Elements of Capacity in Youth Development Nonprofits: An Exploratory Study of Urban Sport for Development and Peace Organizations

Organizational capacity is often discussed among nonprofit practitioners and scholars. Yet, empirical research employing a multidimensional capacity framework remains scarce in the nonprofit literature (Andersson et al. in VOLUNTAS Int J Volunt Nonprofit Organ 27(6):2860–2888, 2016). Using a qualitative research approach, we explored capacity in a specific segment of youth development nonprofits—sport for development and peace (SDP). We were guided by three research questions: (1) what are critical capacity elements of SDP nonprofits? (2) how do these capacity elements influence the ability of SDP nonprofits to achieve their desired goals and objectives? and (3) what are the capacity needs of SDP nonprofits in the USA? Findings from in-depth interviews with leaders of 29 organizations contribute to the development of theory on nonprofit capacity by providing a more nuanced understanding of capacity strengths and challenges related to broader nonprofit goal achievement. For example, paid staff, revenue generation, and internal infrastructure emerged as critically more important for capacity in this context. Practical and theoretical implications are further discussed.     

Patterns of Nonverbal Behavior Associated with Truth and Deception: Illustrations from Three Experiments

The digital age has brought with it new and powerful computer-based methods of analyzing heretofore elusive patterns of nonverbal behavior. C-BAS (Meservy 2010) is a computer-assisted behavioral observation tool for identifying and tracking nonverbal behaviors from video. THEME (Magnusson, The hidden structure of interaction: from neurons to culture patterns, IOS Press, Amsterdam, pp 4–22, 2005) is a software program that discovers patterns among discrete events in time-ordered data. Together, these tools enable more precise measurement and analysis of nonverbal behavioral dynamics. Applications to three corpora derived from interpersonal deception experiments reveal unique nonverbal patterns that distinguish deceptive from nondeceptive interactions. The first and second experiments produced serial, hierarchically related patterns of behaviors that differed in length and complexity between truthful and deceptive participants during interviews about a theft and cheating, respectively. The third experiment produced differential patterns by and among group members completing a task. Deceivers were inclined toward strategic initiations and interactional control, whereas suspicious group members adopted a more passive, possibly watchful stance. Discovery of these patterns challenges the prevailing view that nonverbal behaviors are too faint and inconsistent to identify deceptive communication. Results have numerous implications regarding the following: the development of new measurement tools locating significant effects of nonverbal behaviors, support for theory that coherent and repetitive relationships exist within and among interactants’ communication, demonstration of the role of nonverbal behaviors in deceptive communication and the dynamic and strategic nature of deception.     

Insecure Attachment Behavior and Partner Violence: Incorporating Couple Perceptions of Insecure Attachment and Relational Aggression

Intimate partner violence and insecure attachment are therapeutically relevant concepts when working with couples. The link between attachment and intimate partner violence has been examined in the literature, but an area of aggression that often goes unexamined is relational aggression, or using third parties as a means of being aggressive toward a partner. We asked how participants' attachment behaviors were related to their own and partners' relational and physical aggression. We used structural equation modeling to estimate actor–partner interdependence among these relationships in 644 heterosexual couples. Results indicated significant partner paths from attachment to relational aggression, as well as significant actor paths between relational aggression and physical aggression. Implications were discussed. Data for this study were collected from the RELATE assessment.     

Accommodating ‘foreigners’: narrative accounts of Berlin's German-born Turkish Ausländer

This paper examines the discursive messages conveyed through everyday encounters among German-born Turkish Ausländer (foreigners) and ethnic Germans in Berlin. Using narrative analysis, I explore how these messages operate to maintain a series of separate and unequal social relations based on gender, ethnicity, religion, and skin colour. The personal experiences of local residents illustrate how these discourses serve to mark some Ausländer as less threatening than others, some as preferable, and others as undesirable. Some Ausländer are also considered more valuable than others, and the status of one often depends on the superior or subordinate status of the other. Through exploring these complexities as experienced by local informants, this paper shows the importance of certain interactive processes that construct Ausländerness in varying ways, while still defining people's identities in relation to norms that privilege the dominant subjects.     

