The influence of donors on cross class social movements: same sex marriage and trans rights campaigns in New York State

ABSTRACT

New York State’s largest gay rights organization, the Empire State Pride Agenda (ESPA), won significant legislative victories, including the legalization of same sex marriage in 2011. Yet ESPA was never able to mount comparable efforts for its long-standing commitment to transgender rights before disbanding in 2015, despite the fact that marriage equality was less widely supported than transgender rights in ESPA’s own public opinion polling. In-depth interviews reveal that ESPA was constrained by the class and personal interests of its affluent major donors, mainly high-income gay white men. The organization’s abrupt closure provided an unusual opportunity to research the often secret topic of major donor influence, as frustrated former staff were willing to be frank in interviews. ESPA was only able to successfully campaign on issues that were especially compelling for these donors, and was forced to close when its legislative agenda diverged from their interests. This case suggests class interests and access to resources shape the causal impact of collective identities on social movement dynamics.     

Too Negative to Take Risks? The Effect of the CEO's Emotional Traits on Firm Risk

Except for some recent survey and experimental studies, strategic management research has tended to neglect the influence of emotions on managers' strategic choices. This paper analyses the influence of the stable, long‐term emotional traits of CEOs on an actual business outcome: risk taking. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of 51 Spanish banks and savings banks. Our results show that CEO affective traits influence banks' risk taking. Specifically, our analyses show that managers' negative affective traits are related to lower risk taking as reflected in a lower variability in performance, a lower level of credit risk and a less risky composition of the loan portfolios of the banks they manage. Positive affective traits do not seem to influence the level of risk. These findings partially support ‘affect congruency and generalization’ arguments, and show the need to consider the role of affects when analysing CEOs' strategic choices.     

Precarious lives,precarious labour: family support and young men's transitions to work in the UK

This research is about young people, family support and transitions into the workforce. We provide the results of a comparative, qualitative study with young men in two southern English towns. We argue that relationships of support in families are vital to young people's ability to ‘navigate’ precarious labour market opportunities. As Youth Studies has become increasingly preoccupied with individualism, we are compelled to draw attention to the collective support that is necessary to ‘launch’ the life trajectories of young people who are transitioning into an economic environment marked by insecurity and uncertainty. We conclude with recommendations for future research.     

Environmental hazards and home loss: The social construction of becoming homeless

Home loss due to landslides is a recurrent phenomenon in unstable lands in Caracas, Venezuela, where poor people help themselves by building their precarious homes. The social construction of becoming homeless in such situations was studied through in-depth interviews with 27 adults who lost their homes due to a landslide. The main topics brought up by the interviewees included the meaning of their homes, the impact of having lost them, the impact on their sense of family, the meaning of having become homeless and remaining indefinitely as such, and attribution of responsibilities for the disaster and for solutions to their homelessness. We present an analysis of some of the psychosocial processes related to these topics, as well as some ideas derived from the interpretation of the information gathered regarding risk prevention and the conception of homelessness.     

Spatially Specific Changes in Infants' Muscle Coactivity as They Learn to Reach

Infants first reach out and touch objects between the ages of 3 and 5 months. This article reports changes in muscle coactivity associated with this transition. A group of 4 infants were observed weekly from 3 to 30 weeks and every 2 weeks from 30 to 52 weeks. Hand kinematics of both prereaching and reaching movements were collected, as was electromyographic activity from the trapezius, deltoid, biceps, and triceps. Before infants first reached for toys presented at midline, they used biceps and triceps to move their hands near the toy in front of them and 45° to the side of midline. After the transition, they used trapezius and deltoid to move the hand toward the toy and combinations of multiple muscles when their arms were high and extended near the toy. Thus, infants showed a dramatic change in which muscles worked together across the transition to reaching, even though their hands moved in similar spatial regions.     

Prosocial behaviour,inclusion and exclusion: why and when do we behave prosocially? / Comportamiento prosocial,inclusión y exclusión: ¿cuándo y por qué adoptamos comportamientos prosociales?

