Separating Spheres? Diverging Trends in Youth's Gender Attitudes About Work and Family

The authors investigated whether trends in attitudes about gender were consistent with the gender stall primarily occurring in the family domain and examined potential mechanisms associated with changing gender norms. Using data from Monitoring the Future surveys (1976–2015), the authors assessed three components of trends in youth's beliefs about gender: the marketplace, the family, and mothers' employment. Findings showed continued increases in egalitarianism from 1976 through the mid‐1990s across all three dimensions. Thereafter, support for egalitarianism in the public sphere plateaued at high levels, rising support for mothers' employment persisted at a slower pace, and conventional ideology about gender in families returned. The changing demographic composition of American high school students did not account for the gender attitude trends. Youth's mothers' employment and increased education were related to increased egalitarianism. Changes in population averages of mothers' employment and educational attainment were only weakly associated with increases in egalitarian attitudes.     

ENTERTAINING MALTHUS: BREAD,CIRCUSES, AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

Motivated by the basic adage that man does not live by bread alone, we offer a theory of historical economic growth and population dynamics where human beings need food to survive, but enjoy other things, too. Our model imposes a Malthusian constraint on food, but introduces a second good to the analysis that affects living standards without affecting population growth. We show that technological change does a good job explaining historical consumption patterns and population dynamics, including the Neolithic Revolution, the Industrial Revolution, and the Great Divergence. Our theory stands in contrast to models that assume a single composite good and a Malthusian constraint. These models generate negligible growth prior to the Industrial Revolution. However, recent revisions to historical data show that historical living standards—though obviously much lower than today's—varied over time and space much more than previously thought. These revisions include updates to Maddison's dataset, which served as the basis for many papers taking long‐run stagnation as a point of departure. This new evidence suggests that the assumption of long‐run stagnation is problematic. Our model shows that when we give theoretical accounting of these new observations the Industrial Revolution is much less puzzling. (JEL B10, I31, J1, N1, O30)     

Pointing to Visible and Invisible Targets

We investigated how the visibility of targets influenced the type of point used to provide directions. In Study 1, we asked 605 passersby in three localities for directions to well-known local landmarks. When that landmark was in plain view behind the requester, most respondents pointed with their index fingers, and few respondents pointed more than once. In contrast, when the landmark was not in view, respondents pointed initially with their index fingers, but often elaborated with a whole-hand point. In Study 2, we covertly filmed the responses from 157 passersby we approached for directions, capturing both verbal and gestural responses. As in Study 1, few respondents produced more than one gesture when the target was in plain view and initial points were most likely to be index finger points. Thus, in a Western geographical context in which pointing with the index finger is the dominant form of pointing, a slight change in circumstances elicited a preference for pointing with the whole hand when it was the second or third manual gesture in a sequence.     

Case Reading as a Practice and Training Intervention in Domestic Violence and Child Protection

This article explores the role of a case-reading tool, developed by the Safe and Together Institute, deployed across five Australian states, and which engaged workers from child protection (CP) and specialist domestic and family violence (DFV) services. It aimed to assess the extent to which DFV is identified in CP case files and to assess the quality of case practice from a DFV-informed perspective, as documented in the case file. The Safe and Together approach to child welfare provides a robust foundation upon which practitioners from statutory and nonstatutory backgrounds can work collaboratively and reach consensus about how best to ensure the safety and wellbeing of children living with DFV. The case reading is both a process of transformative working for practitioners and an analytical tool through which their agencies can affect systemic change.

IMPLICATIONS

• A national audit of 20 child protection case files using the Safe and Together case-reading process indicated that documented child protection practice sits at the lower end of a domestic and family violence-informed Continuum of Practice.

• Analysis indicates a need to improve: child protection engagement with fathers who use DFV, assessments of their parenting role and its impact on children and family functioning; identification of adult survivors’ protective capacities and their impact on children.

