Designing Lateral Organizations: An Analysis of the Benefits,Costs, and Enablers of Nonhierarchical Organizational Forms*

Twenty-first century organizations will require designs that enable them to cope with turbulent environments. Organizations have experimented with lateral organizational designs for this purpose, but research evidence concerning these forms is sparse. We analyzed data obtained from 512 employees within eight diverse organizations implementing flexible lateral organizations. Using a sequence comparison methodology, we were able to identify and categorize the major costs, benefits, and enablers associated with implementing these forms of complex organizations. Propositions for effectively managing lateral relations were tested and managerial implications were explored.     

Shared and unique characteristics of school,cyber and family victimization among school-aged children in Hong Kong

Victimizations from online and offline violence, such as sibling violence, school violence and witness of family violence, both have negative associations with victims' mental health and may share similar individual and family characteristics. This study aims to explore the common and differentiated characteristics in the prediction of school, cyber and family victimization and whether there are unique associations within these victimization types. We employed a two-stage stratified sampling method to collect a representative sample of 5567 children aged 3–17 from a cross-sectional, school-based survey in Hong Kong. Results showed that all types of child victimization, including sibling, school and cyberbullying, as well as the witness of violence at home, were positively correlated with each other. Children's age was positively related to the occurrence and cooccurrence of all types of child victimization. Frequent family residential mobility and parents' higher education level were positively related to all types of children's victimization. The scores of all aspects of children's paediatric quality of life were found negatively related to children's school victimization. This study provides insight into the unique and shared elements of children's online and offline victimization. Knowledge of the distinguished familial gradients of child victimization at home and beyond could benefit the development of child victimization prevention.     

Adapting private family time in child protective services decision-making processes

The Family Group Conference (FGC) is grounded in a rights-based framework, whereby children and their families have the right and responsibility to be primary decision-makers when child protection issues arise, and the statutory agency has the responsibility to convene the entitled members of the family network to lead the decision-making. A distinct core component of FGC—private family time (PFT)—allows families to discuss the information and formulate their responses and plans privately during conferencing. This paper describes how a large child welfare agency in the United States adapted PFT in two ways: (1) including a parent advocate (PA) and (2) abbreviating the amount of time allowed for this discussion. Given the lack of empirical research on the PFT component, this qualitative exploratory study sought to understand the functions and perceived impacts of PA-supported PFT during initial child protective services (CPS) conferences at which decisions of child removal or placement were being contemplated. PFT served multiple beneficial functions and impacted families in several positive ways: families gained greater awareness of safety concerns, felt empowered and confident in the preferred safety and service plan, became increasingly engaged and involved in the case decision-making process and ultimately felt less apprehensive.     

Substance use and other factors associated with child welfare case duration: Looking beyond out of home care

Little is known about factors associated with child welfare case duration. Understanding factors associated with case duration may help stakeholders make more informed decisions about funding and service allocation and improve compliance with federal law. This study had two research questions: (1) What factors are associated with child welfare case duration? And (2) Do factors differ depending on whether children were placed exclusively with parents or with others (e.g. relatives and foster care) during the case? The study sample consisted of families (N = 874) with co-occurring child maltreatment and substance use in one midwestern state in the United States between 2007 and 2016. Linear regression models were used to identify correlates of case duration while controlling for child placement status. Overall, having a child under 1 year of age, benzodiazepine use, methamphetamine use and injection drug use were all associated with longer case duration, whereas marijuana use with no other substance use was associated with shorter case duration. Additionally, factors associated with case duration differed based on child placement status during the case. These findings suggest important heterogeneity in families involved with child welfare services and may allow for proactive mitigation of cases at greater risk.     

Couples relationship standards and satisfaction in Pakistani couples

Relationship standards are beliefs about what is important in a satisfying couple relationship, which vary considerably between cultures, and might mean that what couples seek from couple therapy differs across cultures. We assessed the standards of n = 49 Pakistani couples and whether those standards predicted couple satisfaction. To provide referents for the Pakistani standards, we also assessed selfreported relationship standards in n = 33 Western couples and n = 30 Chinese couples. Pakistani couples endorsed couple bond standards (e.g., expressions of love) as similarly important, and family responsibility (e.g., extended family relations) standards as more important, than Western or Chinese couples. In Pakistani couples, Couple Bond predicted couples' relationship satisfaction, but family responsibility and Religion predicted only wives' satisfaction. Modest sample sizes necessitate caution in interpreting results but suggest existing couple therapies might need modification to address the distinctive relationship standards of Pakistani couples.     

