Measuring empowerment in working life: a review

This study identifies and describes questionnaires that measure empowerment in working life. Theoretical bases and empirical examination of the questionnaires are also reported. Nine questionnaires emerged from a database search including AMED, CINAHL, ERIC, MEDLINE and PSYCINFO. The main target groups were employees in general. Most authors share the same theoretical basis. Most of the questionnaires focus on intra-individual issues, while a smaller number deal with the interaction between individual and organization. Control and competence are frequently used dimensions. Cronbach's alpha for complete questionnaires ranged between 0.62 and 0.96. No comparisons with outcome of health were reported. Spreitzer's questionnaire has undergone the most comprehensive investigation. Research is required to achieve better understanding of the interplay between conditions at work and empowerment and health.     

The English Student Movement: An Evaluation of the Literature

This article explores the state of the field of student movement research. I suggest there could be seen to be stagnation within the field of investigation, and resultant under‐researching of some countries student movements, and I will make specific reference to the student movement of England in the late 1960s/early 1970s as a case in point of this. I argue that there has been unsatisfactory sole‐causalities, such as issues of youth, issues seen as ‘triggers’, and political factors, attributed to the English student movement, and that this fails both to understand fully the significance and individuality of the English student movement, but also assumes a fit with New social movement (NSM) theory. I argue that we cannot automatically equate NSM's and student movements without thorough empirical research, and that we need to look to a synthesis of social movement theories in order to understand fully student movements.     

Happily Ever After? The Journey From Foster Care to Adoption

Providing the foster child with a forever family through adoption is often seen as a happy ending to the long and painful journey through foster care. This qualitative study explores this complex journey from foster care to adoption from the perspective of 30 young adults aged 18 to 25 who were adopted from the foster care system after the age of 8. The results indicate that the foster and adoption experience for these youth cannot be compartmentalized when trying to understand the impact adoption has had on their overall sense of self. Implications for future research to explore the emerging concept of foster/adoptive identity for older youth adopted through the foster care system are provided.     

TOURING A SUPPLY CHAIN WITH STUDENTS: PEDAGOGICAL AND PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS

This paper describes the supply chain tour, an expansion of the widely used facility tour pedagogy. A supply chain tour is a tour of facilities sequentially related in the creation of value that is designed to expose critical linkages and illustrate Supply Chain Management concepts and theories. Effectively using the supply chain tour pedagogy requires the instructor to create a standardized approach to managing the facility tour; a checklist is provided for this purpose. An example supply chain tour, used in the author's classes, is described.     

Intimate Partner Violence and Children's Attachment Representations During Middle Childhood

Despite long‐standing hypotheses that intimate partner violence (IPV) may undermine children's ability to form secure attachment representations, few studies have empirically investigated this association. Particularly lacking is research that examines IPV and attachment during middle childhood, a time when the way that children understand, represent, and process the behavior of others becomes particularly important. Using data from a sample of African American children living in rural, low‐income communities (N = 98), the current study sought to address this gap by examining the association between physical IPV occurring early in children's lives and their attachment security during the first grade. Results indicate that, even after controlling for child‐ and family‐level covariates, physical IPV was associated with a greater likelihood of being rated insecurely attached. This effect was above and beyond the influence of maternal parenting behaviors, demonstrating a unique effect of physical IPV on children's attachment representations during middle childhood.     

Three categories of urban green areas and the effect of their different management on the communities of ants,spiders and harvestmen

Urban green areas have become an important tool for biodiversity conservation in cities. However, land use and the different management practices applied to these areas determine their effectiveness as biodiversity refuges within cities. In our study, we compare the biodiversity of three bioindicator groups of arthropods (ants, spiders and harvestmen) found in eleven urban green sites in Warsaw (Poland). The studied sites represent three categories of management: botanical gardens, public parks and urban woodlands. Our aim was to determine the effect of the type of management (as urban green categories) on arthropod communities in urban areas.

     

Regional Labour Market Matching Functions and Efficiency Analysis

Abstract. Stochastic production frontiers are used for estimating regional matching functions where unemployment outflow is ‘produced’ by the unemployed and vacancies. The frontier is estimated using regional panel data from Finland from 1988 to 1997 and the Battese and Coelli frontier model, where the explanatory factors are included in the inefficiency term. The stochastic frontier matching function has constant returns, whereas in OLS estimation with fixed effects the returns are slightly increasing. Unemployment and vacancies in neighbouring regions have a spillover effect on efficiency. Excess job reallocation in a region deteriorates matching efficiency. The decomposition of total factor productivity change in matching to efficiency change and change in matching technology is also investigated by interpreting the matching frontier as a distance function and using Malmquist indexes. There is a downward trend in the technology, but short‐term variations are dominated by cyclical changes in efficiency.