Narratives about Work and Family Life among Portuguese Academics

A qualitative study conducted with Portuguese academics of both genders was devised to better understand the interface between work and family life. The academics seemed to position themselves along two different narratives. The first pointed to work and family as complementary, while the second described the subordination of one dimension to the other. The family life cycle, particularly parenthood experiences, illustrates the different narratives. Gender differences were more visible in the case of academics who were parents of young children, with women presenting a diverse set of micro‐narratives on motherhood. The findings also showed the need to design less standardized career models.     

The Timing of Capacity Investment with Lead Times: When Do Firms Act in Unison?

We study competitive capacity investment for the emergence of a new market. Firms may invest either in capacity leading demand or in capacity lagging demand at different costs. We show how the lead time and other operational factors including volume flexibility, existing capacity, and demand uncertainty impact equilibrium outcomes. Our results indicate that a type of bandwagon behavior is the most likely equilibrium outcome: if both firms are going to invest, then they are most likely to act in unison. Contrary to much received wisdom, we show that leader–follower behavior is very uncommon in equilibrium where firms do not have volume flexibility, and will not occur at all if lead times are sufficiently short. On the other hand, if there is volume flexibility in production, then the likelihood of this sequential investment behavior increases. Our findings underscore the importance of operational characteristics in determining the competitive dynamics of capacity investment timing.     

Slavery,black peasants and post‐emancipation society in Brazil (nineteenth century Rio De Janeiro)

From the analysis of archival material about small farming communities, in the northern region of the State of Rio de Janeiro, during slavery and in the period immediately post‐emancipation, this article revisits the intersection of race and class by showing how slaves, indigeneous peoples, and freed men and women have been an integral part of the constitution of this country's rural classes. By identifying a variety of socio‐economic and cultural ties between communities of runaway slaves, quilombos (maroon settlements), slave and freed peasants and slaves' autonomous economic activities in the plantation, this article departs from tradition historiography of Brazilian peasantry and shows how its history cannot be separated from of the history of the black Brazilian peasantry. More importantly, it describes how black historical experiences in Brazil has been constitutive of a complex peasant economic sector.     

Exchange and cohesion in dyads and triads: A test of Simmel’s hypothesis

This paper uses social exchange theory to address a classic question posed by Simmel (1964) regarding dyads and triads. The question is whether exchanges in a triad will generate more cohesion at the group level than exchanges in an isolated dyad. The main hypotheses, integrating several ideas from Simmel and social exchange theories, are as follows. First, triads generate less variability of behavior than dyads; that is, there is more uniformity or convergence in triads. Second, in the context of repeated exchange, we predict higher levels of cohesion in triads than in dyads. Third, positive emotion or affect has a stronger impact on cohesion in dyads than in triads, whereas uncertainty reduction has a stronger impact on cohesion in triads. To test these hypotheses, an experiment compared isolated dyads to dyads nested in a triadic exchange network. Subjects engaged in exchanges across a series of distinct episodes, using standard experimental procedures from research on relational cohesion (Lawler and Yoon, 1996) and exchange networks (Molm and Cook, 1995, Willer, 1999). Consistent with the hypotheses, the results reveal more convergence of behavior and higher cohesion in triads than in dyads; moreover, uncertainty reduction is the primary basis for cohesion in the triad, whereas positive affect was the primary basis for cohesion in the dyad. These results are discussed in relation to Simmelian dyad–triad dynamics and the theory of relational cohesion.     

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Work satisfaction, self‐esteem, and alienation measures were obtained from white males in three service occupations (bartenders, barbers, and mailmen) at different levels of the occupational prestige hierarchy. While we found an overall positive relationship between work satisfaction and occupational prestige, this only held for variables where societal reference groups were forced upon the respondents. Such findings suggest that the relationship between work satisfaction and occupational prestige is less absolute than usually suggested by the literature. Hypotheses from the literature arguing for a direct relationship between occupational prestige and alienation were not supported by our data. We conclude that sociologists probably overestimate the salience of work and occupational prestige for the working class.     

Institutional obstacles to service delivery in South Africa

This paper argues that the service‐delivery crisis facing two‐thirds of the municipalities across South Africa is caused by a series of institutional shortcomings ranging from incoherence in national policy towards rural and urban development, a lack of enforcement when it comes to financial controls and competencies, and a lack of skills affecting local officials ranging from customer service and relations, to financial controls, to technical competencies in the core areas of electrification, basic water and sanitation, and refuse collection. Government needs to address the skills shortage at the local level and enforce the rules and regulations concerning the role of public and elected officials to ensure not only service delivery but accountability and transparent decision‐making. Attending to the skills shortage and enforcing relevant rules would ensure better service delivery and, in turn, encourage bringing ‘democracy to the people’, which is at the heart of the post apartheid government’s decentralisation project.     

When social work students meet workers with mental-health lived-experience: a case study

Current social work education in India reflects globalization priorities and tendencies of neo-colonialism that emulate curriculum priorities and duplicate content developed in countries like the USA. Social work education as implemented by countries like the USA, has limited success in transnational training of social workers and their ability to address emerging social problems and deep rooted structural imbalances within non-USA social contexts. Yet, the concept of the world being an emerging global village is used to justify and reaffirm the colonial goals of universal education and pedagogies within social work and its application to starkly different contexts, such as India. This paper argues against the imperialist nature of social work education through examples from social work syllabi from Indian schools of social work. Secondly, this paper examines the role of academic collaborations and international organizations in addressing the challenges in curriculum development. Finally, through an example from a Curriculum Development Project undertaken in a sub-Saharan African country by one of the authors, the paper demonstrates ways of generating more local content for curricula that would create culturally sensitive social services.     

Evaluative concerns and personal standards perfectionism as predictors of body dissatisfaction in Asian and European American female college students

ABSTRACT

Objectives: The present study examined perfectionism (viz, evaluative concerns and personal standards) and ethnicity as predictors of body dissatisfaction in female college students. Participants: Participants were 298 female college students sampled by December of 2013. Methods: A self-report survey with measures of body dissatisfaction, perfectionism, and demographics was conducted. Results: Regression analyses indicated that evaluative concerns perfectionism (ECP) was a significant predictor of body dissatisfaction. The inclusion of ethnicity was found to further augment the prediction model. Moreover, we found support for an ECP × Ethnicity interaction effect in predicting body dissatisfaction. Specifically, among high-ECP female students, European Americans, compared with Asian Americans, reported the highest level of body dissatisfaction. Conclusion: High ECP represents a potential marker of body dissatisfaction in female college students. However, the presence of high ECP is a more critical predictor of body dissatisfaction in European American female students, compared with Asian American female students.