Structural Properties, Work Practices, and Control in Asian Businesses: Some Evidence from Singapore and Malaysia

This study explored the level of adoption ofWestern style management practices in two South EastAsian communities. A sample of 203 managers fromMalaysian and Singaporean organizations responded to a survey that was designed to capture demographicas well as organizational data in terms of structuraldimensions, and employed work setting processes andpractices. A strong inference of the findings is that Western assumptions about managerialideology were not fully endorsed in the studyorganizations. These findings, which are discussed, wereinterpreted in conjunction with contributions from Asian managers. The approach outlined in this paperdemonstrates the value of qualitative and quantitativeprocedures for interpreting the results ofcross-cultural studies.     

“It’s Not My Fault!” Status,Attributions, and Perceptions of Injustice: The Case of Custodians and Teachers

Perceptions of injustice rely upon a sense-making process in which individuals attempt to understand why and how it occurs. We draw from the attribution-of-blame model of justice judgments to examine how two work groups of disparate status make sense of the treatment and outcomes engendered by their interactions. Data from 27 in-depth interviews with custodians and teachers reveal that when custodians perceive disrespect from teachers and teachers perceive that custodians do not fulfill properly their duties, their attributions are shaped by their status position. Although both make internal attributions to each other for their injustice, teachers do not recognize how they perpetrate injustice against custodians and custodians perceive greater injustice by identifying how external factors affect their performance and blame. This unjustified blame fosters counterproductive work behaviors, illustrating how interdependencies fuel a cycle of injustice. We discuss the implications of these findings for the school and justice processes.     

First Person Accounts and Sociological Explanations of Delinquency*

Cinquante‐six garçons du secondaire ont expliqué pourquoi ils avaient perpétré ou non certains actes de délinquance (combat, vandalisme, vol à l'étalage, usage de drogues). Ils ont aussi ciblé des théories sociologiques de la délinquance qui s'appliquent à leur comportement. Leurs réponses montrent que les deux types de données se recoupent beaucoup. L'effort, la théorie gánérate, les pairs, le contrôle social, les techniques de neutralisation et la prévention sont importants, mais non l'étiquetage ni l'imitation des médias. Une théorie de contingence de la délinquance est proposée. Fifty‐six high school boys were asked to explain in their own words why they had engaged in or refrained from certain delinquencies: fighting, vandalism, petty theft, truancy and drug use. They were also given the opportunity, via a checklist, to tell whether selected sociological theories applied to their behaviour. Their responses revealed considerable overlap in the two forms of data. Strain, general theory, peers, social control, techniques of neutralization and deterrence are important in varying combinations. Labelling and media imitation are not. A contingency theory of delinquency is proposed.     

Can Heterosexism Harm Organizations? Predicting the Perceived Organizational Citizenship Behaviors of Gay and Lesbian Employees

An initial test and validation of a model predicting perceived organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) of lesbian and gay employees were conducted using structural equation modeling. The proposed structural model demonstrated acceptable goodness of fit and structural invariance across 2 samples (ns = 311 and 295), which suggested that altruistic OCB performance is precipitated by workplace outness. Furthermore, stigmatization salience and organizational climate for heterosexism predict levels of workplace outness. Organizational climate for heterosexism is negatively related to stigmatization salience. When the model was tested on 2 samples, all structural paths except 1 were significant.     

Seasonal activity patterns of sympatric eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) and fox squirrels (Sciurus niger) in a Midwestern metropolitan region

Niche partitioning reduces interspecific competition, facilitating coexistence. In urban ecosystems, however, habitat loss reduces species’ ability to spatially partition activity. Temporal partitioning may thus increase in urban areas as species, unable to avoid each other spatially, partition time to avoid competition. In Midwestern US cities, eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) and fox squirrels (S. niger) co-occur and compete for resources. We identified urban gray and fox squirrel activity patterns and how they vary with season, land cover, and among sites where they do and do not co-occur using camera-trap data. Both species’ activity patterns varied with season and canopy and impervious surface cover. Gray squirrel activity patterns varied in the presence of fox squirrels only in the fall, providing limited support for our temporal partitioning hypothesis. Temporal niche partitioning may thus play a role in supporting these species co-existence when competition is seasonally-elevated (e.g., fall hording), but appears less important in other seasons.

