Proruralism values and migration behavior

Population and Environment - The article looks more closely at migration to small cities and towns by studying the relative influence of proruralism value orientations on migration behaviorvis...     

Conflict of values— the central strategy problem

There is growing evidence that the central strategy question for business is no longer ‘what business are you in?’ but‘why are you in business?’ The traditional answers to this question—‘to make profits’, ‘to grow’ and ‘to give an adequate return to the shareholder’, are all being questioned. In their place others are being suggested—‘to provide satisfying jobs’, ‘to help solve social problems’, ‘to assist in urban and regional development’.In this article, Bernard Taylor suggests that the conflict between business goals and social goals has become the central strategy problem. Business enterprises like other organizations tend to develop their own distinctive sub-cultures with their own value systems which may differ markedly from the values accepted in society generally. The more effective the selection, training and reward systems, the more these business values will be reinforced.But this can lead to difficulties when society begins to reject business values in favour of other social goals; particularly at a time when the power and autonomy of management is being challenged and Corporate Planning is being transformed from an internal dialogue between managers at headquarters and managers in divisions into an open debate involving public servants, employees and self-appointed representatives of community interests.     

A MULTIDIMENSIONAL MEASURE OF RELIGIOUS INVOLVEMENT FOR AFRICAN AMERICANS

This article describes the confirmation and validation of a multidimensional measure of religious involvement using data from the National Survey of Black Americans (N = 2,107). This model was developed through a multistep strategy of confirmatory factor analysis and structural-equation modeling. First, a three-dimensional factor structure comprising organizational, nonorganizational, and subjective religiosity was confirmed for twelve religious indicators. This measurement model was found to exhibit excellent overall fit; it compared favorably to alternative models: and all hypothesized factor loadings were strong and statistically significant. Second, several constructs identified by prior research as correlates of religious involvement (gender, age, education, region, and urbanicity) were found to exhibit significant associations with one or more dimensions of the model. All analyses were conducted in LISREL 8.03, using maximum-likelihood estimation and a strategy of split-sample replication.     

Balance of care—a user's view of a new approach to joint strategic planning

Planning for care of the Elderly has to face the problems of an increasing elderly population; a wide range of alternative ways of caring for them (at widely differing costs); the fact that services are provided by several different organisations all facing difficult financial constraints; a range of professional opinion about the desirability or otherwise of alternative patterns of care and use of resources; a lack of data on how care is at present distributed; the lack of a structure for organising such data as are available; and the lack of an appropriate computer-based model for manipulating the large number of data elements necessary to describe and help to evaluate alternative plans for the future. The Balance of Care approach to the Joint Strategic Planning of Health and Social Services provision for the Elderly, is being used in pilot applications in two Areas in the UK. Its contribution to the solution of the problems outlined above is described by authors from the two Areas. The approach and the underlying model can be extended to strategic planning for other client groups requiring non-acute care.     

The application of cost-benefit dominance analysis to the assessment of farm animal quality of life

A holistic approach to the subject of animal well-being suggests that it cannot be attributed to (or measured by) a single biological factor, but rather results from a summation of all influences upon an individual's quality of life with a satisfactory overall outcome. The application of traditional mathematical methods (such as indexing) to the assessment of animal quality of life is limited by the lack of a meaningful unit of comparison, and by the difficulty of determining the relative importance of the wide range of welfare-relevant factors. The principle of cost-benefit dominance (CBD) offers significant methodological advantages in this regard. CBD does not require a standard unit of measurement, since only qualitative comparisonswithin attributes are required. This eliminates the necessity of weighting, relatively or absolutely, the importance of satisfying animals' different biological needs. In addition, if some interattribute information is known, CBD offers the flexibility of four strategies to improve its effectiveness. A combination of these strategies with a functional classification of welfare-relevant information provides a useful methodological framework for the more objective assessment of animal husbandry systems.     

Dealing with uncertainty in the oil industry

This paper suggests that, as in many industries today, uncertainties constitute the environment in which the oil industry operates: that the relationships between these uncertainties lead to a dynamic view of future environments; and that the resulting strategic considerations establish a basis for resource allocation.     

Evaluating time/cost factors of implementation via GERT simulation

Managers in striving for system implementation often disregard the time and cost that must be expended in achieving implementation success. This paper explores the use of GERT network analysis as a tool for planning and ascertaining the expected time and cost of implementation. The supporting base for the study is an implementation process that employs computer gaming for achieving organizational change.