From an “outside group” to a catalyst for corporate change: Examining activists’ legitimation strategies

Activist organizations use issues management when pressuring corporations to alter practices and policies that these groups find problematic. Throughout this process, activists must establish legitimacy for their issue concerns, organizations, and proposed solutions to gain public support for their activities. This study qualitatively analyzes the communication practices of 21 activist organizations to understand the strategies that these unique groups harness as they seek to build legitimacy as part of the issues management process. The findings contribute to a growing body of public relations research on activist communication by introducing a new legitimation strategy that underscores the importance of ongoing issues monitoring for activists and illustrates how activist organizations can co-opt extant narratives to build legitimacy for their existing issue arguments.     

IRR computation and the multi-asset problem

The IRR model for individual assets has been the target of serious criticism over the years. The purpose of this paper is to provide a partial rationale for interpreting aggregate firm data based on IRR calculations of individual assets. More specifically, it will be argued that the value of accounting information will be enhanced as a result of depreciation and income recognition schedules being determined by an individual asset's IRR model.     

Team resilience: A scoping review of conceptual and empirical work

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this scoping review was to examine the literature on team resilience to gain insight into current thinking regarding its definition and conceptualisation, and to identify how researchers have operationalised and measured this concept. We conducted a systematic scoping review using the 5-phase approach proposed by Arksey and O’Malley. A total of seven databases were searched, followed by a citation search of eligible papers via Google Scholar. Of the 275 articles identified via the search process, 27 papers were deemed eligible for review. Several key findings regarding the literature on team resilience were observed: (i) definitions varied in terms of content (e.g. input or process), breadth (e.g. unidimensional versus multidimensional), and quality (e.g. essential and necessary attributes of key components); (ii) there was a predominance of single-level conceptualisations of team resilience; and (iii) there has been a reliance on cross-sectional research designs in empirical studies, which is incongruent with the dynamic nature of this concept. Key recommendations from this scoping review focus on definitional, theoretical, and methodological issues.     

Accounting and the celebration of rationality in human service delivery organizations

Emerging perspectives of control in human service delivery organizations are facilitated by rational accountability formulations whose tenets and assumptions remain basically unquestioned in organizational and accounting literature. This paper critiques the underpinnings of rational accountability formulations and their appropriateness for human service delivery organizations. In turn, a non-rational metaphor of the role of management accounting information is proposed which recognizes uncertainty for what it is rather than assuming the very certainties that cannot be found in the delivery of human services.     

The journalist as the audience: Evaluating the U.S. Navy’s “Sailor for a Day” campaign

This study demonstrates how focusing on the journalist as the audience of a media relations campaign can result in significant positive media coverage. Specifically, we examined the U.S. Navy’s “Sailor for a Day” campaign that invited media to experience a day in the life of a U.S. Navy sailor aboard an aircraft carrier. We propose that the “Sailor for a Day” campaign successfully influenced journalist perceptions and media coverage because 1) the pitch tied to programming needs; 2) uncommon access was granted; and 3) the journalist experience was a prominent feature of the media pitch.     

Mother–Grandmother and Mother–Father Coparenting Across Time Among Mexican‐Origin Adolescent Mothers and Their Families

The current study examined mothers' reports of coparenting relationship dynamics (i.e., conflict, communication) within and between mother–father and mother–grandmother subsystems from 10 months postpartum to 5 years postpartum among 178 Mexican‐origin teen mothers (M age = 16.78 years; SD = 1.00). Within subsystems, more frequent mother–father coparenting conflict was associated with less frequent mother–father coparenting communication from 10 months to 5 years postpartum, and more frequent mother–father coparenting communication was associated with less frequent mother–father conflict from 3 to 4 years postpartum. Furthermore, more frequent mother–grandmother coparenting communication was associated with less frequent mother–grandmother conflict from 10 months to 2 years postpartum. Regarding relations across subsystems, more frequent mother–father coparenting conflict was associated with more frequent mother–grandmother conflict from 10 months to 2 years postpartum, as well as from 3 to 4 years postpartum. Findings have implications for future interventions focused on coparenting relationships within the context of adolescent parenthood.     

Science and society: some "made-in-Canada" options for improving integration

In this article, the authors describe relatively recent efforts by scientific research agencies to promote, through various funding programs, the integration of social sciences and humanities with the natural sciences. This "integrated" approach seeks to study science through a broader interdisciplinary lens in order to better anticipate, understand, and address its ethical, legal, and social implications. The authors review the origins and evolution of this trend, as well the arguments which have been formulated by both proponents and critics of integration. By using Genome Canada's "GE(3)LS" Research Program as a case study, the authors discuss the successes and continuing challenges of this model based on evaluation results available to date. The authors then go on to examine and compare three possible models for improving the future success of the GE(3)LS research program, including: 1) enhancing the current integrated research approach through incremental refinements based on concrete evidence and lessons learned; 2) promoting greater interaction and synergy across GE(3)LS research projects through a deliberate, systematic and coordinated "hub and spoke" approach; and 3) taking a broad programmatic approach to GE(3)LS research by creating a central resource of available expertise and advisory capacity.     

“Like My Grandparent,But Not”: A Qualitative Investigation of Skip‐Generation Stepgrandchild–Stepgrandparent Relationships

Families have become increasingly diverse and complex, which has made defining family membership more ambiguous. Issues surrounding family identity, belonging, and shared kinship are relevant in many types of complex families, but they are critically important for stepfamilies. In this study the authors examined stepgrandchild–stepgrandparent relationships; specifically, they explored how 27 stepgrandchildren (M age = 20.8) thought and felt about their relationships with 35 skip‐generation stepgrandparents (i.e., stepgrandparents who did not help raise stepgrandchildren's parents but who have been in the lives of stepgrandchildren from birth or early childhood). Most stepgrandchild–stepgrandparent relationships (n = 24/35) were described as emotionally close and supportive. Stepgrandchildren who perceived stepgrandparents as fulfilling traditional grandparent roles and whose parents modeled and facilitated warm, close relationships with stepgrandparents were most likely to perceive these intergenerational steprelationships as important. The findings have implications for kinship identification in diverse and complex families.     

Vois‐Tu Le Kem? Do You See the Bos? Foreign Word Learning at 14 Months

How easily can infants regularly exposed to only one language begin to acquire a second one? In three experiments, we tested 14‐month‐old English and French monolingual infants’ ability to learn words presented in foreign language sentence frames. Infants were trained on two novel word‐object pairings and then tested using a preferential looking task. Word forms were phonetically and phonotactically legal in both languages, and cross‐spliced across conditions, so only the sentence frames established the word as native or foreign. In Experiment 1, infants were taught one native and one foreign word and successfully learned both. In Experiment 2 and 3, infants were taught two foreign words, but only showed successful learning of the first word they encountered. These results demonstrate that infants can successfully learn words embedded in foreign language sentences, but this is more challenging than native word learning. More broadly, they show that the sentential context of a novel word, and not just the word form itself, influences infants’ early word learning.