Work, family, and managerial attitudes and practices in the European workplace: comparing Dutch, British, and Slovenian financial sector managers

Managers are key actors shaping employees’ capabilities to utilize work–life policies. However, most research on managers’ implementation of these policies has been conducted in liberal welfare states and ignores the impact of institutional context. In this study, we situate managers within specific workplace and national layers of context. We investigated how managers in financial organizations in the Netherlands, UK, and Slovenia talk about the utilization of work–life policies. Managers’ discourses stressed disruption and dependency considerations in these case studies, as in the US research. However, a further management discourse of the moral case or right thing to do also emerged. The lack of resources for replacing staff on leave creates disruption and reduces managers capability to support the use of work–life policies, even when they are statutory or if managers are inclined be supportive (dependency or moral argument). This is likely to impact on parents' capabilities.     

用于研究细胞入侵的基质降解实验

在细胞正常发育、发炎和肿瘤转移研究中有一个关键步骤,就是通过多层的细胞外基质入侵细胞。在传统的研究方法中,研究者们已经发展了自己的检测方法,就是利用荧光标记的凝胶来研究基质降解,其中伴随着细胞的入侵。这篇文章探索了研究细胞入侵的新方法,能得到比传统方法更一致的结果。研究者们利用这些方法来研究降解时间过程,扫描在降解过程中潜在的活化剂或者抑制剂,探索细胞入侵的通道。     

The effects of management practices on union election returns

This paper examines the importance of management suppression tactics on union activity in the United States. NLRB data on individual certification elections which have recently become available for the period 1972–1976 are merged with structural, demographic, and industry characteristics of the 96 largest SMSAs to ascertain the role of strategy versus structure in explaining union outcomes. The measures of election-generated membership outcomes are voter participation, the margin of pro-union votes, and union wins. Union suppression practices under study include consent elections, election delays, formal objections after unions win a certification election, elections overruled because of management unfair labor practices, elections held by management petition, and the number of unfair labor practice charges per representation election. Five of the six measures of suppression are significant determinants of some facet of union expansion after adjusting for structural characteristics of the area work force.     

Elderly Jews and happiness with locale

This study analyzes neighborhood attachment and satisfaction within the foundations of preference theory—that is, utility analysis. This framework considers an individual's utility function, a construct that relates attachment and satisfaction to the consumption of goods and services. We demonstrate that utility functions can help to predict the individual's bond to the neighborhood. The sample population includes 268 elderly Jews residing in the Baltimore metropolitan area. Bonds to place increase with increasing age. Bonds decrease when residents perceive the neighborhood to be unsafe during the day. The percentage of Blacks is a significant predictor of bonds to place.Requests for reprints should be addressed to Allen C. Goodman, Center for Metropolitan Planning and Research, Shriver Hall, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21218.This paper was presented at the annual meeting of the American Psychological Association on August 26, 1982, in Washington, D.C. This research was supported in part by a contract from Associated Jewish Charities and Welfare Fund, Incorporated, of Baltimore, Maryland, but the results and conclusions do not represent the opinions of AJC. The authors thank Sally Shumaker for her helpful comments.     

Cross‐Task Stability in Infant Attention: New Perspectives Using the Still‐Face Procedure

Infant visual attention has been studied extensively within cognitive paradigms using measures such as look duration and reaction time, but less work has examined how infant attention operates in social contexts. In addition, little is known about the stability of individual differences in attention across cognitive and social contexts. In this study, a cross‐sectional sample of 50 infants (4 and 6 months of age) were first tested in a look duration and reaction time task with static visual stimuli. Next, their mothers participated with the infants in the still‐face procedure, a mildly distressing social interaction paradigm that involves violation of expectancy. Individual differences in looking and emotion were stable across the phases of the still‐face task. Further, individual differences in looking measures from the visual attention task were related to the pattern of looking shown across the phases of the still‐face procedure. Results indicate that individual differences in attentional measures show moderate stability within cognitive and social contexts, and that the ability of infants to shift and disengage looks may affect their ability to regulate interaction in social contexts.     

Extreme values in the dock

On 9th September 1980 the bulk carrier M. V. Derbyshire sank in the Pacific Ocean, around 350 miles south-east of Japan, when she was caught in Typhoon Orchid while transporting iron ore from Canada to Japan. All 44 people on board died. Janet Heffernan and Jonathan Tawn describe their involvement as statistical expert witnesses in the Investigation of the sinking and their experience of giving evidence in court, outlining their statistical analysis which provided new insight into the circumstances surrounding the loss of the ship.     

Prenatal Cardiac Function and Postnatal Cognitive Development: An Exploratory Study

Fetal cardiac function was measured at 24, 30, and 36 weeks gestation and quantified in terms of heart rate, variability, and episodic accelerations. Children's representational capacity was evaluated at 27 months in terms of language and play. Thirty‐ and 36‐wcek‐old fetuses that displayed greater heart‐rate variability and more episodic accelerations, and fetuses that exhibited a more precipitous increase in heart‐rate variability and acceleration over gestation achieved higher levels of language competence. Thirty‐six‐week‐old fetuses with higher heart‐rate variability and accelerations, and steeper growth trajectories over gestation, achieved higher levels of symbolic play. Cardiac patterning during gestation may reflect an underlying neural substrate that persists through early childhood: Individual variation in rate of development could be stable, or efficient cardiac function could positively influence the underlying neural substrate to enhance cognitive performance.     

JOB VALUES, REWARDS, AND WORK CONDITIONS AS FACTORS IN JOB SATISFACTION AMONG MEN AND WOMEN

Sex differences in job satisfaction are explored utilizing data from the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) General Social Surveys, 1974–1982. Theoretically, differences in job satisfaction are accounted for by job rewards, job values, work conditions, and individual attributes. This study confirms that women receive significantly fewer job rewards than men, have significantly different job conditions, and possess slightly different work values. However, there is no difference in job satisfaction between women and men. As a consequence, these factors may not affect levels of job satisfaction, or men's and women's job satisfaction may be determined by different determinants. Alternatively, the relative level of these factors compared to one's past or expected levels may be more important than absolute levels. The multiple regression analyses reveal that similar determinants influence women's and men's job satisfaction, but that the determinants operate differently. Age and occupational prestige were significant predictors in both full models. Moreover, for both men and women a sense that one's personal situation is improving is more important than concrete rewards.     

Mergers and Acquisitions in the Private Sector: What Are the Lessons for Health and Social Services?

In seeking a more seamless provision of health and social care, the government is promoting the merger of the functions of primary and community health services and social services. In the private sector, mergers have been commonplace. The primary aim of this paper is to identify the key concepts and explanatory frameworks in the literature on mergers and acquisitions in the private sector that are relevant to the development of new organizational structures in health and social care. The evidence suggests that it is difficult to merge two organizations successfully. Reasons for this are explored and the implications for health and social care mergers drawn out.