The Relationship between Styles of Creativity and Managerial Skills Assessment

This study examined the relationships between creativity style, as measured by the Kirton Adaption Innovation Inventory (KAI) and the self and other ratings on a 360- degree feedback instrument, the Management Skills Profile (MSP) among US managers. Results indicated that self-reports of the use of managerial skills were related to the individual manager's creativity style, but the ratings by others were not. Adaptive managers, as defined by the KAI, were more likely to underrate themselves, while self-ratings of innovative managers tended to concur with the ratings of others. Implications for helping managers understand discrepancies in self and others' ratings as a function of creativity style in a developmental context and directions for future research are discussed.     

Model Uncertainty and Model Averaging in the Estimation of Infectious Doses for Microbial Pathogens

Food‐borne infection is caused by intake of foods or beverages contaminated with microbial pathogens. Dose‐response modeling is used to estimate exposure levels of pathogens associated with specific risks of infection or illness. When a single dose‐response model is used and confidence limits on infectious doses are calculated, only data uncertainty is captured. We propose a method to estimate the lower confidence limit on an infectious dose by including model uncertainty and separating it from data uncertainty. The infectious dose is estimated by a weighted average of effective dose estimates from a set of dose‐response models via a Kullback information criterion. The confidence interval for the infectious dose is constructed by the delta method, where data uncertainty is addressed by a bootstrap method. To evaluate the actual coverage probabilities of the lower confidence limit, a Monte Carlo simulation study is conducted under sublinear, linear, and superlinear dose‐response shapes that can be commonly found in real data sets. Our model‐averaging method achieves coverage close to nominal in almost all cases, thus providing a useful and efficient tool for accurate calculation of lower confidence limits on infectious doses.     

Assessing low‐income African‐American pre‐schoolers' behaviour problems in relationship to community violence,inter‐partner conflict,parenting, informal social support and social skills

This study examined the relations among community violence exposure, inter‐partner conflict and informal social support and the behaviour problems of pre‐schoolers, and explored how mothers' parenting skills and children's social skills may mediate the child outcomes associated with such exposure. Participants were 185 African‐American mothers and female caregivers of Head Start children who completed study measures in a structured interview. Path analyses revealed that greater inter‐partner conflict was associated with more internalizing and externalizing child behaviour problems. Positive parenting was associated with fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviours. Higher levels of child social skills were associated with fewer internalizing and externalizing behaviour problems. Child social skills fully mediated the relationship between community violence and externalizing behaviours as well as between informal support and externalizing behaviours. Social skills partially mediated the relationships between positive parenting and externalizing behaviours. No mediating effect was found on the relationships between inter‐partner conflict and child behaviour problems. Implications of the findings for intervention and future research are discussed.     

Career Issues and Concerns for Persons Living With HIV/AIDS

As the perception of HIV/AIDS continues to shift from a terminal illness to a manageable disease, persons living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs) are able to reenter the workforce or remain in their current jobs for a longer period of time. Although this change is positive, it also raises many career concerns for PLWHAs. Using an ecological approach and the theory of work adjustment (Lofquist & Dawis, 1969, 1991), the authors provide suggestions for working with PLWHAs on career‐related issues. A case vignette is presented to demonstrate how this approach may be applied.     

Life expectancy as a constructed belief: Evidence of a live-to or die-by framing effect

Life expectations are essential inputs for many important personal decisions. We propose that longevity beliefs are responses constructed at the time of judgment, subject to irrelevant task and context factors, and leading to predictable biases. Specifically, we examine whether life expectancy is affected by the framing of expectations questions as either live-to or die-by, as well as by factors that actually affect longevity such as age, gender, and self-reported health. We find that individuals in a live-to frame report significantly higher chances of being alive at ages 55 through 95 than people in a corresponding die-by frame. Estimated mean life expectancies across three studies and 2300 respondents were 7.38 to 9.17 years longer when solicited in a live-to frame. We are additionally able to show how this framing works on a process level and how it affects preference for life annuities. Implications for models of financial decision making are discussed.     

The influence of ideational contests of social policy on government welfare efforts

There has been limited empirical research on the interaction between media influence and governments' decision-making in the social policy field. Drawing on a wider study of the ideation of poverty in South Korea, this research tests if policy ideas represented in the media have bottom-up framing effects on policymaking and can be a reliable indicator of the government's social policy efforts. This study analysed the editorials of major Korean daily newspapers, over the period of a decade from 2000 to 2009. The analysis outcomes identified a significant correlation between the extent of poverty discussions in the media and government welfare spending.     

Attitudes,Perceptions and Concerns of Student Social Workers: First Two Years of a Longitudinal Study

A longitudinal study was initiated by the authors in September 2001 to monitor the changing attitudes, perceptions, concerns and experiences of 32 social work students during their two‐year MSW training at University College Dublin, subsequently following the students into their first three years of practice. This paper reports on the findings from the first two years of the study, exploring how much the attitudes of the respondents changed towards different areas of social work practice while they were full‐time students. Both quantitative and qualitative data have been collected by means of mixed method questionnaires, taken at four points over a two‐year period, and a focus group. Issues examined included the students' changing perceptions of stress, job satisfaction and levels of expertise in different areas of social work practice. The study also monitored their willingness to work in specific areas of social work after graduation. Statistical analysis revealed that students consistently rated social work in the areas of child protection and welfare as requiring high levels of expertise, but they associated the area with higher levels of perceived stress and lower levels of job satisfaction. These attitudes remain relatively stable throughout their two‐year professional training. However, the study revealed greater changes in the students' willingness to work in different areas. For example, specialist family services such as fostering and child/adolescent became more popular choices for future work settings. This change was noted to have occurred between the start and end of the course. Also noteworthy was that general medical, probation and welfare showed the most negative change.     

Building Social Inclusion for Rural Older People Using Information and Communication Technologies: Perspectives of Rural Practitioners

Abstract

The literature identifies rural, older people as at risk of social exclusion, as a result of rural disadvantage. In this context, improved access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) has potential to build social inclusion, yet current evidence shows that rural, older people are the lowest current users of technology. This paper draws on the practice and local knowledge of rural practitioners from one Victorian region in order to explore: (a) the practice issues associated with ICT use among rural, older people; and (b) the characteristics of effective practice models in the rural, social work context. An analysis of findings highlights the need to respond to the diverse skills, needs, and learning styles of older people, to demonstrate the benefits of ICTs, involve users, and build confidence. Major barriers include poor ICT usage by many rural agencies and low practitioner capacity, as well as access and resources.