Individual and environmental factors related to job satisfaction in people with severe mental illness employed in social enterprises

Objective: The purpose of this study was to enhance understanding of the impact of individual and environmental variables on job satisfaction among people with severe mental illness employed in social enterprises.Participants: A total of 248 individuals with severe mental illness employed by social enterprises agreed to take part in the study. Methods: We used logistic regression to analyse job satisfaction. A model with job satisfaction as the dependent variable, and both individual (occupational self-efficacy and severity of symptoms perceived) and environmental (workplace) factors (provision of workplace accommodations, social support from co-workers, organizational constraints) as well as external factors (family support) as predictors, was tested on the entire sample. Results: All findings across the study suggest a significant positive impact of both individual and environmental factors on job satisfaction. People with higher occupational self-efficacy who were provided with workplace accommodations and received greater social support were more likely to experience greater job satisfaction.Conclusions: These results suggest that certain features of social enterprises, such as workplace accommodations, are important in promoting job satisfaction in people with severe mental illness. Further studies are warranted to expand knowledge of the workplace features that support employees with severe mental illness in their work integration process.     

The Italian Pension System: Development and Effects on Income Distribution and Poverty

This paper outlines the main features of the development of the Italian pensione system since the Second World War. It also analyses the present redistributive effects of the system and defines the role that supplementary funded plans could play. The former issue is tackled in the first part of the paper, the latter issues will be dealt with in the second part.     

Board characteristics effects on performance in family and non-family business: a multi-theoretical approach

This paper examines the role of the board of directors in influencing the value of Italian listed firms from 2003 to 2013. In particular, employing agency, stewardship and resource dependence theories, the study aims to compare board characteristics in family and non-family firms and define the theory that best applies to family firms. Empirical results show that the presence of CEO duality and busy directors has a positive effect on the value of family firms, while gender diversity has a negative impact on the value when a member of the family leads a family firm. Conversely, the size of the board positively affects the value of non-family firms. Our main findings suggest the prevalence, in family firms, of the benefits of the board structure argued by stewardship and resource dependence theories rather than the disadvantages expected from agency theory.     

Laughing Through This Pain: Medical Clowning During Examination of Sexually Abused Children: An Innovative Approach

This study examined the role of medical clowns during medical examinations of children who were sexually abused. Three case studies are described, illustrating diverse interactions among the victimized child, the medical clown, and the medical forensical examiner during medical forensic examinations held at the Tene Center for Sexually Abused Children, Poria-Pade Medical Center, Israel. The results indicated that medical clowns play a unique role both in lowering anxiety and fear among children before and during the unpleasant forensic examination as well as in mitigating potential retraumatization of the sexual abuse event resulting from the medical examination. The medical clown was found to assist in creating a pleasant and calm atmosphere, thus improving the child's cooperation during the examination.     

Socio-demographic Components of Eudaimonic Well-Being: A Survey in an Italian Province

This work is part of a well-established strand of study about quality of life (QoL) and the different methodologies for its quantitative evaluation. The study focuses on a specific dimension of QoL, that of the eudaimonic well-being (EuWB), with two main objectives. On the one hand, we try to clarify how EuWB can be framed in the systematizations of QoL proposed in the literature. Its relation to the concept of subjective well-being is discussed, and the need to distinguish such approach from the so-called hedonic dimension of QoL is highlighted. On the other hand, the paper aims to investigate the link between the perception of EuWB and individual socio-demographic characteristics through a quantitative analysis based on the results of a survey. The survey carried out in Central Italy in 2010, involved a sample of 1,134 individuals, which are classified according to their perception of EuWB. An analysis of the socio-demographic characteristics within the EuWB groups is then performed in order to investigate the association between these variables and the perception of EuWB. Results are discussed with respect to the evidences from similar surveys found in the literature. The analysis confirms the influence of some variables on the perception of EuWB, yet it underlines the difficulty in comparing different studies on QoL without clarifying to which of the different declensions of this concept the survey methodology refers to.     

