Effects of gay identity, gender and explicitness of advertising imagery on gay responses to advertising

The present research draws from literature relating to gay identity in psychology and sociology and feminist theory to consider the effect of gay identity and gender on gays' and lesbians' attitudes toward various types of advertising content that are most commonly used to target gay consumers. As such, this study empirically tests whether gay males' and lesbians' responses to gay-oriented advertising content are moderated by individual characteristics: (1) the degree to which they identify as gay, and (2) their gender, and by the explicitness and gender of the gay-oriented advertising imagery.     

Innovative Social Policies: Implications for Work–life Balance among Low‐waged Women in England

We investigated innovative social policies drawn from the European arena — universal systems of childcare, a shorter working week and shared parental leave — asking about their relevance to the work–life balance of low‐waged coupled mothers in England. While in principle the policy environment has shifted from assumptions of a male breadwinner to dual earners, in practice severe constraints on mothers' labour market attachment bring women half the lifetime earnings of men. British Household Panel Survey data for coupled low‐waged women in England show them as likely to work short part‐time hours, have low‐waged partners and low household wages while belonging to male breadwinner partnerships in terms of their contribution to household wages and unpaid work; but that few women support this model. Interviews with low‐waged mothers show evidence of limited choices, constrained by social policies which offer limited and piecemeal support for working parenthood. Given the choice, low‐waged mothers and their partners would find policies available elsewhere in Europe attractive. They see a more universal comprehensive system of childcare as enabling women's employment and improving children's quality of life; a shorter working week as enabling mothers and fathers to lead more balanced lives and a father's quota of parental leave fitting with their assumptions about sharing care.     

Risk,resilience and identity construction in the life narratives of young people leaving residential care

The role of residential care for children has developed very differently internationally, but in all cultural contexts, there are questions about the extent to which it can help young people recover from high risk backgrounds. In the UK, residential care has come to be seen as the placement of last resort, yet new government guidance on permanence has suggested that residential care can provide security and a sense of belonging. Narrative analysis of interviews with 20 care leavers identified their different pathways from birth families through residential care to early adulthood. Some experienced a transformation from a negative sense of self as victims or ‘bad children’ to survivors, while others continued to struggle. Key to successful turning points were four interacting factors, all associated with resilience; connection, agency, activity and coherence. These narratives revealed the importance of nurturing relationships and a sense of ‘family’, and also the role of support after leaving residential care, when transitions workers helped them to move on but stay connected. The study highlighted how residential care leavers from adverse backgrounds attribute very different meanings to their experiences, which affects identity construction, resilience and the need for support.     

MATCHED PAIRS DISCRIMINATION: METHODOLOGY AND AN INVESTIGATION OF CORPORATE ACCOUNTING POLICIES

The matched-pairs methodology is becoming increasingly popular as a means of controlling extraneous factors in business research. This paper develops discriminant procedures for matched data and examines the properties of these methods. Data from a recent study by Hunt [14] on the determinants of inventory method choice are used to contrast the performance of the different methods. While all of the methods yield the same set of discriminating variables, those procedures that allow for the dependence among observations within a pair provide greater classificatory power than traditional multivariate techniques.     

Accounting and Conceptions of Control in the American Corporation1

This study examines three conceptions of how capitalist firms are organized and the relationship between accounting, organization, and control. The first conceptions is based on neoclassical economic theories, and its central premise is the efficacy of contracts. The second model emphasizes Marxian ideas of class conflict and exploitation. Its organizational premise rests on hierarchy and accumulation. The third concept is sociological. Its core assumption is that firms act to create ‘organizational fields’ which assure their continued survival. Each of these three perspectives relies on accounting as a means of control. The paper argues that there is an institutional connection between accounting and corporate control; the connection is demonstrated by the way in which accounting legitimizes control through objectivity, methodology, and professionalism. Regardless of how control is theoretically conceived, accounting is a crucial aspect of control within the modern economic organization.     

Beyond ‘Gender Differences’: A Canadian Study of Women's and Men's Careers in Engineering

This article explores the relationship between gender and career paths for a group of women and men who graduated as engineers during a period of labour market turbulence in western Canada during the 1980s. Using a model adapted from Brown (1982 ), the article uses ‘career path’ as a device to organize data drawn primarily from telephone and face‐to‐face interviews with 317 graduates. Three career paths provide the focus for the study: the ‘organizational’, characterized by stable employment with one employer; the ‘occupational’, characterized by mobility between employers; and the entrepreneurial, characterized by self‐employment. The use of the career path framework moves the study beyond global comparisons (of the dichotomized ‘gender differences’ kind) between ‘the women’ and ‘the men’. As well as allowing for comparison between the paths, it allows more refined and contextualized comparisons within each path. Such comparisons produce patterns of similarity and difference that sometimes transcend gender.     

The effect of compliance-improving interventions on the cognitive-behavioural treatment of pathological gambling

This exploratory study investigated the effect of interventions designed to improve compliance and reduce dropout rates during the outpatient treatment of pathological gambling at a University-based gambling treatment clinic. Forty subjects (29 males, 11 females, mean age = 37.6) meeting DSM-IV criteria (APA, 1994) for pathological gambling were randomly assigned to either a cognitive-behavioural treatment or a cognitive-behavioural treatment combined with interventions designed to improve treatment compliance. Compliance was indicated by the completion of all treatment sessions. Outcome measures were DSM-IV criteria assessed by structured clinical interview, South Oaks Gambling Screen scores, and percentage of income gambled. Logistic regression analyses identified pretreatment characteristics predicting compliance and outcome. Compliance-improving interventions significantly reduced dropout rates, resulting in superior outcomes at posttreatment compared to the cognitive behavioural treatment alone. At 9-month follow-up, there was no difference in outcome between treatments, although both produced clinically significant change. Comorbid problem drinking, drug use, and problem gambling duration predicted poor compliance. Poor outcome was predicted by comorbid problem drinking. The clinical implications of these results are discussed in light of the exploratory nature of the study and the need for future research to address compliance, outcome, and comorbidity issues.