Social work ethics and children: Protection versus empowerment

Evidence indicates that a growing proportion of children and adolescents experience traditional child protective services as intrusive, oppressive, and even exploitive. Professionals tend to deny the reality that youngsters experience, project their own perceptions and vulnerabilities onto youngsters, and refuse to recognize the ability and right of youngsters to control their own lives. Empowerment of minors is an ethical obligation of the social work profession and the only true protection from abuse and neglect.     

The Work and Family Researchers Network: an organizational and intellectual agenda

This essay outlines the organizational form and programmatic goals of the Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN). This international membership organization aspires to bring together researchers and scholars from a range of academic disciplines as well as policy makers and practitioners. A brief sketch of the structure of the WFRN emphasizes its marriage of virtual and face-to-face communities. A sketch of the intellectual domain of work and family research maps this field with respect to basic social science and applied concerns. I suggest that the preoccupations of this field of inquiry are not marginal but rather occupy intellectually central space in several disciplines. Moreover, the policy questions of interest to work and family researchers are numerous and noteworthy, as they pertain to different stages of the life course and individuals facing a wide array of work and family interactions. Work and family research is interdisciplinary, based on the extensive cross-disciplinary citation patterns that are already well established in this area. WFRN can nonetheless play a role in facilitating communication and fostering collaborations. The essay ends with a brief note about opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.     

The LivePerson Model for Delivery of Etherapy Services: A Case Study

ABSTRACT

There are several models for the delivery of etherapy on the Internet. This article presents a case study of one model, the LivePerson website. The model is based on a privately owned infrastructure through which etherapy is practiced by licensed counselors using chat or e-mail for service delivery. A content analysis of the website is presented, including policies, number of consumers, consumer ratings, and therapists’ degrees, licensure, age, sex, race, fees, and languages offered. In addition, the experiences of one LivePerson practitioner are presented to highlight methods, processes, and ethical concerns. This case study of the LivePerson model for service delivery highlights many of the benefits and concerns previously discussed in the literature related to etherapy. In addition, concerns are raised that there may be some conflict of interest when ethical standards of practice are delivered within the context of a profit-making company.     

The sexual inhibition (SIS) and sexual excitation (SES) scales: I. Measuring sexual inhibition and excitation proneness in men

This study involves the development and initial validation of a questionnaire measuring the propensity for sexual inhibition and excitation in men: the Sexual Inhibition & Sexual Excitation Scales (SIS/SES). The underlying theoretical model postulates that sexual response and associated behavior depend on dual control mechanisms, involving excitatory and inhibitory neurophysiological systems. The scales and their discriminant and convergent validity and test‐retest reliability are described. In a sample of 408 sexually functional men (mean age = 22.8 years), factor analyses identified three higher‐level factors: two related to sexual inhibition and one to sexual excitation. Multigroup Confirmatory Factor Analyses revealed that the factor structure provided an acceptable fit to the data obtained in a second (N = 459; mean age = 20.9 years) and third (N = 313; mean age = 46.2 years) sample of men, with similar distributions and relationships with other measures. Theoretical issues and areas for further research, including male sexual dysfunction and risk taking, are discussed.     

Confidence intervals for n in the exponential order statistics problem

A simplified proof of the basic properties of the estimators in the Exponential Order Statistics (Jelinski-Moranda) Model is given. The method of constructing confidence intervals from hypothesis tests is applied to find conservative confidence intervals for the unknown parameters in the model.     

Subordinate Participation in Audit Budgeting Decisions: A Comparison of Decisions Influenced by Organizational Factors to Decisions Conforming with the Vroom-Jago Model*

This study examines the role of subordinate participation in the effectiveness of audit hours budget decisions in accounting firms. The study compares decisions influenced by organizational factors (such as organizational policies or the preferences of the superior) to decisions that conform to the Vroom-Jago (VJ) model. Our results indicate that actual level of participation used in budget decisions appears to be based primarily on perceived preferences of superiors and participation styles available under the circumstancesof the individual audit. However, results also indicate that decisions consistent with the Vroom-Jago model are characterized by higher decision quality and increased subordinatedevelopment. Since managers are apparently reluctant to use decision styles that conflictwith organizational factors, accounting firms may wish to gather information regarding the attributes of the decision context and use the VJ model to establish their available decision styles and determine the preferences of superiors. Doing so has the advantage of considering decision-specific attributes while enhancing the probability of manager compliance with a desired decision style.