Introduction to Innovation WITHIN and ACROSS Borders: A Review and Future Directions

Innovation is an integral part of every firm's ongoing operations. While new product and service creation is an essential task to ensure a firm's immediate success in the marketplace, process and supply chain innovations can also create a unique source of competitive advantage for the future. Encouraging innovative thinking, developing new innovations, and managing the processes by which those innovations are developed are critical aspects of today's firm. Consequently, research which aids in the creation and maintenance of innovative firms is an important topic of inquiry for research communities on innovation management, including the operations management and information systems communities. We review the literature in this important area and offer suggestions for future research on the following topics: innovation within a firm and across the supply chain, technology management, and new product and service development.     

The Search for Fuller Mutuality and Self Experiences in a Women's Psychotherapy Group

This article examines the reconnection experience of four women, mutually sharing their feelings, thoughts, and implicit relational knowing of each other within the group treatment setting. Initially, Carol, Marcia, Helen, and Nancy were in a six-month psychotherapy group, describing and recounting their histories and life narratives of rape, abuse, neglect, and generally traumatic childhoods. Four years later, they met again, just to see how everyone was doing. The social worker hired a camera-woman to film the five hours of this re-engaging group process. What emerged was a dynamic example of intersubjectivity, affect attunement, emotional regulation, and the power of mutuality and intrinsic responsiveness.     

Rules or No Rules? Three Strategies for Engagement with Young People in Mandated Services

A qualitative study of 61 youth receiving mandated services (child welfare, mental health, probation) or services where there were no alternatives (residential care for homeless youth) explored worker-client relationships from the perspective of young people themselves. Findings suggest three different but related roles played by workers that successfully engage adolescent clients: (1) “Informal supporters” de-professionalize their role and flatten hierarchies, emphasizing empathy and enforcing few rules; (2) “Administrators” enforce rules that are in the child’s best interest but do so with little emotional engagement; and (3) “Caregivers” who hold reasonable expectations and impose structures but are flexible in their negotiations with youth when rules were broken. While youth spoke most positively about their workers when they acted as informal supporters, a deeper analysis of the data showed that youth also engaged well with workers who enforced rules when those rules were necessary for the child’s safety, applied flexibly, age-appropriate, and fit with cultural norms. Use of all three approaches to youth engagement may help workers create better therapeutic relationships with youth receiving mandated services.     

Family-of-origin and service-member resilience

ABSTRACT

Military research on family resilience has not examined the contribution of family-of-origin to resilience of service-members. In this study, researchers investigated the extent to which predeployed service-members’ perception of resilience was related to characteristics of family-of-origin. The sample consisted of 344 U.S. Army soldiers within 6 months of deployment to Afghanistan, contacted through their units and invited to participate. Soldiers completed a survey of perceived resilience, family-of-origin and immediate family variables, and social support. Data were also collected on age, income, ethnicity, number of deployments, and relationship status. Regression analyses were conducted to explain variation in service-member resilience scores. Sample demographics were compared with the active duty soldier population and correlations among the key family-of-origin and social support variables were reported. Family-of-origin satisfaction was moderately related to service-member resilience for the full sample (β = .176, p = .001) and married sample (β = .260, p = .000). It was weakly related in the unmarried sample (β = .147, p = .226). Family social support explained the most variation in resilience across all samples. Study limitations and guidelines and resources for social work practice, education, and research to strengthen family-of-origin and service-member resilience are provided.     

Navigating rough waters: an overview of psychological aspects of surrogacy

This article provides an overview of the social and psychological aspects surrounding the surrogacy process including attitudes about surrogacy, perceptions and problems of surrogate mothers and intended/social parents, and questions concerning children resulting from contractual parenting. Review of the literature on contractual parenting reveals a wealth of discussion about the ethical, moral, legal, and psychological implications, but limited empirical data on the psychological and social aspects. Future research can provide empirical evidence as a foundation for counseling at all phases of the surrogacy process .     

Reflections on the academic job search in sociology

Although a variety of resources exist to aid social scientists, in general, in their aca-demic job pursuits, almost no resources detail this process specifically for sociolo-gists. This research aims to provide a review of the literature on the academic job market and to provide a sociological analysis of the job searching process in sociology. We report and analyze the experiences of five sociologists as they moved from graduate school, post-doctoral fellowships, an applied research position, and a non-tenure track teaching position to assistant professor positions. We detail the importance of impression management and self-presentation throughout this process (by job candidates, departments, and administrators), the resources provided by the American Sociological Association that exist to aid job candidates, and we suggest implications of the current organization of the sociology job market.     

The impact of high-calorie-expenditure exercise on quality of life in older adults with coronary heart disease

The acceptability of a high-calorie-expenditure (HCE) exercise program in older coronary heart disease patients participating in a behavioral weight-control program was evaluated. Seventy-four overweight patients (median age 63 yr) were randomly assigned to a 5-mo intervention of HCE exercise (3,000-3,500 kcal/wk daily walking) or standard cardiac-rehabilitation (CR) exercise (700-800 kcal/wk). Both groups received counseling to achieve a dietary caloric deficit of 3,500 kcal/ wk. Assessments at baseline and 5 mo included self-reported measures of quality of life and psychosocial variables. The HCE group experienced significantly greater weight loss (8.2 ± 4 vs. 3.7 ± 5 kg, p < .001). Changes from baseline to 5 mo on scores of physical, emotional, and social functioning were greater for the HCE than CR group (p < .05). HCE exercise also resulted in greater positive change in exercise enjoyment (p = .05), which was mediated by weight change. Even high-risk older adults can be successful in an HCE exercise program and experience no adverse physical or emotional changes.