Alignment between Quality Enforcement Devices and Governance Structures in the Agro-food Vertical Chains

Using a Transaction Cost Economics framework, this paper studies how supply chain governance are aligned with the type of quality enforcement mechanisms used in transactions with consumers. Specifically we compare governance of supply chains when private brand assures quality to chains where official certification assures products’ quality for customers. To test our proposition, we conducted a set of 42 case studies in 3 agro-food sectors (processed meat, cheese, fruits and vegetable) from 7 European countries. We found that supply chain governance is closer to hierarchy-like modes of organization in cases where reputational capital is the main quality assurance device, whereas market-like governance is more prevalent in cases with public certification.     

A Heart to Learn and Care? Teachers' responses toward special needs children in mainstream schools in Hong Kong

This article examines the problems associated with introducing integrated education into Hong Kong's mainstream schooling system. The research objectives were to examine the experience of teachers in teaching children with special needs in mainstream schools; to examine the attitude of mainstream teachers towards integrated education, and explore whether the differences in perception of difficulties and attitudes are attributable to types of disability and availability of resources. This was achieved through a research strategy utilising a questionnaire survey combined with individual and group interviews. The results demonstrate that there is a clear hierarchy of preference amongst teachers in relation to special needs children. Students with a learning disability and/or behavioural problems pose more challenges to teachers than those with a physical difficulty. Teachers that had both types of special needs children in a class experience more problems in maintaining classroom discipline, have a greater workload and struggle to manage the disparate academic standards amongst students. Teachers in schools with extra funding provisions, teachers trained to teach special needs children, additional counselling resources and specialist support expressed more accepting attitudes towards children with special needs and their admission into mainstream schools. Resource classes did not exert a positive effect on acceptance. More than 70% of questionnaire respondents were supportive of two positive value statements 'realisation of equal opportunities' and 'a good chance for students to interact'. At the same time teachers tended to agree with the statements 'integration was a burden to the schools and teachers' (over 60%) and 'a painful struggle for special students' (48%). Although there is a general normative acceptance of inclusion, the statistical pattern suggests that teachers' attitudes are not static or based solely on ideology.     

A likelihood ratio test of a homoscedastic normal mixture against a heteroscedastic normal mixture

It is generally assumed that the likelihood ratio statistic for testing the null hypothesis that data arise from a homoscedastic normal mixture distribution versus the alternative hypothesis that data arise from a heteroscedastic normal mixture distribution has an asymptotic χ ² reference distribution with degrees of freedom equal to the difference in the number of parameters being estimated under the alternative and null models under some regularity conditions. Simulations show that the χ ² reference distribution will give a reasonable approximation for the likelihood ratio test only when the sample size is 2000 or more and the mixture components are well separated when the restrictions suggested by Hathaway (Ann. Stat. 13:795–800, 1985) are imposed on the component variances to ensure that the likelihood is bounded under the alternative distribution. For small and medium sample sizes, parametric bootstrap tests appear to work well for determining whether data arise from a normal mixture with equal variances or a normal mixture with unequal variances.     

Triarchic Model of Grit Dimensions as Predictors of Career Outcomes

Recent studies have emphasized the importance of applying positive psychological theories in the context of career development (Hull et al., 2020; Vela et al., 2015, 2019). However, limited research has been carried out on how specific positive personality traits might contribute to optimal career functioning. We addressed this gap by exploring the link of a triarchic model of grit dimensions (i.e., perseverance of effort, consistency of interests, and adaptability to situations) to career maturity, career decision-making self-efficacy, and career goal setting among Hong Kong Chinese secondary school students. Perseverance of effort positively predicted career goal setting and career decision-making self-efficacy. Consistency positively predicted career goal setting and career maturity. Adaptability to situations positively predicted career maturity, career decision-making self-efficacy, and career goal setting. Results point to the importance of designing school-based grit interventions to facilitate optimal career-related functioning.     

Content validation on the Work Performance Rating Scale for sheltered workshop workers

The purpose of this study was to revise the content of the Work Performance Rating Scale (WPRS) as a valid assessment tool for sheltered workshop workers. A focus group of 11 sheltered workshop workers was recruited to collect their opinions about the relevance of the WPRS from the service users' perspectives. A panel of 23 frontline practitioners who had experience in using various work assessment instruments provided at their work setting was recruited to review the content of the WPRS. A 14-item amended version of the WPRS with five new items added was proposed based on the opinions of service users, frontline practitioners, and the concept of the Minnesota Theory of Work Adjustment (MTWA). An expert panel of 12 professionals at the senior level from various vocational rehabilitation settings was recruited to comment on the content validity of the 14-item amended version of the WPRS. The expert panel agreed that the amended version of the WPRS was related to the concept of job satisfactoriness which could be used to assess the work performance of sheltered workshop workers. Thus, the use of the MTWA for improving the content validity of the WPRS to assess the employability of sheltered workshop workers was supported by the findings of the study.     

Carnal Connections: On Embodiment,Apprenticeship, and Membership

This article responds to the special issue of Qualitative Sociology devoted to the author's book, Body and Soul: Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (vol. 28, no. 3, summer 2005). Four themes are tackled: the positioning of the inquirer and the question of social acceptance and membership; the dynamics of embodiment(s) and the variable role of race as a structural, interactional, and dispositional property; the functioning of the boxing gym as miniature civilizing and masculinizing machine; apprenticeship as a mode of knowledge transmissioin and technique for social inquiry, the scope of carnal sociology, and the textual work needed to convey the full-color texture and allure of the social world. This leads to clarifying the conceptual, empirical, and rhetorical makeup of Body and Soul in relation to its triple intent: to elucidate the workings of a sociocultural competency residing in prediscursive capacities; to deploy and develop the concept of habitus as operant philosophy of action and methodological guide; and to offer a brief for a sociology not of the body (as social product) but from the body (as social spring and vector of knowledge), exemplifying a way of doing and writing ethnography that takes full epistemic advantage of the visceral nature of social life. Response to the special issue of Qualitative Sociology on Body and Soul, vol. 28, no. 2, Summer 2005.     

Epidemiologic network inference

Statistics and Computing - In many epidemiologic models, a disease is assumed to spread along a contact network. We aim to infer this network, in addition to the epidemiologic model parameters,...     

Parenting Discrepancy and Child Development in Chinese Context

Although parent–child discrepant perception of the family has been increasingly noted in the west, pertinent research is limited in Chinese societies. In addition, prior pertinent studies predominantly treated parent–child discrepant effects as independent of the general and aggregate family context, which are in fact inseparable. Furthermore, these studies tended to either look at the positive side of child outcomes or those negative ones. The present study, based on a community sample of 223 Chinese parent–child dyads, attempted to examine effects of parent–child discrepancy in effective parenting practices on both children’s positive, i.e. self-control and other perspective taking behavior, and negative outcomes, i.e. internalizing and externalizing problems, directly or indirectly through the mediator of children’s self-concept at the aggregate effective parenting context. Results largely support harmful effects of parent–child discrepancy in effective parenting on the child outcomes directly or indirectly through children’s self-concept. Besides, aggregate effective parenting practices are found to robustly contribute to the child outcomes directly and indirectly through children’s self-concept, even taking parent–child discrepant effects into account. What’s more important, the former is significantly moderated by the latter for its effects on the child outcomes, explicating the conditional nature of parent–child discrepant effects on child development. Contributions and implications of the current study applied in Chinese culture as well as future study directions are also discussed.