Use of risk assessment and life cycle assessment in decision making: a common policy research agenda.

Quantitative risk assessment (RA) and life cycle assessment (LCA) are both analytical tools used to support decision making in environmental management. They have been developed and used by largely separate groups of specialists, and it is worth considering whether there is a common research agenda that may increase the relevance of these tools in decision-making processes. The validity of drawing comparisons between use of the tools is established through examining key aspects of the two approaches for their similarities and differences, including the nature of each approach and contextual and methodological aspects. Six case studies involving use of each approach in public decision making are described and used to draw out concerns about using RA and LCA in this context. The following categories of concern can be distinguished: philosophical approach of the tools; quantitative versus qualitative assessment; stakeholder participation; the nature of the results; and the usefulness of the results in relation to time and financial resource requirements. These can be distilled into a common policy research agenda focusing on: the legitimacy of using tools built on a particular perspective in decision making; recognition and role of value judgments in RA and LCA; treatment of uncertainty and variability; the influence of analytical tools in focusing attention on particular aspects of a decision-making situation; and understandability of the results for nonspecialists. It is concluded that it is time to bring together the experiences of RA and LCA specialists and benefit from cross-fertilization of ideas.     

New information and social trust: asymmetry and perseverance of attributions about hazard managers.

It has been argued that news about negative events has a much stronger effect on decreasing social trust than does news about positive events on increasing it. This asymmetry principle of trust was investigated in two surveys that also investigated the perseverance of trust. The possibility that established trust attributions persevere in the face of new information raises questions about the limits of trust asymmetry. The two studies yielded evidence that both type of news (good versus bad) and initial general trust in the nuclear power industry or the food supply industry affected level of trust. Compared to individuals trusting the industry, those distrusting the industry exhibited less trust following both bad and good news events. Study I also found that judged informativeness and judged positiveness of news events were affected by type of news and general trust of the industry. Individuals low in general trust of the nuclear power industry judged both bad news and good news as less positive than did those high in general trust. Those low in general trust judged bad news as more informative than good news and than did those high in general trust. An important implication of the perseverance of trust is to focus attention on including not only the effects of information about specific events and actions, but also on the judgment processes underlying social trust. The Salient Value Similarity model is suggested as one way of accounting for these psychological processes.     

Agent or Steward: The Target CEO in a Hostile Takeover: Can a Condemned Agent be Redeemed?

This article examines the differences, tensions and overlaps between agency and stewardship theories of corporate governance. The context is a hostile bid for Blue Circle Industries, a FTSE 100 company, and the focus is upon its Chief Executive Officer’s actions in response. CEOs occupy a position of pivotal importance during such takeover bids, and it is salient to examine their resultant motivations and payoffs. While agency theory suggests that CEOs may act in self-interested ways, diverging from the interests of shareholders, ongoing stewardship theory sees CEOs as fundamentally honest and caring about their company and shareholders’ interests. The hostile bid is an opportunity for the target CEO to fight at any cost, or to act in the best interests of stakeholders.In examining the target CEO’s actions, this article suggests there is more complexity than these two theories acknowledge and the relationship between them is not one of simple opposition. The article identifies a framework for making sense of CEO/stakeholder relationships, and highlights the importance to boards of understanding how CEOs manage differential stakeholder pressures over time.     

Improving Primary Care for Persons with Disabilities: the nature of expertise

It has been well documented that persons with disabilities (PWDs) have a more vulnerable health status than persons without disabilities; yet, they often receive inadequate primary care within the US health care system. This study explores how PWDs think about the health care they receive, particularly how primary care providers facilitate or hinder quality care for PWDs. The findings from this study expand the concept of expertise in health care, suggesting it goes well beyond technical competence of health care providers. For PWDs, expertise is multi-dimensional, not solely the domain of providers and includes having knowledge and using that knowledge within the context of the provider-patient relationship. PWDs identified three distinct areas of expertise: medical/technical, medical/biographical, and systems. Expertise can be brought to health care encounters by both PWDs and providers, and it can be developed through collaboration during interactions between providers and PWDs.     

