Emerging Market Penetration,Inventory Supply,and Financial Performance

Realizing potential benefits from emerging market penetration requires firms to address inherent supply chain challenges. A major challenge is for firms to manage costly inventories to address demand and supply risks in emerging markets. However, emerging market penetration may offer opportunities for firms to lower inventory levels, reduce costs, and improve operating performance. Using data for 482 manufacturing firms over the 5‐year period, 2003–2007, obtained from the COMPUSTAT Industrial and Segment Databases, this article examines the relationships between emerging market penetration, inventory supply, and financial performance. Our results show that a multinational firm's sales penetration into emerging markets is associated with fewer days of inventory supply and improved financial performance. As emerging market penetration may allow firms to operate with lower inventory supply, the positive effect from emerging market penetration, such as labor cost reductions, may be enhanced due to inventory cost savings.     

Warriors and Healers: Preparing for Returning Veterans

Despite its ideological differences, social work has had a long history of affiliation with the military. In 1918, the Smith College School for Social Work was established to respond to the mental health needs of “shell‐shocked veterans.” In 2008, the School renewed this commitment by sponsoring a three‐day conference aimed at preparing social workers to respond to the new and complex needs of veterans returning from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A joint planning process effectively developed a program that helped military and civilian social workers gain insight into the impact of multiple deployments, traumatic brain disorder, post‐traumatic stress disorder and other factors present in today’s new military culture.     

A Conceptual Framework for Differential Use of Mediation and Family Therapy Interventions With Older Adults and Their Families

The purpose of this article is to present a family-centered approach to working with older adults. This framework utilizes a differential use of family therapy and therapeutic mediation theoretical concepts and skills. This provides an effective approach to conceptualizing and intervening with these often complex situations regarding the decision-making processes related to care of older members. Family-centered mediators/clinicians must be skilled in both models to understand and intervene in the challenging issues presented by families. A case example is included in the article to illustrate the framework.     

Inter‐agency joint protocols for safeguarding children in social care and adult mental‐health agencies: a cross‐sectional survey of practitioner experiences

Parental mental illness, substance misuse and domestic violence are common risk factors for the maltreatment and neglect of children. Safeguarding children is everyone's responsibility, including professionals working primarily with adults. In the UK, Local Safeguarding Children Boards (LSCBs) were established to ensure that all agencies work together to safeguard children. Many LSCBs developed multi‐agency joint protocols to enhance collaboration, but there is limited evidence of their effectiveness. This paper reports findings from a cross‐sectional survey of practitioner self‐reported experiences of joint protocols, which was conducted in one inner London borough, to evaluate their impact on professional practice. A self‐complete questionnaire administered to all professionals in adult mental‐health and children's social care services in the borough yielded a response from 119 practitioners. The survey found that the protocols had been widely disseminated and provided clear guidance to practitioners. Practitioners perceived that they had increased awareness of the risk factors for safeguarding children and some had used the protocols to help them gain access to services for their clients. Practitioners also perceived that they had improved inter‐agency working between children's social care and adult mental‐health services. However, respondents indicated that positive interpersonal contact with practitioners from other agencies was equally important in promoting joint working and inter‐agency collaboration.     

Treatment‐as‐usual in effectiveness studies: What is it and does it matter?

Andrée Löfholm C, Brännström L, Olsson M, Hansson K. Treatment‐as‐usual in effectiveness studies: What is it and does it matter? A hallmark of an evidence‐based practice (EBP) is the systematic appraisal of research related to the effectiveness of interventions. This study addressed the issue of interpreting results from effectiveness studies that use treatment‐as‐usual (TAU) as a comparator. Using randomised controlled studies that evaluate the effectiveness of multisystemic therapy as an illustrative example, we show that TAU includes a wide variety of treatment alternatives. Estimated treatment effects on recidivism suggest that TAU seems to contain a greater variation in underlying risk than experimental conditions, supporting the hypothesis that the content of TAU could affect outcomes. Implications for the realisation of an EBP are discussed.     

On the Differential Attachments of Migrants from Central and Eastern Europe: A Typology of Labour Migration

In this article we develop an empirically grounded typology of labour migration patterns among migrants from Central and Eastern Europe, based on two dimensions: attachment to the destination country and attachment to the country of origin. We conducted a survey (N=654) among labour migrants in the Netherlands from Poland, Bulgaria and Romania. We found four migration patterns in our data: (i) circular migrants (mostly seasonal workers) with weak attachments to the country of destination, (ii) bi-nationals with strong attachments to both the home country and that of destination, (iii) footloose migrants with weak attachments to both the home and the destination country, and (iv) settlers with weak attachments to the home country. Our findings demonstrate the relevance to the debate on transnationalism and integration of distinguishing different migration patterns. Successful integration in Dutch society can go hand-in-hand with ‘strong’ as well as with ‘weak’ forms of transnationalism. The bi-national pattern shows a tendency to strong transnationalism, while the settlement pattern demonstrates less transnational involvement with the country of origin.     

Educational Homogamy and Gender-Specific Earnings: Sweden, 1990–2009

Several studies have shown strong educational homogamy in most Western societies, although the trends over time differ across countries. In this article, we study the connection between educational assortative mating and gender-specific earnings in a sample containing the entire Swedish population born 1960–1974; we follow this sample from 1990 to 2009. Our empirical strategy exploits a longitudinal design, using distributed fixed-effects models capturing the impact of partner education on postmarital earnings, relating it to the income development before union formation. We find that being partnered with someone with more education (hypergamy) is associated with higher earnings, while partnering someone with less education (hypogamy) is associated with lower earnings. However, most of these differences in earnings emerge prior to the time of marriage, implying that the effect is explained by marital selection processes rather than by partner education affecting earnings. The exception is hypogamy among the highly educated, for which there are strong indications that in comparison with homogamy and hypergamy, earnings grow slower after union formation.     

Factors contributing to the perpetration of workplace incivility: the importance of organizational aspects and experiencing incivility from others

In recent years a growing amount of research has been conducted in the area of workplace incivility. Whereas many studies have focused on the victims and the consequences of incivility, little attention has been paid to the perpetrators and antecedents of workplace incivility. This study aims to identify possible antecedents of workplace incivility, by investigating organizational aspects as well as the possibility that being the target of incivility from co-workers and supervisors could induce incivility. A total of 512 employees (378 women and 133 men) in the school sector in a Swedish municipality completed an online questionnaire. Overall, the results of structural equation modelling analyses showed that organizational variables were related to the perpetration of incivility. A direct relationship was found between being uncivil and organizational change, job insecurity, low social support from co-workers and high job demands. However, the strongest relationship was found between experienced incivility from co-workers and instigated incivility. This could be reflecting a climate or culture of incivility in the organization, and carry implications for future practice in interventions against workplace incivility. The results indicate the importance of focusing on the perspective of the instigator to gain knowledge about the process of workplace incivility.     

A Likelihood Ratio Test for Idiosyncratic Unit Roots in the Exact Factor Model with Integrated Factors

We consider an exact factor model with unobservable common stochastic trends imposed by non-stationary factors, and study, by simulation, the power of the likelihood ratio test for unit roots in the idiosyncratic components. The power of the test is compared with the analogous Lagrange multiplier test and the Fisher-type test proposed by Bai and Ng. The results suggest that the benefit of the likelihood ratio test is in panels with a small cross-section.