Approaches used by employee assistance programs to address perpetration of intimate partner violence

Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) are workplace resources available to employees with problems impacting work performance. EAPs are well-positioned to address intimate partner violence (IPV), a major public health problem with workplace impacts. A purposeful sample of 28 EAPs across the United States was surveyed to identify policies and programs to address IPV, including perpetration. Most EAPs did not report having standardized approaches for addressing IPV perpetration. EAPs also described significant barriers to identifying IPV perpetrators, with the majority relying on self-disclosure on the part of the perpetrator when contacting the EAP. These results suggest that many EAPs--even when interacting with employees who present with issues known to correlate with IPV--are missing a potential opportunity to assess and intervene with IPV perpetrators.     

Household structure and housework: assessing the contributions of all household members,with a focus on children and youths

Most research into the division of household domestic labor focuses on couple households, treating other household members such as children/youths and other adults as independent variables affecting the domestic work of husbands and wives. We present an integrated analysis of variance/variance decomposition that summarizes the determinants of the housework contributions of, and the housework burden imposed by, all the individuals in four common household types, with a focus on the contributions of older children and youths. We demonstrate the importance of statistical interactions between the contributions of different household members (distinguished by partnership status, gender, and the ages and genders of children/youths), in particular for those households containing children/youths. We conclude that in order to analyze the contributions of all household members jointly, it is necessary to distinguish different household compositions for separate analysis.     

Social and behavioral skills and the gender gap in early educational achievement

Though many studies have suggested that social and behavioral skills play a central role in gender stratification processes, we know little about the extent to which these skills affect gender gaps in academic achievement. Analyzing data from the Early Child Longitudinal Study-Kindergarten Cohort, we demonstrate that social and behavioral skills have substantively important effects on academic outcomes from kindergarten through fifth grade. Gender differences in the acquisition of these skills, moreover, explain a considerable fraction of the gender gap in academic outcomes during early elementary school. Boys get roughly the same academic return to social and behavioral skills as their female peers, but girls begin school with more advanced social and behavioral skills and their skill advantage grows over time. While part of the effect may reflect an evaluation process that rewards students who better conform to school norms, our results imply that the acquisition of social and behavioral skills enhances learning as well. Our results call for a reconsideration of the family and school-level processes that produce gender gaps in social and behavioral skills and the advantages they confer for academic and later success.     

Family environments and the relationship context of first adolescent sex: Correlates of first sex in a casual versus steady relationship

Limited research has examined how family environments are associated with the relationship context of first sex, an important indicator of reproductive health risk. We use data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to assess the association between the family environment - parent-parent relationships, parent-adolescent relationships, and family structure - and relationship context of first heterosexual sexual intercourse, distinguishing between the transition to first sex in serious and casual relationships. Twenty-five percent of females and 43% of males who had sex by age 18 did so in a casual relationship. All dimensions of the family environment were linked to the relationship context of first sex. Notably, higher parental monitoring was associated with a reduced risk of transitioning to first sex in a casual relationship versus no sex, and greater family routines were associated with a reduced risk of transitioning to sex in a steady relationship versus having no sex, for males and females. A strong maternal-adolescent relationship was associated with a reduced risk of first sex in a casual relationship but only for males. Additionally, in two-parent families, a strong father-adolescent relationship was associated with reduced risk of transitioning to casual sex, but only for females. Pregnancy and STI prevention programs should work with parents to foster positive parent-adolescent relationships, to become aware of their adolescents’ activities and to recognize that parents are important models for adolescent relationship behaviors.     

Social Class and Parenting: Classic Debates and New Understandings

Many scholars pinpoint the family as one of the most important loci of class differences and see parenting in particular as a mechanism for the reinforcement and reproduction of class variation. In this article, the authors explore the role of educational background, occupations, family resources, state surveillance, and culture in explaining how and why parenting practices vary by class backgrounds. The article reviews research that focuses on class‐based cultural norms and values, as well as research that argues that structural conditions and access to resources are more important than culture in influencing parenting norms, beliefs, and outcomes. The authors then discuss recent research that suggests that rather than seeing culture and structure as dichotomous, in fact, culture and structure are intertwined and it is through seeing them as mutually reinforcing factors that we can best make sense of class‐related parenting differences.     

