INTERPROFESSIONAL RELATIONS AND THE EMERGENCE OF A NEW PROFESSION: Software Engineering in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada

This article explores the conditions under which interprofessional relations may be characterized by conflict and/or cooperation through a case study of the rise of a software engineering (SWE) profession in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada. Analysis of professional journal publications produced by the primary computing organizations in all three countries reveals that the development of a SWE profession in the United Kingdom, and to a lesser extent, the United States, has been a collaborative project pursued by engineering and computing organizations. In contrast, the development of SWE in Canada has been characterized by intense interprofessional conflict. The investigation suggests that interprofessional conflict may be mitigated when professionalizing groups seeking to lay claim to the same jurisdiction are similar in terms of their organizational size, outlook, and regulatory status.     

Managing Potential Health Risks from Electric Powerlines: A Decision Analysis Caught in Controversy

Over the past 20 years, several epidemiological studies have found an association between exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and health effects, including childhood leukemia and adult brain cancer. However, experts strongly disagree about whether this association is causal and, if so, how strong it is. In this article, we examine several alternatives to reduce EMFs from sources of the California power grid, including undergrounding distribution and transmission lines and reconfiguring or rephasing lines. The alternatives were evaluated in terms of the potential health risk reduction, cost, impacts on service reliability, property values, and many other consequences. Because of the uncertainty about an EMF-health link, the main effort was to determine the sensitivity of the decisions to the probability and seriousness of an EMF hazard. User-friendly computer models were developed to allow stakeholders to change the model assumptions and parameters to analyze the impacts of their own assumptions and estimates on the decision. The analysis clearly demonstrated that only four of the many concerns raised by the stakeholders could make a difference in the decision: health risks, costs, service reliability, and property values. Whether undergrounding, moderate alternatives for EMF reduction, or no change was the best decision depended on a few key factors, including the probability that EMF exposure is a hazard, the severity of this hazard, how the EMF reduction measures are financed, and the impacts on property values. While the analysis did not resolve the EMF issues, it showed that even in the most controversial settings, a little analysis goes a long way to clarifying the issues and to focus the debate.     

Research misconduct and crime lessons from criminal science on preventing misconduct and promoting integrity

For 200 years, criminologists theorized that delinquent and criminal acts arise from deviant psychological states (such as irrationality or immorality) and/or social conditions that produce these psychological states. This theoretical perspective, which is being duplicated in most efforts to understand and control research misconduct, has not been productive. More recently, criminological perspectives have emerged, emphasizing situational factors that enhance or restrict the opportunity for illegal or imprudent behavior. These so-called "opportunity" theories have been shown to have practical value in reducing crime rates. We explore the promise of these newer theories for the responsible conduct of research (RCR).     

Revisiting the stock price impact of quality awards

In an event study, Hendricks and Singhal [Hendricks KB, Singhal VR. Quality awards and the market value of the firm: an empirical investigation. Management Sci 1996;42:415–36.] find evidence that firms that win quality awards are further rewarded with a stock price increase on the day of the award announcement. We revisit Hendricks and Singhal (1996), extend their research and find four reasons why management, owners and analysts should be cautious about expecting an abnormal return when a firm wins a quality award. First, in our sample of Baldrige Award winners, the evidence of a stock price response on the announcement day is only marginally significant. Second, in our sample of State quality award winners, the announcement day relationship between stock returns and winning awards is not significant. Third, in the most recent subperiod, 1992–1997, we find no evidence of positive abnormal returns. Fourth, the marginally significant Baldrige results are actually driven by just four companies. A company-by-company microanalysis reveals that only 50% of the award winners experienced positive abnormal returns. The diminishing stock price response on event day does not necessarily imply a lack of stockholder rewards. Evidence from other studies suggests that the stockholders are rewarded for successful total quality management (TQM) implementation, but the rewards can come long before and after the formal award is presented. From a shareholder value perspective, TQM still matters but the award ceremonies may not.     

