. Despite the fact, that there was a notable effect of near misses results showed that the subjects could not perceive trials of them.