Ethical dilemmas faced by family therapists

This study explores the reactions of 202 randomly selected clinical members of the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT) to a variety of ethical dilemma situations which examine what family therapists are doing in their work when confronted with these difficult situations. Eight of the issues studied have been discussed in the literature and eight are included in the AAMFT's Ethical Principles for Family Therapists (1984). In addition to showing how clinical members responded to dilemmic vignettes that reflect these dilemmas, results indicated that family therapists are facing these dilemmas, have a high rate of consensus of what they would and would not do in each situation and almost all the situations were seen as being ethically significant by the majority of respondents.     

Threshold Autoregression with a Unit Root

This paper develops an asymptotic theory of inference for an unrestricted two‐regime threshold autoregressive (TAR) model with an autoregressive unit root. We find that the asymptotic null distribution of Wald tests for a threshold are nonstandard and different from the stationary case, and suggest basing inference on a bootstrap approximation. We also study the asymptotic null distributions of tests for an autoregressive unit root, and find that they are nonstandard and dependent on the presence of a threshold effect. We propose both asymptotic and bootstrap‐based tests. These tests and distribution theory allow for the joint consideration of nonlinearity (thresholds) and nonstationary (unit roots). Our limit theory is based on a new set of tools that combine unit root asymptotics with empirical process methods. We work with a particular two‐parameter empirical process that converges weakly to a two‐parameter Brownian motion. Our limit distributions involve stochastic integrals with respect to this two‐parameter process. This theory is entirely new and may find applications in other contexts. We illustrate the methods with an application to the U.S. monthly unemployment rate. We find strong evidence of a threshold effect. The point estimates suggest that the threshold effect is in the short‐run dynamics, rather than in the dominate root. While the conventional ADF test for a unit root is insignificant, our TAR unit root tests are arguably significant. The evidence is quite strong that the unemployment rate is not a unit root process, and there is considerable evidence that the series is a stationary TAR process.     

The board advisory tasks in small firms and the event of crises

In this article we examine what affects the board of directors’ involvement in the advice to management, with emphasis on the influence of crises on the board advisory tasks performance. Based on a survey of 881 small Norwegian firms, we analyse responses from CEOs in order to determine whether and to what extent the board is actively involved in the governance process during crises through providing advice. The study has two major contributions to board research in general and research of into small firms in particular. The first is the go beyond the “usual suspects” of board size, CEO duality, and board independence when looking for determinants of board involvement in advice. The second contribution is a clearer understanding of board involvement during crises. Our results show that board member diversity becomes particularly important during crises, since this provides the CEO and firm access to a more diverse pool of competences and experiences. We also find that crises moderate the effects of incentive on the board’s involvement in advice. This evidence sheds new light on the determinants of directors’ involvement in board tasks, suggesting that directors’ incentive to perform certain board tasks vary according to the contingent situation the firm is experiencing.     

Historical Sociology and the Prism of Biography: Lillian Wineman and the Trade in Dakota Beadwork, 1893–1929

Qualitative Sociology - How can researchers learn about the social lives of people and cultures who leave little or no written record of their lives? This article introduces the idea that one...     

The economics of adoption of children from foster care

Federal initiatives since 1996 have intensified the efforts of states to achieve adoption for children in foster care. For many waiting children, the path to adoption is long. The authors offer an economic analysis of adoption from foster care, with an emphasis on the reasons why achieving the goal of adoption for all waiting children may be so difficult. The authors then estimate the determinants of adoptions from foster care across the states using data for fiscal years 1996 and 1997. Adoption assistance subsidy rates stand out as the most important determinant of adoptions from foster care, followed by use of alternatives (e.g., intercountry adoption). Adoptive matching on the basis of race does not appear to prevent adoptions from foster care in the aggregate, leaving flaws in the matching process, such as a lack of information and difficulty using the Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children (ICPC), as a primary reason why children wait.     

Social workers' views of parents of emotionally disturbed children: Replicating a US study

Abstract

This article reports the results of a survey of Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW) members in relation to their views of parents of emotionally disturbed children. The survey involved a random sample of AASW members. It replicates a US study of members of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW) conducted by Johnson, Renaud, Schmidt and Stanek (1998). The study was conducted in order to see if there was any similarity in the views of United States (US) and Australian social workers in regard to their view of these parents. The data from the Australian sample using the US Providers' Beliefs About Parents (PBAP) instrument did not support the conclusions of the study in the US. This result emphasises the importance of replication studies when transferring measurement instruments from one country to another.