Building and valuing global brands in the nonprofit sector

Global nonprofit brands are the world's new “super brands” (Wootliff and Deri, 2001). Nonprofit organizations command unprecedented levels of trust, and nonprofit brand valuations are on par with major international corporations. Leaders and managers of nonprofits face new challenges in the stewardship of their brands. Based on current thinking in nonprofit management and detailed interviews with close to one hundred executives of ten international nonprofit organizations, this article draws strategic lessons on brand building and brand valuation activities of international nonprofits. The multiple roles and stakeholders that global nonprofit brands must address make nonprofit brand building complex and challenging. In particular, differences between advocacy and relief organizations must be explained. Despite the complexity, international nonprofit organizations may have an advantage over for‐profits in leveraging public trust and brand communication. Advocacy organizations in particular successfully link brand and cause to good effect. The valuation of nonprofit brands is a new strategic challenge with significant appeal, but also significant concerns for international nonprofits. In addition to providing nonprofit leaders and managers with a better understanding of brandbuilding activities, imperatives, and best practices in the field, this article outlines the opportunities and threats associated with the valuation of nonprofit brands.     

Le genre des politiques sociales. L'apport théorique des « gender studies » à l'analyse des politiques sociales

In English-speaking countries and Scandinavia, where feminist and gender studies have developed over the past thirty years, the issue of sex and then of gender has led to a very fertile renewal of social policy analysis, in particular in the field of comparative welfare state studies. By insisting on the cultural, social, normative and historical construction of welfare states and social policies, this approach sheds light on the societal paradigms that define how social policies are drawn up and their impact in terms of gender. It enables us to undertake a critical, original examination of the concepts, theories and analytical tools traditionally used in comparative welfare state litterature. This article presents an inventory of the theoretical advances made in writings on this topic.     

Quality of life perceptions in two cultures

This paper reports and analyzes the quality of life perceptions held by the inhabitants of two culturally different but demographically similar cities: Springfield, Illinois and Aix-en-Provence, France. Although the Springfielders expressed greater satisfaction than the Aixois in virtually all the life domains covered by the research, the areas of relative satisfaction and dissatisfaction were remarkably similar in the two cities; furthermore, the domains in which the French indicated the least satisfaction were generally ones where their objective quality of life conditions were inferior to those of their American counterparts. Multiple regression techniques are used to trace the relative contribution of domain satisfactions and demographic characteristics in explaining respondents' comparative life enjoyment and reported levels of happiness.     

Recentering our tendencies: Immigrant youth development and the importance of context in social work research

According to Weiner’s model, help giving has various determinants such as social and individual causes, affective reactions, and responsibility. The aim of this study was (1) to examine the influence of bullying acts, the victim’s behavior at work, and revictimization on equity judgments and the perceived responsibility of perpetrators and victims; and (2) to test the determinants of help decisions. Twelve vignettes of bullying at work submitted to 133 participants varied according to the severity of bullying, the victim’s pro- or antisocial behaviors, and the victim’s antecedents. The results showed that the situation was judged less equitable, the victim less responsible, and the perpetrator more responsible, and the intention of help was increased, (1) when the perpetrator’s acts were serious, and (2) when the bullied person had shown prosocial behavior versus antisocial behavior. The help increased more (1) when the perpetrator’s acts were harmful and (2) when the victim had shown prosocial behaviors.     

Building the Capacity to Play on Multilevel Policy Processes: French Environmental Movement Organisations and the European Union

The European Union (EU) is a relevant case to address the dynamics of transnational politics, given the significance of the EU environmental legislation in member states. Infranational, national and supranational/EU decision-making arenas still co-exist, without completely overlapping. This study explores how the multilevel nature of the EU policy-making process is exploited by national environmental movement organisations (EMOs). Diverging from the explanation in terms of political opportunity structure or their resource basis, we examine EMOs that do not automatically adapt to the EU multilevel policy process. The discussion takes up the classic debate between grievances (intentionality) and resources (capacity) hypothesising that both are constructed in EMOs' actions and through their interactions with public authorities, allies and members. Within the analytical framework developed in this study, the organisation is viewed as a factor explaining EU activism by combining an endogenous action approach with classical resource mobilisation concepts. The ensuing longitudinal analysis compares the case of three French EMOs: France-Nature-Environnement, Friends of the Earth-France and Greenpeace-France.     

Why Do Women's Wages Increase So Slowly Throughout Their Career? A Dynamic Model of Statistical Discrimination

Abstract. The aim of this paper is to explain the growing wage differentials between men and women during their working careers. We provide a dynamic model of statistical discrimination, which integrates specific human capital decisions: on‐the‐job training investment and wages are endogenously determined. We reveal a small wage differential at the beginning of women's career, but women's wages increase more slowly; this is partly due to a lower level of human capital investment by women and partly because firms smooth training costs between different periods.     

Probability weighting and the ‘level’ and ‘spacing’ of outcomes: An experimental study over losses

The main goal of the experimental study described in this paper is to investigate the sensitivity of probability weighting to the payoff structure of the gambling situation—namely the level of consequences at stake and the spacing between them—in the loss domain. For that purpose, three kinds of gambles are introduced: two kinds of homogeneous gambles (involving either small or large losses), and heterogeneous gambles involving both large and small losses. The findings suggest that at least for moderate/high probability of loss do both ‘level’ and ‘spacing’ effects reach significance, with the impact of ‘spacing’ being both opposite to and stronger than the impact of ‘level’. As compared to small-loss gambles, large-loss gambles appear to enhance probabilistic optimism, while heterogeneous gambles tend to increase pessimism.

Cultures of care? Animals and science in Britain

It is becoming increasingly common to hear life scientists say that high quality life science research relies upon high quality laboratory animal care. However, the idea that animal care is a crucial part of scientific knowledge production is at odds with previous social science and historical scholarship regarding laboratory animals. How are we to understand this discrepancy? To begin to address this question, this paper seeks to disentangle the values of scientists in identifying animal care as important to the production of high quality scientific research. To do this, we conducted a survey of scientists working in the United Kingdom who use animals in their research. The survey found that being British is associated with thinking that animal care is a crucial part of conducting high quality science. To understand this finding, we draw upon the concept of ‘civic epistemologies’ (Jasanoff 2005; Prainsack 2006) and argue that ‘animals’ and ‘care’ in Britain may converge in taken‐for‐granted assumptions about what constitutes good scientific knowledge. These ideas travel through things like state regulations or the editorial policies of science journals, but do not necessarily carry the embodied civic epistemology of ‘animals’ and ‘science’ from which such modes of regulating laboratory animal welfare comes.     

Rapport: Little effect on children’s,adolescents’, and adults’ statement quantity,accuracy, and suggestibility

Abstract

Rapport building is widely recommended in eyewitness interview situations and is a critical component in some interview protocols. However, empirical evidence on the effectiveness of rapport building on memory performance is scant. The current experiment examined the effects of different levels of rapport (none, minimal, extensive) on children’s, adolescents’, and adults’ memory (N?=?229). Participants viewed a video of a mock theft and received one of three possible rapport manipulations. They then provided a free narrative of what they had seen, followed by 18 cued (suggestive and nonsuggestive) questions. In general, we found limited evidence of positive effects of rapport building on statement quantity and accuracy across age groups. Adolescents did profit more from extensive rapport building compared to no rapport. In line with the idea of a linear development of memory measures with age, adolescents generally fell in-between the other two age groups across different memory measures. The current study encourages systematic experimental research on the effect of rapport building on eyewitness memory.