Making a difference: ethical consumption and the everyday

Our everyday shopping practices are increasingly marketed as opportunities to ‘make a difference’ via our ethical consumption choices. In response to a growing body of work detailing the ways in which specific alignments of ‘ethics’ and ‘consumption’ are mediated, we explore how ‘ethical’ opportunities such as the consumption of Fairtrade products are recognized, experienced and taken‐up in the everyday. The ‘everyday’ is approached here via a specially commissioned Mass Observation directive, a volunteer panel of correspondents in the UK. Our on‐going thematic analysis of their autobiographical accounts aims to explore a complex unevenness in the ways ‘ordinary’ people experience and negotiate calls to enact their ethical agency through consumption. Situating ethical consumption, moral obligation and choice in the everyday is, we argue, important if we are to avoid both over‐exaggerating the reflexive and self‐conscious sensibilities involved in ethical consumption, and, adhering to a reductive understanding of ethical self‐expression.     

The relationship between financial strain,perceived stress,psychological symptoms,and academic and social integration in undergraduate students

ABSTRACT

Objective: Financial strain may directly or indirectly (i.e., through perceived stress) impact students’ psychological symptoms and academic and social integration, yet few studies have tested these relationships. The authors explored the mediating effect of perceived stress on the relationship between financial strain and 2 important outcomes: psychological symptomology and academic and social integration. Participants: Participants were 157 undergraduate students. Data were collected from December 2013 to March 2014. Methods: Cross-sectional data collection conducted using online survey software. Results: It was found that perceived stress mediated the relationship between financial strain and (a) psychological symptomology and (b) academic and social integration. Both models included first-generation status as a covariate. Conclusions: Results suggest that perceived stress is an important intervention target for reducing psychological symptoms and improving academic and social integration for undergraduate students. Implications for university health centers and mental health professionals include incorporating a public health model to minimize stress risk.     

The Teaching of Listening as an Integral Part of an Oral Activity: An Examination of Public-Speaking Texts

This article presents the results of a content analysis of 10 current public-speaking textbooks to determine the nature and extent to which they teach listening in an integrated approach with public speaking as an oral activity. Lewis and Nichols (1965 Lewis, T. R. and Nichols, R. G. 1965. Speaking and listening: A guide to effective oral-aural communication, Dubuque, IA: W.C. Brown.  [Google Scholar]) predicted that listening would increasingly be taught especially in an integrated approach with speaking. Beyond the prediction, they established a template for the pedagogy that emphasized the oral modality. Their prediction has not proved accurate. Ample research illustrates the lack of listening instruction. The current study sought both to replicate these findings and to examine the emphasis on the oral modality as reflected in public-speaking texts. Six research questions asked about listening inclusion and concentration, differences in written and oral modalities, delivery, development via writing, discussion of the oral modality, and pedagogy. The results of this analysis confirmed that these texts do contain treatments of listening but with one exception, only to a slight degree. Listening was seldom integrated with the teaching of speech within these texts. Second, with two exceptions, the texts seldom developed instruction with an emphasis on speech as an oral activity. Overall, the texts failed to reflect the pedagogy for teaching the oral modality essential to listening instruction. The results are discussed in terms of the extent to which the texts advance the teaching of listening and speaking as an interdependent oral activity. The conclusions indicate that the pedagogy advanced through these texts focus too greatly on writing to appropriately advance an understanding of the oral aspects essential to listening education.     

Mexican American and European American Adolescents' Dating Experiences across the Ecosystem: Implications for Healthy Relationships within an Ecodevelopmental Framework

Dating health interventions that target the complex, multi-systemic spheres in which adolescents experience their first romantic relationships are required. This study utilizes an ecodevelopmental approach to better understand Mexican American and European American youths' perceptions of how peers, parents, school, and the media act both independently and collectively to affect their dating lives, also elucidating how such systems are at times in conflict. Seventy-five middle adolescents participated in focus groups divided by gender and ethnicity to uncover differences and similarities within and across groups. Findings underscore the importance and widespread effects of romantic relationships for adolescents' social development and the need for intervention programs that target multiple points of intervention while attending to mesosystemic conflicts across systems.