Book Review: Carlo Borgaza and Jacques Defourny (eds.), The Emergence of Social Enterprise,Routledge, London, 2001, 400 pp., $120.00 (hardcover)

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations -     

Examining the Impact of Changes in Maternal Employment on High School Completion Among Low-Income Youth

The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act and decisions about its re-authorization have resurrected interest in the impact of maternal employment on child outcomes in poor families. The emerging evidence suggests that employment stability among former welfare recipients is a key factor in making successful transitions from welfare to work. This investigation explores how changes in maternal employment in poor families relate to high school completion among at risk youths. Our findings show that a substantial number of mothers experience unstable employment patterns. This instability is positively correlated with dropout among adolescents. The paper concludes with policy implications for the next phase of welfare reform.     

Career Counseling in the Twenty‐First Century: Beyond Cultural Encapsulation

The author analyzes the context in which professional career counseling in the U.S. exists at the beginning of the 21st century and makes recommendations to enhance the growth and development of the profession. The issues addressed include developing curricula, training career counselors, broadening the focus on career decision making to include work adjustment, improving the basic and advanced skills of career counselors, and extending career services to diverse groups in the U.S. and to people in other nations. Specific strategies that address each of these issues are discussed.     

OBLIGATED CLINICAN SELF-DISCLOSURE: JONE THERAPITS'S INTERVENTIONS FOLLOWING A FAMILY MEMBERS'S PUBLICIZED MURDER*

This article describes a family therapist's management of the sudden collision between profesional and personal boundaries following the publicized murder of her spouse. Reasons are offered to explain why it is becoming difficult for all clinicians to control the process of self-disclosure in therapy. Strategies used to meet the demands of affirming professional distance while maintaining therapeutic effectiveness are described. Brief recommendations are proposed for therapists in group, medical, rural, inpatient, and underserved settings. It is hoped that this case study will generate further discussion and assist health care providers who may face this challenge in the future.     

Factor Multivariate Stochastic Volatility via Wishart Processes

This paper proposes a high dimensional factor multivariate stochastic volatility (MSV) model in which factor covariance matrices are driven by Wishart random processes. The framework allows for unrestricted specification of intertemporal sensitivities, which can capture the persistence in volatilities, kurtosis in returns, and correlation breakdowns and contagion effects in volatilities. The factor structure allows addressing high dimensional setups used in portfolio analysis and risk management, as well as modeling conditional means and conditional variances within the model framework. Owing to the complexity of the model, we perform inference using Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation from the posterior distribution. A simulation study is carried out to demonstrate the efficiency of the estimation algorithm. We illustrate our model on a data set that includes 88 individual equity returns and the two Fama-French size and value factors. With this application, we demonstrate the ability of the model to address high dimensional applications suitable for asset allocation, risk management, and asset pricing.     

A Content Analysis of Violence in American War Movies

In a content analysis of movie violence, we randomly selected twelve top-grossing American war films from four decades (1970 to 2002). We coded for implements of violence, length of violence, gore, and violence directed at noncombatants. We hypothesized that recently released war movies would be more violent than those released earlier. We found that films released since 1990 did contain more violence compared to others. Further, the intensity of gore increased in recently released movies.     

Characterizing Environmental Harm: Developments in an Approach to Strategic Risk Assessment and Risk Management

Environmental policymakers and regulators are often in the position of having to prioritize their actions across a diverse range of environmental pressures to secure environmental protection and improvements. Information on environmental issues to inform this type of strategic analysis can be disparate; it may be too voluminous or even absent. Data on a range of issues are rarely presented in a common format that allows easy analysis and comparison. Nevertheless, judgments are required on the significance of various environmental pressures and on the inherent uncertainties to inform strategic assessments such as “state of the environment” reports. How can decisionmakers go about this type of strategic and comparative risk analysis? In an attempt to provide practical tools for the analysis of environmental risks at a strategic level, the Environment Agency of England and Wales has conducted a program of developmental research on strategic risk assessment since 1996. The tools developed under this program use the concept of “environmental harm” as a common metric, viewed from technical, social, and economic perspectives, to analyze impacts from a range of environmental pressures. Critical to an informed debate on the relative importance of these perspectives is an understanding and analysis of the various characteristics of harm (spatial and temporal extent, reversibility, latency, etc.) and of the social response to actual or potential environmental harm from a range of hazards. Recent developments in our approach, described herein, allow a presentation of the analysis in a structured fashion so as to better inform risk‐management decisions.     

'Pressed for time'– the differential impacts of a 'time squeeze'

The ‘time squeeze’ is a phrase often used to describe contemporary concerns about a shortage of time and an acceleration of the pace of daily life. This paper reviews analysis of the Health and Lifestyle Survey (HALS), 1985 and 1992, and draws upon in‐depth semi‐structured interviews conducted with twenty British suburban households, in order to shed light on ‘senses’ of time squeeze. 75% of HALS respondents felt at least ‘somewhat’ pressed for time, with variables of occupation, gender, age and consumption significantly increasing senses of being ‘pressed for time’. This is not surprising given theories of the ‘time squeeze’. However, identification of variables only offers insights into isolated causal effects and does little to explain how or why so many respondents reported feeling ‘usually pressed for time’. Using interview data to help interpret the HALS findings, this paper identifies three mechanisms associated with the relationship between practices and time (volume, co‐ordination and allocation), suggesting that ‘harriedness’ represents multiple experiences of time (substantive, temporal dis‐organisation, and temporal density). In conclusion, it is argued that when investigating ‘harriedness’ it is necessary to recognise the different mechanisms that generate multiple experiences of time in order for analysis to move beyond one‐dimensional interpretations of the ‘time squeeze’, and in order to account for the relationship between social practices and their conduct within temporalities (or the rhythms of daily life).     

Policy lessons for strengthening nonprofits

Those who develop or influence Australian public policy impacting on the nonprofit sector rarely have adequate empirical research upon which to base their judgments. Giving Australia research evidence relevant to strengthening giving and volunteering is brought together in this article to inform policy options for government, nonprofit and philanthropic entities. It begins with consideration of research findings related to the capacity of those that give or volunteer and the implications these findings have for policy. Three key criteria are developed for assessing policies to strengthening giving and volunteering, behaviours that primarily assist nonprofit organisations – policies that build trust between those that give and the recipients of their gifts, policies that strengthen affiliation and policies that encourage planned giving.