Serve or Conserve: Mission,Strategy, and Multi-Level Nonprofit Change During the Great Recession

Change is frequently afoot in the nonprofit sector, both in the wider institutional environment in which nonprofits operate and within the organizations themselves. Environmental transformations—funding sources, supply and demand for collective goods, and administrative norms—create the circumstances in which organizations operate. Internally, change involves the alteration of goals, practices, and personnel. To explore how multiple aspects of change intersect across levels, we ask how organizations’ practices influence their experience of and reaction to changes in the environment. Turning open systems theories inside out, we argue that internal planning, routines, and missions give rise to organizational mindsets that imbue evolving environmental circumstances with meaning. We illustrate our argument using a unique longitudinal dataset of 196 representative 501(c)(3) public charities in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2005 to 2015 to assess both accelerators and obstacles of change. Empirically, we investigate predictors of organizational insolvency and the ability to serve constituents in the wake of the Great Recession. We find that strategic planning decreases the likelihood of insolvency whereas an orientation toward the needy increases spending. We conclude with our contributions to understanding of multi-level organizational change and nonprofit strategy.     

An agent-based model of indirect minority influence on social change and diversity

The present paper describes an agent-based model of indirect minority influence. It examines whether indirect minority influence can lead to social change as a function of cognitive rebalancing, a process whereby related attitudes are affected when one attitude is changed. An attitude updating algorithm was modelled with minimal assumptions drawing on social psychology theories of indirect minority influence. Results revealed that facing direct majority influence, indirect minority influence along with cognitive rebalancing is a recipe for social change. Furthermore, indirect minority influence promotes and maintains attitudinal diversity in local ingroups and throughout the society. We discuss the findings in terms of social influence theories and suggest promising avenues for model extensions for theory building in minority influence and social change.     

Maternal Sensitivity and the Learning‐Promoting Effects of Depressed and Nondepressed Mothers' Infant‐Directed Speech

The hypothesis that aspects of current mother‐infant interactions predict an infant's response to maternal infant‐directed speech (IDS) was tested. Relative to infants of nondepressed mothers, those of depressed mothers acquired weaker voice‐face associations in response to their own mothers' IDS in a conditioned‐attention paradigm, although this was partially attributable to demographic differences between the 2 groups. The extent of fundamental frequency modulation (ΔF₀) in maternal IDS was smaller for infants of depressed than nondepressed mothers, but did not predict infant learning. However, Emotional Availability Scale ratings of maternal sensitivity, coded from videotapes of mothers and infants engaged in a brief play interaction, were significant predictors of infant learning, even after maternal depression, its demographic correlates, and antidepressant medication use had been taken into account. These findings are consistent with a role for experience‐dependent processes in determining the effects of IDS on infant learning.     

Subgroup analysis and interpretation for phase 3 confirmatory trials: White paper of the EFSPI/PSI working group on subgroup analysis

Subgroup by treatment interaction assessments are routinely performed when analysing clinical trials and are particularly important for phase 3 trials where the results may affect regulatory labelling. Interpretation of such interactions is particularly difficult, as on one hand the subgroup finding can be due to chance, but equally such analyses are known to have a low chance of detecting differential treatment effects across subgroup levels, so may overlook important differences in therapeutic efficacy. EMA have therefore issued draft guidance on the use of subgroup analyses in this setting. Although this guidance provided clear proposals on the importance of pre‐specification of likely subgroup effects and how to use this when interpreting trial results, it is less clear which analysis methods would be reasonable, and how to interpret apparent subgroup effects in terms of whether further evaluation or action is necessary. A PSI/EFSPI Working Group has therefore been investigating a focused set of analysis approaches to assess treatment effect heterogeneity across subgroups in confirmatory clinical trials that take account of the number of subgroups explored and also investigating the ability of each method to detect such subgroup heterogeneity. This evaluation has shown that the plotting of standardised effects, bias‐adjusted bootstrapping method and SIDES method all perform more favourably than traditional approaches such as investigating all subgroup‐by‐treatment interactions individually or applying a global test of interaction. Therefore, these approaches should be considered to aid interpretation and provide context for observed results from subgroup analyses conducted for phase 3 clinical trials.     