CONFLICT RESOLUTION IN INVESTMENT DECISIONS: IMPLEMENTATION OF GOAL PROGRAMMING METHODOLOGY FOR DUAL-PURPOSE FUNDS*

Goal programming (GP) is designed to resolve allocation problems with conflicting goals. Both goals and constraints are incorporated in the allocational decision, and the objective function is stated in a way that, upon solution, yields a result “as close as possible” to the priority-weighted goals. The present paper applies GP methodology to the investment decision of dual-purpose funds (DPFs), that are required by law to pursue allocational decisions with potentially conflicting objectives. It provides an empirical demonstration that DPF managers could have improved their investment selection and subsequent performance by the use of GP methodology. Finally the paper stresses the importance of sensitivity analysis to improve both the goal-ranking and target-selection aspects of the methodology and provides a limited but illuminating empirical demonstration of post-optimality analysis.     

The importance of being mature: the effect of demographic maturation on global per capita GDP

Given that savings behaviour and worker productivity have strong life-cycle components and given that demographic profiles vary across countries, population age structure should be linked to differences in levels of economic development. In this paper, we measure the economic importance of age structure variation for the global economy. We find that demographic maturation has been associated with nearly half of the evolution of global per capita GDP since 1960. We also find that age structure differences can account for just over half of the variation in worldwide per capita GDP (i.e. the lack of sigma convergence) observed since 1960.

Birth outcome, not pregnancy process: Reply to van der Veen

In a recent article (Frisbie. Forbes. and Pullum 1996) we documented racial/ethnic differences in birth outcomes according to a more fine-grained classification than has typically been employed in the demographic literature. In his commentary, van der Veen focuses on the measurement of one of the dimensions of that classification, maturity of the infant. as proxied by the fetal growth ratio. The crux of the critique is easily seen in van der Veen's statement that “all of my disagreements with Frisbie et al. 's method arise from their particular use of a postnatal standard for the assessment of intrauterine growth.” Our critic misunderstands our objective: He fails to realize our interest in birth outcome, not pregnancy process, and does not perceive that our intent was to extend the research extant in both the demographic and public-health literatures in which patently postnatal (i.e., ex utero) measures are taken as outcomes interesting in their own right and/or as risk factors for infant mortality and infant and childhood morbidity. Specifically, he does recognize that we purposefully expanded our focus to include moderately compromised births to determine if they were at higher risk than the normal births with whom they are conventionally categorized. Our discussion draws on research cited in the original article, on studies cited by our critic, and on a few more recent investigations. Although we have never argued that ours is the only, or even the best, approach in all cases, we try to clarify the rationale for, and adduce additional empirical evidence of, the utility of the method we used.     

Ungleiche Chancen im Wissenschaftssystem: Artefakt oder Realität?

The article “Emergence of an academic elite? The impact of universities’ size and reputation on research funding” by Katrin Auspurg, Thomas Hinz and Jürgen Güdler (volume 4/2008 of this Journal) discusses critically Richard Münch’s thesis of monopolistic tendencies in the German science system. Unfortunately the authors focus in their analysis on an improper object, the “Individual grants programme” (Normalverfahren) of the German Research Foundation (DFG). However, problematic developments for the German science system will rather result from the “Coordinated grants programmes” (koordinierte Programme), in particular the excellence initiative. Furthermore the authors fail to connect their analysis to the broader context of the functions and implications of the increasing role of third party funding in the German science system.     

Gespensterdebatte oder was ist soziologische Aufklärung?

We reply to the critical comments of Richard Münch and the author group Jansen, Heidler and von Goetz on our article “Emergence of an Academic Elite? The Impact of Universities’ Size and Reputation on Research Funding” published in this journal. After reviewing some other sociologists’ statements on Münch’s thesis about the academic elite we reinforce the gain of our empirical analyses of hypotheses of the sociology of science in general, on the Matthew-Effect, and on trends to a possible cartelization and monopolization in the German science system. The main critic of unsuited data (we used applications for single grants submitted to the German Research Foundation) does not adequately consider the postulated scope of the investigated theses and our analyses do not aim at a general evaluation of the “Initative of Excellence”.     

Clinical Social Work and Psychoanalysis: Introduction to the Special Issue

As clinical social work developed in America it was highly influenced by the concepts and techniques of psychoanalysis and many of its practitioners became interested in seeking psychoanalytic training. More and more psychoanalysts are now coming from a background in clinical social work due to the development of a network of interdisciplinary training institutes and the opening of the Institutes of the American Psychoanalytic Association to non-medical candidates. This special issue considers how psychoanalysis may be affected as more of its practitioners and contributors come from a background in clinical social work. This introduction reviews the history of the development of clinical social work and outlines the issues related to “lay analysis” in this country.