Organizational Change in Intrusive and Non-intrusive Environments

This article discusses the importance of environments for managers’ successful introduction of a new management technique. Two empirical examples illustrate the interrelatedness of external and internal environments and its consequences for the propensity of organizations to accept and implement managerial propositions. It is suggested that an intrusive external environment, which clearly relates to generally accepted facts, facilitates managerial action and makes organizations change prone. Mangers, who seek to forestall future environmental problems, in contrast, seem likely to meet with a hostile and conservative internal environment. In both instances managers depend on the social construction of the external environment of their organizations.     

‘My Child is Anxious Because We Might Get Deported’: Brief Therapy from MRI with an Immigrant Family in the United States

As we go to press in a COVID-19 world, the topic of anxiety is foremost on our minds. While each situation has to be considered in its own context, how to manage different anxieties has common denominators. There is currently a sharp increase in forced migration around the globe so mental health professionals must develop effective skills, like the ability to adapt services to different contexts and cultures, to manage the needs of immigrant people. Problem-Solving Brief Therapy, as developed at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, is a systemic model of therapy, which aims at promoting change in the complaint the presenting client (the ‘talker’) cares about. The model’s roots in Constructivism foster integrating the clients’ beliefs and values into therapy to allow the therapists to adapt to the clients’ particular needs. This paper is the analysis of a single case where the therapist worked with an immigrant family because their child suffered from severe anxiety related to the parents’ threatened deportation. The paper focuses on premises and strategies that allowed minimising cultural barriers between therapists and family members, thus facilitating a strong therapeutic alliance conducive to improvement.     

Why do they stay? A study of resilient child protection workers in three European countries

Whilst 50% of child protection workers across much of Europe and the affluent ‘West’ leave after two years, many stay and develop substantial professional careers. This paper discusses research in Italy, Sweden and England examining what factors explain ‘remaining’ for more than three years in this stressful job. Underpinned by a hermeneutic epistemology, qualitative interviews were undertaken and subject to an interpretative thematic analysis. The findings proved to be complex and multi-layered and this paper presents an overview of these. The theoretical framework for the project mainly drew on organisations and resilience, and the initial sections of the paper consider how formulations of resilience as contextual and relational can elucidate professional sustainability. Organisational issues are considered, including the impact of work management, of supervision and of allocation in different national contexts. The paper also focuses on the role of friendships and informal support at work. Threaded through these established themes are more, perhaps surprising, concepts: for example, creativity, power, reflexive spaces and interpersonal relations as explanatory of remaining in child protection work.     

Millennials und Nexters

The paper reports about a research project at the University of Klagenfurt in April/May 2018. The project refers to the behavioral patterns of millennials and nexters and how such patterns appear in group dynamic processes. The research process was executed in three stages. Expert interviews with long term trainers were conducted beforehand, followed by observations of T?group processes throughout one week of group dynamic training. Daily, data of the emotional state oft the participants were collected with the PANASg questionnaire. About four weeks later, additional interviews with participants were conducted.The results indicate that younger generations show a rather restraint engagement in the group process activities and a different relationship approach towards authorities. Group affiliation starts rather late. Participants focus on strategies of self-optimization, self-control and guarded behavior. Being used to social network communication the younger generations were unsettled by a direct communication mode in the here and now of group dynamics. Individualism, optimizing the individual performance, computer mediated communication, lack of contact and interaction were indicators for modified modes of bonding and affiliation.     

On Exact Simulation of Markov Random Fields Using Coupling from the Past

A general framework for exact simulation of Markov random fields using the Propp–Wilson coupling from the past approach is proposed. Our emphasis is on situations lacking the monotonicity properties that have been exploited in previous studies. A critical aspect is the convergence time of the algorithm; this we study both theoretically and experimentically. Our main theoretical result in this direction says, roughly, that if interactions are sufficiently weak, then the expected running time of a carefully designed implementation is O ( N log N ), where N is the number of interacting components of the system. Computer experiments are carried out for random q -colourings and for the Widom–Rowlinson lattice gas model.     