• Research in this area may have broader implications for other professions and government policy both nationally and internationally.

     

Toward Father‐friendly Parenting Interventions: A Qualitative Study

Levels of father participation in parenting interventions are often very low, yet little is known about the factors which influence father engagement. We aimed to qualitatively explore perceived barriers to, and preferences for, parenting interventions in a community sample of fathers. Forty‐one fathers across nine focus groups were interviewed using a semi‐structured interview. Data were analysed using inductive thematic analysis. Key barriers to father participation identified included: the perception that interventions are mother‐focused; beliefs about gender roles regarding parenting and help‐seeking; mothers’ role as ‘gatekeeper’; lack of knowledge and awareness of parenting interventions; and lack of relevance of interventions. Fathers reported preferences for specific content and intervention features, facilitator characteristics, practical factors, and highlighted the need for father‐targeted recruitment and advertising. Many of the barriers and preferences identified are consistent with previous research; however, fathers’ beliefs and attitudes around gender roles and help‐seeking, as well as the perception that interventions are predominantly mother‐focused, may be key barriers for community fathers. Strategies to overcome these barriers and better meet the needs of fathers in promoting and delivering parenting interventions are discussed.     

Information Asymmetries in the Hiring Process and the Risk of New Leader Dismissal: Insights from English Premier League Soccer Organizations

Why are some new leaders dismissed more quickly than others? Adopting agency theory logic, the authors examine how different succession contexts shape boards’ information asymmetries about a potential candidate's competencies in the hiring process, which influences the propensity of making poor hiring decisions and hence the risk of new leader dismissal. Employing duration analysis on a sample of 164 newly appointed leaders in the English premier league (1996–2014), the authors find that the risk of new leader dismissal is: (i) greater when the predecessor leader's exit was initiated by them rather than by the board; (ii) greater when following a longer‐tenured predecessor; and (iii) lower for outside successions compared with inside successions.     

Leadership,creativity, and innovation: A critical review and practical recommendations

Leadership is a key predictor of employee, team, and organizational creativity and innovation. Research in this area holds great promise for the development of intriguing theory and impactful policy implications, but only if empirical studies are conducted rigorously. In the current paper, we report a comprehensive review of a large number of empirical studies (N?=?195) exploring leadership and workplace creativity and innovation. Using this article cache, we conducted a number of systematic analyses and built narrative arguments documenting observed trends in five areas. First, we review and offer improved definitions of creativity and innovation. Second, we conduct a systematic review of the main effects of leadership upon creativity and innovation and the variables assumed to moderate these effects. Third, we conduct a systematic review of mediating variables. Fourth, we examine whether the study designs commonly employed are suitable to estimate the causal models central to the field. Fifth, we conduct a critical review of the creativity and innovation measures used, noting that most are sub-optimal. Within these sections, we present a number of taxonomies that organize extant research, highlight understudied areas, and serve as a guide for future variable selection. We conclude by highlighting key suggestions for future research that we hope will reorient the field and improve the rigour of future research such that we can build more reliable and useful theories and policy recommendations.     

On the relationship between compliance with recommendations on the audit committee of codes of good practices and financial reporting quality

Codes of good practices provide a soft alternative to the hard legislation approach to corporate governance. These codes include a set of recommendations that companies are expected to follow in order to enhance governance structures and practices. Some of these recommendations specifically aim to improve the effectiveness of the audit committee. We investigate the relationship between the level of compliance with recommendations on the audit committee of the Spanish Unified Code and financial reporting quality, as measured by discretionary accruals and by the opinion of the audit report. We use a sample of companies listed in the Spanish stock market for the years between 2007 and 2013. Results show a strong and positive relationship between the level of compliance with recommendations and the quality of financial reporting. We also report significant results for some specific recommendations. These results are robust to various checks. Therefore, the level of compliance with recommendations on the audit committee might provide a feasible and reliable indicator of the quality of financial reports released by the company.