Technology Adoption in Small Family-Owned Businesses: Accessibility,Perceived Advantage,and Information Technology Literacy

The purpose of the study was to examine the antecedents and impacts of information technology (IT) adoption by small family-owned businesses, using data from the National Family Business Survey. This research tested a model based on the Diffusion of Innovations framework and the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Family business managers’ prior knowledge and level of IT use, business location, and community size/type were important antecedents to the decision to adopt IT. Ease of use and decision to adopt IT accounted for over 60% of the variance in usefulness of IT and implementation of internet and IT capabilities. The implementation of IT capabilities accounted for nearly 40% of the variance in actual use of IT and perceived impact of the internet.     

Double‐mouthed discourse: Interpreting,framing, and participant roles1

In this article I examine multilingual displays in a Congolese Pentecostal church in Cape Town, South Africa. I focus on the simultaneous interpreting of the pastor's French sermon into English. I argue that the interpreting activity performed at church is used as a powerful interactional device to dramatize and shape the pastor's sermon. A close examination of participant roles shows that although these may appear to be predetermined by the interpretee‐interpreter format of the sermon, speaking roles are actually fluid and negotiated. I submit that an important role of the church interpreter is to convey the pastor's inspiration from the Holy Spirit and reach out to the potential audience absent from the here and now of the service. His high emotional engagement helps convey this inspiration prospectively to the audience and retroactively to the pastor himself.     

Towards a prospective technology assessment: challenges and requirements for technology assessment in the age of technoscience

The objective of this paper is to contribute to the expanding discourse on conceptual elements of TA. As a point of departure, it takes the recent transformation of the science, technology and innovation system (“technoscience”). We will show that the age of technoscience can be regarded as presenting not only a challenge, but also a chance and opportunity for TA. Embracing this opportunity, however, implies imposing several requirements on TA. In order to specify these requirements and to foster the ongoing discourse on the foundations of TA, this paper suggests a programmatic term: prospective technology assessment (ProTA). This term is intended mainly as a reflection framework, aimed at providing an extension and complement—and not a replacement—of well-established TA concepts. Three requirements for ProTA are sketched: (1) early stage orientation—the temporal dimension, (2) intention and potential orientation—the knowledge dimension, (3) shaping orientation—the power/actor dimension. Examples from fusion and nano research will illustrate the need for ProTA, as well as its specific focus. The paper concedes that ProTA is in its infancy and that there is a clear need for further clarification.     

Aging in the Era of Regenerative Medicine: Analysis of Aging‐Related Representations among Canadian Researchers

Explicitly aimed at understanding and controlling molecular and cellular processes at the root of senescence and biological aging, regenerative medicine aspires to artificially reproduce the biological processes that enable the body to regenerate itself. This no longer involves conserving the body's state of balance by combating disease, as in clinical medicine, but rather fighting degeneration itself. From stem cell research to gene therapy to the production of replacement tissues, regenerative medicine perfectly corresponds to the logic of biomedicalization specific to postmodern society. Based on a series of 18 interviews conducted with Canadian researchers and clinicians in the field of regenerative medicine, this article seeks to understand representations of the aging body among researchers in this field. Seen from a strictly negative angle, aging is assimilated by researchers to an inevitable catastrophe that nevertheless must be combated. More closely observing the theoretical model of regenerative biology and the types of treatments developed, it can be observed, however, that this medicine of the future does not target the elderly, but rather promises youth the ability to regenerate themselves to avoid aging.     

TEMPTATION‐DRIVEN BEHAVIOR AND TAXATION: A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS IN A LIFE‐CYCLE MODEL

This paper examines the impact of labor and capital income taxes in a stochastic overlapping generations (OLG) economy where agents face borrowing constraints and their behavior is temptation driven. We quantitatively establish that the existence of temptation in preferences may function as an opposing mechanism to modeling choices, such as liquidity constraints, life‐cycle structure, and idiosyncratic earnings risks, that are critical in delivering a positive capital income tax rate. We show that a sufficiently large measure of individuals having self‐control preferences, or alternatively, a sufficiently high cost of exercising self‐control, puts downward pressure on the optimal capital income tax rate. (JEL E21, E62, H55)     

Has Opposition to Immigration Increased in the United States after the Economic Crisis? An Experimental Approach

We employ two population‐level experiments to accurately measure opposition to immigration before and after the economic crisis of 2008. Our design explicitly addresses social desirability bias, which is the tendency to give responses that are seen favorably by others and can lead to substantial underreporting of opposition to immigration. We find that overt opposition to immigration, expressed as support for a closed border, increases slightly after the crisis. However, once we account for social desirability bias, no significant increase remains. We conclude that the observed increase in anti‐immigration sentiment in the post‐crisis United States is attributable to greater expression of opposition rather than any underlying change in attitudes.     

Condoms and Connection: Parents,Gay and Bisexual Youth,and HIV Risk

The family has long been considered a powerful influence on youth's high‐risk behaviors. However, little is known about preventive family influences for gay and bisexual youth, a group at high risk for HIV infection. For this study, qualitative interviews from a sample of 38 gay and bisexual youth and their parents/guardians underwent a thematic analysis. Youth described parent–child closeness, parental warnings, and urgings to use condoms as influences. Youth denying family influence came from families in which parent–child relationships were disrupted or HIV‐related discussion was lacking. Most families reported discomfort discussing HIV risk. These findings, along with a case example, suggest how family therapists can enhance parental influence by helping these families strengthen their relationships and discuss this important topic. Video Abstract     

Division of Labor,Gender Ideology,and Marital Satisfaction in East Asia

Using data from the 2006 Family Module of the East Asian Social Survey (N = 3,096), this article examines associations of marital satisfaction with divisions of housework and gender ideology in four East Asian societies: urban China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan. Compared with Japanese and Korean married women and men, Chinese and Taiwanese spouses were more satisfied with their marriage and had more egalitarian divisions of housework, but simultaneously they held less egalitarian gender ideologies. Multivariate analyses showed that relative share of housework was negatively associated with marital satisfaction for Japanese and Korean men and for Korean and Taiwanese women. Egalitarian gender ideology was significantly associated with lower marital satisfaction only among Taiwanese women. In addition, the negative association between housework and marital satisfaction was more pronounced for Taiwanese women who espoused more egalitarian gender ideologies. The authors discuss how differences in macro‐level social contexts explain these cross‐society variations.     

Mobile Money and School Participation: Evidence from Africa

This paper shows that mobile money technology—an electronic wallet service that allows users to deposit, transfer, and receive money using their mobile phones—is positively correlated with increased school participation of children in school age. By using data from 4 African countries, we argue that, by reducing transaction costs, and by making it easier and less expensive to receive remittances, mobile money reduces the need for coping strategies that are detrimental to child development, such as withdrawing children from school and sending them to work. We find that mobile money increases the chances of children attending school. This finding is robust to different empirical models. In a nutshell, our results show that 1 million children could start attending school in low-income countries if mobile money was available to all.

     

You Shall (Not) Pass: Strategies for Third-Party Gatekeepers to Enhance Volunteer Inclusion

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Volunteering appears to be a mechanism that can contribute to societal inclusion. As nonprofit organizations continuously...