Organizations Have Opinions: A Redefinition of Publics

Random telephone interviews of organizations reveal that, contraryto popular belief, organizations do have opinions and that suchopinions can be obtained by use of traditional survey methods.In addition, when compared with a sample of individuals, theopinions of organizations differ from those of individuals onsome questions and not on others. It is suggested, therefore,that the omission of organizations from public opinion researchmay result in a misrepresentation of reality.     

A NOTE ON THE THEORY OF BLACK MARKETS UNDER PRICE CONTROLS

In a recent article in this Journal Browning and Culbertson (hereafter B-C) extended the theoretical investigation of the predicted effects of maximum price controls to the competitive firm and deduced an excess capacity result. In this note we extend their analysis to derive long-run adjustment paths for the industry for changes in market demand or control prices. The importance of such an extension is that the relevant industry adjustment path is different depending on whether one considers changes in the control price through such mechanisms as cost pass-throughs or through changes in industry demand. To make this extension meaningful, however, we must first consider the link between the firm and market diagrams in B-C's model. Section I is devoted to the analysis. Section II offers some concluding remarks.     

AN ECONOMETRIC MODEL OF THE DEMAND FOR CHILD CARE

Child care denotes any arrangement used by a working parent for care of a child, including self-care. This paper is concerned with the factors that influence the demand for market modes of child care by two parent families with working mothers. An econometric model is specified that relates the demand for child care to price, income, and other economic variables. Because of the discrete nature of the child care decision, the multinomial logit probability model is used to analyze the data. The empirical results suggest that the demand for child care is sensitive to both prices and income.     

Towards a Dynamic Model of the Psychological Contract

This paper presents a dynamic perspective in which the psychological contract is treated as a structured set of beliefs that are held by individual employees about the mutual obligations of the organization as employer and themselves as employees. This set of beliefs is assumed to produce a state of commitment to the organization in which the employee is willing to accept work roles and tasks offered by the organization, and to carry them out in accordance with certain standards. The dynamic model that is presented can help to explain why the commitment of employees remains relatively stable over time, and why it may suddenly decrease or increase under circumstances that are perceived as critical by the employee. The model assumes that the employee's evaluation of the organization's behavior changes over time, but that the structure of the psychological contract and the associated commitment change only when certain limits are overstepped. This perspective on changes in the psychological contract transforms the concept into a powerful construct that may lead to fruitful research on the dynamics of organization‐employee relationships. Implications for future research are discussed.     

The Effects of Group Living in a Residential Home for the Elderly

Summary The group-living system of care is becoming increasingly popularin residential homes for the elderly. This study examined purposefulactivity, as measured by engagement, in one such home beforeand after changeover to group living. It was found that engagementwas significantly increased after the changeover. In addition,life satisfaction was increased and orientation unchanged bythe changeover in a small sample of residents. These resultsare interpreted as supportive for the effectiveness of groupliving.     

Large Deviations Analysis of Extinction in Branching Models

Cramer's classical theorem is applied to obtain large deviations in branching processes. This is a new avenue for analysis of models in discrete and continuous time. For the Galton-Watson process a new formula for the rate function in terms of the Legendre transform of its offspring distribution is derived. Further analysis of the approximate path to extinction produces a new interesting formula.