Does Modern Organization and Governance Threat Solidarity?

This article focuses on solidarity behaviours of employees to team members (horizontal solidarity behaviour) and to their manager (vertical solidarity behaviour). The question is asked to what extend and how are both types of solidarity related to three aspects of modern organization and governance: dual earner families, flexible labour contracts, and formal and informal governance structures. Survey data of 17 Dutch organizations (N = 1347) show in relation to dual-earner families that having children has a positive relationship with horizontal solidarity behaviour, and working overtime has a positive relationship with vertical solidarity behaviour. Related to the flexible labour contracts, no relationship was found with type of labour contract and expected years within the organization. Finally, some traits of informal and formal governance structures, namely information on rules and the presence of explicit fair play rules are fond to be positively related to solidarity.She worked on this article during a visit at the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia.     

Wie wird Coaching in einem traditionellen technischen Dienstleistungsunternehmen angenommen?

How coaching is accepted in a traditional technological service-companyFor the present article four leading managers (two women, two men) of a big technological service-company were asked about their experiences with coaching. Their individual accounts are interpreted on the back-ground of the concrete changes in structure and culture of the company. The report gives an impression about the fact, how coaching is accepted in a more traditionally labelled, mainly hierarchically organized and male-dominated structure. There are some points of special interest for the implementation of coaching in that kind of organization structure.     

Identity,Belonging and Intentions to Leave of First and 1.5 Generation FSU Immigrants in Israel

Recent studies examining immigrant intentions to leave the host country have focused on return migration to the origin country (De Haas and Fokkema in Demogr Res 25:755–782, 2011; De Haas et al. in J Int Migr Integr 16(2):415–429, 2015). The current study examines immigrant intentions to leave the host country, but not necessarily to return to the homeland. The predictive model, which focuses on immigrant subjective identity, was tested through a survey of 338 first and 1.5 generation Former Soviet Union (FSU) immigrants in Israel, who applied to a prominent NGO to obtain proof of their Jewishness. These individuals are from the largest recent immigrant group in Israel, and are highly represented among the young adult (aged 25–40) immigrants leaving Israel. The findings indicate that contrary to our expectations, Israeli local identity did not have a significant effect on the immigrants’ intentions to leave Israel. By contrast, Jewish identity and level of religiosity did play a significant role in attenuating the immigrant’s tendency to leave. This paper highlights the complex relationship between ethnic identities and religiosity among immigrants in general, and in Israel in particular.     

The Subjective Well-Being of Immigrants Aged 50 and Older in Israel

The present study evaluated the integration of elderly people who migrated to Israel during their lifetimes. Subjective well-being, as measured by the immigrants’ perception of quality of life, satisfaction with life and emotional state, served as a general indicator of integration. The integration of elderly immigrants has not received adequate attention in the literature. A unique database (SHARE-Israel) that was recently released has made study of this topic possible. The current study sample was composed of former migrants aged 50 and older (n = 930). The analytic model examined ethnic origin and migration variables in relation to the respective subjective outcomes, controlling for sociodemographic background, human and social capital and health. The findings show that in general, ethnic origin seems to matter less for the evaluation of immigrants’ subjective well-being than other socio economic factors such as economic status, social capital and health status. However, recent arrivals from the Former Soviet Union do differ from all other immigrant groups in their lower levels of well-being. In addition, the study points to the importance of language proficiency as a central means for integration in the destination country.     

Understanding How Peer Mentoring and Capitalization Link STEM Students to Their Majors

This study investigated the role of peer mentoring and voluntary self‐development activities (i.e., capitalization) in anchoring science, technology, engineering, and mathematics students to their college majors. Online data were collected from 214 undergraduate students. As hypothesized, mentoring was positively related to capitalization, and both mentoring and capitalization were positively related to satisfaction with one's major, affective commitment to one's major, involvement in one's major, and willingness to be a mentor. Contrary to expectations, capitalization did not mediate the relationship between peer mentoring and student outcomes, suggesting that these constructs contribute independently to positive outcomes. Implications and future research directions are discussed.