Alzheimer's Aggression: Influences on Caregiver Coping and Resilience

This study assessed impact of Alzheimer's patients' aggressive behavior (AD aggression) on caregiver coping strategies (task-, emotion-, and avoidance-focused) and caregiver resilience, and examined whether coping strategy moderated the AD aggression–caregiver resilience relationship. Informal caregivers across Louisiana (N?=?419) completed surveys with measures of demographics, AD aggression, caregiver coping strategies, and caregiver resilience. Task-focused coping positively related to resilience. Aggression negatively predicted caregiver resilience. Emotion- and avoidance-focused coping strategies separately interacted with aggression and increased its negative relationship to caregiver resilience. Task-focused coping showed no moderation. Implications for social work professionals are discussed.     

Perceived Characteristics of Innovative Nonprofit and Government Organizations in South Korea,China, and Argentina

This article describes the characteristics of innovative organizations as perceived by employees of nonprofit and government organizations in three quite different countries, South Korea, China, and Argentina. A total of 44 employees participated in the studies (13 from South Korea; 16 from China; and 13 from Argentina). At the first stage of the study they were asked to free list characteristics of innovative organizations. At the second stage of the study, country‐specific measures containing characteristics of innovative organizations were created, and participants were asked to rate each characteristic on a Likert scale (1 = not characteristic at all of an innovative organization; 5 = extremely characteristic of an innovative organization). This task produced ratings of perceived characteristics of innovative organizations for each country. Cultural consensus analysis widely used in the field of cognitive anthropology was employed next to assess the degree of agreement among the participants on what consistutes an innovative organization. Among the common perceived characteristics of innovative organizations were participation in decision making, teamwork, responsiveness to emerging client and societal needs, adaptability, employee support and value, and accepting failure. While the characteristics produced through the free listing technique showed a lot of similarities, the importance of those characteristics was rated quite differently across the three samples.     

Utilization of oral contraception: The impact of direct and indirect restrictions on access to abortion

Utilizing variation across U.S. state abortion restrictions on minors and different levels of provider availability, we measure whether women under the age of 25 are less careful in using contraception if abortions are less costly, in terms of both financial and opportunity cost. The effects of abortion restrictions for minors are largest and the most significant for women aged 18 and younger, and the effect of these restrictions decrease in magnitude and significance gradually as women age. As the percent of the state's women without a provider increases, abortions are more difficult to obtain, and women are more likely to use the pill. When a larger percentage of women have a provider, abortions are more easily obtained, and there is a negative effect on pill usage. These results indicate that young women are forward thinking when making their contraceptive decisions, relative to the direct and indirect restrictions on abortion access.     

Parenting behaviors of homosexual and heterosexual fathers

Responses of 33 homosexual (gay) fathers were compared with those of 33 heterosexual (nongay) fathers on the Iowa Parent Behavior Inventory, an empirical measure of dimensions of parenting behavior. Gay fathers did not differ significantly from nongay fathers in their reported degree of involvement nor in intimacy level with children. Gay fathers tended to be more strict, more responsive to children's needs, and to provide reasons for appropriate behavior to children more consistently than nongay fathers. Several explanations are explored for these similarities and differences in parenting styles.     

Discretely Observed Diffusions: Classes of Estimating Functions and Small Δ-optimality

Ergodic diffusions in several dimensions, depending on an unknown multivariate parameter are considered. For estimation, when the diffusion is observed only at finitely many equidistant time points, unbiased estimating functions leading to consistent and asymptotically Gaussian estimators are used. Different types of estimating functions are discussed and the concept of small Δ-optimality is introduced to help select good estimating functions. Explicit criteria for small Δ-optimality are given. Also some exact optimality conditions are presented as well as, for one-dimensional diffusions, methods for improving estimators using time reversibility.     

Semiparametric principal component poisson regression on clustered data

In modeling count data with multivariate predictors, we often encounter problems with clustering of observations and interdependency of predictors. We propose to use principal components of predictors to mitigate the multicollinearity problem and to abate information losses due to dimension reduction, a semiparametric link between the count dependent variable and the principal components is postulated. Clustering of observations is accounted into the model as a random component and the model is estimated via the backfitting algorithm. Simulation study illustrates the advantages of the proposed model over standard poisson regression in a wide range of scenarios.     

Changing Strategy Processes and Strategy Content in Public Sector Organizations? A Longitudinal Case Study of NPM Reforms’ Influence on Strategic Management

New Public Management reforms have been argued to intensify the use of strategic management in public organizations, but there is a need to understand how reforms influence specific aspects such as strategy processes and strategy content. The NPM reforms are expected to formalize and professionalize strategy processes and strategy content towards greater competitiveness, but this may counter cooperation between organizations, which is essential in many areas for overall service provision. Research has provided little empirical knowledge about the simultaneous competition and cooperation in the public sector. This study offers such knowledge via a panel case study of five Danish upper secondary schools over a ten‐year period during a large NPM reform. The study includes three rounds of interviews with school principals before, during and after the reform, combined with secondary data. The study shows that, during reform implementation, strategy processes become more formalized and professionalized, and that teachers, in particular, lose influence. Regarding strategy content, the authors find an increase in external focus and competition, though schools maintain a focus on cooperation. The results suggest that NPM reforms can significantly change strategic management in public organizations, and that this is not necessarily at the expense of cooperation, at least in the short run.     

Pride, empowerment, and return to work: on the significance of promoting positive social emotions among sickness absentees

Sickness absence is a great public health problem and there is a lack of knowledge concerning the hows and whys of success or failure in promoting return to work of sick-listed persons. Discussions of and research into social and psychological aspects of this problem area are in need of theoretical contextualisation. In this paper it is suggested that theories of social emotions may be useful, and that the concept of empowerment can be applied provided that it is reasonably well defined. The notions of pride/shame and empowerment are elucidated and discussed, and it is shown that they can be related in the context of research into emotional dimensions of sickness absentees' experiences of the rehabilitation process in a way that may help to guide empirical studies. A simple model of hypothetical relations between pride/shame, empowerment/disempowerment, work ability, health, and return to work is sketched.