Leading public sector networks: An empirical examination of integrative leadership behaviors

The literature has often suggested that network leadership is different from leadership in hierarchical/single-agency structures. While this difference has been assumed, relatively little research has been conducted to determine whether such a distinction between network and hierarchical leadership actually exists. This study addresses this gap in the literature using data from 417 public sector leaders. We compared the leadership behaviors exhibited by a leader in their government agency with the behaviors exhibited by that same individual while leading his or her network. The leadership behaviors were classified into one of three categories common in the leadership literature. The results indicate that while the frequency of organization-oriented behaviors vary widely between the agency and network contexts, leaders in their networks focus more on people-oriented behaviors and less on task-oriented behaviors when compared to leading their agency.     

Adaptation and validation of the Double Standard Scale in Basque adolescents / Adaptación y validación de la Escala de Doble Estándar en adolescentes vascas-os

The goal was to adapt the Double Standard Scale to the Basque language and to validate it in this language. The sample was comprised of 2,919 adolescents in secondary school. The reliability was analysed and the cross-validation method was applied with exploratory factorial analysis and confirmatory factorial analysis to check the structure of the scale. A differential item analysis was performed according to sex. Finally, correlations were made with ambivalent sexism and distorted beliefs about women and violence, and a contrast of means was performed by sex and age groups using variance analysis and effect sizes. The results were: (a) good internal consistency; (b) a one-dimensional structure with seven items; (c) just one item presents a differential functioning; (d) a positive, significant relationship between the sexual double standard, ambivalent sexism and sexist beliefs; (e) boys and younger adolescents showed a greater adherence to the double standard; and (f) social desirability affects the responses of girls, especially younger ones.     

Synergies and tensions in child protection and parent support: policy lines and practitioners cultures1

Social workers' interventions in support of children and their families have often proved a minefield of sort, filled up with conflicting demands, expectations and tasks. This paper sets the resulting debate in the context of both social policy orientations and social work cultures. It argues that partnerships between families and practitioners have to be understood as the result of a complex set of factors. Data from a qualitative study of social work professional cultures suggest that among practitioners, policy orientations intertwine with different styles of conceiving social work; accordingly, professional cultures play an important part in connecting, or failing to connect, child protection and family support.     

Clan information market games

We introduce a TU-game that describes a market where information is distributed among several agents and all these pieces of information are necessary to produce a good. This situation will be called clan information market. The class of the corresponding TU-games, the clan information market games (CIGs), is a subset of the class of clan games. We provide some well-known point solutions for CIGs in terms of the market data.     

Optimization models for degrouping population data

In certain countries population data are available in grouped form only, usually as quinquennial age groups plus a large open-ended range for the elderly. However, official statistics call for data by individual age since many statistical operations, such as the calculation of demographic indicators, require the use of ungrouped population data. In this paper a number of mathematical models are proposed which, starting from population data given in age groups, enable these ranges to be degrouped into age-specific population values without leaving a fractional part. Unlike other existing procedures for disaggregating demographic data, ours makes it possible to process several years' data simultaneously in a coherent way, and provides accurate results longitudinally as well as transversally. This procedure is also shown to be helpful in dealing with degrouped population data affected by noise, such as those affected by the age-heaping phenomenon.     

Acts of Social Perspective Taking: A Functional Construct and the Validation of a Performance Measure for Early Adolescents

To understand and assess how early adolescents use their social perspective taking (SPT) skills in their consideration of social problems, we conducted two studies. In study 1, we administered a hypothetical SPT scenario to 359 fourth to eighth graders. Modeled on the linguistic pragmatics of speech acts, we used grounded theory to develop a functional approach that identified three types of SPT acts: (1) the acknowledgment of different actors, (2) the articulation of their thoughts and feelings, and (3) the positioning of the roles, experiences, or circumstances that influence how they resolve problems. Study 2 tested the validity of an expanded instrument, the Social Perspective Taking Acts Measure, with 459 fourth to eighth graders. We confirmed the structure of the construct with a fully saturated confirmatory factor analysis, with factor loadings in the range of .62 and .71, and a factor determinacy of .90. We obtained evidence of criterion‐related validity by successfully predicting that girls and older participants would exhibit better performance than boys and younger students, and that SPT would exhibit a negative association with aggressive interpersonal strategies, a positive but moderate association with writing, and non‐significant associations with academic language, complex reasoning, and reading skills.     

Is a good example the best sermon? Children’s imitation of parental reading

We use the last two waves of the Italian Time Use Survey to analyse whether children imitate the reading habits of their parents. As reading is crucial for continuous investment in human capital throughout a person’s life, it is important that children acquire the habit of reading. This habit may be developed through both cultural and educational transfers from parents to children, and through imitative behaviours. Imitation is of particular interest, as it suggests that parents can have a direct influence on the formation of their children’s preferences and habits, and that active policies promoting good parenting behaviours might therefore be desirable. We investigate the short-run imitative behaviour of children using a household fixed-effects model in which we identify the impact of the parents’ role model by exploiting the differences in the exposure of siblings to their parents’ example within the same household. We find robust evidence of the existence of an imitation effect: on the day of the survey, children were more likely to had read after seeing either their mother or their father reading.     

The Making of the Capital of Slovakia

The paper concentrates on three aspects that played a role in shaping the capital of Slovakia: the importance of a name given to the territory illustrating how renaming came to play a crucial role in creating a capital of Slovakia, an successful example of how to nationalise a place and a past; the second part of the paper describes the barriers in acceptance of Bratislava as the capital city of Slovakia among its citizens; the final part deals with ideological incentives in demolition and construction the town and its monuments. The main argument says that the route of Bratislava to the position of the capital of Slovakia was atypical, the majority of its population did not want this status, the actors of the national revolution—the Slovaks did not regard it as their centre, and it did not even have a definitely fixed Slovak name. Nevertheless, Bratislava succeeded gradually made its own history of ‘all Slovakia’. The democratic revolution of 1989–1993 confirmed the functioning of Bratislava as the centre of Slovakia, both in the actual political revolution and in the creation of democratic institutions. As a matter of fact, Bratislava could not be considered a ‘big city’ especially in comparison to Vienna, Prague or Budapest—with nearly half of million inhabitants belongs to rather small cities in East Central Europe and sometimes is characterised as a ‘provincial large city’.     

An Exploratory Study of Preparation for Future Care Among Older Latinos in Utah

Preparation for future care by 62 Latino elders was examined and compared to an Anglo sample of 288 elders residing in Utah. Latino older adults preferred relatives for help and assistance, but 91% of them (versus 41% for the Anglo sample) did not have any concrete plans for either short-term or long-term care. Logistic analyses show that age and knowledge of services are significantly related to planning for care, but education and filial obligations are not. Furthermore, ethnicity significantly predicted long-term care planning when its interactions with age and knowledge of services are accounted for. Knowledge of services and age played a greater role in facilitating preparation for future care for Latinos than for Anglos.     

Bridging Adaptive Learning and Desired Natural Resource Management Outcomes: Insights from Australian Planners

Natural resource management (NRM) has been increasingly guided by governance arrangements seeking less centralized and hierarchical and more integrated and adaptive approaches to achieve desired social-ecological outcomes. Successful implementation of these approaches requires adaptive learning which entails the application of individual, institutional and social learning to adaptive co-management. This paper proposes and validates a conceptual model that identifies components of adaptive learning and their relationships with desired NRM outcomes. Supported by on-ground experience of Australian NRM planners, it discusses three key insights to enable bridging between adaptive learning and NRM outcomes: changing focus away from economic-efficiency culture, supporting learning and knowledge exchange structures, and reinventing practice.