Developing the Concept of Transparency for Use in Supply Relationships

Management concern surrounding the supply of goods and services from business to business, and the related attempts to understand the phenomena observed therein, appears to rest upon a broad range of incompatible perspectives, from political science (often limited to considerations of power) to the logistical (akin to manipulation of a great, benign but dynamic jigsaw puzzle). It appears that all perspectives abrade against the difficulties of exchanging information, knowledge and innovation within the relationships between buying and selling organizations and the apparent chronic systemic inefficiency that transactions often represent in this context. This article addresses these concerns, exploring the concept of transparency and the developments necessary for it to be useful in exchanging sensitive information and tacit knowledge in supply relationships. Our central concern is how the understanding of transparency and its commercial importance may change when it is expressed as a manageable element of the relationship between two organizations rather than as a general property of a broader system (e.g. a supply network, industrial sub-sector, geographical cluster) and what utility this differentiation might hold for managers. The conclusion to the article, and the implication for managers, is that transparency might indeed be created and usefully managed within supply relationships but that it would differ fundamentally in meaning from previously posited concepts, with the same name, in different contexts.     

通过谈判争取成功砝码

回想你上次面临新的领导机遇时,出现了什么情况？不管你是受命领导团队、部门还是整个企业,你很可能通过谈判争取该职位的薪水和待遇,比如：头衔、假期及奖金,但你是否争取过在该职位上取得成功的条件呢?     

“The Price You Pay”: How Female Professional Chefs Negotiate Work and Family

Work–family conflict can act as an important, and gendered, mechanism underlying women’s under-representation in male-dominated occupations. This study uses in-depth interviews to explore the experiences of female professional chefs in order to understand how women in a prestigious, yet male-dominated service occupation manage barriers relating to their balance of work and family responsibilities. Conflict between work and family responsibilities often stemmed from the long work hours expected of chefs and played a role in some of our participant’s decisions to leave kitchen work. Respondents in this study negotiate work–family conflict using three strategies: (1) delaying/forgoing childbearing to succeed as a chef; (2) leaving kitchen work for another job in the culinary field; and (3) adapting either work or family to make the two roles more compatible. Our conclusion discusses the implications of these strategies for gender inequality in the workplace, particularly for women in male-dominated occupations.     

Immediate and Longer-Term Connections Between Support and Stress in Pregnant/Parenting and Non-Pregnant/Non-Parenting Adolescents

Despite the substantial amount of literature focusing on social support for pregnant and parenting adolescents, few studies have directly examined the relationships among stress and social support across their transition to parenting. The present study investigates the nature of the relationship between stress and support both before and after the birth of the baby. Two groups of adolescent females (one group facing parenthood and one not) completed measures of support and stress across a 7-month period (N = 231) to coincide with the transition to parenthood. In general, support and stress were negatively related when measured concurrently and positively related over time for parenting adolescents but not the non-parenting group. Understanding how long social support impacts stress will enable practitioners to identify when best to provide interventions for pregnant and parenting adolescents.     

Willingness to speak out about gay laws reform: some cause for optimism

We examined the extent to which people's private attitudes to gay law reform are influenced by the attitudes of others. Ninety-six university students were told that they were either in a minority or in a majority relative to their university group on their attitudes to gay law reform. Contrary to a number of assumptions made in the social psychological literature, participants who supported gay law reform were more prepared to act in line with their attitudes than were those who opposed gay law reform. Furthermore, anti-gay law reform participants appeared to reassess their attitudes when they were told they were in a minority; in contrast, pro-gay law reform participants were unaffected by the group norm. This suggests that anti-gay law reform attitudes are softer and more easily influenced than are pro-gay law reform attitudes. The implications of these results for activists are discussed.