What does the pursuit of a high quality of life entail?: Grounding a theoretical model in lived experience

In response to calls for a better understanding of quality of life, we draw upon working professionals’ perspectives and experiences to introduce a theoretical model that emerged from an inductive analysis of respondents’ language. A key element of this model includes a collective picture of factors representing quality of life. Further, this model suggests interrelatedness among these factors with pursuit of a high quality of life emerging as a dynamic process with a tensional nature. Our proposed model extends existing research by more fully capturing the complex ways in which people from the United States describe quality of life and its pursuit.     

土族民间祭祀圈与信仰圈

文章以民和三川土族村落中的部分神祗为切入点，试图用文化人类学中的祭祀圈、信仰圈理论来解释和探讨土族民间信仰与土族村落发展问题。     

Short-term demographic fluctuations in the croatian military border of austria, 1830–1847

Crude birth, death and marriage rates are examined for the Croatian military defence zone andcordon sanitaire against Turkey for the period 1830–1847. From 20 to 80 per cent of the variance in medium- and short-term swings in rates can be attributed to epidemics and fluctuations in grain harvest and livestock holdings. Standardization of the data to adjust for extreme ecological variation between micro-regions is essential. The ‘Malthusian’ status of this late feudal population is established, at the outset of long-term fertility decline.     

The Workers' Compensation System in Victoria: Who Takes the Blame?

Four years after its inception, Workcare, the Victorian Government's new workers' compensation scheme, has failed to live up to its promise. Recent reforms have concentrated on identifying groups responsible for the ‘rorts’ and cost ‘blowouts’ of the scheme. It is argued that although this sort of intervention might make economic sense, it continues a tradition of scapegoating individual workers rather than trying to analyse the complex workings of such schemes. Several of the assumptions underlying Workcare (and similar systems) are discussed in order to demonstrate the potential for failure in any benefits delivery system based on status rather than need.     

Students as a resource for introducing intercultural education in business schools

Despite a recognized need for a global mindset, opportunities for US business school students to gain hands‐on diversity training regarding intercultural issues remain rare. The reasons for this neglect include a lack of agreement on how to teach intercultural awareness and a paucity of faculty qualified to do so. In order to introduce intercultural education into a core business course, students were offered the opportunity to participate in an extra‐credit project that required the development of a proposal for an international joint venture and afforded them the chance to learn about each other while pursuing a superordinate goal of value to each. Thirty‐nine cross‐cultural teams were created, each of which had a partner from the US and a partner from a different country. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses revealed that the value of the project was closely related to the amount of learning that reportedly took place in both the business and cultural realms. Importantly, 73% of the students reported a strong interest in meeting people from different cultures as a result of participation in the project.