Victim Evaluations of Face-to-Face Restorative Justice Conferences: A Quasi-Experimental Analysis

One major goal of face-to-face restorative justice (RJ) is to help heal the psychological harm suffered by crime victims ( Braithwaite, 2002 ). Substantial evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCTs) has shown that this can be accomplished ( Strang, 2002 ) and more trials are underway ( Sherman & Strang, 2004 ). These outcomes are even more clearly, if less rigorously, demonstrated through retrospective interviews of victims about their feelings before and after RJ took place. We review the responses of victims ( N = 210) who participated in trials in Canberra (Australia) and in London, Thames Valley, and Northumbria (UK). Despite substantial variations in offense types, social contexts, nation and race, before-after changes revealed by qualitative and quantitative data are all in the same beneficial direction.     

Maternal Psychosocial Adversity and the Longitudinal Development of Infant Sleep

Research has identified associations between indicators of social disadvantage and the presence of child sleep problems. We examined the longitudinal development of infant sleep in families experiencing high (n = 58) or low (n = 64) levels of psychosocial adversity, and the contributions of neonatal self‐regulatory capacities and maternal settling strategies to this development. Assessments of infant sleep at 4‐, 7‐, and 12‐weeks postpartum indicated no differences in sleeping difficulties between high‐ and low‐adversity groups. However, more infant sleep difficulties were reported in the high‐ versus low‐adversity groups at 12‐ and 18‐month follow‐ups. Neonatal self‐regulatory capacities were not related to the presence or absence of adversity, or to subsequent infant sleep quality. However, there were group differences in maternal settling strategies that did predict subsequent infant sleep difficulties. The pattern of sleep disturbance observed in association with maternal psychosocial adversity at 18‐months was consistent with risk for broader impairments in child functioning.     

Role Induction in Career Counseling

Many vocational psychologists advocate addressing career as well as personal concerns in career counseling. However, some clients may have inappropriate expectations toward career counseling and may not be prepared or want to discuss personal issues. This study examined whether perceptions of the career counseling process could be modified with the use of role induction. Results indicated that, whereas role induction was associated with perceptions of students' own career concerns, gender was a strong influence in perceptions of counseling overall and in the stigma associated with a holistic perspective on career counseling.     

Book Review: Liberating Method: Feminism and Social Research. By Marjorie DeVault. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999. 275 pages,ISBN: 1566396980

Qualitative Sociology -     

The new genetics: professionals' discursive boundaries

In this paper we examine new genetics professionals’ accounts of the social context of their work. We analyse accounts given in interview by an ‘elite’ group of scientists and clinicians. Drawing on the work of Gilbert and Mulkay (1984), we consider interviewees’ discourse about knowledge, exploring the way in which they separate science from society through the use of what we have called the ‘micro/macro split’. We then go on to consider the reasons for such a discursive boundary, exploring the interviewees’ wider discourse about expertise and responsibility for the social implications of the new genetics. We argue that interviewees’ discursive boundaries allow them to appeal variously to their objectivity, to dismiss bad science and to characterize the public as ignorant. However, these discursive boundaries are permeable and flexible, and are employed to support the new genetics professionals’ role in guiding education and government policy, whilst at the same time deflecting ultimate responsibility for the use of knowledge on to an abstract and amorphous society. Responsibility is flexibly embraced and abrogated. These flexible discursive boundaries thus promote rather than challenge the cognitive authority of new genetics professionals as they engage in debates about the social implications of their work. We end by challenging the replication of these discursive boundaries, noting some of the implications of such a critique for evaluation of the new genetics.     

A Great Leap Forward?

It is unusual for family therapists to employ a dance framework as part of the therapeutic process. What happens when you do? This article describes the work of a therapist interested in dance as a way to psychic discovery.