PREDICTING RETIREMENT SAVINGS USING SURVEY MEASURES OF EXPONENTIAL‐GROWTH BIAS AND PRESENT BIAS

In a nationally representative sample, we predict retirement savings using survey‐based elicitations of exponential‐growth bias (EGB) and present bias (PB). We find that EGB, the tendency to neglect compounding, and PB, the tendency to value the present over the future, are highly significant and economically meaningful predictors of retirement savings. These relationships hold controlling for cognitive ability, financial literacy, and a rich set of demographic controls. We address measurement error as a potential confound and explore mechanisms through which these biases may operate. Back of the envelope calculations suggest that eliminating EGB and PB would increase retirement savings by approximately 12%. (JEL D91, D14)     

Employment relations and dismissal regulations: Does employment legislation protect the health of workers?

Sociologists have long acknowledged that being in a precarious labour market position, whether employed or unemployed, can harm peoples' health. However, scholars have yet to fully investigate the possible contextual, institutional determinants of this relationship. Two institutions that were overlooked in previous empirical studies are the regulations that set minimum compensation for dismissal, severance payments, and entitlements to a period of notice before dismissal, notice periods. These institutions may be important for workers' health as they influence the degree of insecurity that workers are exposed to. Here, we test this hypothesis by examining whether longer notice periods and greater severance payments protect the health of labour market participants, both employed and unemployed. We constructed two cohorts of panel data before and during the European recession using data from 22 countries in the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (person years = 338,000). We find more generous severance payments significantly reduce the probability that labour market participants, especially the unemployed, will experience declines in self‐reported health, with a slightly weaker relationship for longer notice periods.     

Petrochemical releases disproportionately affected socially vulnerable populations along the Texas Gulf Coast after Hurricane Harvey

Hurricane Harvey resulted in a natural-technological disaster in which flooding caused petrochemical facilities to release hazardous chemicals. Natural-technological disasters are rarely analyzed from an environmental justice (EJ) perspective. We calculated a Hurricane Harvey petrochemical hazard density index (PHDI) based on the locations of 42 facilities with reported releases along the Texas Gulf Coast. We used sociodemographic data from the American Community Survey to examine census tract-level social inequalities in PHDI (n?=?1099 tracts). Results from generalized estimating equations indicate that tracts with higher proportions of Hispanic, disabled, or young residents had greater PHDI. PHDI was positively associated with tract poverty, with a slight downward curve at high poverty. Under conditions of higher Hispanic composition, the positive effect of poverty on PHDI was amplified. With more frequent storms predicted, regulatory agencies need to ensure that the petrochemical industry prepares for rapid shutdowns in order to protect residents from natural-technological disasters.

     

Parental socialization of positive affect,adolescent positive affect regulation,and adolescent girls’ depression in India

An emerging body of research shows that parental socialization of positive affect (PA) is implicated in youth functioning, although most evidence comes from Western countries. In this study, focusing on adolescent girls in India, we examined associations among reports of parents’ responses to adolescent PA, adolescent PA regulation, and adolescent depression. A total of 238 adolescent girls (13–18 years) and one of their parents (54% mothers) were recruited. Participants completed questionnaires at the beginning of the school year (time 1) and five months later (time 2). At the bivariate level, parents’ dampening and adolescent girls’ dampening responses were each associated concurrently with adolescent depression at time 1. However, there were no significant direct associations between time 1 parents’ dampening or enhancing responses and time 2 adolescent girls’ depression (after controlling for time 1 depression). Using half‐longitudinal models, a significant indirect effect was found from parental dampening of PA to increased adolescent depression via adolescent girls’ own increased dampening. No indirect effect was found from parental enhancing to adolescent depression via adolescent girls’ increased positive rumination. These findings are the first to demonstrate the relevance of PA socialization for girls in a non‐Western culture.