How organizational characteristics affect the adaptive tactics used by human service nonprofit managers confronting financial uncertainty

The way that nonprofits respond to funding uncertainty is crucial to their ability to meet goals and position themselves for future success. This article investigates how structural, managerial, and financial characteristics affect the adaptive tactics used by human service nonprofits during times of financial stress. These tactics include adding new programs, reducing programs or staff, expanding or starting joint programs, pursuing earned income, and expanding advocacy involvement. Using longitudinal data on human service nonprofits collected on either side of the 2002–2003 economic downtown, we find that larger size provides organizations with a unique ability to choose among different adaptive tactics, as larger size was significantly predictive of adding new programs, reducing programs, expanding advocacy, and pursuing earned income. Strategic planning was positively associated with innovative tactics such as starting joint programs or pursuing earned income. Financial stress or declines in an organization's major funding source led to cutbacks, as expected, but managers who foresaw these challenges were able to respond proactively by adding programs or starting joint programs. However, managers with more training did not respond much differently than did other managers, and organizational age and use of performance management tools had no effect in guiding organizational responses to financial uncertainty.     

Consolidated findings from 6 years research on the age-differentiated design of human-computer interaction

The fast aging of many western and eastern societies and their increasing reliance on information technology create a compelling need to reconsider older users' interactions with computers. This paper summarizes the results of 6 years of research on the age-differentiated design of human-computer interaction. The well-known model of human information processing served as the theoretical framework. The model components 'sensory processing', 'perception', 'working memory', 'decision and response selection' and 'response execution' were analyzed exemplarily in task settings on project management. In seven empirical studies with a total number of 405 participants between 20 and 77 years the human-computer interaction was analyzed regarding effectiveness, efficiency and user satisfaction. For most but not all studies the results reveal that age-induced differences in human-computer interaction can best be compensated by an ergonomic 'design for all'. In some cases however an age-specific approach is favorable.     

Planning for retail change: a survey of municipal governments in Washington State

Effectively managing retail is essential for municipalities in terms of meeting land use planning goals, developing revenue sources through taxation, furthering economic growth and providing access to goods and services for residents. In 2013, a survey was conducted to examine the retail planning practices of all the 110 small- and medium-sized municipalities in Washington State. The online survey addressed data collection and analysis, land use, retail recruitment, inter-jurisdictional cooperation and evaluation. A large majority of respondents had retail planning goals in their comprehensive plans, yet only 30% dedicated staff for implementation. Jurisdictions would benefit from regional retail planning (especially in light of changes underway from e-commerce), yet the state tax structure places municipalities in competition.     

Coordination in a Single‐Supplier,Multi‐Retailer Distribution System: Supplier‐Facilitated Transshipments

We consider supplier‐facilitated transshipments for achieving supply chain coordination in a single supplier, multi‐retailer distribution system with non‐cooperative retailers. The previous transshipment literature has focused on coordination through retailer‐negotiated transshipments and thus does not consider the supplier's decision‐making. In contrast, in this study, we assume the supplier is an active participant in the system and we seek to understand how the supplier can facilitate the implementation of coordinating transshipments. We study a two‐period model with wholesale orders at the start of the first period and preventive transshipments performed at the start of the second period. Inspired by a supplier‐facilitated transshipment scheme observed in practice, we assume the supplier implements transshipments through a bi‐directional adjustment contract. Under this contract, each retailer can either buy additional inventory from, or sell back excess inventory to, the supplier. We show that coordination can be achieved through carefully designed contracts with state‐dependent adjustment prices and a wholesale price menu. We demonstrate that the supplier's role in facilitating coordinating transshipments is critical. In addition, we use our understanding of the coordinating contract form to derive some simpler and easier‐to‐implement heuristic contracts. We use a numerical study to demonstrate the value, to the supplier, of using the coordinating adjustment and wholesale prices, and to evaluate the heuristics’ performance.