Distance and mastery: poetic inquiry of young people’s subjectification processes

An increasing number of young people under 30 do not complete upper secondary education and have difficulty gaining a foothold on the labour market. Hence, there is great interest, politically as well as academically, in finding out ‘what works’ in terms of helping young people. At the same time, however, there is also a lack of research that examines the processes these young people are involved in and the context that has an effect on these. By applying the method of poetic inquiry, this article examines subjectifications processes that have education as the focal point. Poetic inquiry provides an opportunity to explore and construct ‘evocative’ and ‘polyvocal’ analyses of the young people’s subjectification processes in the current employment policy context. The analyses demonstrate how different forms of ‘distance’ occur and how the young people simultaneously are trying to master these.     

Tying the Acquirer's Human Resource Management Quality to Cross‐Border Acquisition Divestment Probability: Curvilinear Connection with Slacklining

Cross‐border acquisitions are growing in volume and global economic importance, yet a considerable number end in failure. Many of these failures may be linked to people management‐related issues. We extend this stream of research by investigating the impact of the acquirer's aggregate human resource management (HRM) quality on cross‐border acquisition divestment. Our empirical analysis uses a panel database of 4128 cross‐border acquisition/year observations and an event history design. The findings confirm a curvilinear relationship and suggest that acquisition failures are not merely associated with poor HRM quality, but also with very high levels of HRM quality, that is, with both extremes. Moreover, our results show that financial slack has a significant moderating effect on the curvilinear relationship between HRM quality and the likelihood of acquisition divestment. Overall, our study reveals boundary conditions for the widely demonstrated positive relationship between HRM quality and organizational performance in an acquisition context.     

Understanding Settlement Pathways of African Immigrants in France Through a Capability Approach: Do Pre-migratory Characteristics Matter?

With the increase in asylum-related immigration since 2015, understanding how immigrants settle in a new country is at the centre of social and political debate in European countries. The objective of this study is to determine whether the necessary time to settle for Sub-Saharan Africa immigrants in France depends more on pre-migratory characteristics or on the structural features of the host society. Taking a capability approach, we define settlement as the acquisition of three basic resources: a personal dwelling, a legal permit of a least 1 year and paid work. We use data from the PARCOURS survey, a life-event history survey conducted from 2012 to 2013 that collected 513 life histories of Sub-Saharan African immigrants living in France. Situations regarding housing, legal status and activity were documented year by year since the arrival of the respondent. We use a Kaplan–Meier analysis and chronograms to describe the time needed for settlement, first for each resource (personal dwelling, legal permit and paid work) and then for the combined indicator of settlement. Discrete-time logistic regressions are used to model the determinants of this settlement process. Overall, women and men require 6 and 7 years (medians), respectively, to acquire basic resources in France. This represents a strikingly long period of time in which immigrants lack basic security. The settlement process varies according to gender, but very few sociodemographic factors influence settlement dynamics. Therefore, the length of the settlement process may be due to structural features of the host society.     

An Interactive Forecasting System

Time sharing computer configurations have introduced a new dimension in applying statistical and mathematical models to sequential decision problems. When the outcome of one step in the process influences subsequent decisions, then an interactive time-sharing system is of great help. Since the forecasting function involves such a sequential process, it can be handled particularly well with an appropriate time-shared computer system. This paper describes such as system which allows the user to do preliminary analysis of his data to identify the forecasting technique or class of techniques most appropriate for his situation and to apply those in developing a forecast. This interactive forecasting system has met with excellent success both in teaching the fundamentals of forecasting for business decision making and in actually applying those techniques in management situations.     

A comparison of alternative variance estimation strategies for estimating the slope of a linear regression in sample surveys

The balanced half-sample, jackknife and linearization methods are used to estimate the variance of the slope of a linear regression under a variety of computer generated situations. The basic sampling design is one in which two PSU's are selected from each of a number of strata . The variance estimation techniques are compared with a Monte Carlo experiment. Results show that variance estimates may be highly biased and variable unless sizeable numbers of observations are available from each stratum. The jackknife and linearization estimates appear superior to the balanced half sample method - particularly when the number of strata or the number of available observations from each stratum is small.     

Investigation of disease-free survival as a surrogate endpoint for survival in cancer clinical trials

A stochastic model wiuh exponential components is used to describe our data collected from a phase III cancer clinical trial. Criteria which guarantee that disease-free survival (DFS) can be used as a surrogate for overall survival are explored under this model. We examine several colorectal adjuvant clinical trials and find that these conditions are not satisfied. The relationship between the hazard ratio of DFS for an active treatment versus a control treatment and the cumulative hazard ratio of survival for the same two treatments is then explored. An almost linear relationship is found such that a hazard ratio for DFS of less than a threshold R corresponds to a non-null treatment effect on survival The threshold value R is determined for our colorectal adjuvant trial data. Based on this relationship, a one-sided test of equal hazard rate of survival is equivalent to a test of hazard ratio of DFS small than R This approach assumes that recurrence information is unbiasedly and accurately assessed; an assumpion which is sometimes difficult to ensure for multicenter clinical trials, particularly for interim analyses.     

How Women in Late Midlife Become Caregivers for Their Aging Parents

Approximately 52 million Americans provide informal (unpaid) care to a family member or friend who is disabled or ill. The most common informal caregiving relationship is that of an adult child providing assistance to an aging parent. This article describes a qualitative study examining how adult daughters between the ages of 50 and 65 become caregivers to their parent or parent-in-law. Data were collected through in-depth, face-to-face interviews with 15 female caregivers. Analysis revealed that assistance provided to parents was initiated by one or more triggering event, after which participants became caregivers in either an emergent or deliberate manner.     

Reviews

Abstract

Heather Baker reviews The no-nonsense guide to leadership, management, and teamwork; Elizabeth Parang reviews Systematic searching: Practical ideas for improving results; Anne Washington reviews Digital preservation in libraries: Preparing for a sustainable future.     

Understanding crisis and crisis management: an Indian perspective

This study explored individual perceptions of the concept of crisis and the strategies used to manage crisis events. Situated in the national Indian cultural context, this exploratory qualitative study addressed three questions: How do individuals from the Indian national culture define a crisis? How do individuals from the Indian national culture manage a crisis? What impact does the Indian national culture have on individual approaches to crisis management? Interview data were collected from 66 Indian participants with a focus on critical incidents related to crises. The findings from a thematic analysis revealed that, despite sharing the same national cultural heritage, the participants perceived crises very differently, and their approaches to crisis management could be classified into three categories: fighting, compromising, and avoiding. Further, culture influenced the strategies participants adopted to manage their perceived crises, and national cultural norms that bound the society were given the utmost importance by the participants.