Social Workers' Postgraduate Use of the IFD Interpersonal Communication Model

Interpersonal communication assessment models have become very popular as a means of quickly establishing rapport in many settings across the United States. Despite their popularity and possible utility, there has been minimal research into the impact of these models, especially over time and in educational settings (more than 6 months after the training is over). In the master's of social work (MSW) program at Brigham Young University (BYU), the interpersonal family dynamics (IFD) model is used as a tool to better understand human behavior and strengthen relationships in the social work practice environment. This training is provided to first-year students in the foundation human behavior in the social environment course and to field supervisors in their field training conferences. BYU's MSW program graduates were surveyed to find out their perceptions of the utility of IFD. With a relatively high level of accuracy, the graduates reported IFD was a useful approach to better understanding human behavior in their daily practice. Graduates used the model as much in their personal lives as in their professional lives.     

Corporate strategies for political action

Discussions of the firm's relationships with its environment have usually concluded that the firm should make adaptive decisions to non-market areas, and proactive or strategic decisions in market areas. Predicating strategic responses upon the differences between market and non-market relationships is inappropriate and misleading, reduces the capacity of the firm to respond effectively to its environment, and distorts the process of environmental scanning. When the firm's relationships with its environment are examined as inter-organizational relationships, market and non-market relationships are structurally similar, and the same types of strategic responses can be selected for both areas. The strategic responses available to the firm in inter-organizational terms are: adaptation; pre-emption, co-optation; interpenetration; conflict and withdrawal. These processes and choices are structurally similar to traditional market related strategic options and can be used to respond to market and non-market factors. The manager scans the environment not only to identify opportunities for adaptation, but to identify groups which affect the integrity of the firm, the processes for interaction, the character of relationships, and occasions for strategic choice. The strategic decision process under a framework of inter-organizational transactions is illustrated by the cases of Sun Life Insurance Co., and the pulp and paper industry in Quebec.     

NEIGHBORHOOD POVERTY AND NONMARITAL FERTILITY: SPATIAL AND TEMPORAL DIMENSIONS

Data from 4,855 respondents to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics were used to examine spatial and temporal dimensions of the effect of neighborhood poverty on teenage premarital childbearing. Although high poverty in the immediate neighborhood increased the risk of becoming an unmarried parent, high poverty in surrounding neighborhoods reduced this risk. The effect of local neighborhood poverty was especially pronounced when surrounding neighborhoods were economically advantaged. Measuring exposure to neighborhood poverty over the childhood life course yielded stronger effects than measuring exposure at a single age. Neither racial differences in the level of poverty in proximate neighborhoods nor racial differences in neighborhood poverty over the childhood life course explained the racial difference in nonmarital fertility.     

Counterterrorism resource allocation during a pandemic: The effects of dynamic target valuations when facing a strategic terrorist

The outbreak of pandemics such as COVID-19 can result in cascading effects for global systemic risk. To combat an ongoing pandemic, governmental resources are largely allocated toward supporting the health of the public and economy. This shift in attention can lead to security vulnerabilities which are exploited by terrorists. In view of this, counterterrorism during a pandemic is of critical interest to the safety and well-being of the global society. Most notably, the population flows among potential targets are likely to change in conjunction with the trend of the health crisis, which leads to fluctuations in target valuations. In this situation, a new challenge for the defender is to optimally allocate his/her resources among targets that have changing valuations, where his/her intention is to minimize the expected losses from potential terrorist attacks. In order to deal with this challenge, in this paper, we first develop a defender–attacker game in sequential form, where the target valuations can change as a result of the pandemic. Then we analyze the effects of a pandemic on counterterrorism resource allocation from the perspective of dynamic target valuations. Finally, we provide some examples to display the theoretical results, and present a case study to illustrate the usability of our proposed model during a pandemic.