Culture and leadership: women in nonprofit and for-profit leadership positions within the European Union

Research has shown that women commonly hold positions of leadership within nonprofit organizations, while men typically hold the leadership positions within for-profit organizations. However, little research on women's leadership roles has been conducted within European Union countries. The purpose of this article is to examine women's leadership positions within nonprofit and for-profit organizations within the European Union and, using Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory, to further investigate a potential correlation between national culture and female leadership. Fifty-one companies were examined based on type, country characteristics and gender dominance. A significant difference was found between organization type (nonprofit/for-profit) and organizational dominance (masculine/feminine). The findings suggest that the European Union has patterns of gendered leadership positions similar to patterns found previously in the USA. However, countries that were characterized as feminine had more than expected nonprofit organizations, while masculine countries had more for-profit organizations.     

Mapping the literature on child marriage: A critical engagement

U.S. “child marriage”—marriage including at least one person under the age of 18—is legal and practiced in 44 states. In this article, I map the existing literature on child marriage and offer insights on how child marriage can expand our sociological understandings of marriage, gender inequality, and youth sexualities. Social scientists have almost exclusively focused on child marriage in the Global South at the expense of understanding child marriage in the Global North, which I argue reinforces racist and xenophobic narratives that cast child marriage as a non-Western social problem. The research on U.S. child marriage that does exist focuses on the consequences, rather than the causes, of child marriage, which may shift focus away from a structural understanding of how intersecting inequalities shape girls' likelihood of getting married as minors. I position a sociology of U.S. child marriage at the intersection of sociological understandings of marriage and gender inequality and critical research on youth sexualities. I conclude by calling for intersectional research on U.S. child marriage that builds on these literatures, examining how girls' sexualities are racialized, gendered, and classed within the institution of marriage.     

METHODS FOR QUANTIFYING SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITIES AND MULTI-ATTRIBUTE UTILITIES*†

In many situations where normative decision-aiding techniques could be usefully applied, historical data are inadequate for estimating the required outcome probabilities, and economic methodologies are inadequate for estimating the aggregate utility derived from the several outcome attributes. In such cases it is often useful to obtain the required estimates in the form of expert judgments, i.e. to obtain subjective probabilities and multi-attribute utilities. Similarly, in many situations where behavioral decision processes are to be studied, it is necessary to scale the expectations and perceived values of the decision makers. This article describes the methods for eliciting subjective probabilities and multi-attribute utilities whose usefulness has been empirically studied and reported in the research literature. It also contains summary guidelines concerning the elicitation and use of such judgments.     

Lenski Effects on Sex Stratification Theory

This paper tries to explain why the Lenski (1970) theory of stratification based on ecology and subsistence technology had relatively little effect on theories of sex inequality. In cultural anthropology, generalization was held to be impossible. Feminist explanation in sociology was social-psychological. Moreover, by the 1980s, the bias against biology in feminist theory came to include all of science. Exceptions to these trends include the work of Blumberg, Chafetz, Collins, Coltrane, and Turner. Whether feminist sociologists will follow their lead remains to be seen.     

Smoking and Membership in a Fraternity or Sorority: A Systematic Review of the Literature

Abstract

Objective: Fraternity and sorority members have higher rates of smoking than other college students. This systematic review examines studies that included fraternity/sorority membership in their investigation of smoking behaviors. Participants/Methods: Studies identified in MEDLINE, PsychInfo, JSTOR, CINAHL, ERIC, and Google Scholar published between 2003 and 2013 were included if they included fraternity and/or sorority membership, were written in English, published in a peer-reviewed journal, and had smoking as an outcome variable. Nineteen studies were identified for the review. Results: Fraternity/sorority members were more likely to be nondaily smokers. Members who lived in the fraternity/sorority house had higher rates of smoking than members who lived elsewhere. Fraternity/sorority member smoking was associated with alcohol and other substance use. The influence of no-smoking policies on fraternity/sorority member smoking was also examined. Conclusions: Fraternity/sorority membership was associated with higher rates of smoking, but this association was influenced by other substance use and environmental factors.     

