Value drivers of social businesses: A business model perspective

Hybrid organizational forms that combine commercial and welfare institutional logics play an increasingly important role in addressing the grand societal challenges we face today. Building on the literatures on hybrid organizations and social business models, we explore the characteristics of social businesses from a business model perspective. This study seeks to better understand the particularities and value drivers of hybrid social purpose in contrast to purely commercial business models. We follow a grounded theory approach and our findings are based on interview data from 17 social business firms. Building on social businesses' identified particularities, we propose four value drivers of social business models: 1) responsible efficiency, 2) impact complementarities, 3) shared values, and 4) integration novelties. We link our findings to the literature, contributing new insights into social businesses models and implications for practitioners.     

Police Accounts of Body-Worn Camera Footage In News Media

People offer accounts in response to actions that are subjected to valuative inquiry. Recordings of police actions captured on body-worn camera (BWC) video can become subject to valuative inquiry when footage is publicly released. This footage may possibly undermine police legitimacy. Managing legitimacy is a basic rationale for why police provide accounts in response to their conduct. Proponents of BWCs assert that the devices enhance legitimacy and, while police have long used accounts to justify their conduct, less is known about how body cameras affect police accountability in practice. Drawing from Scott and Lyman's accounts theory framework, this qualitative, exploratory study examines official police accounts as both outcomes of police accountability in practice and as provided in the context of news media coverage of publicly released body-worn camera footage. This allows us to ask the following questions: What types of accounts have police officials provided in news media reports in the context of publicly released BWC footage? And, more generally, what insight might an analysis of police accounts provide about accountability in relation to the implementation of BWCs? A key finding reveals that the timing of police accounts varied quite considerably, and that accounts were usually not static. The findings provide some general insight into what kinds of actions captured on body camera recordings constitute acceptable use of force by officers, even in situations when police actions resulted in death. This study also provides a small empirical window into when and how police officials provide accounts in response to publicly released body camera footage.     

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Role of National Divorce Rates in Moderating the Association Between Marriage Duration and Body Mass Index

The aim of this study was to investigate the moderating effects of the national divorce rate on the association between body weight and marriage duration. Previous studies argued that a high divorce rate at country level reduces the body weight of married people because of an increased risk of a return to the marriage market. To examine the association in question, this study used retrospective data from 14,083 middle-aged individuals in Europe. For women the divorce rate, the percentage change, and the trend of change did not moderate the positive association between body mass index and marriage duration. In contrast, for men a high divorce rate and a steady decline over time positively moderated the relation between body mass index and marriage duration.     

Being Known in Undergraduate Social Work Education: The Role of Instructors in Fostering Student Engagement and Motivation

Most undergraduate students pursue a social work major because of their desire to help others. Students tend to be more interested in doing than in understanding the research and knowledge of the profession and the complexities of social work practice. Instructors are often faced with the challenge of enhancing student motivation to learn challenging course material. This study explored student perceptions of instructor influences on their motivation and engagement in learning. Through online surveys, students described their experiences of being known and how those experiences affected their participation in practice, research, and human behavior in the social environment courses. Results showed that instructor caring (providing recognition, expressing relational qualities, and responding to students) positively influences student motivation and affective learning by increasing comfort, willingness to ask questions, take risks, and overall participation. Conversely, of those who reported mixed experiences or who felt unknown, most reported a negative impact on their motivation and participation. These findings suggest that social work faculty can influence student motivation and engagement with essential social work curriculum by expressing care and helping students feel known in the classroom.     

‘Putting an ocean between them’: Gender relations among Italian immigrant families in twentieth‐century Argentina

The article starts from the premise that dominant research paradigms of both ‘melting pot’ and ‘multiculturalism’ have concentrated almost exclusively on the institutions of ethnic groups in the study of one of the twentieth century's principal immigrant nations, Argentina. The article makes a case for refocusing the study of immigration in more individual categories. It takes as its example gender, and analyses the role of women in two Italian family networks who emigrated to Argentina. The findings demonstrate that women's roles changed significantly in the migratory process and that women were, in fact, crucial in offering the prospect of social mobility for newly immigrated men. The article concludes by advancing a view beyond the issues of gender on the continuities and discontinuities of political ideologies in the new society.     

IT'S NOT JUST A JOKE

Sexism is a recurrent part of women's everyday lives. One understudied area within gender scholarship is the content and implications of sexist humor as a form of sexism. In this article, we explore the sexist content of 153 Internet jokes. Our analysis demonstrates that sexist jokes offer portrayals of misogyny that serve many functions, some of which include the sexual objectification of women, devaluation of their personal and professional abilities, and support of violence against women. Implications of such humor are discussed as well as future research possibilities in this area.     

Meeting at the Thin Places: Synchronicities in Clinical Practice

Unusual events, beyond mere coincidences, may occur during the course of psychotherapy. Yet, clinical training often does not prepare therapists how to understand and potentially engage with these encounters. The aim of this report is to explore the emergence of synchronistic events in therapy, while providing two clinical case composites to illustrate the author’s central points. Drawing on the Celtic concept of “thin places,” a new understanding of synchronicities and the therapeutic relationship is offered.     

A review of hedge funds and their investor activism: do they help or hurt other equity investors?

Hedge funds tend to be highly activist investors who exercise their ??principal power?? over their portfolio firms. We observe that, compared to other investor types, hedge funds appear to be even more activist than is predicted by a comprehensive Investor Activism Model, due to the unexpectedly large role of several antecedent variables. This conclusion suggests that the relatively lightly regulated environment of hedge funds affects the weighting of conventional activism-antecedent variables. We explore how their access to several investing and trading strategies is allowing hedge funds to redefine investor activism. In the process, we find that, while hedge funds and their activism tend to benefit fellow investors, the potential exists for some specific hedge fund types to expropriate value from minority shareholders, creating ??principal?Cprincipal?? conflict. The potentially detrimental impact of hedge fund activism on other equity investors is demonstrated, illuminating several current policy concerns.