Family Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Risks of Financial Insecurity and Coping

During the COVID-19 pandemic, families have experienced unprecedented financial and social disruptions. We studied the impact of preexisting psychosocial factors and pandemic-related financial and social disruptions in relation to family well-being among N = 4091 adolescents and parents during early summer 2020, participating in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development^SM Study. Poorer family well-being was linked to prepandemic psychosocial and financial adversity and was associated with pandemic-related material hardship and social disruptions to routines. Parental alcohol use increased risk for worsening of family relationships, while a greater endorsement of coping strategies was mainly associated with overall better family well-being. Financial and mental health support may be critical for family well-being during and after a widespread crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.     

The National Association of Manufacturers' Community Relations Short Film Your Town: Parable,Propaganda, and Big Individualism

In the aftermath of the Great Depression, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM) faced growing antibusiness sentiment. In 1940, as part of a widespread propaganda campaign to assuage public concerns about industry and rehabilitate big business's reputation, NAM created and distributed the community relations short film, Your Town. The movie, pursuing an integration propaganda strategy, appealed to Americans' individualistic values by portraying industry as a beneficent fellow traveler who was a big individual—a heroic, larger-than-life figure who could make the land profitable and guard the citizenry against evil, antibusiness influences. Applying Vogler's (1997) synthesis of Campbell's (1949 Campbell , J. ( 1949 ). The hero with a thousand faces . Princeton , NJ : University Press . [Google Scholar]) heroic narrative form, this article shows that NAM's portrayal of industry as a hero has continued to resonate with strains of contemporary American thought that (a) sees business as the foundation for societal progress and stability and (b) conceptualizes the corporate entity as a person. Finally, this study finds that, although the language of corporate personhood has been implied in organizational community relations rhetoric for at least six decades, more recent events reveal a public that is more circumspect about the beneficence of the corporate persona.     

Casting Light on Shadow Government: A Typological Approach

Our fascination with the growth of special purpose entitieshas garnered substantial theoretical and empirical attentionin the last several decades. Unfortunately, we still know verylittle about the unique characteristics of various special purposeentities. Our lack of understanding regarding special purposeentities has contributed to both their categorization as "shadowgovernment" and a tendency for distinct types of special purposeentities to be generalized. The resulting perception is thatthe terms "public authorities," "special districts," "governmentcorporations," and the like are interchangeable or synonymous.Because accurate understanding is necessary to achieve preciseevaluation, this article explores the theoretical underpinningsof these complex entities and offers a typology based on thesetheories. The typology is then compared to the extant literatureand individual special purpose entities.     

Terrorism‐Centric Behaviors and Adversarial Threat Awareness*

This article estimates situational awareness in a diverse collection of police officers with respect to their individual ability to identify nine key behaviors that are indicative of terrorism activity. The selected group of police officers was drawn from state, county, and municipal law enforcement organizations. The terrorist‐centric behaviors were presented to the test group in multicomponent text‐based scenarios that emulate real‐world police events and respondents were instructed to rate each scenario component on an 11‐point Likert‐type suspicion scale. With the exception of terrorist fundraising, law enforcement personnel tended to view all of the terrorist‐centric activities and behaviors as at least “somewhat suspicious.” The activities that could also be associated with “conventional” criminality such as weapons acquisition received higher ratings than those activities more exclusively related to terrorism such as recruiting. We also noted statistically significant differences based on agency type, officers’ assignment (patrol or detective), experience, gender, agency size, and education. Race had no effect.     

The impact of CEO turnover on firm performance around interim successions

Prior research reports that financial performance of firms that hire interim CEO successors is worse following interim CEO appointments than those that hire permanent successors. We find that this underperformance occurs only following voluntary turnover interim appointments, which represent a small fraction of all voluntary turnovers and roughly a quarter of all interim appointments. We do not observe poor performance when boards hire interim successors following instances of forced departure. Further analysis shows that poor performance during voluntary turnover interim successions are limited to using operating performance measures; market performance is not significantly worse following interim successions. Our results indicate that many interim appointments should not be viewed as value decreasing endeavors and future research on post-succession financial performance should consider the circumstances surrounding the turnover of the predecessor.     

An Initial Assessment of Effective Preference Assessment Intervals Among Employees

Previous research has shown that employee preferences for tangible items may change significantly from one month to the next. Although a 1-month interval may be too long to wait between preference assessment administrations, no guidelines exist with regard to how often to assess employee preference. This study examined changes in preference as measured by two different preference assessments across four different time intervals. We measured preference stability by assessing changes in designations of high- and low-preference items from one assessment to the next. Only the 1-week interval indicated no changes in item designation from high preference to low preference or low preference to high preference. These data suggest that if tangibles are used, preferences may need to be assessed over time.     

The Equivalence of Parameter Estimates from Growth Curve Models and Seemingly Unrelated Regression Models

Seemingly unrelated regression models and growth curve models are examples of multivariate models that require special estimation techniques. Parameters in seemingly unrelated regression models can be estimated by using two-stage Aitken estimation based on unrestricted residuals; parameters in growth curve models can be estimated by using a Potthoff-Roy (1964) transformation based on an estimate of the dispersion. With proper choice of the seemingly unrelated regression model, the two multivariate models and corresponding parameter estimates are shown to be equivalent. Recognition of the equivalence simplifies the presentation of these more complicated multivariate models. The connection is also of interest for more flexible growth curve models.     

Measuring Children's Church‐Based Social Support: Development and Initial Validation of the Kids’ Church Survey

Given the importance of considering context in development, the goal of the present study was to develop and provide initial validity evidence for the Kids’ Church Survey (KCS), a new measure of children's church‐based social support. Data were collected from 1253 children ages 6–14 attending mainline Protestant, evangelical Protestant, and Catholic churches. Parallel and exploratory factor analyses supported a three‐factor solution: received (emotional) church support, perceived church support from peers, and perceived church support from adults. Confirmatory models conducted with independent samples provided an excellent fit for the data. All three scales evidenced acceptable internal (.78–.92) and test–retest (.88–.95) reliability. Measurement invariance was demonstrated across genders and age groups, with the exception of the perceived peer support scale, which was not invariant across ages. The KCS was sensitive to between‐church differences in children's programs and incrementally predicted self‐esteem, prosocial behavior, and spirituality. Applications for researchers, mental health practitioners, and clergy are discussed.