Academy of Human Resource Development

Abstract

This non-refereed contribution to Human Resource Development International represents the reflections of three US delegates who attended the 6th International Conference on HRD Research and Practice across Europe in Leeds, England, in May 2005. We begin by providing an overview of the conference programme, examine the conference theme as reflected in the scholarship presented at the conference and share our impressions of the conference atmosphere. We conclude with some final thoughts.     

Tracing the legacy of Anita Hill: The Thomas/Hill hearings and media coverage of sexual harassment

Many anecdotal accounts suggest that the Clarence Thomas/Anita Hill hearings had an important effect on the politics of sexual harassment allegations. This research examines one part of this phenomenon, reporting the results of content analysis of articles published in major newspapers the month after reports of allegations against Bob packwood and Bill Clinton. Our data analysis provides a preliminary look at the continued significance of the Hill/Thomas case today and how it affects public discourse about sexual harassment, providing strong evidence that Anita Hill has indeed found a place in modern American political history as a symbol for the sexual harassment issue. Clearly, the hearings have significantly impacted the ways in which the media and the public view allegations of sexual harassment brought against political figures. She is currently serving as a 2000–2001 APSA Congressional Fellow.     

A comparison of subgroup identification methods in clinical drug development: Simulation study and regulatory considerations

With advancement of technologies such as genomic sequencing, predictive biomarkers have become a useful tool for the development of personalized medicine. Predictive biomarkers can be used to select subsets of patients, which are most likely to benefit from a treatment. A number of approaches for subgroup identification were proposed over the last years. Although overviews of subgroup identification methods are available, systematic comparisons of their performance in simulation studies are rare. Interaction trees (IT), model‐based recursive partitioning, subgroup identification based on differential effect, simultaneous threshold interaction modeling algorithm (STIMA), and adaptive refinement by directed peeling were proposed for subgroup identification. We compared these methods in a simulation study using a structured approach. In order to identify a target population for subsequent trials, a selection of the identified subgroups is needed. Therefore, we propose a subgroup criterion leading to a target subgroup consisting of the identified subgroups with an estimated treatment difference no less than a pre‐specified threshold. In our simulation study, we evaluated these methods by considering measures for binary classification, like sensitivity and specificity. In settings with large effects or huge sample sizes, most methods perform well. For more realistic settings in drug development involving data from a single trial only, however, none of the methods seems suitable for selecting a target population. Using the subgroup criterion as alternative to the proposed pruning procedures, STIMA and IT can improve their performance in some settings. The methods and the subgroup criterion are illustrated by an application in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.     

A Year Then Forever: Personal Resolution Making and the Temporal Bridge of the Near Future

Based on in-depth interviews and drawing exercises with 25 resolution makers, this paper explores the use of time in structuring and enacting improvement projects of the self. Resolutions are intentional, identity-laden moments when people bring the future into the present. They provide a window into the identity work of the “near future”—an underresearched but fascinating site where individuals transition between what they see as an immediate, controllable future to a more distant one that is less certain. In attempt to mitigate the emotionally and cognitively daunting prospects of the distant future, resolution makers enlist time as a form of capital, constructing the “temporal bridge” of the near future by engaging in three interrelated processes: structuring and remembering, being flexible, and maintaining optimism.     

Institutions and Policies for Pro‐poor Agricultural Growth

Global experience with pro‐poor growth and empirical work spanning India, Malawi and Zimbabwe demonstrates the importance of agricultural growth for poverty reduction in poor rural areas, while also pointing to the need for complementary non‐farm sector growth. Theoretical arguments, historical evidence and livelihoods modelling in poor medium‐potential rural economies suggest that, contrary to thinking dominating much of current development policy, subsidies to relieve critical seasonal credit and cash restraints and reduce market and input supply uncertainties need to help in ‘kick‐starting’ agricultural markets if increased smallholder productivity in food‐grains is to drive rural non‐farm growth. Establishing the base conditions for these to work, designing and implementing them to be effective, and then phasing them out are major challenges facing policymakers.