Feeling Rushed: Gendered Time Quality,Work Hours,Nonstandard Work Schedules,and Spousal Crossover

The authors investigated gender differences in couple parents' subjective time pressure, using detailed Australian time use data (n=756 couples with minor children). They examined how family demand, employment hours, and nonstandard work schedules of both partners relate to each spouse's non‐employment time quality (“pure” leisure, “contaminated” leisure, multitasking housework, and child care) and subjective feelings of being rushed or pressed for time. Mothers averaged more contaminated leisure and less pure leisure and did much more unpaid work multitasking than fathers. These results suggest that these differences in time quality do partially account for mothers feeling more rushed than fathers. Weekend work was associated with mothers having less pure leisure, but not contaminated leisure. The opposite was found for fathers. Spousal work characteristics also related to time use and feeling rushed in gendered ways, with male long work hours positively associated with higher time pressure for mothers as well as the fathers who worked them.     

Reevaluating the Concrete–Explanatory Animation Creation as a Digital Catalyst for Cross-Modal Cognition

This article explores the relationship between abstract and concrete as categories of knowledge and Wilensky’s (1991) theory that all ideas are abstract until they become concrete. Dewey (1910/1997) made a similar claim by suggesting that ideas are initially beyond our comprehension until they have become consolidated. This article documents the evolving mental models of 11- and 12-year-old children as they designed and made explanatory animations for the sake of their own learning. The conclusion from this research is that transferring ideas from thought to word, word to image, or transmediation of any kind, is a semiotic tool for cross-modal cognition.     

Gender,democracy, development,and overshoot: a cross-national analysis

The crux of sustainability concerns hinges on humanity’s overshoot of our global carrying capacity, which we currently exceed by about 50 %. Overshoot of the earth’s natural resource bases militates against our current and future prospects for sustainability. Despite the theoretical and practical impetus to examine these dynamics, there is a dearth of empirical sociological research that analyzes overshoot. The paper fills this gap by offering a structural equation model of each nation’s relative contributions to overshoot. The model tests key theorizations in the environmental sociology, development, and global political-economy literatures, and adds to them by theorizing and empirically testing ecofeminist positions that the status of women affects and is affected by environmental conditions. Findings support ecofeminist interpretations that resource degradation yields adverse impacts on women and that their representation in government bodes well for the environment. The theoretical, empirical, and policy-based conclusions and implications are treated, as well as future areas of research.     

Money and Credit Redux

We analyze money and credit as competing payment instruments in decentralized exchange. In natural environments, we show the economy does not need both: if credit is easy, money is irrelevant; if credit is tight, money is essential, but credit becomes irrelevant. Changes in credit conditions are neutral because real balances respond endogenously to keep total liquidity constant. This is true for both exogenous and endogenous debt limits and policy limits, secured and unsecured lending, and general pricing mechanisms. While we show how to overturn some of these results, the benchmark model suggests credit might matter less than people think.     

An Investigation of Indoor Air Contamination in Residences Above Dry Cleaners

An investigation of residences located above dry cleaning facilities was conducted to determine whether indoor and outdoor air concentrations of the dry cleaning solvent tetrachloroethene (perchloroethylene, PCE) were elevated compared to residences not near a dry cleaning facility. Data were also collected on the dry cleaners' operating conditions and equipment. Significantly elevated levels of PCE were found in the indoor air of each of six apartments located above dry cleaners compared to control residences for both day and night samples. The PCE concentrations in outdoor air near the dry cleaners were also significantly elevated compared to control locations and were lower than the concentrations measured indoors. The type of dry cleaning machine was significantly associated with the concentration of PCE found in the apartment above. A strong correlation was also found between the day and night PCE levels in the study apartments.     

Flexibility, Hierarchy, Markets

The conclusion that organizations need to become more strategically flexible as a response to increasing environmental dynamism and uncertainty has been an important feature of recent contingency theories of organization design. In this literature organizations have been analysed from the perspective of the development of networks of organizations concentrating on their core competencies and contracting among themselves on a stable long-term basis. This model of inter-firm relationships provides an alternative mode of organizational structuring to that arising from vertical integration, which, by contrast, is seen as fostering strategic inflexibility. In the literature on corporate restructuring and changes in ownership form arising from the markets and hierarchies perspective, we see a similar emphasis on the dysfunctional consequences of large-scale bureaucratic organization. Changes in ownership form are seen as a major means of providing more effective managerial control. In this paper we argue that linking the literature on flexibility emanating from contingency theories of organizational design and the markets and hierarchies perspective provides important new insights into current and emerging forms of organization.     

A Behavioral Approach to Organizational Change: Reinforcing Those Responsible for Facilitating the Climate and Hence Promoting Diversity

Despite the passage of the U.S. Civil Rights Act in 1964, cries can still be heard for a more diverse workforce. Among the difficulties are retaining often sought-after women and minorities. In this 2-year demonstration, change agents—the provost, deans, and heads of departments/schools of a large public university—were helped to deliberately and directly change the milieu of their departments and schools so as to encourage faculty to remain. Uniquely suited to organizational change, the behavioral approach identifies constructive actions for change agents and, most importantly, provides proven strategies for motivating them. Fostering a supportive climate was defined in terms of change agents’ behaviors. The Building Behaviorally Based Climate Survey was developed and validated. Recognition and feedback were provided in what is typically a feedback desert. This reinforcement model can be used to create and sustain inviting atmospheres, hence enticing all faculty, including women and minority faculty, to stay, hence enabling a diverse workforce.     

Centralized nurse scheduling to simultaneously improve schedule cost and nurse satisfaction

Nursing managers are faced with rising turnover and shortages of qualified nursing staff. At the same time they are under increased pressure to simultaneously increase patient care and satisfaction while reducing costs. In this study, we examine the impact of centralizing scheduling decisions across departments in a hospital. By pooling nurses from multiple units and scheduling them in one model, improved costs and reduced overtime result. Reduced overtime improves schedules for nurses. Improved satisfaction levels can positively impact turnover rates among nurses. Our results show that by using a centralized model, nursing managers in hospitals can improve the desirability of nurse schedules by approximately 34% and reduce overtime by approximately 80% while simultaneously reducing costs by just under 11%.