A test of Wheeler’s closed-offer arbitration system: An experimental study

This study investigates the impact of two alternative forms of arbitration — conventional arbitration and final-offer arbitration — and whether or not prearbitration bargaining information is available to the arbitrator on negotiation behavior and outcomes. Contrary to Wheeler’s prediction, participants anticipating closed-offer arbitration neither conceded more nor reached more settlements than did participants anticipating open-offer arbitration. Participants anticipating final-offer arbitration made a greater final concession than did participants anticipating conventional arbitration.     

Countertransference issues for the consultant when a colleague is critically ill (or dying)

This report illustrates how countertransference issues emerged for a consultant therapist whose guidance about practice was sought by an ill and dying colleague. The detechment necessary for consultation was difficult to maintain. Denial, avoidance, and isolation operated for both. Ambivalence about directive behavior developed. Unexpressed grief, shock, feelings of inadequacy, and identification with the colleague intruted but were managed. The occurrence of such countertransference phenomena can be anticipated and understood in a consultation process that represents one valuable, underutilized, and important means of encouraging quality clinical practice under extremely painful circumstances.     

Frailty models for survival data

A frailty model is a random effects model for time variables, where the random effect (the frailty) has a multiplicative effect on the hazard. It can be used for univariate (independent) failure times, i.e. to describe the influence of unobserved covariates in a proportional hazards model. More interesting, however, is to consider multivariate (dependent) failure times generated as conditionally independent times given the frailty. This approach can be used both for survival times for individuals, like twins or family members, and for repeated events for the same individual. The standard assumption is to use a gamma distribution for the frailty, but this is a restriction that implies that the dependence is most important for late events. More generally, the distribution can be stable, inverse Gaussian, or follow a power variance function exponential family. Theoretically, large differences are seen between the choices. In practice, using the largest model makes it possible to allow for more general dependence structures, without making the formulas too complicated.This paper is a revised version of a review, which together with ten papers by the author made up a thesis for a Doctor of Science degree at the University of Copenhagen.     

New Zealand ministers of religion: Identifying sources of stress and coping strategies

Because the primary focus in occupational stress research has been on refining our understanding of the relationship between stressors and stress responses, relatively few attempts have been made to examine the nature and structure of the different constructs involved in that relationship. One reason for this has been die apparent acceptance that current measures adequately describe work role stressors or that constructs such as coping can be researched by simply selecting and devising measures on an a priori basis. This paper considers the stressors reported by ministers of religion in New Zealand and the strategies may use to cope with those problems. The results draw attention to die fact that while existing scales provide a good measure of general perceptions they are not useful or designed for evaluating specific role relationships or their nature and structure. The implications of these findings arc discussed in terms of measurement issues and future research.     

Job creation: New work for women?

The movement of some women into self employment is considered in this paper. It is argued that if this movement is to be successful, and thus have any influence on the equality of employment opportunities, then it is necessary for the business ventures involved to be run strategically rather than operationally. It is also argued that there must be greater scope and encouragement for innovation in this area, otherwise there is a danger of mirroring, in new business formation, the structure of inequality that applies to the formal, and declining, structure of current employment. Finally, the paper examines the need for women's entrepreneurial ventures to be better accepted by and integrated into the wider social fabric. The potential sources of stress and of satisfaction in women's self employment are noted.     

Organisation structure,management style and company performance

This paper examines the relationship between organisation structure and management style and their influence on organisational effectiveness measured in both ‘human’ and financial terms. Account has also been taken of related contextual factors such as differences in task, size and environment of a company. Using information collected from a sample of fifty small and medium size printing and building firms the authors have elaborated a conceptual model involving the independent attributes; integration, control, task orientation and people orientation. The validity of this model has been operationally tested and examined against the background of evidence reported by other research workers on the contextual determinants of organisational structure and management style. Substantially different patterns of association between ‘organisation’ and ‘style’ and company performance are found for the two industries and an important outcome of the research has been to produce further evidence in favour of the contingency theory of organisation. The paper concludes with some implications for management practice and organisational design.     

The importance of spirituality among gay and lesbian individuals

Religion is a conduit for expressing spirituality. Since most mainstream religions condemn any form of homosexuality one would expect that gay men and lesbians would have little to do with spirituality. Experts, however, believe that gay and lesbian individuals would especially benefit from spiritual nourishment because of the oppression they face. Using an instrument that measures spiritual well-being, this study investigated the spirituality of 93 gay and lesbian individuals. The findings revealed that respondents espoused high levels of spiritual well-being: how one relates to God (religious well-being) and how one feels about life (existential well-being). Those who identified with a formal religion and who attended religious services frequently espoused higher religious well-being. Respondents with a diagnosis of depression, on the other hand, espoused lower existential well-being. Multiple regression analyses revealed that existential well-being was a significant predictor of adjustment: having high self-esteem, accepting one's homosexual orientation, and feeling less alienated. In contrast, religious well-being was not a significant predictor of any measure of adjustment. These findings point to the importance of the existential aspect of spirituality among gay and lesbian individuals in determining adjustment. They also suggest that being well-adjusted does not entail being reconciled with a traditional religion or with a theistic belief.