Assigning volunteer tasks: The relation between task preferences and functional motives of youth volunteers

In this paper we aim to explore the relationship between volunteer motives and task preferences in order to provide volunteer managers with better insight in how tasks can be assigned to keep youth volunteers satisfied. Earlier seminal contributions have either taken a pure functional approach – where various types of motives are supposed to be at the base of any type of volunteer work – or a differentiated approach, where particular motives relate to specific task preferences. However, empirical results reported in the literature do not justify the preference of one approach above the other. To investigate whether one of the approaches is superior, or whether a combination of both is more appropriate, we perform a canonical correlation analysis for a set of functional motives and a set of task preferences (N = 2158). Five distinct relationships (canonical variate pairs) of motives and preferences are found. Results show that a ‘functional basis’ exists where all motives relate to a basic set of tasks. Additionally, a more differentiated approach towards volunteer motives and task preferences has to be taken, as we find four other relationships where specific motives are satisfied by assigning particular sets of tasks.     

A Coalition Perspective on Nonprofit Governance Quality: Analyzing Dimensions of Influence in an Exploratory Comparative Case Analysis

We answer the call that governance research should focus more on processes outside the boundaries of boards, especially for nonprofit organizations. In particular, we suggest and elaborate concrete steps with respect to the advantages of a leadership coalition perspective to focus more on the behavioral and informal aspects of governance. Through a comparative case analysis of five nonprofit organizations, we explore contingencies between characteristics of nonprofit leadership coalitions and governance quality. We identify two dimensions to classify leadership coalitions: centralized versus diffused influence and specific versus holistic influence. These dimensions are subsequently related with observed governance quality. We frame our finding in the existing literature on group faultlines, which are socially constructed dividing lines within groups, and we discuss the importance of establishing a balanced coalition between a weak or nonexisting and a strong dominant coalition to ensure high governance quality. We also present propositions on how governance quality and its various sub-dimensions can be studied as a complex, nonlinear intermediate concept between coalitional aspects of leadership groups and nonprofit organizational performance. Finally, we discuss concrete avenues for further testing and verification of our theoretical interpretation.     

Migration und Finanzkrise

This paper analyzes the impact of the financial and economic crisis on migration within Europe and towards Germany. The crisis has triggered a diversion of migration flows from the new EU Member States to prospering countries such as Germany rather than a large increase of migration from the mainly affected countries. Novel estimation procedures, which consider systematically conditions in alternative destinations, show that the overwhelming share of the migration surge in Germany can be attributed to the deterioration of economic conditions in alternative destinations. Furthermore, micro data from the new IAB-SOEP migration sample demonstrate that the share of individuals who did not immigrate from their birth countries in all arrivals has significantly increased since the begin of the crisis. The share of individuals, who have been non-employed before their arrival in Germany, has not increased in the course of the crisis. However, average education levels of new arrivals have declined.     

Self-control demands, cognitive control deficits, and burnout

Self-control involves inhibiting undesired behaviours and emotions, and it can be particularly relevant in the service sectors. Recent theoretical developments in cognitive and social psychology suggest that the demands on an individual of exercising self-control have an effect as a source of stress at work. In turn, burnout could be associated with being unable to meet those demands. It was expected that cognitive control deficits, as assessed by a questionnaire measure of self-reported failures in perception, memory, and action, would function as a vulnerability factor in the relationship between self-control demands and indicators of job strain. Data from 630 staff members of a German municipal administration revealed significant main effects of both self-control demands and cognitive control deficits on the burnout dimensions of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Both predictors were positively related to burnout. In addition, the results provided clear evidence of the vulnerability hypothesis of cognitive control deficits. By way of contrast, musculoskeletal complaints did not reflect similar main and interactive effects of self-control demands and cognitive control deficits. The requirements for self control in the service sector are expected to increase as the sector expands, and the practical implications for this are discussed.     

Editorial

Immigrants from Asian countries who are living in Canada are more likely to live with extended families than Canadian-born seniors. This article focuses on the living arrangements of 161 South Asian immigrant seniors in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and examines the relative importance of various factors that influence living arrangements. Demographic characteristics were associated with living arrangements; seniors who immigrated when they were young and were married were the most likely to live independently. Logistic regression analyses suggest that economic and cultural factors were more important than health and availability of kin factors in explaining living arrangements, after controlling for demographic and immigration variables.     

Making Junior High School History Real

This article addresses the subject of teaching about women in world history in K–12 schools and in programs of social studies teacher education. It includes a review of the place of gender in teaching about world history to current and future teachers at Teachers College, Columbia University. This informal research serves as the platform for a set of recommendations concerning necessary steps for “gender-balancing” the world history curriculum in social studies teacher education.     

Ein Optimierungsmodell für die wöchentliche Tourenplanung unter Einbeziehung der EU-Sozialvorschriften

The Regulation (EC) No 561/2006 and the Directive 2002/15/EC concern the driving and working hours as well as breaks and rest periods of drivers in road transportation. Although the regulations have an enormous effect on vehicle routing and scheduling, only parts of them have been integrated in few solution approaches and some vehicle routing models so far. This paper starts with the presentation of the restrictions of the relevant European Community regulations. Then, a mixed integer linear programming model for the vehicle routing problem with time windows including all rules of the regulations for a planning horizon of an entire week is presented. The model is solved with CPLEX and the impact of the regulations on the resulting vehicle schedules is analyzed by means of computational experiments.     

The determinants of organizations’ usage of employee dismissal: Evidence from Australia

Substantial variation exists across organizations in their use of dismissal. While it has been suggested that this variation reflects organizational-level factors relating to disciplinary issues, little evidence exists regarding the effect of these factors. Using data from 1,596 workplaces in the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, we examine how organizational-level factors that reflect the incidence of disciplinary problems as well as the expected costs and benefits of dismissal are related to dismissal usage. For each organization, data were collected on organizational characteristics and practices in interviews with the employee relations manager and the senior line manager. Data were also collected on whether or not dismissal was used by the firm and on the number of employees dismissed. Using both logistic regression and tobit analysis, our results suggest that dismissal is affected by procedural and institutional restrictions on the use of discipline, interactions among those restrictions, compensation level, labor market factors, workforce human capital, operating capacity, work group influence, the use of incentive pay, workforce size, and industry classification. Copies of the AWIRS Data set are available for purchase from the Australian Government Publishing Service, Commonwealth Department of Industrial Relations, Canaberra, Australia. The authors thank Alan Morris and Lindsay Turner for their assistance in managing the AWIRS data set. Michelle Brown is now at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, WI 53201.     

Efficacy of Cyberbullying Prevention on Somatic Symptoms—Randomized Controlled Trial Applying a Reasoned Action Approach

The theory of reasoned action (ToRA) has been proposed as a framework for cyberbullying prevention design, targeting attitudes and norms. In this study effects of a long (10 weekly sessions) and a short (one day, four sessions) cyberbullying prevention program based on the ToRA were compared with a control group over 9 months. Longitudinal data from 722 students (mean age = 13.36) on cyberbullying, somatic symptoms, attitudes, and norms were analyzed within a structural equation model. Participation in the long intervention group significantly reduced cyberbullying (d = ?0.584) and somatic symptoms (d = ?0.316). No between‐group differences emerged for attitudes and norms. Developmental trajectories and associations were found to be as suggested by ToRA in both cross‐sectional and change‐score analyses.