Understanding innovation performance and its antecedents: A socio-cognitive model

Little attention in the previous literature has been paid to understanding employees’ factors that drive customer development knowledge and performance from the perspective of social psychology. Drawing on social cognitive theory, this study validates a research model that examines the above issue. In the setting of new product development across high-tech firms in Taiwan, this study postulates that innovation self-efficacy, role conflict, and role ambiguity influence innovation performance directly and indirectly via the mediation of customer knowledge development and innovation outcome expectation. This study contributes to the social science literature by applying social cognitive theory to the rarely explored area of innovation performance and by presenting an operationalization of role stressors (i.e., role ambiguity and role conflict) in the area. Lastly, managerial implications and limitations from the empirical findings are provided.     

THEORY OF SEGMENTED ASSIMILATION AND THE ADOPTION OF MARIJUANA USE AND DELINQUENT BEHAVIOR BY ASIAN PACIFIC YOUTH

This article examines the adoption of behaviors of the teen drug and delinquent subcultures among Asian Pacific youth within the framework of the theory of segmented assimilation. Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou's theory offers a new perspective to the question: Under what conditions are youth susceptible to marijuana use and delinquent behavior? In contrast to Milton Gordon's classic one‐path theory, segmented assimilation theory looks to the immigrant culture and social capital (e.g., social solidarity) as critical factors in the assimilation process. The theory suggests several different types of adaptation by immigrant youth and Asian youth born in the United States. The data from the Asian Student Drug Survey were used to analyze the patterns of marijuana use and delinquent behavior among Japanese. Chinese, Filipino. Korean, Southeast Asian, Asian Indian, and Pacific Islander youth, controlling for human capital and social capital, as well as other relevant factors. Logistic regression analysis was used to determine the factors that affect the odds of marijuana use and delinquent behavior for the seven ethnic groups in this study. The likelihood of marijuana use differed significantly among the ethnic groups. For example, Pacific Islander and Filipino youth were much more likely than Japanese youth to use marijuana. Korean, Southeast Asian, and Asian Indian youth did not differ significantly from the Japanese youth in marijuana use. Like the model that predicted marijuana use, the Chinese youth were least likely to engage in delinquent behavior, while Filipino and Pacific Islander youth were most likely. Segmented assimilation theory points to the importance of the human and social capital that serve to insulate youth from the influence of the teen drug and delinquent cultures.     

Mostly the mother: Concentration of adverse employment effects on mothers of children with autism

Creating comprehensive and effective social welfare and anti-poverty policy is an ever-elusive task. A key component of such policies and their related programs is the encouragement and protection of parents’ employment. However, such efforts become more complicated when families are faced with additional challenges such as difficulties, which may arise when parenting a child with a disability. Although both paid employment and parenting are widely understood as far from gender-neutral activities, how adverse employment effects become concentrated on mothers is less well understood. This article examines circumstances under which negative employment effects become concentrated on mothers of children with autism. The results of the analysis suggest focusing policy on addressing short term threats to the continued success of established careers and on workplace reentry could help counter factors which tend to result in having mothers’ careers disproportionately affected as a result of having a child with a disability.