An examination of the strategic and operational impact of global sourcing on UK small firms

This paper presents three in-depth case studies of UK small manufacturers from the electronics manufacturing industry with global supply chains. There is no overlap in products, suppliers or customers and over time, each has developed a distinct and different strategy for managing an extended supply chain. The outcomes and experiences though are not markedly different. The operational challenges they encounter around quality and delivery, as well as the strategic dimensions of information asymmetry and capability fit are discussed. The study identifies the financial risks the firms are exposed to, the constraints to innovation and the wider strategic implications for long-term business performance.     

The effects of child support guidelines: An analysis of the evidence in court records

Court records from four Ohio counties were used to compare child support orders before and after promulgation of federally mandated guidelines in 1987. There was no significant change in probability of Court Ordered Child Support. Amount Ordered in constant dollars increased between 1985 and 1987–88. Variables influencing Court Ordered Child Support differed post-guidelines. Years Married, Attorney for Both and Attorney for Wife were significant in both years. Number of Children, Rural, and Wife's Motions were significant in 1987–88. Variables affecting amount ordered also differed after adoption of the guidelines. Wife Contested, Husband's Motions, Defendant and Plaintiff no longer were significant in 1987–88. Years Married and Payment by Father were significantly related to Amount Ordered in 1985 but not in 1987–88. Number of Children, Expenses Paid, and Number of Assets were significantly related to Amount Ordered in both years.Salaries and research support were provided by state and federal appropriations to the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center, and by the Department of Family Resource Management, and The Office of Research and Graduate Studies, The Ohio State University.Kathryn Stafford is Associate Professor, Department of Family Resource Management, 1787 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1295. Her research interests include household management and time use. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University.Golden Jackson is Assistant Professor, Department of Family Resource Management, 1787 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1295. Her research is primarily in the area of the economic effects of divorce. She received her Ph.D. from The Ohio State University.Sharon Seiling is Assistant Professor and Extension Specialist in Family Resource Management, Department of Family Resource Management, 1787 Neil Avenue, Columbus, OH 43210-1295. Her research is on the impact of family change, especially divorce, on access to housing and overall financial well-being. She received her Ph.D. from Cornell University.     

Broadening constructions of family violence: mothers' perspectives of aggression from their children

This qualitative study used feminist insights to explore experiential aspects of the phenomenon of child‐to‐mother violence from the perspectives of six women survivors. Participants took part in conversational style audiotaped interviews lasting between two and four hours. Feminist analysis revealed that fear and violence had become a feature of mothering for these women. Three themes were identified: It was only a matter of time: feeling intimidated and under threat; He just punched me: physical violence from child to mother; and Other men in the house: violence directed to the mothers by friends and associates of their children. Currently the literature overwhelmingly constructs family violence as elder abuse, spousal/partner violence, or child abuse, and generally fails to acknowledge, or address, violence from children to parents. However, findings from this study suggest that the discourse about family violence needs to be broadened to include child‐to‐mother violence. Implications of this study for practice and research are discussed.     

Child protection services and parental reactions to children's behaviour

A commonly used expression in child protection is the term 'physical abuse'. This paper consists of a quantitative and qualitative analysis of a 100% sample of 'physical abuse' child protection cases drawn from research in an Australian state child welfare agency, which shows that about 90% of these concerned incidents in which parents used physical punishment to control children. Resulting physical harms to children (where they occurred) were generally of a very minor nature. The paper examines these results in the light of research findings in the UK and Australia on patterns of physical punishment used by parents to control children. Such findings suggest that those child rearing practices that make frequent and systematic use of physical punishment are located largely amongst lower social class parents, who believe that such practices are an essential and normal component of effective parenting behaviour. One interpretation of child protection services in respect of these cases is that they are concerned primarily with the normalization of child rearing practices. The paper concludes with a discussion of the limited impact of the Swedish anti-spanking law of 1979, which appears to have only reduced the use of physical punishment by those parents who may not necessarily have believed in such measures in the first place. However, legislation of this nature has the potential to criminalize a substantial sector of the population, but at least state intervention under the aegis of a specific criminal law provides a clearer mandate than does intervention under much looser, broader and subjectively interpreted child protection legislation.     

Religion, Meaning, and Prejudice

Links between religion and prejudice have been interpreted to suggest that religion can both reduce and exacerbate prejudice. Here, the analysis of religion as a meaning system illuminates how religion can affect intergroup attitudes. Traditional psychological perspectives on religion and prejudice are summarized, followed by a discussion of religion and prejudice in cross-cultural and cross-religious contexts, involving varying target groups. Next, we explore possible explanatory mechanisms by proposing how four levels of meaning associated with religion—cognitive, motivational, societal, and intergroup—may both promote and attenuate prejudice. Finally, additional factors that might facilitate the paradoxical coexistence of religious egalitarian intentions with prejudiced attitudes are considered, and we speculate about the potential for religious groups to reduce prejudice within their adherents.     

Girls’ “New Femininity” Refusals and “Good Girl” Recuperations in Soap Talk

The “new femininities” produced in postfeminist media confront girls with complex and challenging subjectivities that reach into the spaces where girls engage in their own productions of self. Feminist scholarship has interrogated and critiqued the “girl” produced in postfeminist popular culture texts, highlighting her internal contradictions and often problematic re/production within the heterosexual matrix. Yet, despite an intensified focus on girls featured in popular culture, the ways that girls themselves make sense of the “girl” in contemporary femininity texts has been relatively neglected. Viewing girls' sense-making of femininity in popular culture texts as crucial in the process of their subjectivity or self-production, in this paper we examine pre-teen girls' negotiations of femininity through their talk about Scarlett, a main teen girl character in a New Zealand soap drama. Our analyses and discussion focus on girls' management of the contradictory and regulatory productions of femininity in the text, in particular the often classed conditions under which girls recuperate the “good girl” discourse to refuse the regulatory femininities inside the heterosexual matrix. We suggest that an absence of empowering discourses outside of postfeminism's sexual empowerment limits girls' resources for critiquing and challenging regulatory femininities, “new” and “traditional.”