Work,careers, and aging

This article relates the literature on work and profession to that on aging as a life-long process. The authors maintain that meanings attached to chronological age arise, in large measure, out of the work experience. An individual's career frames expectations about what he/she should be doing at different ages and thus serves as a yardstick against which to measure life process. Five stages of the work career are identified: (1) preparation and exploration, (2) learning the ropes, (3) coming to grips, (4) settling in, and (5) exiting.     

GIBBS SAMPLERS FOR A SET OF SEEMINGLY UNRELATED REGRESSIONS

Bayesian estimation of a collection of seemingly unrelated regressions, referred to as a ‘set of seemingly unrelated regressions’ is considered. The collection of seemingly unrelated regressions is linked by common coefficients and/or a common error covariance matrix. Gibbs samplers useful for estimating posterior quantities are described and one of them is applied to a set of linear expenditure functions to estimate household equivalent scales.     

Benefits and Role Performance in Voluntary Organizations: An Exploration of Social Exchange*

This paper reports an exploration of the relationship between members' role performance and the benefits they receive from their organizations. The general relationship is interpreted in the context of a “social exchange model” for voluntary associations. Data for the analysis pertain to members of four voluntary farm organizations: Farm Bureau, Farmers Union, National Farmers Organization, and Grange. The data were obtained in a state-wide survey of Wisconsin farm operators in 1965. In general, the data show a moderate relationship, in a positive direction, between benefits and role performance. The benefits tend to differ in the magnitude and, in some instances, in the direction of their relationships to such performance. The findings indicate the importance of taking into account magnitude and direction of relationship, as well as interaction among the benefits and among costs, in order to devise a viable social exchange model of cost-benefit relations for voluntary associations.     

The Relationship between Theory and Research: a Study in the Sociology of Sociology*

While the importance of the relationship between theory and research is given credence in sociology, little has been done in delineating the specific nature of such a relationship. In order to do so, the present article examines data concerning the theoretical orientation and methodological procedures employed by the authors of 1,434 articles (in five substantive areas) which have appeared in nine major sociological journals over the period 1950 to 1970. Analysis of these data reveals the presence of a strong affinity between the utilization of a realist theoretical perspective, centering upon the study of group properties, and the employment of less empirical research techniques. Conversely, those authors shown to employ a nominalist theoretical approach, and hence those focusing upon individual properties, were found to use more empirical techniques and procedures in their research. Further analysis of the relationship between the theoretical and methodological orientations utilized by the authors surveyed appears to indicate some tendency for one's mode of data analysis to be as much a reason for, as a function of, one's theoretical perspective.     

Why risk analysis isn''t working

In this article the author argues that despite its popularity among researchers and managers alike, Risk Analysis as a management tool has not been successful. He postulates that in the end managers will give up attempting to make formal analysis of risks, substituting more effective means of living with the ‘results’ of those risks as they arise.