Using Neural Networks to Model the Behavior and Decisions of Gamblers,in Particular,Cyber-Gamblers

This article describes the use of neural networks (a type of artificial intelligence) and an empirical data sample of, inter alia, the amounts of bets laid and the winnings/losses made in successive games by a number of cyber-gamblers to longitudinally model gamblers’ behavior and decisions as to such bet amounts and the temporal trajectory of winnings/losses. The data was collected by videoing Texas Holdem gamblers at a cyber-gambling website. Six “persistent” gamblers were identified, totaling 675 games. The neural networks on average were able to predict bet amounts and cumulative winnings/losses in successive games accurately to three decimal places of the dollar. A more important conclusion is that the influence of a gambler’s skills, strategies, and personality on his/her successive bet amounts and cumulative winnings/losses is almost totally reflected by the pattern(s) of his/her winnings/losses in the few initial games and his/her gambling account balance. This partially invalidates gamblers’ illusions and fallacies that they can outperform others or even bankers. For government policy-makers, gambling industry operators, economists, sociologists, psychiatrists, and psychologists, this article provides models for gamblers’ behavior and decisions. It also explores and exemplifies the usefulness of neural networks and artificial intelligence at large in the research on gambling.     

中国农村地区的家庭禀赋与外出务工劳动力回流

中国农村地区家庭禀赋对个人的行为决策有着重要的影响,需要学术界予以更多的关注。为了考察外生性的家庭禀赋对劳动力就业流动的影响,文章通过构建新生代外出务工劳动力和户主子女的回流决策两个计量模型来进行经验论证。分析结果表明,农村劳动力的迁移选择是综合考虑家庭禀赋状况的理性决策,尤其是对于年轻一代的外出劳动力。家庭经济资本的增加会阻碍家庭外出务工成员的回流。外出劳动力回流的概率起初随着家庭人力资本和家庭自然资本的增长而上升,达到一定程度后开始下降。家庭成员只有拥有较为丰富的人力资本,外出务工劳动力才能对家庭社会资本加以充分利用。另外,分析显示年轻一代劳动力和第一代劳动力对家庭社会资本和自然资本的利用是有差异的。     

A Comparative Analysis of the Fertility of the Urban and Rural in China Since 2000

The different in the fertility of the rural and urban and future changing trend are very important questions to understand China’s population problem. This paper calculates the fertility of the urban and the rural since 2000 based on the statistical data and compares the fertility rate in the urban and the rural population since 2000. The finding shows that the TFR in the rural is less than 1.8 while the TFR in the urban is less than 1.3 and the difference is narrowing year by year. The fertility difference is mainly caused by the second child, generally speaking the second child fertility tend to increasing slightly while the first child fertility shows dramatic fluctuations because of the Chinese folk culture, the fertility fluctuation in the rural is much dramatic than that in the urban. The mean age at childbearing (MAC) has been delaying in both the rural and the urban areas in the decade.     

Foster care placement breakdown in the Netherlands and Flanders: Prevalence,precursors, and associated factors

Family foster care is the option of choice for children in need of out‐of‐home care in Flanders and the Netherlands. Foster care is however a vulnerable intervention, and questions can be raised as to its efficacy. Although the literature on placement breakdown has made significant progress during the last years, empirical knowledge regarding breakdown in Flanders and the Netherlands remains scant. Consequently, this study aimed at investigating prevalence and precursors of breakdowns in long‐term foster care, the duration of placement before breakdown, and the association of child and placement characteristics with breakdown. Case files of 271 Dutch and 309 Flemish foster children were analysed with a coding scheme designed for this study. After 6 years, 398 placements had terminated: 169 placements broke down and 229 placements ended positively. Placements broke down mainly because of behavioural problems of the foster child, foster parents' parenting problems, and conflicts between birth and foster parents. Foster children with behavioural problems, older foster children, foster children denied treatment, and foster children in care because of sexual abuse were more at risk of breakdown. Assessing these factors is important when evaluating the appropriateness of a family foster care placement.     

Testing for Granger-causality in quantiles

This paper proposes a consistent parametric test of Granger-causality in quantiles. Although the concept of Granger-causality is defined in terms of the conditional distribution, most articles have tested Granger-causality using conditional mean regression models in which the causal relations are linear. Rather than focusing on a single part of the conditional distribution, we develop a test that evaluates nonlinear causalities and possible causal relations in all conditional quantiles, which provides a sufficient condition for Granger-causality when all quantiles are considered. The proposed test statistic has correct asymptotic size, is consistent against fixed alternatives, and has power against Pitman deviations from the null hypothesis. As the proposed test statistic is asymptotically nonpivotal, we tabulate critical values via a subsampling approach. We present Monte Carlo evidence and an application considering the causal relation between the gold price, the USD/GBP exchange rate, and the oil price.