Participatory Partnerships: Engaging and Empowering to Enhance Environmental Management and Quality of Life?

It is generally believed that, when partnerships with civil society are created, members of the public become engaged in defining and solving problems, and as a result become empowered through enhanced understanding of substantive problems, and of the processes used by society to deal with them. In this context, two fundamental assumptions related to a partnership approach deserve examination. First, partnerships assume a shared vision among partners, and a willingness to work together in a spirit of collaboration and cooperation. However, humans often are competitive, protective and defensive, attributes unlikely to lead to collaboration and cooperation. Second, advocates of a participatory approach advocate, or assume, that citizens will become empowered through being part of a partnership process. If partnerships are to be encouraged, we need to know if such a transformation actually occurs. Two experiences in Canada, one dealing with shared decision making during a resource and land use management process in British Columbia, and the other focused on an environmental impact assessment process in Manitoba, provide evidence that challenges whether these assumptions are easily satisfied.     

The Value of Seeking Financial Advice

Retirement planning data gathered from an online survey at a large university in October 2009 are used to examine differences in a variety of retirement planning measures between people who have and have not met with a financial advisor. Problems of self-selection and endogeneity are addressed through the use of propensity scores. The study’s major finding is that working with an advisor is related to several important financial planning activities, including goal setting, calculation of retirement needs, retirement account diversification, use of supplemental retirement accounts, accumulation of emergency funds, positive behavioral responses to the recent economic crisis, and retirement confidence. Use of a financial advisor was not related to self-reported retirement savings or short-term growth in retirement account asset values.     

Ethnocultural Reproduction and Attitudes towards Cohabiting Relationships*

Se fondant sur des notions d'interculturalité et de changement social, cet article fournit une explication des différences ethnoculturelles dans les attitudes à l'endroit des relations de cohabitation hétérosexuelle chez les jeunes adultes canadiens. L'accent est mis sur la mise au jour des mécanismes clés par lesquels les groupes ethniques « reproduisent » des orientations teintées de traditionalisme ou de libéralisme à l'endroit de ces conditions de logement. L'ensemble de données utilisé dans cette recherche est tiré d'un sous‐ensemble de 1 907 jeunes adultes choisis au hasard dans la Culture and Coresidence Study de 1999–2000. Les analyses à deux variables montrent de fortes différences ethnocuturelles dans la propension à déclarer que la cohabitation est acceptable, les Britanniques étant les plus favorables, suivis des Européens du Sud, des Chinois et enfin des Indo‐Canadiens. Les réultats de l'analyse de régression logistique révèlent qu'une constellation de facteurs ethnocul‐turels concourent à ces différences, par exemple la religiosité des jeunes adultes, le traditionalisme dans la famille et le rôle assignéà chacun des sexes, ainsi que l'usage quotidien d'une langue ethnique avec son entourage. From a cross‐cultural and social change perspective, this paper explicates ethnocultural differences in attitudes towards heterosexual cohabiting relationships among Canadian young adults. The focus is on uncovering the key mechanisms by which ethnic groups “reproduce” traditional or liberal value orientations towards this living arrangement. The data set used in this research is drawn from a sub‐set of 1,907 randomly‐selected young adults from the 1999–2000 Culture and Coresidence Study. Bivariate analyses show strong ethnocultural differences in the propensity to report that cohabitation is acceptable, with the British group the most favourable, followed by Southern Europeans, Chinese, and finally, Indo‐Canadians. Results from the logistic regression analysis reveal that a constellation of ethnocultural factors contribute to these differences. These include: young adult's religiosity, familism and gender‐role traditionalism, and routine use of ethnic language with peers.     

Estimation and interpretation of models of absolute risk from epidemiologic data,including family-based studies

Absolute risk is the chance that a person with given risk factors and free of the disease of interest at age a will be diagnosed with that disease in the interval (a, a + τ]. Absolute risk is sometimes called cumulative incidence. Absolute risk is a “crude” risk because it is reduced by the chance that the person will die of competing causes of death before developing the disease of interest. Cohort studies admit flexibility in modeling absolute risk, either by allowing covariates to affect the cause-specific relative hazards or to affect the absolute risk itself. An advantage of cause-specific relative risk models is that various data sources can be used to fit the required components. For example, case–control data can be used to estimate relative risk and attributable risk, and these can be combined with registry data on age-specific composite hazard rates for the disease of interest and with national data on competing hazards of mortality to estimate absolute risk. Family-based designs, such as the kin-cohort design and collections of pedigrees with multiple affected individuals can be used to estimate the genotype-specific hazard of disease. Such analyses must be adjusted for ascertainment, and failure to take into account residual familial risk, such as might be induced by unmeasured genetic variants or by unmeasured behavioral or environmental exposures that are correlated within families, can lead to overestimates of mutation-specific absolute risk in the general population.     