Bivariate Aging Properties under Archimedean Dependence Structures

Let X  = (X, Y) be a pair of lifetimes whose dependence structure is described by an Archimedean survival copula, and let X _t  = [(X ? t, Y ? t) | X > t, Y > t] denotes the corresponding pair of residual lifetimes after time t ≥ 0. Multivariate aging notions, defined by means of stochastic comparisons between X and X _t , with t ≥ 0, were studied in Pellerey (2008 Pellerey , F. ( 2008 ). On univariate and bivariate aging for dependent lifetimes with Archimedean survival copulas . Kybernetika 44 : 795 – 806 .[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), who considered pairs of lifetimes having the same marginal distribution. Here, we present the generalizations of his results, considering both stochastic comparisons between X _t and X _t+s for all t, s ≥ 0 and the case of dependent lifetimes having different distributions. Comparisons between two different pairs of residual lifetimes, at any time t ≥ 0, are discussed as well.     

Multivariate Aging with Archimedean Dependence Structures in High Dimensions

Bivariate aging notions for a vector X of lifetimes based on stochastic comparisons between X and X _t, where X _t is the multivariate residual lifetime after time t > 0, have been studied in Pellerey (2008 Pellerey , F. ( 2008 ). On univariate and bivariate aging for dependent lifetimes with Archimedean survival copulas . Kybernetika 44 : 795 – 806 .[Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) under the assumption that the dependence structure in X is described by an Archimedean survival copula. Similar stochastic comparisons between X _t and X _t+s, for all t; s > 0, were considered in Mulero and Pellerey (2010 Mulero , J. , Pellerey , F. ( 2010 ). Bivariate aging properties under Archimedean dependence structures . Commun. Statist. Theor. Meth. 39 : 3108 – 3121 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). In this article, these results are generalized and extended to the multivariate case. Two illustrative examples are also provided.     

The Estimation and Testing of the Cointegration Order Based on the Frequency Domain

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a method to estimate the degree of cointegration in bivariate series and suggests a test statistic for testing noncointegration based on the determinant of the spectral density matrix for the frequencies close to zero. In the study, series are assumed to be I(d), 0 < d ? 1, with parameter d supposed to be known. In this context, the order of integration of the error series is I(d ? b), b ∈ [0, d]. Besides, the determinant of the spectral density matrix for the dth difference series is a power function of b. The proposed estimator for b is obtained here performing a regression of logged determinant on a set of logged Fourier frequencies. Under the null hypothesis of noncointegration, the expressions for the bias and variance of the estimator were derived and its consistency property was also obtained. The asymptotic normality of the estimator, under Gaussian and non-Gaussian innovations, was also established. A Monte Carlo study was performed and showed that the suggested test possesses correct size and good power for moderate sample sizes, when compared with other proposals in the literature. An advantage of the method proposed here, over the standard methods, is that it allows to know the order of integration of the error series without estimating a regression equation. An application was conducted to exemplify the method in a real context.     

Short-term Perceptions,Corporate Governance and the Management of R & D in Italian Companies

The aim of this paper was tomeasure the short-term perceptions of FinanceDirectors and how managers react to pressuresfrom the financial and corporate governancesystems in the management of R and Dexpenditure and innovation. The studyreplicates Demirag's U.K. study.Results do not support the proposition that thefinancial and governance systems behave in ashort-term manner in general. The bankingsystem in Italy tends to be neutral as regardsthe firm's decision making and management hasthe freedom to steer the firm forward in aframework of long-term profitability andgrowth. Italian firms are not perceived asbeing possible candidates for take-overoperations, which might exacerbate the problemof pressure to deliver short-term profits atthe expense of long-term R and D investments.However, in some sectors and under certain sizeand ownership structure conditions short-termpressures are felt more strongly: they aremainly science-based sectors as well as sometraditional sectors (engineering and constructions).In higher-pressured firms (HPFs) managementtends to place more emphasis on costs than onproduct innovation and is more likely to view Rand D as an overhead that has to be trimmedduring a recession. Moreover, the controlmechanisms tend toward short-term accountingmeasures. In addition, the prevalent sources ofshort-term pressures – where they are present– are interestingly different in Italy than inthe U.K.: while in the Anglo-Saxon context theyare perceived to come from the market andfinancial institutions, in Italy they areperceived to come from the firm ownersthemselves.     

Characterizations of discrete distributions based on conditional expectations of record values

r -th record values subject to (r + 1)-th record values, record mean function, from a distribution of discrete type. We give some properties of the record mean function and an explicit expression for the distribution function based on its record mean function, which allows us to characterize particular discrete distributions using the record mean functions. Received: January 4, 1999; revised version: September 27, 1999