Consumer participation in the employment rehabilitation process: contextual factors and implications for practice

Rehabilitation models of practice have emerged that offer persons' with disabilities opportunities to have an active role in the work entry or re(entry) process. Despite the growth and interest in empowering client involvement in practice, consumer views on the determinants of participation are not fully understood. Thus, consumer feedback on using a self-directed approach to employment rehabilitation was elicited to identify factors integral to their participation in the process. Focus groups were conducted with 35 adult consumers with developmental, mental health, physical and learning disabilities to gain insights into their involvement in a participatory approach to find employment. Content analysis of data revealed barriers and facilitators, which hindered or enabled consumer involvement in the vocational service process. This article discusses the importance of considering issues across the rehabilitation system, practice and lived contexts when implementing participatory approaches in vocational rehabilitation settings.     

Book reviews

Conclusion The Narcissistic and Borderline Disorder is an unusually thought provoking and useful book because it encourages the reader to compare and evaluate the work of several major theorists who have attempted to conceptualize narcissistic and borderline pathology. In spite of my disagreement with some specific formulations, I think that for the most part Masterson's choice of separation-individuation theory as an organizing framework for describing these disorders is quite effective in providing a logically consistent developmental context in which clinical phenomena can be studied and understood. Regardless of one's theoretical orientation, this book, is notable for its large measure of clinical wisdom, especially Masterson's observations about: (1) The Tallionic Impulse, in which he discusses how borderline patients attempt to injure the object by attacking the self; (2) The False Self, in which he outlines how the patient's compliance with the therapist's unspoken expectations may become a major resistance to treatment; (3) the hopelessness helplessness, and despair that narcissistic and borderline patients predictably experience as they begin to separate and thereby confront the existential loneliness of forging an autonomous identity; and (4) the confusion and discouragement that therapists experience when faced with the patient's despair at the very moment when the patient has initiated some constructive change.     

International governance mode choice: Evidence from Brazilian franchisors

The purpose of this article is to test a novel, integrative theory of governance mode selection in the context of international franchising from Brazil. Given the Brazilian emerging market context, we added and tested another variable in the model relating to environmental distance between the home (Brazil) and host countries. To test the theory, we employed two logistic regression models and representative data from the Brazilian Franchising Association in addition to the World Bank's Doing Business index, and the CEPII (Centre d'études prospectives et d'informations internationales). Findings show that three factors influence Brazilian franchisors' choices regarding international governance modes: the environmental uncertainty of the host countries, their behavioral uncertainty, and the franchisors' financial capacity. However, the environmental distance does not influence internationalization strategies of Brazilian firms. Emerging markets firms' governance modes of entry can be adequately explained with the existing model despite contextual differences.     

The Association Between Perceived Spirituality, Religiosity, and Life Satisfaction: The Mediating Role of Self-Rated Health

This study examined the mediating role of self-perceived health between perceived spirituality, religiosity, and life satisfaction among a stratified, random sample of college students, while controlling for gender. Although both models displayed excellent fit criteria, the perceived spirituality and life satisfaction model was fully mediated by self-perceived health χ² (n=459, 4) = 1.64, p=0.80, CFI =0.99, TLI=0.99), and the perceived religiosity and life satisfaction model was partially mediated by self-perceived health χ² (n=459, 10) = 22.29, p=0.01 CFI = 0.99, TLI = 0.99). Both models were equal for men and women. Students who describe themselves as spiritual (or religious) are likely to report greater self-perceived health and greater self-perceived health likely influences life satisfaction for both men and women. Results preliminarily support the contention that life satisfaction is related to differing reported health status, whether physical or mental, and that life satisfaction may be influenced by religiosity and spirituality engagement. Implications for colleges and universities are discussed.     

Risk analysis in the brazilian stock market: copula-APARCH modeling for value-at-risk

Risk management of stock portfolios is a fundamental problem for the financial analysis since it indicates the potential losses of an investment at any given time. The objective of this study is to use bivariate static conditional copulas to quantify the dependence structure and to estimate the risk measure Value-at-Risk (VaR). There were selected stocks that have been performing outstandingly on the Brazilian Stock Exchange to compose pairs trading portfolios (B3, Gerdau, Magazine Luiza, and Petrobras). Due to the flexibility that this methodology offers in the construction of multivariate distributions and risk aggregation in finance, we used the copula-APARCH approach with the Normal, T-student, and Joe-Clayton copula functions. In most scenarios, the results showed a pattern of dependence at the extremes. Moreover, the copula form seems not to be relevant for VaR estimation, since in most portfolios the appropriate copulas lead to significant VaR estimates. It has found that the best models fitted provided conservative risk measures, estimates at 5% and 1%, in a scenario more aggressive.