The Divide Between “Evidenced‐Based” Approaches and Practitioners of Traditional Theories of Family Therapy

Evidenced‐based approaches continue to grow in the field of family therapy. However, practicing family therapists do not always embrace these approaches. In this article, we explore factors contributing to practitioners' concerns with evidence‐based treatments and suggest a broader, more clinically palatable view of evidenced‐based treatment. We also suggest how family therapy researchers, practitioners, and educators might begin to close the researcher–clinician divide in the best interest of all concerned.     

DESIGNED TO FAIL: THE MEDICARE AUCTION FOR DURABLE MEDICAL EQUIPMENT

We examine the theoretical properties of the auction for Medicare Durable Medical Equipment. Two unique features of the Medicare auction are (1) winners are paid the median winning bid and (2) bids are nonbinding. We show that median pricing results in allocation inefficiencies as some high‐cost firms potentially displace low‐cost firms as winners. Further, the auction may leave demand unfulfilled as some winners refuse to supply because the price is set below their cost. We also introduce a model of nonbinding bids that establishes the rationality of a lowball bid strategy employed by many bidders in the actual Medicare auctions and recently replicated in Caltech experiments. We contrast the median‐price auction with the standard clearing‐price auction where each firm bids true costs as a dominant strategy, resulting in competitive equilibrium prices and full efficiency. (JEL D44, I11, H57)     

A home from home: the organization as family

The basic unit of human organization has always been the family, although the meaning and composition of “family” has altered over the millennia of human existence. The current view in Western thought is that there is a distinct schism between the family and other social organizations, particularly those organizations associated with work. As a broad distinction, the family is held to be in the private sphere of human interaction and work organizations in the public. Much feminist theory is predicated on this private/public split, and one of the reasons proposed for the social inequality of women is that the private, which is women's “natural” domain, is held to be of lesser social significance.

The paper considers, in a light-hearted (but we hope not lightweight) manner, the metaphor of the organization as family. We provide analogies between the notions of “family” as a private social institution and the work organization, drawing no conclusions, but providing some small insights into affinities and congruences which blur the private/public distinction. If we assert anything at all, it is this: because the work organization is family, we are able to slip from one to the other each day with the minimum of psychic stress.

“Travail, Famille, patrie” (the slogan of the Vichy régime)     

Beyond the Self: External Influences in the Career Development Process

The purpose of this article is to explore the wide spectrum of external influences that affect career decision making across the life span and, in particular, how these factors may directly or indirectly alter one's career trajectory and the extent of one's work volition. Career development practitioners are encouraged to respect externally oriented frameworks, explore the social influence of career choice alternatives faced by clients, encourage clients to voice their emotional responses to external constraints, and use career decision‐making strategies that seek an optimal balance of internal and external influences.     

A multilevel approach to building and leading learning organizations

A multilevel model is offered proposing that organizational learning is an interdependent system where effective leaders enact intervention strategies at the individual (micro), network (meso), and systems (macro) levels. We suggest that leaders approach organizational learning by setting the conditions and structure for learning to occur, while limiting direct interference in the actual creative processes. First, leaders may increase the level of developmental readiness of individual followers, thereby increasing their motivation and ability to approach learning experiences and adapt their mental models. These individuals then serve as catalysts of learning within and between social networks. Second, leaders may promote the diffusion of knowledge between these knowledge catalysts within and across social networks through influencing both the structure and functioning of knowledge networks. Finally, leaders may target actions at the systems level to improve the diffusion to, and institutionalization of, knowledge to the larger organization.     

Procurement with Reverse Auction and Flexible Noncompetitive Contracts

This article investigates a hybrid procurement mechanism that combines a reverse auction with flexible noncompetitive contracts. A buyer adopts such mechanism to procure multiple units of a product from a group of potential suppliers. Specifically, the buyer first offers contracts to some suppliers who, if accepting the contract, do not participate in the auction while committing to selling a unit to the buyer at the price of the subsequent auction. For the suppliers rejecting the offers, they can join the subsequent auction with the other suppliers to compete on the remaining units. When the buyer offers only one flexible noncompetitive contract, we find that the selected supplier may accept the offer regardless of whether he knows his exact cost information. Meanwhile, the buyer can benefit from offering such a contract, as opposed to solely conducting a regular reverse auction or offering a noncompetitive contract that does not allow suppliers declining offers to join the subsequent auction. Moreover, we find that the suppliers' information about their own costs has a significant impact on the buyer's decision. When the buyer makes multiple offers, we analyze the resulting game behavior of the selected suppliers and demonstrate that the buyer can benefit more than just offering one such contract. Therefore, the hybrid procurement mechanism can be mutually beneficial for both the buyer and the selected suppliers.