Variables Affecting Readiness to Benefit From Career Interventions

This article identifies and briefly describes the broad range of variables that may influence clients’ readiness to benefit from career interventions. The article also discusses consequences of low readiness for effective use of career interventions and addresses implications for practice as well as for future research. Variables contributing to low readiness for effective use of career interventions include personal characteristics and circumstances; knowledge of self, options, and decision making; and prior experience with career interventions. Consequences of low readiness for using career interventions include premature disengagement, negative perception of skills and interests, selective acquisition of incomplete information, premature choice foreclosure, protracted exploration, dependent decision‐making style, and poor evaluation of options.     

Integrating Internet-Based Distance Guidance With Services Provided in Career Centers

The Internet has evolved so rapidly that there is little information on integrating Internet-based distance guidance opportunities with resources and services provided by existing career centers. In this article, the author describes career centers and then explores the need for career centers in the information age, the types of Internet web sites, the functions of an integrated web site in promoting cost- effectiveness, options for integrating user needs, the role of instructional design in web site development, cost-effectiveness and staff collaboration, web master responsibilities, Internet web site implementation, staff training, and ethical issues. This article is based on a paper presented at a seminar titled, “Guidance in Open Learning Environments in the Finnish Polytechnics” at Espoo-Vantaa Polytechnic, Vantaa, Finland, 1998.     

Assessing MSW Students’ Integrated Behavioral Health Skills Using an Objective Structured Clinical Examination

Within the last decade, there has been a significant shift in the field of social work toward competency-based education. This article details the use of the Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) Adapted for Social Work Performance Rating Scale. We used the measure to evaluate specific practice competencies among students (n=33) participating in a professional workforce development program, funded by the Health Resources Services Administration Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training for Professionals. We report on students’ performance and their views of the OSCE as an assessment measure and learning experience, and on the interrater reliability and consistency of the OSCE. Results can be used by other social work programs to inform the use of OSCEs to facilitate competency-based assessment.     

Beyond Residential Segregation: Mobility-Based Connectedness and Rates of Violence in Large Cities

A longstanding finding is that neighborhood racial segregation is linked to violence. In this paper, we look beyond neighborhoods of residence to consider the everyday mobility of urbanites in their daily rounds. Analyzing estimates of neighborhood mobility from largescale social media data in the 50 largest American cities, we find that residential segregation by race is not only associated with higher violence but also lower equitability of travel across neighborhoods and a lower concentration of visits to common hubs. Further, the interaction of equitable and concentrated mobility is significantly associated with rates of violence, controlling for both racial and income segregation, education, city size, and density. There is little evidence, however, that patterns of everyday mobility mediate the influence of residential racial segregation. Both dimensions of the structural connectedness of cities—one rooted in place of residence, and the other encompassing interneighborhood exposure based on travel throughout the metropolis—are implicated in violence.     

Practical Implications of Preference‐Based Conference Scheduling

Conference scheduling involves organizing presentations into sessions which are assigned to time periods and rooms. This includes assuring a feasible utilization of time periods and rooms, and avoiding individual schedule conflicts. The problem increases in complexity by considering the preferences of presenters: for time periods, for rooms, etc. A greater level of complexity comes from considering the preferences of conference attendees, which we define as preference‐based conference scheduling (PBCS). This article provides a structure on which PBCS problems are founded, including empirical demonstration of solution techniques. In addition, real‐world strategic planning issues of flexibility and preference detail are explored.     

Ramifications of Monitoring Service Quality Through Passively Solicited Customer Feedback*

It is common for service providers to collect data from customers as part of efforts to monitor quality. Often, this data is passively collected, meaning (a) any solicitation of feedback is done without direct customer interaction, and (b) the customer initiates any response given. Examples include customer comment cards, toll-free telephone numbers, and comment links on World Wide Web pages. This article compares passive data collection with active methods (e.g., interviews and mail surveys). Passive methods generally have lower response rates and are inherently biased, but have cost and sample frame advantages when used to monitor quality on a continuous basis. Despite the biased nature of passive methods, this article describes the successful validation of a common customer-response model with passively collected empirical data. The model is expanded to consider the impact of complaint and compliment solicitation on customers' evaluation of the service provider. Results show that this impact is negative, and that customers who spontaneously register complaints generally record higher ratings of the service provider than customers who complain in response to a complaint solicitation. Discussion and conclusions are given.     

Modern and Postmodern Career Theories: The Unnecessary Divorce

Postmodern approaches to career counseling are becoming increasingly popular. Part of the impetus for the postmodern view has involved perceived problems in the assumptions and application of the modern approach. Two points of view have emerged: (a) the modern and postmodern approaches are incompatible, and the postmodern approach is superior to the modern approach and (b) the modern and postmodern approaches are compatible, each with specific benefits and limitations, and individual needs and cost‐effectiveness should govern the decision of which approach to use. Key issues to examine in this discussion are standardized career assessment, aggregate career information, matching, and cost‐effectiveness.     

Foundations and Implications of a Proposed Unified Services Theory

Diverse businesses, such as garbage collection, retail banking, and management consulting are often tied together under the heading of “services”, based on little more than a perception that they are intangible and do not manufacture anything. Such definitions inadequately identify managerial and operational implications common among, and unique to, services. We present a “Unified Services Theory” (UST) to clearly delineate service processes from non‐service processes and to identify key commonalities across seemingly disparate service businesses. The UST defines a service production process as one that relies on customer inputs; customers act as suppliers for all service processes. Non‐services (such as make‐to‐stock manufacturing) rely on customer selection of outputs, payment for outputs, and occasional feedback, but production is not dependent upon inputs from individual customers. The UST reveals principles that are common to the wide range of services and provides a unifying foundation for various theories and models of service operations, such as the traditional “characteristics of services” and Customer Contact Theory. The UST has significant operational corollaries pertaining to capacity and demand management, service quality, services strategy, and so forth. The UST provides a common reference point to which services management researchers can anchor future theory‐building and theory‐testing research.