Examining Localized Patterns of Air Quality Perception in Texas: A Spatial and Statistical Analysis

Environmental and human health issues associated with outdoor air pollution, such as ozone, sulfur dioxide, and other pollutants in metropolitan regions, are an area of growing concern for both policy officials and the general public. Increasing attention from the news media, new health data, and public debate over the effectiveness of clean air regulations have raised the importance of air quality in the public consciousness. While public perceptions of air quality have been studied thoroughly dating back to the 1960s, little empirical research has been conducted to explain the spatial aspects of these perceptions, particularly at the local level. Although recent studies suggest characteristics of local setting are important in shaping perceptions of air quality, the roles of proximity, neighborhood characteristics, and location have not been clarified. This study seeks to improve understanding of the major factors shaping public perceptions of air quality by examining the spatial pattern of local risk perception, the role of socioeconomic characteristics in forming these perceptions, and the relationship between perceived and scientifically measured air pollution. First, we map the spatial pattern of local air quality perceptions using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) across the Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas. Next, we explain these perceptions through local contextual factors using both bivariate correlations and multivariate regression analysis. Results indicate that perceptions of air quality in the study areas are not significantly correlated with air quality based on readings of air monitoring stations. Instead, perceptions appear to be influenced by setting (urban vs. rural), state identification, access to information, and socioeconomic characteristics such as age, race, and political identification. We discuss the implications of the findings and provide direction on how further research can provide a deeper understanding of the local contextual factors influencing public perceptions.     

Consumer Awareness, Understanding and Usage of Unit Pricing

The debate continues over whether prescribed quantities or unit pricing offers the best method to enable consumers to make value-for-money comparisons. In theory, the 'informed' consumer should benefit from being given unit-price information to identify optimum purchases; in practice, however, it would appear that many consumers do not use the data. Although unit pricing can reduce the level of confusion caused by large product ranges and large numbers of unique size–price combinations, results of a survey of over 1000 people showed that: 31% of the sample did not understand how unit pricing was meant to help them compare products; 35% could not be bothered to look at unit prices and 28% stated that unit pricing was too difficult to use. Those least likely to look at unit prices are women, the least educated and consumers aged 18–34. The research investigated why consumers do not use unit-price information and found: some consumers do not possess the cognitive ability to process the information and feel unit pricing is too complicated to use; some products are not comparable, which makes unit prices misleading; many shops do not provide unit-price information; unit-price information was felt unnecessary when evaluating products with few or no alternative sizes or brands; unit-price comparisons take too much time; consumers use simpler strategies for getting value for money, e.g. volume discount heuristic, own brands, special offers, x% free, reward points, etc. The paper explores policy and retailer implications for unit pricing and examines recommendations for government.     

AN EMPIRICAL EXAMINATION OF SOCIAL POWER IN TERMS OF DECISION THEORY1

The paper presents an extension of decision theory to the analysis of social power. The power of a person, A, over another person, B, is viewed in terms of the effect A has on B's decision. The analysis is based on the idea that B's decision regarding the performance of alternative behaviors is a function of 1) B's utility for the consequences of the behaviors and 2) B's subjective probabilities that the behaviors will lead to these consequences. In these terms, A's power over B lies in A's ability to mediate various consequences for B, contingent upon B's compliance or noncompliance. Subjects were asked to consider eight situations in which hypothetical individuals had to make a choice between two courses of action. In each situation another person (A) was attempting to induce the hypothetical individual (B) to choose one of the alternatives, while various situational factors were influencing B to choose the other alternative. The subjects were asked to consider B's utilities and subjective probabilities in each situation and to indicate whether or not B should comply with A and to make ratings of A's power. The decision theory analysis did well in predicting whether or not subjects would indicate that B should comply with A. Also, subjects generally were able to correctly specify whether A or the situational factors had more influence over B's decision. Finally, the subjects' ratings of A's power in the eight situations were highly related to the decision theoretic measure of power.     

The ritual of reorganization in a public bureaucracy

Cultural aspects of complex organizations have recently captured the attention of scholars, yet empirical studies in this area remain rare. This paper explores the paradox that reorganizations are common in modern bureaucracies even though they have been found to have few instrumental effects. The present study of a state regulatory agency found that while reorganization had little instrumental consequence, it did provide the context for a power struggle between the administrative and occupational spheres of authority. In fact, reorganization proved to be a highly ritualized arena for significantly altering the agency's informal structure by replacing an entrenched dominant subculture. By examining the symbolic and ritualistic nature of this process, this paper looks beyond the ineffectual manifest functions of reorganization to uncover its power latent functions.Donald D. Stull is Associate Professor of Anthropology and a research associate with the Institute for Public Policy and Business Research at the University of Kansas. Steven Maynard-Moody is Associate Professor of Public Administration in the Division of Government and Director of the Policy Analysis Program in the Institute for Public Policy and Business Research at the University of Kansas. Jerry Mitchell is Assistant Professor of Public Administration, Baruch College, City University of New York. Support for this research was provided by a grant from the General Research Fund of the University of Kansas. An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Denver, Colorado, in November 1984. We wish to thank F. Allan Hanson for his critique of an earlier version of this paper. We are grateful for the patience and openness of those working in the Kansas Department of Health and Environment.     

THE IMPACT OF EXTERNAL PARTIES ON BRAND-NAME CAPITAL: THE 1982 TYLENOL POISONINGS AND SUBSEQUENT CASES

An examination of the 1982 Tylenol poisonings reveals stock market losses to Johnson & Johnson that far exceed direct costs and losses shared with other pain-reliever producers; this evidence provides support for the Klein and Leffler [1981] theory of brand names as quality-assuring mechanisms. Of the subsequent cases, only the 1986 Tylenol poisonings were associated with significant stock market losses. Prior to the 1982 and 1986 Tylenol poisonings, Tylenol was the number one pain reliever, whereas the other pain relievers that were poisoned had a much lower level of brand-name capital to lose.