Two experiments analysed the influence of inclusion versus exclusion on prosocial behaviour. In Study 1, evidence for the social reconnection hypothesis was found. In Study 2, a cross-over interactive effect is demonstrated: excluded individuals tended to be more prosocial when their competence was affected than when their popularity was affected. However, included people were more prosocial than excluded people when their popularity was affected, but they were less prosocial when their competence was highlighted. Besides, Study 2 has shown that affiliation motivation mediates the effect of exclusion on prosocial behaviour, and thus: (1) excluded individuals endorse lower levels of affiliation motivation with their rejecters than included individuals do with individuals who have included them; and (2) individuals with higher levels of affiliation motivation engage in higher prosocial behaviour levels when the behaviour is oriented to people with whom the chance to reconnect exists, but not when it is oriented to people with whom there is no possibility for future affiliation.     

Hospital restructuring stressors,work—family concerns and psychological well-being among nursing staff

This study examined relationships between hospital restructuring and downsizing stressors, work-family and family-work conflict, job and family satisfaction and psychological well-being. Data were collected from 686 hospital-based nurses, the vast majority women, using anonymous questionnaires. Two research models hypothesizing both direct and indirect effects among these variables were tested using LISREL. Considerable support was found for these models. Restructuring and downsizing stressors had significant relationships with work-family conflict but not family-work conflict. Work-family conflict and family-work conflict, in turn, had significant relationships with psychological health. These results indicate that those responsible for the implementation of organizational restructuring and downsizing must be sensitive to the larger family and community effects of these initiatives. Fortunately, a growing body of literature on best practice provides considerable guidance on how to more effectively plan and manage these transitions. Este estudio examina relaciones entre estresores relacionados a la reestructuracion y la reduccion de hospitales, el conflicto trabajo-familia y el conflicto familia-trabajo, la satisfaccion laboral y familiar, y el bienestar sicologico. Utilizando cuestionarios anonimos, se recopilaron datos de 686 enfermeros, la gran mayoria de ellos mujeres, con base en hospitales, Se utilizo LISREL para poner a prueba dos modelos de investigacion que plantearon como hipotesis efectos directos e indirectos entre estas variables. Se encontro considerable apoyo para estos modelos. Los estresores, reestructuracion y reduccion, se relacionaron significamente con el conflicto trabajo-familia pero no con el conflicto familia-trbajo. A su vez, el conflicto trabajo-familia y el conflicto familia-trabajo se relacionaron significamente con el bienestar sicologico. Estos resultados indican que los responsables de la implementacion de la reestructuracion y reduccion organizativas deben estar muy conscientes de los efectos familiares y comunitarias de estas iniciativas. Afortunadamente, una literatura cada vez mayor sobre la mejor practica nos proporciona consejos importantes sobre como mejor planificar y dirigir estas transiciones.     

(Un)Intentional Community: Power and Expert Knowledge in a Sustainable Lifestyle Community*

This ethnography of a cohousing organization examines power and expert knowledge in a sustainable intentional community. Intentional communities are forming at a growing rate both internationally and in the United States. Cohousing communities are part of this growing trend of alternative communities that utilize participatory democracy as both their central decision‐making process and a core component of their alternative identity. This article analyzes the tensions that evolve as cohousers build a communal housing development in one of the fastest‐growing cities in the United States. I identify mechanisms through which the constraints of operating in the highly professionalized field of housing development transform participatory decision making. When group members try to minimize loss of time and capital while competing with experienced for‐profit developers, they establish leaders and cede power to those with greater technical expertise. Yet, they continue to model their commitment to consensus decision making despite emerging hierarchies among members. I describe how the use of expert knowledge restructures the conditions governing group interaction and explore what the group's oligarchic organizational practices mean for the study of contemporary collective community organizing.     

A Review of Sundberg and Partington’s Teaching Language to Children with Autism or Other Developmental Disabilities

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior -