Book Review: Welfare Reform,James Madison and Federalism

Public Organization Review -     

Australia's Enviro-Economic Dilemma and the World View Of Buddhism

Australia sits uncomfortably in a troubled and changing world economy with new criteria for the direction of flow of material wealth between nations. Ecocatastrophe based fears may be far less powerful forces of value confrontation than potential social conflict from loss of national income and deepening inequality in in the allocation of resources. The world view of Buddhism offers one Utopian means of resolving the current Australian enviro-economic dilemma. The inevitably of radically different economic circumstances, and the rationality and idealism of the social and environmental dimensions of a Buddhist solution, are briefly examined in the Australian context.     

Families and donor insemination: the views of semen donors

One of the consequences of donor insemination for the semen donor is that he becomes a member of two families: his own family in which he has a genetic and social connection with his offspring; and the family of the recipient couple, in which he has a genetic connection to the offspring, but usually no social connection with either the offspring or the recipient couple. This article challenges the dominant view that donor insemination as a practice of mainly medical or legal importance by looking at the attitudes of donors to both their own family and the family to which they have contributed their genetic material. Results are presented concerning who donors have told about their donation, who they think should be told, whether they think recipient couples should tell their donor insemination offspring about their conception, and concerning their opinions about factors that are considered in matching donors with recipient fathers.     

Why aren't managers concerned about occupational stress?

To explain the rarity of workplace stress management interventions, it is thought that managers are not concerned with the risks of occupational stress to health and job performance. Some writers consider either (1) deficiencies in theory, and/or (2) deficiencies in methodology to be the cause of this apparent lack of concern. The aim of this paper is to illustrate another perspective on this issue; that of risk perception. Two perspectives on risk perception are discussed; the psychometric view and the cultural view. The psychometric view suggests that senior managers may underestimate the risks associated with stress. The cultural view suggests that managers may consider stress management to be inappropriate, since individuals, not organizations, should be responsible for coping with stress. Both perspectives indicate that very few managers may consider stress to be a risk that should be actively managed by the organization. The associated disciplines of risk management and particularly risk communication are discussed to suggest ways to overcome lack of managerial interest in stress management.