Revenue Management in Business Services

A significant portion of the services industry is focused on providing services (medical, legal, financial, personal, and travel) to individuals. However, studies have shown that a less visible but rapidly growing segment of the service sector comprises firms that provide business functions to other businesses. The sector covers tasks such as payroll processing, procurement, and information systems management, as well as business consulting, technical support, call center operations, and software development. Firms may choose to purchase, rather than perform, these business functions to reduce costs, to mitigate risk, or simply to focus on their processes that provide marketplace differentiation. Transferring a business function from within a firm to an outside supplier is often called “outsourcing”; when the supplier provides the service from a lower‐cost country, it is called “offshoring.” The risks and benefits of outsourcing to the firm purchasing a business service have been studied in some detail by both academics and consultants. In this paper, we outline revenue management issues faced by business service providers and describe some new opportunities for the use of analytic methods in the service science sector.     

Empathy-related Responding: Associations with Prosocial Behavior, Aggression, and Intergroup Relations

Empathy-related responding, including empathy, sympathy, and personal distress, has been implicated in conceptual models and theories about prosocial behavior and altruism, aggression and antisocial behavior, and intergroup relationships. Conceptual arguments and empirical findings related to each of these topics are reviewed. In general, there is evidence that empathy and/or sympathy are important correlates of, and likely contributors to, other-oriented prosocial behavior, the inhibition of aggression and antisocial behavior, and the quality of intergroup relationships. Applied implications of these findings, including preventative studies, are discussed, as are possible future directions.     

"We mentally ill smoke a lot": identity, smoking, and mental illness in America

Most of the history of the tobacco industry over the last few decades has focused on the conflicts between tobacco industry leaders who promoted smoking and tobacco control advocates who warned of the health consequences. Yet a view of this conflict from the perspective of smokers who are also mentally ill raises questions about how to frame public health policy for these individuals. Mentally ill consumers wrote to the tobacco industry between the 1970s and 1990s and expressed their commitment to smoking and to cigarette companies, despite their awareness of the health risks. This paper explores the relationship between mentally ill consumers, the tobacco industry, and public health in the United States through letters written by mentally ill smokers.     

Unaccompanied refugee minors and foster care: A narrative literature review

This article describes the results of a narrative literature review on empirical research examining the outcomes and/or experiences of unaccompanied refugee minors in family foster care. The limited research' in which only 17 references were identified' suggests that family foster care is an important type of care for this group and is associated with better health and psychosocial outcomes compared to other types of care. Nevertheless' breakdown of family foster care placements is a cause for concern. Four groups of factors that influence the course of family foster care placements are discussed' namely' foster family characteristics' differences in expectations between foster parents and refugee youth' cultural differences' and contextual factors. Furthermore' practical implications and suggestions for further research are described.     

Petrochemical Pollution and the Suppression of Environmental Protest

While research has established how elite actors can work to protect structures that contribute to environmental harm, relatively less is known about the cultural resources that can serve elite interests at the local level. In cases of localized pollution, multiple groups have vested interests in protecting corporate legitimacy. We draw on treadmill of production theory and collective identity to analyze a case of community petrochemical contamination. Specifically, we asked: (1) how elite actors appropriated cultural resources to protect productivity following a legitimization crisis; and (2) how discursive retaliation matters in understanding the pathways to violence when protest threatens an industrial community's economic identity. Our data for this research included in-depth interviews, newspaper coverage, and archival data. Findings indicate that the corporation, the city, and corporate employees responded to local environmental activism with a discursive campaign that ultimately paved the way for widespread threats and retaliation against the residents. This research highlights the ways in which local proponents of the energy industry can take advantage of cultural resources to suppress challengers to the industry.     

Teaching Note—Teaching Self-Care and Wellness as a Professional Practice Skill: A Curricular Case Example

Educating for human rights and justice requires attention to the well-being of those being prepared to pursue these aims. This article describes an MSW program’s implementation of teaching self-care as a core practice skill. This curricular innovation stems from the increasing literature documenting the deleterious effects of burnout in professional helping and the need to address this concern in educational curricula. Further, this curricular change is a result of increased student exhaustion affecting academic performance and professional preparedness, and the ethical imperative to address this phenomenon. We describe specific components, strategies, and assignments in the curriculum as well as assessment of the curricular innovation. This curricular example is readily adaptable for other programs.     

Raising Children Amid the Threat of Deportation: Perspectives from Undocumented Latina Mothers

Despite the large number of families with at least one undocumented parent, little research has investigated mothering amid the threat of immigration enforcement. We present results of a community-based participatory study with 7 Latina mothers who describe their experiences of parenting while navigating the possibility of deportation. Undocumented mothers found meaning in caring for their children. Yet due to restrictions related to immigration status, mothers were unable to support their children as they intended and feared their deportations would leave children without care, contributing to psychological duress. We provide recommendations for practitioners working with mixed-status families.     

Juggling three life spheres: reconciling work,family and politics

In the field of work–life balance, most research focuses on the reconciliation of role-related expectations that derive from the work and family spheres. This article aims to identify coping strategies that reconcile life spheres in situations that go beyond the classic two-sphere framework. We analyze the actual coping behavior of individuals juggling three life spheres by studying local Flemish politicians. The strategies that were found in this study were communication with family, recognizing priorities within the political sphere, consciously creating time for family moments, downsizing and segregating the life spheres. The results suggest that women usually remain the manager of the household, which reinforces traditional gender roles.     

Trajectory Discrimination and Peripersonal Space Perception in Newborns

The ability to discriminate the trajectories of moving objects is highly adaptive and fundamental for physical and social interactions. Therefore, we could reasonably expect sensitivity to different trajectories already at birth, as a precursor of later communicative and defensive abilities. To investigate this possibility, we measured newborns' looking behavior to evaluate their ability to discriminate between visual stimuli depicting motion along different trajectories happening within the space surrounding their body. Differently from previous studies, we did not take into account defensive reactions, which may not be elicited by impending collision as newborns might not categorize approaching stimuli as possible dangers. In two experiments, we showed that newborns display a spontaneous visual preference for trajectories directed toward their body. We found this visual preference when visual stimuli depicted motion in opposite directions (approaching vs. receding) as well as when they both moved toward the peripersonal space and differed only in their specific target (i.e., the body vs. the space around it). These findings suggest that at birth human infants seem to be already equipped with visual mechanisms predisposing them to perceive their presence in the environment and to adaptively focus their attention on the peripersonal space and their bodily self.