Public relations practice in Japan: an exploratory study

Ninety-four (62%) survey responses in the Japanese language from 151 corporate public relations professionals in Japan were analyzed to investigate how Japanese management styles have changed since the recent economic recession, and how present management styles have impacted public relations practice in Japan. Findings suggest today’s Japanese management styles are not a static system unaffected by the economic pressures, and that current public relations practices in Japan align more closely with mixed models of public relations practiced in Western societies.     

A Discrete Time Parametric Model for the Analysis of Failure Time Data

This paper introduces a parametric discrete failure time model which allows a variety of smooth hazard function shapes, including shapes which are not readily available with continuous failure time models. The model is easy to fit, and statistical inference is simple. Further, it is readily extended to allow for differences between subjects while retaining the ease of fit and simplicity of statistical inference. The performance of the discrete time analysis is demonstrated by application to several data sets.     

‘MUSIC WHILE YOU WORK’: TEENAGE WOMEN IN THE AUSTRALIAN LABOUR MARKET, 1947 TO 1992

Teenage women have been particularly disadvantaged by the collapse of the youth labour market over the last 20 years. This article outlines the dimension of that problem, comparing the position young women held in the teenage labour market in the late 1940s with their position today. While the 1950s and 1960s saw growth in some areas of paid work for teenage women, the 1970s marked a watershed. With the major exception of saleswork in the retail industry and clerical work in banking, teenage women saw their place in the labour market dramatically shrink during that decade. Nearly 30,000 full-time jobs disappeared during the 1970s, to be replaced by nearly the same number of part-time jobs. The 1980s has seen these developments reach crisis proportions. In the late 1980s, nearly 40,000 clerical jobs were lost to teenage women, and again the only significant employment growth was in casualised service sector jobs, such as cashiers and sales workers. This article concludes by exploring the structural reasons behind these dramatic long-term changes.     

Disaffected Loyalties in a Changing Contractual Environment

In this paper we examine the effects of the changing employee-employer relationship on loyalty – a construct we developed along Hirschman’s model. The impact on perceptions of loyalty during a downsizing is assessed using a design that manipulates HRM policies toward the use of temporary employees, retraining, employee voice, seniority and community coordination. We introduce ideological orientation as a variable that will have direct and indirect affects. Both MBA students and managers (N = 269) participated in the study. All HRM policies and ideological orientations have direct affects; in addition some indirect effects for ideological orientation emerged. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Expert Views on Biological Threat Characterization for the U.S. Government: A Delphi Study

Biological threat characterization (BTC) involves laboratory research conducted for the purpose of biological defense. BTC research is important for improving biological risk assessment and informing resource prioritization. However, there are also risks involved in BTC work, including potential for escape from the laboratory or the misuse of research results. Using a modified Delphi study to gather opinions from U.S. experts in biosecurity and biodefense, this analysis explores what principles and safeguards can maximize the benefits of BTC research and ensure that it is conducted safely and securely. Delphi participants were asked to give their opinions about the need for BTC research by the U.S. government (USG); risks of conducting this research; rules or guidelines that should be in place to ensure that the work is safe and accurate; components of an effective review and prioritization process; rules for when characterization of a pathogen can be discontinued; and recommendations about who in the USG should be responsible for BTC prioritization decisions. The findings from this research reinforce the need for BTC research at the federal level as well as a need for continued review and oversight of this research to maximize its effectiveness and reduce the risks involved. It also demonstrates the need for further discussion of what would constitute a “red line” for biothreat characterization research—research that should not be performed for safety, ethical, or practical reasons—and guidelines for when there is sufficient research in a given topic area so that the research can be considered completed.     

Defining quality care for looked after children: frontline workers’ perspectives on standards and all that?

This paper examines residential childcare workers’ perceptions of quality and how they relate to the growing performance measurement culture within social work over the last 10 years. In particular, it is concerned with examining how workers define quality services and what this means for the government's standards approach with its emphasis on tangible activities around process rather than outcomes. In addition this paper considers the prospects for developing quality in residential care and what frontline workers assess as adding to and/or subtracting from that activity. The growing performance measurement and standards culture being propagated by central government is considered in the context of workers’ perceptions and influence, particularly as it relates to the potential to maximize the quality of the service provided. In this context staff perceptions are obtained from nine children's units in two local authorities with the intention of providing research evidence to a debate very often centred on belief rather than fact.     

Beyond Managism: Negotiated Narratives and Critical Management Education in Practice

A pragmatist conception of critical management education and learning is first set out. This accepts a degree of 'functionality' between management study and management practice. It is, however, a non-managerialist and non-technicist functionality. The criterion for judging critical management learning cannot be how well it reveals truths in any absolute or foundationalist sense. The only possible criterion is how well, relative to alternative types of learning, it informs the practices of people involved in managerial situations (regardless of whether these are managers or not). Next, one way of applying pragmatist critical management principles is outlined. This works through negotiated narratives and stands as an alternative to orthodox management education approaches – ones to which the critical concept of scholarism is applied. The outline is then developed through an ethnographic style account of an instance of such a practice. Central to this piece of teaching and learning practice is the critical concept of managism . Managist discourse and its role in framing managerial thinking and practices is examined and debated by the management class in the process of attempting collectively to make sense of stories brought to the class by both the students and the teacher. The basic 'story' that the paper tells is rehearsed at the end in the form of a fairy tale. This is done as an alternative to concluding or 'closing' the paper. The story of critical management education and learning and what is done in its name continues to unfold.     

Advertising value equivalence—PR's orphan metric

The academic approach to measurement and evaluation has long favoured social science methodologies (0050, 0260 and 0315), but there has been persistent, widespread practice use of advertising value equivalence (AVE) to express the economic and financial value of public relations activity. This paper investigates the evolution of AVE and discusses whether it arose from clippings agencies, press agentry or other influences on public relations, such as advertising and product promotion.     

Birth control and abortion in France since 1939

This paper describes developments in French policy on contraception and abortion during the occupation and since the liberation. It includes an account of the relevant legislation and the resulting medical, judicial and police activity, as well as some information regarding abortees and abortionists. The latter, of necessity, relates only to cases which have come to the attention of the authorities or the public.