Mothers and Divorce: Legal,Economic and Social Dilemmas,by Terry Arendell

Becoming an Ex: The Process of Role Exit , by Helen Rose Fuchs Ebaugh. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988, 247 pages.     

Managing organizational change—A strategic approach

Developing the competence, commitment and capacity for change of people is a vital element in the creation and maintenance of competitive advantage and should be an integral part of the strategic equations and business plans of any firm. This theme, examples of ‘good’ practice, and strategies to implement a strategic approach to people have been explained and developed in a brief case ‘action pack’ produce by the authors of this article for the MSC and NEDO. Key factors identified in the development of the three ‘C’s are effective leadership, involvement and good employee communications, stress on performance management, appropriate reward systems and training and development.     

Paid maternal leave is associated with better language and socioemotional outcomes during toddlerhood

The United States is the only high-income country that does not have a national policy mandating paid leave to working women who give birth. Increased rates of maternal employment post-birth call for greater understanding of the effects of family leave on infant development. This study examined the links between paid leave and toddler language, cognitive, and socioemotional outcomes (24–36 months; N = 328). Results indicate that paid leave was associated with better language outcomes, regardless of socioeconomic status. Additionally, paid leave was correlated with fewer infant behavior problems for mothers with lower levels of educational attainment. Expanding access to policies that support families in need, like paid family leave, may aid in reducing socioeconomic disparities in infant development.     

Hiding in plain sight: Dehumanization as a foundation of white racial prejudice

In the media, during sporting events, in online forums, and in interpersonal interactions, whites often portray Black people as animals, especially as apes or monkeys. In this essay we consider what contemporary research on prejudice in American politics has to say about these dehumanizing portrayals of Black people. We argue that contemporary political science work has not done enough to understand both the historical roots and the continuing practices of whites' dehumanization of Black people, to the detriment of an accurate understanding of racial attitudes in the United States. To rectify this omission, we draw on the work of historians to map out a brief overview of race-making and the dehumanizing attitudes that shaped this process. Then, we review political science literature on contemporary white attitudes toward Black people, emphasizing connections between prevailing conceptions of these attitudes and long-standing processes of dehumanization. We conclude by charting directions for future scholarship; we seek to unsettle the mainstream of a subfield dominated by mild conceptions of racial attitudes.     

Social Workers who Move into Private Practice: The Impact of the Socio-economic Context

Summary This paper is based on a doctoral research project, conductedin New Zealand between 1993 and 1999, that considered factorsin the movement of social workers into private practice (vanHeugten, 1999). The study employed a qualitative methodologyin which 33 private practitioners were interviewed using semi-structuredquestionnaires. All respondents had at least a first professionalqualification in social work. The research grew from a realizationthat there had been an upsurge in private practice since themid-1980s, during a time of increasingly right wing governmentpolicies, and free market philosophies. These policies and philosophiesled to a radical restructuring of government and not-for-profitorganizations that employed social workers. Some workers respondedto the changes by seeking alternatives to organizational employment.Concurrently opportunities for private practice were createdby the availability of third party payments for counsellingof survivors of sexual abuse and parties to marital disputes.A similar pattern of confluence of expanding social work privatepractice and free market ideology has been noted in countriessuch as Great Britain and Australia. The implications of thismovement into private practice are considered in relation toprofessional social work associations.     

Effectiveness of Job Aids and Post Performance Review on Staff Implementation of Discrete Trial Instruction

Discrete-trial instruction (DTI) is a well-established instructional method for teaching children with autism. Accurate implementation of DTI procedures requires that staff be well trained. This study examined the effectiveness of job aids followed by post performance review of strengths, errors, and accuracy on discrete trial instructional accuracy in three participants who conducted DTI within their current job positions. Additionally, primary training procedures were embedded within a meta-shaping procedure, which involved the gradual and systematic introduction of three levels of behavioral components required for accurate implementation of the DTI sequence with mastery criteria set at 90% accuracy across all three levels. As demonstrated in a changing criterion within a multiple baseline design, staff demonstrated increases in DTI accuracy following the initiation of the job aid condition; however, some degree of performance-based feedback was required to establish high levels of procedural fidelity across the DTI sequence. Performance accuracy on maintenance probes remained at high levels. These findings provide support that job aids followed by performance-based feedback may be an effective and efficient method for shaping high levels of DTI procedural fidelity in staff. Additionally, gradual shaping of the DTI accuracy may scaffold performance, minimize errors, and increase social validity.     

Out of sight and out of mind? A literature review of occupational safety and health leadership and management of distributed workers

Distributed workers – those who work autonomously and remotely from their organisation’s main locations for at least some of their work-time – are an important and growing proportion of the workforce that share common characteristics of temporal and spatial distance. Yet, many leadership styles and management practices assume face-to-face interaction, potentially rendering them less helpful in trying to ensure good occupational safety and health (OSH) outcomes for distributed workers. We conducted a systematic literature review to examine the leadership and management of OSH for distributed workers. Twenty-three papers were identified. Eleven papers identified established leadership styles, including leader-member exchange, (safety specific) transformational and considerate leadership. Twenty papers examined management. Findings from these 20 papers were interpreted as representing resources, deployed through management and utilised by managers to ensure OSH for distributed workers, including communication technologies, social support and a good safety climate. Despite limited research in this area, findings indicate the importance of both leadership and management in ensuring OSH for distributed workers. Findings suggest a fertile area for future enquiry.     

A Data‐Driven Inventory Control Policy for Cash Logistics Operations: An Exploratory Case Study Application at a Financial Institution

A number of market changes are impacting the way financial institutions are managing their automated teller machines (ATMs). We propose a new class of adaptive data‐driven policies for a stochastic inventory control problem faced by a large financial institution that manages cash at several ATMs. Senior management were concerned that their current cash supply system to manage ATMs was inefficient and outdated, and suspected that using improved cash management could reduce overall system cost. Our task was to provide a robust procedure to tackle the ATM's cash deployment strategies. Current industry practice uses a periodic review system with infrequent parameter updates for cash management based on the assumption that demand is normally distributed during the review period. This assumption did not hold during our investigation, warranting a new and robust analysis. Moreover, we discovered that forecast errors are often not normally distributed and that these error distributions change dramatically over time. Our approach finds the optimal time series forecaster and the best‐fitting weekly forecast error distribution. The guaranteed optimal target cash inventory level and time between orders could only be obtained through an optimization module that was embedded in a simulation routine that we built for the institution. We employed an exploratory case study methodology to collect cash withdrawal data at 21 ATMs owned and operated by the financial institution. Our new approach shows a 4.6% overall cost reduction. This reflects an annual cost savings of over $250,000 for the 2,500 ATM units that are operated by the bank.     

Identifying extraordinary contributors to work and family research: eight modalities of excellence

ABSTRACT

In this study we quantitatively and qualitatively explore two research questions: (1) ‘What qualifies a scholar to be classified as an extraordinary contributor to work and family research?’ and, (2) ‘Who are extraordinary contributors to work and family research?’ We first selected a group of top work and family scholars based on total citation counts and a multi-level nomination process. We then qualitatively explored our research questions via e-mail correspondence and telefocus groups. From these data, we distilled eight core themes, or ‘modalities of excellence,’ to categorize extraordinary contributors: (1) publishing (traditional academic metrics), (2) publishing (reputation among scholars), (3) disseminating work and family research (translational research), (4) funding work and family research, (5) service to the work and family field, (6) mentoring future work and family scholars, (7) landmark work and family contributions, and (8) overall reputation. Using quantitative measures (citation counts) and qualitative exploration (e-mail correspondence, telefocus groups, and surveys of work and family scholars), we identified extraordinary contributors in each modality.