Which Champions,Which People? Public and User Involvement in Health Care as a Technology of Legitimation

This paper concerns two practices, public consultation and user involvement, whose adoption has been urged upon the UK National Health Service in recent years. Public consultation is a local attempt to seek the views of a broad constituency of persons. User involvement is a local attempt to include organized groups of service users in the planning, and occasionally the management, of such services. The paper has four objectives. First, it locates the topic in the context of several related current debates. Second, it outlines the main findings of a recent empirical study of public consultation as they relate to the above debates. Third, it summarizes the relevant findings of an empirical study of user involvement. Finally, it examines these two practices as "technologies of legitimation" which can be seen as a means by which managerial legitimacy is maintained in the context of an increasingly pluralistic policy arena.     

Inferring beliefs as subjectively imprecise probabilities

We propose a method for estimating subjective beliefs, viewed as a subjective probability distribution. The key insight is to characterize beliefs as a parameter to be estimated from observed choices in a well-defined experimental task and to estimate that parameter as a random coefficient. The experimental task consists of a series of standard lottery choices in which the subject is assumed to use conventional risk attitudes to select one lottery or the other and then a series of betting choices in which the subject is presented with a range of bookies offering odds on the outcome of some event that the subject has a belief over. Knowledge of the risk attitudes of subjects conditions the inferences about subjective beliefs. Maximum simulated likelihood methods are used to estimate a structural model in which subjects employ subjective beliefs to make bets. We present evidence that some subjective probabilities are indeed best characterized as probability distributions with non-zero variance.     

Perceptions of Board Chair Leadership Effectiveness in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Organizations

This article reports on the results of a multi-year, multi-phase international quantitative research investigation into perceptions of board chair leadership impact in nonprofit and voluntary organizations in Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Specifically, this research tests four hypotheses and a hypothesized model derived from theoretical perspectives on chair leadership effectiveness that emerged when the results of a prior grounded theory research investigation were reviewed ex post facto through the lens of leadership literature (see Harrison and Murray, NPML, accepted). The purpose of this phase of the research is to determine: (a) whether there is empirical support for the theoretical perspectives advanced; and (b) which perspective offers the best explanation for why some board chairs are perceived as having more impact in the role than others. The results suggest chair leadership effectiveness is best understood as a multi-dimensional theoretical construct explained by more than one leadership theory. The article concludes with a discussion of the findings and directions for further research.     

An examination of population changes in Alabama's black belt counties: 1960–1970 and 1970–1980

Population changes in 11 Alabama Black Belt counties are examined by comparing annual average birth, death, and migration rates during the 1960s with those of the 1970s. The specific focus of the study is migration patterns among the nonwhite segment of the population. Data from the 1980 and earlier censuses are utilized, along with birth and death data from Alabama vital statistics reports. Average annual migration rates for each of the two decades are derived. The results indicate that net migration losses among nonwhites declined substantially during the 1970s compared with the 1960s and that in two Black. Belt counties there was a reversal from heavy net losses to moderate net gains. Whites, on a county‐to‐county basis, however, were generally characterized by significantly higher rates of loss during the 1970s than in the 1960s. The substantial reduction in outmigration rates among nonwhites is tentatively attributed to political and economic advances coupled with increased employment opportunities in nonagricultural occupations.     

Project Re•Vision: disability at the edges of representation

The representational history of disabled people can largely be characterized as one of being put on display or hidden away. Self-representations have been a powerful part of the disability rights and culture movement, but recently scholars have analysed the ways in which these run the risk of creating a ‘single story’ that centres the experiences of white, western, physically disabled men. Here we introduce and theorize with Project Re?Vision, our arts-based research project that resists this singularity by creating and centring, without normalizing, representations that have previously been relegated to the margins. We draw from body becoming and new materialist theory to explore the dynamic ways in which positionality illuminates bodies of difference and open into a discussion about what is at stake when these stories are let loose into the world.     

U txt WHEN? College students’ social contexts of text messaging

Despite an explosion in the popularity of text messaging (short message service, or SMS texting), little research has documented the prevalence of its use in various dimensions of the social landscape of young adults. We examined text messaging patterns in various social situations in a sample of college students. Unsurprisingly, participants placed a good deal of importance on texting and reported using texts frequently to stay in touch with friends and loved ones. However, a good number of participants reported texting in seemingly inopportune situations, such as while in the shower, while at work, during religious services, and while having sex. Further, most participants reported texting in situations that may be considered by some as social breaches, such as while on a date, while socializing in person with others, and to break up with and cheat on a romantic partner. Results suggest that drawbacks of this convenient, fast, and faceless mode of communication include disinhibition and inattention to one's immediate social environment.     

The Bullwhip Effect—Impact of Stochastic Lead Time,Information Quality,and Information Sharing: A Simulation Study

We use a simulation model called ‘SISCO’ to examine the effects in supply chains of stochastic lead times and of information sharing and quality of that information in a periodic order‐up‐to level inventory system. We test the accuracy of the simulation by verifying the results in Chen et al. (2000a) and Dejonckheere et al. (2004). We find that lead‐time variability exacerbates variance amplification in a supply chain, and that information sharing and information quality are highly significant. For example, using the assumptions in Chen et al. (2000a) and Dejonckheere et al. (2004), we find in a numerical experiment of a customer‐retailer‐wholesaler‐distributor‐factory supply chain that variance amplification is attenuated by nearly 50 percent at the factory due to information sharing. Other assumptions we make are based on interviews or conversations with managers at large supply chains.