Patterns of Sex-Union Formation in Barbados

Cette étude, basée sur un échantillon de 4199 femmes de bas statut socioéconomique interviewées en 1971 sur l'île des Barbades, examine les types de formation des unions entre sexes. Trois types d'unions entre sexes sont identifyées: les unions occasionnelles (visiting), les unions de type « loi commune >> (commonlaw) et les mariages.
La très grande majorité de toutes les unions commence et se termine comme des unions occasionnelles. Un grand nombre de partenaires passent d'un type d'union à un autre seulement, le passage le plus frequent était celui de l'union occasionnelle au type e « loi commune >> et celui de l'union occasionnelle au mariage. En général, lorsqu'ily a changement de type d'union entre partenaires, c'est dans le sens d'un type d'union plus stable. Les résultats de la recherché appuient ceux de l'étude de 1956 en Jamaique.
This study, based on a sample of 4 199 lower socioeconomic status women interviewed on the island of Barbados in 1971, examines patterns of sex-union formation. Three types of sex unions are identified - visiting, commonlaw, and married.
The overwhelming majority of all partnerships is initiated and terminated as a visiting union. A large number of partnerships progresses from one union type to only one other, with the most frequent being visiting to commonlaw and visiting to married. In general, when there is a change-of-union status within a partnership it is in the direction of a more stable type of union. The findings of this study support those of a 1956 study in Jamaica.     

COMPETITIVE FIRM BEHAVIOR UNDER RISK IN DISEQUILIBRIUM TRADING

The objective of this paper is to study the behavior of the purely competitive firm in a market in which traders' plans may not be realized each period. The emphasis of the study is motivated by a desire to introduce explicit price-makers into the theory of competitive markets. The method of introducing price-makers may lead to situations in which markets are not cleared each period and shortages may arise with the realization of plans being in doubt. In this environment traders learn to adjust decisions to offset periodic disappointment. Multiperiod models are introduced to analyze the decision process of the competitive firm in the market and stochastic dynamic programming methods are used to obtain characteristics of optimal plans. Results are compared to the situation in which plans are always realized.     

FROM BUYER TO INTEGRATOR: THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE SUPPLY‐CHAIN MANAGER IN THE VERTICALLY DISINTEGRATING FIRM

Using case study data, we describe how a large personal computer manufacturer changed its supply‐chain management strategy after outsourcing the majority of its design and manufacturing activities to a network of focused suppliers. To cope with this new structure, the firm created highly skilled generalists, “supply‐chain integrators,” who coordinate product development, marketing, production, and logistics from product concept to delivery across firm boundaries. We particularly focus on the skill‐set that characterizes these integrators. Finally, we use the case evidence, combined with previous theory, to suggest a specific program of research into coordinating product development across disaggregated supply chains.     

THE EFFECT OF LEARNING ON THE MAKE/BUY DECISION

By including the effects of learning over time on both the production of components and their integration into complete products, we develop an engineering‐based model of outsourcing. This model provides an alternative explanation for much of what other outsourcing theories predict, as well as making several new predictions. In particular, we show that outsourcing decisions can create a path‐dependent outsourcing trap in which a firm experiences higher long‐run costs after an immediate cost benefit. We also describe conditions under which outsourcing a small fraction of component production may dominate either complete insourcing or complete outsourcing. Finally, we show that, with discounting, there is a convex, curvilinear relationship between the optimal outsourcing fraction and the rate of technological change.     

Social Work Teachers and Social Work Practice

Summary A survey was undertaken to discover the extent to which thosesocial work teachers who teach social work methods, continueto practise after they become educators. The results suggestthat not more than 25% do so, and many of these on only a tokenbasis. Most respondents however regarded such practice as animportant aide to the teaching of social work methods, althoughsome consider consultancy roles to be equally relevant. In nocases was such practice linked with research, and only exceptionallydid employers allow time explicitly for it. We outline fourdifferent bases on which teachers might practise, all of whichwere suggested by respondents, many of whom added personal notesto the questionnaire, indicating the extent to which this subjectis a matter of wide interest and concern     

Foucault and the politics of critical management studies

This paper explores the different ways in which we read Foucault in management and organisation studies but, more particularly, some of the features of his project that we seem often to exclude. In the context of a growing interest in more ‘engaged’ forms of scholarly practice among management academics, we argue that further consideration of Foucault might have something more to offer. Setting the main arguments in context, we suggest an outline of the dominant ways in which we read Foucault: the identities we assign to him. Hence we know Foucault primarily as a social theorist, genealogist, neo‐Weberian, and postmodernist. We then consider some of the engaged aspects of his project, focusing on his emergence as an activist intellectual in the 1970s. Possible implications for critical management scholars are then considered.