Informal Mentoring at Work: A Review and Suggestions for Future Research

This paper reviews the literature on informal mentoring at work. Based on two basic premises of interpersonal relationships, it discusses four promising areas in current mentoring research that could be cultivated further by future research. The first premise that we hold is that relationships never exist in a vacuum. Traditionally, however, mentoring literature has often overlooked the context of mentoring. We propose that the developmental network approach can be further extended to gather more insight into the interplay between mentoring dyads and their context. Also, mentoring literature could pay more attention to temporal influences in mentoring studies. The second premise that is applied is that relationships are not only instrumental in nature. However, mentoring research to date has mostly applied a one‐sided and transactional view to mentoring. Relational mentoring theory could be helpful in examining relational motivations of both members. Also, mentoring literature can achieve more explanatory power by examining the underlying mechanisms of mentoring, next to social exchange principles, that cause these developmental changes. In summary, in each of these four research areas, we identify and discuss fundamental questions and developments in research that can advance mentoring theory and practice.     

Continuous covariate frailty models for censored and truncated clustered data

Using some logarithmic and integral transformation we transform a continuous covariate frailty model into a polynomial regression model with a random effect. The responses of this mixed model can be ‘estimated’ via conditional hazard function estimation. The random error in this model does not have zero mean and its variance is not constant along the covariate and, consequently, these two quantities have to be estimated. Since the asymptotic expression for the bias is complicated, the two-large-bandwidth trick is proposed to estimate the bias. The proposed transformation is very useful for clustered incomplete data subject to left truncation and right censoring (and for complex clustered data in general). Indeed, in this case no standard software is available to fit the frailty model, whereas for the transformed model standard software for mixed models can be used for estimating the unknown parameters in the original frailty model. A small simulation study illustrates the good behavior of the proposed method. This method is applied to a bladder cancer data set.     

A General Class of Nonparametric Models for Ordinal Categorical Data

This paper presents a general class of models for ordinal categorical data that can be specified by means of linear and/or log-linear equality and/or inequality restrictions on the (conditional) probabilities of a multiway contingency table. Some special cases are models with ordered local odds ratios, models with ordered cumulative response probabilities, order-restricted row association and column association models, and models for stochastically ordered marginal distributions. A simple unidimensional Newton algorithm is proposed for obtaining the restricted maximum-likelihood estimates. In situations in which there is some kind of missing data, this algorithm can be implemented in the M step of an EM algorithm. Computation of p-values of testing statistics is performed by means of parametric bootstrapping.     

Positive class compromise in globalized production? The Freedom of Association Protocol in the Indonesian sportswear industry

This article investigates the role of voluntary initiatives (VIs) as nongovernmental systems of labour regulation in global value chains (GVCs). To identify the conditions conducive to a more active role for labour in VIs, the authors apply Wright's (2000) theory of the factors enabling positive class compromise to a VI implemented in the Indonesian sportswear industry and extend it to the more complex realities of GVCs. They conclude that if VIs are to create conditions under which decent work can be strengthened, the involvement of strong local labour organizations is required while producers' and/or buyers' dependence on workers' cooperation acts as a catalyst.     

Karl Heinrich Ulrichs: First Theorist of Erotic Age Orientation

The nomination of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–1895) as the first theorist of homosexuality may be placed in the oblique light of his eligibility for the nomination as the first theorist of erotic age orientation. In Ulrichs’s pamphlets, “man-manly” homosexuality emerged as a particular age orientation, with a subsequent typological breakdown that, importantly, blended gender orientation and age orientation. Into the early 20th century, erotic age orientation remained bound up with the classification and emancipation of what here was demarcated as Urningsliebe. Ulrichs’s pioneering and shifting comments on age eventually fed into his legal model of consenting adults in private. They also provide a starting point for the historical understanding of the trope of “grooming pedophile” as it, arguably, crossfaded with that of the “seducing homosexual” after the latter’s depsychiatricization across the Western world.     

