A Note on Air‐Cargo Capacity Contracts

Carriers (airlines) use medium‐term contracts to allot bulk cargo capacity to forwarders who deliver consolidated loads for each flight in the contractual period (season). Carriers also sell capacity to direct‐ship customers on each flight. We study capacity contracts between a carrier and a forwarder when certain parameters such as the forwarder's demand, operating cost to the carrier, margin, and reservation profit are its private information. We propose contracts in which the forwarder pays a lump sum in exchange for a guaranteed capacity allotment and receives a refund for each unit of unused capacity according to a pre‐announced refund rate. We obtain an upper bound on the informational rent paid by the carrier for a menu of arbitrary allotments and identify conditions under which it can eliminate the informational rent and induce the forwarder to choose the overall optimal capacity allotment (i.e., one that maximizes the combined profits of the carrier and the forwarder).     

The State of the Field in UK Management Research: Reflections of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) Panel

This paper reviews the state of the field of the sub-disciplines within UK management research, based upon the submissions of 94 UK higher education institutions to the Business and Management Studies Panel in the UK's 2001 Research Assessment Exercise (RAE). It offers observations on the UK model of the assessment of quality in, and funding of, research conducted in publicly funded higher education institutions.     

Chinese version of the OSI: A validation study

This article examines the construct validity of the Occupational Stress Indicator (OSI) in its Chinese version as well as its criterion-oriented validity against self-reported data on absenteeism and accidents, using a final sample of 1054 workers in the Chinese manufacturing and power industries. The divergent and convergent validities of five of the OSI scales—Job satisfaction, Physical ill-health, Mental ill-health, Type A behaviour and Control—were examined by a multimethod-multitrait matrix technique. Results indicated that the Chinese OSI had fairly good validity in relation to other well-established measures as well as relevant organizational behaviours.     

Family Therapy with the Learning Disabled Child and His/Her Family

No therapist can come in contact with and treat children with minimal brain damage or specific learning disabilities without being struck by the fact that there are numerous intertwined factors that have contributed to and continue to perpetuate the problems. In addition to the helping approaches which have been utilized in recent years, such as tutoring, special education, and child therapy, this article elaborates the importance of utilizing family therapy as the treatment of choice sometime during the course of treating the child and helping the parents to understand and deal with their handicapped youngster.     

A two-study investigation of item wording effects on leader–follower convergence in descriptions of the leader–member exchange (LMX) relationship

The leader–member exchange (LMX) theory of leadership focuses on the quality of relationships built between leaders and subordinates; LMX measures are designed to assess the quality of these relationships. Since the leader and subordinate are jointly embedded in the relationship, it is reasonable to assume that their ratings of their relationship will converge to some reasonable extent. However, leader–member convergence on the most widely used measures, the LMX-7 and SLMX-7 scales, has historically been low. To address this, we conduct two studies to investigate whether item wording and content might be a cause of poor LMX convergence. The obtained results support the conclusion that the wording and content of these measures are, in fact, introducing attributional and social desirability biases into the rating process and causing some of the poor LMX convergence that is commonly seen. Implications for extant and future LMX research are discussed.     

Stress and coping in US organizations: The role of the Employee Assistance Programme

Abstract

The organizational role of the Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) is evaluated with particular respect to managerial and human resources policies and practices. Attention is given to models of the EAP, and an ideal-typical model is discussed. A synoptic view is taken covering the scope of the EAP, the sectors of application, the selection criteria for the EAP, as well as patterns of introduction-all within a contingency framework. A critical analysis is made of the roles of participants within the EAP process, as well as of problematic ethical and professional dimensions which the EAP introduces into organizational functioning. A final section treats the future forms of development which the EAP may follow to satisy both organizational and professional imperatives.     

A response to M. Stone: 'How not to measure the efficiency of public services (and how one might)'

Summary.  This is a response to Stone's criticisms of the Spottiswoode report to the UK Treasury which was responding to the Treasury's request for improved methods to evaluate the efficiency and productivity of the 43 police districts in England and Wales. The Spottiswoode report recommended uses of data envelopment analysis (DEA) and stochastic frontier analysis (SFA), which Stone critiqued en route to proposing an alternative approach. Here we note some of the most serious errors in his criticism and inaccurate portrayals of DEA and SFA. Most of our attention is devoted to DEA, and to Stone's recommended alternative approach without much attention to SFA, partly because of his abbreviated discussion of the latter. In our response we attempt to be constructive as well as critical by showing how Stone's proposed approach can be joined to DEA to expand his proposal beyond limitations in his formulations.     

Can social workers and police be partners when dealing with bikie-gang related domestic violence and sexual assault?

Welfare and criminal justice systems manifest different goals, cultures, values and working methods. In Australia, the welfare sector has a culture of empowerment and concern for victims’ rights, within which social workers focus on social justice and social change. In contrast, the criminal justice sector (police) is patriarchal and para-military in structure, focusing on enforcing and maintaining community order and safety. These differences can create tension when social workers and police need to work as partners in response to violence against women, in particular violence against women from bikie gangs. This article addresses the issue of partnerships between social workers and police when working with abused bikie-gang women. It presents the findings of recent research into social work practice with such women in South Australia, in conjunction with a brief exploration of the international literature on social work and police cultures, and partnerships. It concludes that whilst there is a great need for genuine collaboration and partnership between social workers and police in the complex context of domestic violence with links to organised crime, the cultures and mandates of these different professions make this difficult.