Agency and fatalism in older Appalachian women’s information seeking about gynecological cancer

Researchers consider older women in rural Appalachia to have low levels of agency and high levels of fatalism regarding decision making about cancer treatment. Using the life course perspective, we examined older women’s agency with information seeking about gynecological cancer. Semistructured interviews with 20 White women living in central Appalachia revealed four trajectories: Surrendering Control, Accepting Death, Self-Care, and Advocacy, each with its own forms of agency. Some women experienced personal transformation, increased self-efficacy, and a passion for community empowerment. Fatalism was not understood apart from placing trust in medical expertise. We implore researchers to further explore rural expressions of agency.     

Missing millions: undercounting urbanization in India

Population and Environment - The measurement and characterization of urbanization crucially depends upon defining what counts as urban. The government of India estimates that only 31% of the...     

Level of choice in older women’s decisions to retire or continue working and associated well-being

Retirement is a complex life transition. Women’s retirement, like their work lives, may be further complicated, for example, by family or financial obligations; they may feel forced to retire or to continue working or feel they have the choice to do so. This study examines the role of voluntary versus involuntary retirement or continued work participation among retirement-age women; specifically, the relationships between choice, work status, and well-being. Compared to women forced to retire, women who chose retirement or continuing to work had higher levels of life satisfaction. Findings highlight the importance of examining retirement within the life course context.     

Early-life mortality clustering in families: A literature review

Research on early-life mortality in contemporary and historical populations has shown that infant and child mortality tend to cluster in a limited number of high-mortality families, a phenomenon known as ‘mortality clustering’. This paper is the first to review the literature on the role of the family in early-life mortality. Contemporary results, methodological and theoretical shortfalls, recent developments, and opportunities for future research are all discussed in this review. Four methodological approaches are distinguished: those based on sibling deaths, mother heterogeneity, thresholds, and excess deaths in populations. It has become clear from research to date that the death of an older child harms the survival chances of younger children in that family, and that fertility behaviour, earlier stillbirths, remarriages, and socio-economic status all explain mortality clustering to some extent.     

‘Before they kill my spirit entirely’: insights into the lived experiences of American Indian Alaska Native faculty at research universities

American Indian and Alaska Natives (AIAN) comprise about 2% of the US population and 0.5% of the faculty in higher education. While scholars have documented the experiences of underrepresented minority (URM) faculty, the perspectives of AIAN faculty at elite universities are largely absent. Although AIAN faculty share many of the same barriers to success as URM colleagues, their unique status as Tribal peoples and their relationship to settler colonialism pose particular challenges and resistance strategies. Findings from a mixed methods study of 25 AIAN faculty at research universities, employing a decolonizing, survivance-oriented framework, examines their lived institutional experiences. The data yielded five themes regarding (1) institutional climate, (2) mentorship, (3) family–work balance, (4) cultural taxation and role stress, and (5) discrimination. The authors conclude that decolonization involves the repatriation of Indigenous epistemologies and Indigenous ‘place’ in the growth of science, research, and knowledge production, creating liberatory spaces within the academy.     

Exploring the intersection of transnationalism and critical race theory: a critical race analysis of international student experiences in the United States

International student mobility to the United States (US) has increased over the past two decades. Despite the increase in numbers, international students may experience racism, nativism, and other forms of discrimination within the US context. Much of the existing literature focus on how international students can assimilate and cope with these issues rather than interrogating the systems of oppression that create negative student experiences. Thus, we utilized critical race theory (CRT) as a framework for interrogating how international student experiences are portrayed in current literature. Although CRT is grounded in US-based legal theory, we argue that CRT must move beyond the rigid confinement within US borders and expand to consider how transnationalism and global exchange contributes to the fluidity and applicability of this theory. We also provide recommendations for critical race praxis, with an emphasis on implications for practice, theory, and future research.     

Making sense of pragmatic and charismatic leadership stories: Effects on vision formation

For some time, it has been argued that stories articulated by leaders are an important vehicle for exercising influence, but stories of leadership might also serve as a means for developing leadership potential. One critical activity involved in leadership is vision formation, which involves constructing and communicating a future state that guides followers in “making sense” of complex organizational events. Like leader visions, analyzing stories also, by nature, evokes sensemaking processes. As a result, analyzing stories of leadership may provide a natural means for practicing the art of sensemaking. In the present investigation, undergraduates were asked to read six short stories about incidents of either pragmatic or charismatic leadership in business settings. After reading each story, questions were asked to encourage sensemaking of story events, causes, and emotions. Participants were subsequently asked to formulate visions for leading a secondary school –– a transfer task. It was found that stronger visions were produced when participants were asked to analyze both story events and the causes of these events. The implications of these findings for the use of leadership stories in leader development initiatives are discussed.     

Effects of Firm-specific and Country-specific Advantages on Relative Acquisition Size in Service Sector Cross-Border Acquisitions: An Empirical Examination

Using a sample of 348 service sector cross-border acquisitions by U.S. firms in 44 countries during 1990–2006, our study seeks to identify factors that influence relative acquisition size (acquisition transaction value as a percentage of acquiring firm's asset value). Our findings indicate that firm-specific advantages (FSAs) in the form of available financial slack and target industry knowledge were positively associated with relative acquisition size. However, contrary to expectations, we observed a negative relationship between cross-border acquisition experience and relative acquisition size. In addition, our results suggest that country-specific advantages (CSAs) associated with higher market potential, lower political risk, and greater cultural similarity contributed to increased relative acquisition size in service industry cross-border acquisitions. Finally, our analysis reveals that the relationship between available financial slack and relative acquisition size is contingent on cultural similarity with the relationship being more pronounced when cultural similarity is high.     

Market orientation research: a qualitative synthesis and future research agenda

The prominence of market orientation as a core organizational concept, as well as recent discussions about its contributions and shortcomings, suggest that it is time to assess the large and expanding body of research surrounding the construct. Our research takes a systematic qualitative approach to assessing extant research on market orientation, identifying problems, patterns, and paradoxes in the literature. Specifically, we provide an integration of the burgeoning empirical research on market orientation, based on a thorough synthesis of articles published over more than 25 years of inquiry. Bringing together the different strands of inquiry that have guided knowledge accumulation on market orientation, we are able to identify major theoretical gaps and omissions in the literature. We also find that while market orientation research has made considerable strides over the years, much work still needs to be done as voids remain that need to be addressed in future investigations.

     

The vicious circle: effects of race and class on university entrance in Brazil

Brazil has high levels of socio-economic inequality and an inequitable distribution of access to higher education. How much of this inequality is associated with race or class is an important question in light of the current debate over affirmative action and the suitability of race and social targeted policies. There are those who claim that racial disparities in the educational system are a result of students’ social status and not a result of racism, while others believe race is an important factor that superposes the effect of class. This study uses national survey data from Brazil’s Exame Nacional do Ensino Médio (National Secondary Education Exam [ENEM]) to examine the relationship between race and access to higher education of high school students between 2004 and 2008. The results document a vicious circle which connects the schooling of the young with their race, socio-economic status, and university attendance.