     

Social Constructionism and Supervision: Experiences of AAMFT Supervisors and Supervised Therapists

A phenomenological research process was used to investigate the supervision experience for supervisors and therapists when supervisors use a social constructionist perspective. Participants of the one‐to‐one interviews were six AAMFT Approved Supervisors and six therapists providing counseling to individuals, couples and families. The findings suggest supervisors were committed to their self‐identified supervision philosophy and intentionally sought out congruence between epistemology and practice. The shared experience of therapists indicates they associated desirable supervision experiences with their supervisors’ social constructionist perspective. Our findings also indicated that supervisors’ and therapists’ understanding of social constructionism included the more controversial concepts of agency and extra‐discursiveness. This research has taken an empirical step in the direction of understanding what the social constructionist supervision experience is like for supervisors and therapists. Our findings suggest a linkage between epistemology and supervision practice and a satisfaction with the supervision process.     

Social Cognitive Factors,Support, and Engagement: Early Adolescents’ Math Interests as Precursors to Choice of Career

The authors examined the central hypothesis that students’ early perceptions of support and sense of engagement in math classes and math activities strongly influence the broadening or narrowing of their math interest. The focus was on the first wave of qualitative data collected from 5th‐, 7th‐, and 9th‐grade students during the 2007–2008 academic year as part of a longitudinal study. Findings indicate the importance of using group work and extrinsic motivation in middle school math classes to broaden interest; peer classroom behavior was often a detractor of math interest.     

Lessons from Nigeria for improved thinking and working politically in the extractives sector

Despite the wealth that comes from being the biggest oil producer in Africa, Nigeria has some of the worst development indicators in the world. From 2011 to mid‐2016, the DFID‐funded Facility for Oil Sector Transparency and Reform (FOSTER) programme's unique design aimed to reduce incentives for the capture of oil revenue by elites and international oil companies, restoring the potential of those revenues to accelerate economic and social development. This article asks what lessons FOSTER's successes and failures offer for improved “thinking and working politically” (TWP). It examines the outcomes from five “clusters” of interventions: three viewed by the FOSTER team as successes and two as failures. The article identifies factors for successful TWP‐based programming, including the need for local ownership rooted in staff with a combination of technical expertise, a deep knowledge of the local political context and excellent networking abilities. The research used a qualitative and inductive approach. Field research was undertaken with 44 semi‐structured qualitative interviews during one month of fieldwork in Abuja and Lagos. The research also included reviews of FOSTER's internal documentation and evaluation frameworks, as well as analysis of newspaper articles and grey literature on the oil sector in Nigeria. The project offers important lessons for politically informed programming about how interventions were implemented (process), what was actually done (content) and how the project responded to changes in context that created or blocked opportunities for reform (responsiveness). The article identifies factors for successful TWP‐based programming, including the need for local ownership rooted in staff with a combination of technical expertise, a deep knowledge of the local political context and excellent networking abilities. The findings have important implications for programme design. They demonstrate the value of built‐in flexibility that allows staff to choose and switch the partners they work with and the channels they work through. They also show that a key aspect of TWP‐based programming is implicit acceptance that some failure may be unavoidable, since this permits staff to balance risk against opportunities. Finally, a better understanding of FOSTER's failures reveals the challenges of a TWP‐based approach and the trade‐offs it demands.     

‘Risky Places?’: Mapping Gambling Machine Density and Socio-Economic Deprivation

The aims of this project were to map the location and density of gambling machines in Britain; to explore whether geographic areas with higher densities of machines exist and to examine the socio-economic characteristics of these areas relative to others. Using geospatial analysis of premises records, we identified 8861 Machine Zones which were areas with a 400 meter radius around gambling machine venue and 384 High Density Machine Zones (HDMZ) with 1 or more gambling machine per hectare. There was a significant correlation between machine density and socio-economic deprivation. HDMZs had greater levels of income deprivation, more economically inactive people and a younger age profile than other areas; 37 % of those living in HDMZs were economically inactive compared with 33 % of those in non-machine areas. HDMZs were in seaside locations but also New Towns or satellite towns to major urban areas. Area affluence explains some of this pattern; of the New Towns with HDMZs, 78 % were in New Towns with a high proportion of low income areas. We therefore concluded that the distribution of gambling machines in Great Britain, in line with other international jurisdictions, displays a significant association with areas of socio-economic deprivation. The profile of the resident population living in HDMZs mirrors the profile of those most at-risk of experiencing harm from gambling. This spatial pattern has important implications for assessing the relationship between gambling availability and gambling-related harm, and for the future development of policy, harm-prevention and treatment strategies.