Examining Outpatient Treatment Dropout in Adolescents: A Literature Review

This literature review explores the research to date on adolescent mental health treatment drop out. As many as one in five adolescents in the United States has been diagnosed with an Axis-I psychiatric disorder. Adolescents with Axis-I psychiatric disorders face significant short- and long-term consequences if they do not obtain mental health treatment. However, treatment dropout research has focused on child and adult populations with little focus on the unique issues that are likely to impact adolescents. The theoretical underpinnings for understanding adolescent mental health treatment are explored in relation to adolescent psychological development and the therapeutic alliance. The review concludes with suggestions for future research to extend our understanding of adolescent treatment drop out.     

What do people desire in their leaders? The role of leadership level on trait desirability

Do individuals desire different traits in leaders dependent on the leader's position in the organizational hierarchy? To address this question, participants first rated the traits they perceived their current supervisor possessed, traits they desired in their supervisor, and traits they viewed were characteristic of a leader in that role (Study 1). Next, participants rated the desirability of these same traits for 6 high-level and 6 low-level leaders (Study 2). Finally, to force them to prioritize traits, participants designed ideal high-level or low-level leaders by “purchasing” leadership traits using limited budgets of tokens (Study 3). Overall, participants highly and consistently desired trustworthiness and intelligence across leaders, yet they differentially desired other traits depending on the level of leadership. In addition, the desired–current discrepancy predicted leader–member exchange, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment, even after controlling for the prototype–current discrepancy. We discuss the implications of these findings for leadership selection, development, and promotion.     

Entrepreneurial Learning: Past Research and Future Challenges

Entrepreneurial learning (EL) has emerged as an important concept at the interface of entrepreneurship and organizational learning. Although EL research has gained momentum in the past decade, the literature is diverse, highly individualistic and fragmented, hindering the development of EL as a promising research area. In this paper, a systematic analysis of the EL literature is first conducted in order to take stock of the theoretical and empirical development and identify research themes and developmental patterns of EL research. Second, three pairs of key learning types that deserve more attention in future research are discussed, namely individual and collective learning, exploratory and exploitative learning, and intuitive and sensing learning. These learning types correspond to three key challenges that are derived from the EL research gaps identified in the systematic literature analysis, and provide fruitful avenues for future research. Third, by exploring the three pairs of learning types, further insights are drawn from entrepreneurship and organizational learning to help to advance EL research, and also feed back to the entrepreneurship literature by discussing how these learning types can help to understand the challenges at the centre of debate in the entrepreneurship literature.     

Rates of missing responses in personal digital assistant (PDA) versus paper assessments

This article describes rates of missing item responses in personal digital assistant (PDA) assessments as compared to paper assessments. Data come from the evaluation of a classroom-based leisure, life skills, and sexuality education program delivered to high school students in Cape Town, South Africa. Analyses show that the paper assessments had much higher rates of missing-ness than PDA assessments. This association is moderated by item order. Certain analyses also suggest that paper assessments have higher rates of missingness for items pertaining to participants' sexual behavior. Implications of these results for evaluation research will be discussed.     

Genetics After the Act: A Specialist Health Service Amid NHS Reform

This article considers the impact of the recent reform of the National Health Service (NHS) on specialist regional health services. A case study of medical genetic services is presented to highlight some problems arising from the implementation of the 1990 NHS and Community Care Act. New financial arrangements introduced by the Act have led many regional health authorities to devolve the finance and organization of specialist health services to districts. The introduction of competition and devolved budgets may pose especial problems for some specialist health services. In the case of genetic services these difficulties are exacerbated by new pricing rules. The paper explores these issues and suggests that the imposition of the market model on health care overlooks some vital, human elements which do not fit neatly into such a model.     

Patterns of Governance: The Curious Case of Non-profit Community Services in Australia

"Community" has taken on a new significance in Australian social policy discourse. Seemingly sound and morally justifiable, in the context of neo-liberalism the language of community positions non-profit delivery of services as superior to state-provided services. As a consequence, non-profit community services are being centrally positioned to mediate the relationship between the state and citizen subjects. In the first part of this paper we trace some of the key historical developments in Australia's welfare state and patterns of governance that are propelling the non-profit sector from the margins to the centre. The second section examines the relationship between Australia's shifting political landscape and the emerging welfare regime. One key feature of this new regime is the attempt to relocate citizenship away from the domain of the state and into that of civil society. The article concludes by sketching out some research themes, focusing, for example, on the impact of devolution of governance in terms of client rights and public accountability.