Testing the Expectancy Disconfirmation Model of Citizen Satisfaction with Local Government

It is important for public administration researchers and practitionersto understand how citizens form satisfaction judgments regardinglocal government services. A prior study by Van Ryzin (2004)found strong support for an expectancy disconfirmation modelof citizen satisfaction, which focuses on the gap between performanceand expectations. This model has been tested for decades instudies of private sector customer satisfaction, yet it is littleknown and applied in the field of public administration. Thepresent study seeks to replicate the Van Ryzin (2004) results,which were based on a telephone survey in New York City, usinga nationwide sample and a much different survey methodology,namely, an online, self-administered survey of a national panel.In addition, this study tests the sensitivity of the resultsto two alternative measures of disconfirmation (or the gap betweenperformance and expectations). Results using subtractive disconfirmationconfirm the basic expectancy disconfirmation model, but resultsusing perceived disconfirmation do not, calling into questionthe policy and management implications of the prior study.     

REREADING UNDECLARED WORK

The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether undeclared work is the same when conducted by men and women. Conventionally, the view is that such work is always profit-motivated market-like work and that women's undeclared work mirrors their subjugated position in the formal labour market in terms of pay, contract type and sector. Reporting evidence gathered during 861 face-to-face interviews in contemporary England, this paper finds that to represent undeclared work as a profit-motivated market-like endeavour is to read such work through the lens of men's accounts of such work. For women, although some undeclared work is of this variety, the vast majority is conducted for friends, neighbours and kin for reasons associated with redistribution and social capital building and thus more akin to unpaid mutual aid than employment. To unshackle narratives of undeclared work from current market-centred readings, therefore, this paper differentiates between profit-motivated market-like informal employment and undeclared work carried out in a moral economy of paid favours so as to unravel the nature of men's and women's participation in this sphere and explore the implications for understanding women's community engagement.     

Second-order refined peaks-over-threshold modelling for heavy-tailed distributions

Modelling excesses over a high threshold using the Pareto or generalized Pareto distribution (PD/GPD) is the most popular approach in extreme value statistics. This method typically requires high thresholds in order for the (G)PD to fit well and in such a case applies only to a small upper fraction of the data. The extension of the (G)PD proposed in this paper is able to describe the excess distribution for lower thresholds in case of heavy-tailed distributions. This yields a statistical model that can be fitted to a larger portion of the data. Moreover, estimates of tail parameters display stability for a larger range of thresholds. Our findings are supported by asymptotic results, simulations and a case study.     

Justice for whom?: Assessing humanist criminology as a catalyst for change in the criminal justice apparatus

Humanist perspectives on criminology incorporate the role of the state in affecting basic justice processes. Separate scholarly work by Alfred McClung Lee, Richard Quinney, and others set the stage for viable alternatives embodied in peacemaking and restorative justice. Tie-ins between critical humanist criminology critiques, basic sociology views toward society, and current developments in alternative justice models are assessed. An evaluation of how humanist criminology has transformed conceptions of community participation (as stressed in the original humanist sociology perspective) will serve as an integral analysis in assessing the impact of social justice models.     

Pooling states in the multinomial logit model: degrees of freedom. A correction

Received: October 4, 2000     

Training foster carers in challenging behaviour: a case study in disappointment?

This paper sets out key features of a semi‐experimental investigation conducted between March 1999 and April 2001 into the impact of training foster carers in techniques to manage challenging behaviour. We identified a sample of children (n = 103) in foster care in four authorities in South Wales who were selected by a checklist as showing behaviours that could be defined as challenging. From this search procedure we identified their foster carers (n = 106) and created a training intervention group for 53 carers looking after 49 children and a non‐intervention comparison group of 53 carers looking after 54 children. Both groups of carers were interviewed using a range of measures before and after the delivery of the training in order to identify any changes they perceived in the conduct of children and changes they perceived in their own capacities as carers. The training was delivered in small groups and evaluative feedback was gathered from carers and from training officers in those agencies that participated in the study. The results suggested that training, as designed and delivered in this study, had limited impact on child conduct and carer capacity. The reasons for this are discussed in light of selected findings. We spend some time on describing our methods in order to expose our approach to the critical scrutiny of readers, whose views would be welcome as we make our future research plans in this field.     

Across the border: immigrants' economic opportunities,social capital and informal business activities

"In this article, we [explore] the relationship between informal economic activities and recent immigrants in the Netherlands.... We will give an overview of important trends on both the demand and the supply side of entrepreneurial activities in the informal economy. We argue that the potential for informal economic activities by immigrants in large Dutch cities has been growing since the early 1980s. After having outlined this analytical framework, we examine some recent evidence on informal economic activities by immigrants in the Netherlands, especially in the bakeries sector, before concluding the discussion."