Employment growth in high-tech new ventures

We specify and estimate a model of the early employment growth of technology-driven new ventures. Our estimated model is derived from labor demand theory. A data set of 100 German firms is used to conduct this analysis. The study’s findings support the relevance of the theory as applied to these nascent firms. Employment growth is significantly enhanced in ventures exhibiting high profits, experienced founders, formal information processes, and outsourced product distribution. Our findings also confirm aspects of Penrose’s theory of firm growth suggesting that transactions costs associated with larger founder teams may inhibit employment growth.     

Psychosocial adaption to pregnancy in prison.

1. Childbearing for incarcerated women is complicated by characteristics of special needs associated with psychosocial adaptation to increased stress, a restrictive physical environment, alteration of social support systems, and the displacement of the maternal role functions after birth. 2. Psychiatric nurses are in a unique position to affect the health care provided for pregnant inmates by virtue of their knowledge and expertise in assessing and treating problems in psychosocial adaptation. 3. Assessment of pregnant inmates is based on identification of the presence and magnitude of dimensions of stress, environmental restrictiveness, social support systems, and maternal role displacement.     

The role of family help in the housing decisions of young people

Recent debates about flows of help within the family have indicated considerable diversity according to the type of help (money, services), and ages and gender of those involved, and have shown that values are only a partial guide to the scale of such flows. This paper focuses on a particular occasion for help, young people's housing, and a particular region, South-East England, where one would expect family financial help to be high given the capacity to help of older generations (due to higher average incomes and wealth) and the affordability problems faced by young people. It is shown that contrary to hypothesis only 12% of a sample of young people had received financial help for housing purposes since they had left home, less than found in previous studies with different samples. The amounts involved were less than young people believed their parents could afford. The role of inheritance was also found to be minor. The results from the different studies are explained as due to changes in the housing market, changing values regarding financial help and differences among the samples. Intensive re-interviews with three households from very different backgrounds are used to show the different ways in which family help operates.     

Is there a field of social work?: Trainees evaluating social problems and social work

My aim was to study the experiences and priorities of two age groups of social work students practicing in client-centered social work. This article is based on the research on rationality and language games in social work. The target groups of the research project as a whole were the actors: the heads and social workers or activists in public social welfare and health care agencies and institutions and in voluntary associations and action groups, and finally, two subsequent classes of students from a school of social work, during their practicing periods. This article concentrates on the trainees. At first, the trainees wrote essays and kept diaries. Secondly, they marked their standings on graphs visualizing different types of information contents and social relation structures. Thirdly, they made their choices of reasons for and solutions to social problems on a problem wheel. The trainees' study, using different data gathering techniques, partly confirms the results of the research of the other actor groups, in which the data were derived using questionnaires and interviews. The trainees' study shows variation in the respondents' priorities within and between specified social problem categories. Qualitatively analyzed, however, the characterizations of social work, both those who currently act in and those aiming to enter this field, resemble one another.     

INNUMERACY ABOUT MINORITY POPULATIONS

We use a small but nationally representative sample to investigatethe sources of innumeracy regarding the proportion of blacks,Hispanics, and Jews in the U.S. population. In addition to anumber of standard demographic differences, we find that overestimatesare closely related to region as well as to the density of thelocal black/Hispanic population. The extent to which minoritypopulations are perceived as a kind of threat is also relatedto perceived proportions, though the direction of causalitycannot be determined. We discuss the meaningfulness of thesepopulation estimates and speculate on whether trying to improvethem would alter attitudes toward minorities.     

追求新亚洲安全:文化视角中的地区合作

21世纪各个国家特别是亚洲各国进入了发展的新阶段。亚洲在经济发展中实现了建设性的双边伙伴关系。但是亚洲国家形成“与西方传统不同的亚洲国际关系模式”仍然任重道远。作者认为,亚洲共同的文化认同可以发挥重要作用,理应把亚洲国家特别是两个人口最多的国家中国和印度团结起来,全面实现“亚洲共同体”的战略目标。     

Sektion Jugendsoziologie Tätigkeitsbericht 2004

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

Interpersonal dependency of preferences

Standard decision theoretic models disregard the phenomenon of interpersonal dependency of preferences. In this paper it is argued that interpersonal dependency of preferences is a serious challenge for standard utility theory. First we sketch the more philosophical aspects of the problem and then, using a simple, formal model for the two-person case, we show that interpersonal dependency of preferences generally results in indeterminacy of preferences (resp. of subjective utility).     

India: ‘Brain Drain’ or the Migration of Talent?

2 views on "brain drain" exist: 1) LDCs lose their enormous investments on higher education when skilled people migrate to other countries and 2) LDCs are exaggerating the problem and only a few skilled people migrate at 1 time. India does not completely lose its investment in education when professionals migrate, since the migrants still contribute to knowledge and also send remittances to relatives in India. Unemployed educated people would cause a greater drain on India's resources than educated migrants. The author prefers the phrase migration of talent to brain drain, since the former indicates a 2-way movement. Most migrants from LDCs are students. About 11,000 university graduates leave India every year for advanced study and/or work. A conservative estimate is that 2500 will remain abroad permanently. Most professionals who migrate go to the US and Canada. Factors promoting migration include 1) unemployment, 2) immigration rules, 3) colonial links, 4) financial incentives and material benefits, 5) pursuit of higher education, 6) improvement of working conditions and facilities, 7) avoidance of excessive bureaucratic procedures, and 8) compensation for the mismatch between Indian education and employment. Reasons for returning to India include 1) deference to wives who were unable to adjust to a foreign way of life, 2) contributing to Indian development, and 3) racial discrimination. It will probably not be possible to lure back migrants who left for material reasons. Attractive job offers could entice back those who left for advanced training. To encourage the return of those who left to pursue high quality research, India must 1) increase expenditure on research and development, possibly through the private industrial sector, 2) promote travel to other countries for professional enrichment, and 3) improve conditions of research work. The article concludes with an analysis of migration of talent from 3 perspectives: 1) the individual, 2) the nation-state, and 3) the world as a whole.     

The U.S. legalization program: a preliminary final report

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 made 4 types of aliens eligible to receive legalization benefits: 1) those who resided "continuously" in the US since January 1, 1982; 2) those who had worked in the US perishable-crop agriculture for 90 "man-days" in specified time periods (Special Agricultural Workers [SAWS]); 3) those who were in the US since before January 1, 1972; and 4) those classified as Cuban/Haitian entrants and who had been in the US since January 1, 1982. Estimates of the number of aliens eligible for legalization, not including SAWS, ranges from 1.834 million to 2.56 million. Estimates of undercounts of undocumented aliens are 10% for those who entered before 1975 and 37.5% for those who arrived after 1975. Other refinements in the estimates of undocumented aliens include adjustments for 1) ethnic group and location, 2) the growth of the undocumented population between the census date and the legalization eligibility date under IRCA, and 3) emigration and deportation rates. Out of the 1,581,800 applicants entered into the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) computers (from a total of 2.15 million applicants) as of May 20, 1988, 73.7% were Mexican nationals. Only 5 other countries contributed more than 1%: El Salvador (6.5%), Haiti (2.3%), Guatemala (2.2%), the Philippines (1%), and Colombia (1%). The Mexican percentage was unexpectedly high, perhaps because the legalization had been much more successful in the Southwest than anywhere else in the country. Reasons that Mexicans have a higher legalization participation rate than other nationalities include 1) the distant eligibility date; 2) ethnic differences among non-Mexican nationalities; 3) particularly in the northeast, fears of exposing one's illegal status to INS; 4) the difficulty of information reaching ethnic communities, 5) the reluctance of those already undergoing the naturalization process to risk the legalization process; and 6) the reluctance of employees to admit employment of undocumented aliens. In the end, more than 90% of applicants are expected to be granted temporary resident alien status (and about 70% of agricultural workers), for a total of more than 2 million people. Researchers estimate that 2.5 - 3 million more persons remain in an undocumented status in the US.