Longevity and Lifespan Variation by Educational Attainment in Spain: 1960–2015

For a long time, studies of socioeconomic gradients in health have limited their attention to between-group comparisons. Yet, ignoring the differences that might exist within groups and focusing on group-specific life expectancy levels and trends alone, one might arrive at overly simplistic conclusions. Using data from the Spanish Encuesta Sociodemográfica and recently released mortality files by the Spanish Statistical Office (INE), this is the first study to simultaneously document (1) the gradient in life expectancy by educational attainment groups, and (2) the inequality in age-at-death distributions within and across those groups for the period between 1960 and 2015 in Spain. Our findings suggest that life expectancy has been increasing for all education groups but particularly among the highly educated. We observe diverging trends in life expectancy, with the differences between the low- and highly educated becoming increasingly large, particularly among men. Concomitantly with increasing disparities across groups, length-of-life inequality has decreased for the population as a whole and for most education groups, and the contribution of the between-group component of inequality to overall inequality has been extremely small. Even if between-group inequality has increased over time, its contribution has been too small to have sizable effects on overall inequality. In addition, our results suggest that education expansion and declining within-group variability might have been the main drivers of overall lifespan inequality reductions. Nevertheless, the diverging trends in longevity and lifespan inequality across education groups represent an important phenomenon whose underlying causes and potential implications should be investigated in detail.     

On the asymptotic normality of functions of uniform spacings

A new proof is given for the asymptotic normality of sum functions of spacings, providing an alternative to the method of Le Cam (1958). The result is obtained under an optimal moment condition. The proof is based on a simple decomposition into a leading term, which is asymptotically normal, and a remainder term, which is shown to be negligible.     

Inequality in Human Development across the Globe

The Human Development Index is the world's most famous indicator of the level of development of societies. A disadvantage of this index is however that only national values are available, whereas within many countries huge subnational variation in development exists. We therefore have developed the Subnational Human Development Index (SHDI), which shows within-country variation in human development across the globe. Covering more than 1,600 regions within 161 countries, the SHDI and its underlying dimension indices provide a 10 times higher resolution picture of human development than previously available. The newly observed within-country variation is particularly strong in low- and middle-developed countries. Education disparities explain most SHDI inequality within low-developed countries, and standard of living differences are most important within the more highly developed ones. Strong convergence forces operating both across and within countries have compensated the inequality enhancing force of population growth. These changes will shape the twenty-first century agenda of scientists and policy-makers concerned with global distributive justice.     

Sexual activity and risk taking in young heterosexual men: The relevance of sexual arousability,mood, and sensation seeking

In this research we explored three aspects of personality relevant to sexual activity and sexual risk taking in heterosexual men. Men with low inhibition of sexual arousal in the face of risk (low SIS2) reported more partners with whom they use no condoms and more lifetime “one night stands.” Men who experience increased sexual interest in states of depression (MSQ) reported more partners in the past year and more one night stands. The disinhibition subscale of the Sensation Seeking Scale was predictive of whether sexual intercourse had occurred in the past 6 months, and also of the number of sexual partners in the past year. A measure of an intention to practice safer sex was strongly related to measures of sexual arousability and inhibition (SIS/SES). We discuss some clear similarities and also some interesting differences with a parallel study of gay men. Individual differences in sexual excitation and inhibition proneness and the relation between mood and sexuality are clearly relevant to high‐risk sexual behavior and should be taken into consideration when designing behavioral interventions.     

Individual Differences in the Effects of Mood on Sexuality: The Revised Mood and Sexuality Questionnaire (MSQ-R)

Previous research using the Mood and Sexuality Questionnaire (MSQ) has revealed substantial variability in how negative mood impacts sexual response and behavior. However, the MSQ does not address differences between desire for solo or partnered sexual activity, examine the effects of sexual activity on mood, or assess the effects of positive mood. This article presents the development and factor structure of the Revised Mood and Sexuality Questionnaire (MSQ-R). An exploratory factor analysis in a sample of heterosexual men, homosexual men, and heterosexual women (N = 1,983) produced eight factors. Considerable variability was found in how moods influence sexual desire and arousal, in the effects of mood on sexual behavior, and in the reciprocal effects of sexual activity on mood. Among other findings, heterosexual women were less likely than heterosexual men and homosexual men to experience increased sexual desire and arousal when anxious or stressed, whereas homosexual men and heterosexual women were less likely than heterosexual men to experience increased desire when sad or depressed. Heterosexual men and heterosexual women were more likely than homosexual men to report increased desire when in a positive mood. Intercorrelations and correlations with various sexual behaviors varied by group. Limitations and implications of the findings are discussed.