Post-Fordism,union strategy and the rhetoric of restructuring: The case of Australia, 1980–1996

Theory and Society -     

Leader political support: Reconsidering leader political behavior

Historically, organizational politics and political leader behavior have been framed and characterized negatively, as self-serving and counter-productive. However, scholars have noted that political acts can achieve positive ends, and have called for further discussions of positive forms of political leadership. Continuing in this recent stream of research on positive perspectives on organizational politics, a framework of leader political support is proposed, suggesting that the positive features of leader political behavior, and testable propositions are developed. The leader political support construct is defined and its antecedents are explicated utilizing a social capital perspective. Additionally, social exchange theory is used to explain the consequences of leader political support. Contributions to both leadership and organizational politics literatures and directions for future research are discussed.     

Locally quadratic log likelihood and data-based transformations

The investigation of multi-parameter likelihood functions is simplified if the log likelihood is quadratic near the maximum, as then normal approximations to the likelihood can be accurately used to obtain quantities such as likelihood regions. This paper proposes that data-based transformations of the parameters can be employed to make the log likelihood more quadratic, and illustrates the method with one of the simplest bivariate likelihoods, the normal two-parameter likelihood.     

A clustering approach to interpretable principal components

A new method for constructing interpretable principal components is proposed. The method first clusters the variables, and then interpretable (sparse) components are constructed from the correlation matrices of the clustered variables. For the first step of the method, a new weighted-variances method for clustering variables is proposed. It reflects the nature of the problem that the interpretable components should maximize the explained variance and thus provide sparse dimension reduction. An important feature of the new clustering procedure is that the optimal number of clusters (and components) can be determined in a non-subjective manner. The new method is illustrated using well-known simulated and real data sets. It clearly outperforms many existing methods for sparse principal component analysis in terms of both explained variance and sparseness.     

Debating Muslims

Michael M.J. Fischer and Mehdi Abedi. Debating Muslims: cultural dialogue in postmodernity and tradition. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. 1990. xxxvi, 564pp., plates, 3 appendices, chronology of events, notes, glossary, bibliography. $36.95 ISBN 0 299 12430 4 (hard), 0 299 12434 7 (paper).     

Monitoring and evaluation in Malawi

When Ian Wilson and Carlos Barahona of the Statistical Services Centre at the University of Reading were asked to review an evaluation of the effectiveness of an aid package in Malawi, they expected a simple enough task. But few things in the developing world are simple. Where aid for the poorest is concerned, is evidence collected and analysed with enough rigour to enable well-informed decisions to be made?     

Changing partners: Northern NGOs,Northern governments

Northern NGOs live with an increasing level of insecurity and change. Governmental pressures to professionalise contribute to bureaucratisation, while inadequate overheads, an outdated project approach and lengthy approval procedures work against professionalism. Although they spend tens of millions of dollars annually through NGOs, few OECD governments have taken evaluation seriously. Northern NGO survival, theorefore, has been largely de-linked from performance. More fundamental is the growing identity crisis that Norther NGOs have in relation to their iincreasingly crisis that Northern NGOs have in relation to their increasingly effective Southern counterparts. Recession and faltering public support have pushed governments into reduced aid budgets and new concepts of accountability, participation and the role of ‘civil society’. Adding to the burden these shifts place on NGOs, many governments now deal directly with Southern NGOs. Many governments have also restricted their matching or ‘responsive’ NGO funding programmes, while providing massive funding increases — on highly favourable terms — for emergency and refugee work. Most OECD governments have also initiated special funds for AIDS, women, democracy and special geographical troublesports, channelling NGOs towards governmental priorities. Some basic principles are proposed for remedying the problems and for treating NGOs as important elements of civil society rather than as delivery mechanisms for governments. The author, who takes full responsibility for all errors, omissions and opinions, is very grateful to Elena Borghese, Tim Brodhead, Sharon Capeling-Alakija, Tim Draimin, Ian Filewod, Anna Foca, Henny Helmich and Terry Mooney for helpful comments on an early draft. An earlier version of the paper appeared in Smillie and Helmich (1993).     

Youth, identity, and homosexuality: the changing shape of sexual life in contemporary Brazil

This essay examines the relationship between homosexuality and adolescence in contemporary Brazil, focusing on a distinction between two rather different systems of sexual meanings that have structured the experience of same-sex relations: a traditional model of the sexual universe that continues to dominate sexual life in rural areas, and a more modern set of notions that has become increasingly important in the cities. It examines the ways in which these rather different systems have affected the experience of same-sex desires and practices during youth or adolescence, and suggests some of the ways in which the emergence of a gay subculture in urban Brazil has transformed the range of sexual possibilities and choices currently available to young men and women.