Corporate planning in the Netherlands

This article is the result of an investigation into the practice of corporate planning in 20 major Dutch companies. The results emphazise some of the problems regarding the corporate planner and his role in the firm. Those problems are such that it is not unrealistic to speak of some sort of “identity crisis”.     

A Children's Standpoint: Needs in Out‐of‐Home Care

This article discusses research reported in ‘The Needs of Children in Care’ ( Mason and Gibson, 2004 ) in which children participated in defining their needs in out‐of‐home care. In this study a central research presumption was that children are knowledgeable about their own needs. The methods used to facilitate the involvement in the project of children and adult stakeholders in out‐of‐home care are described. Also described are findings from the research which identified that of prime importance to the children were their connections with others and their agency in their own lives. These findings are compared with findings from the narratives of the adult stakeholder groups. Finally, the implications of the findings, for improving children's participation in decision‐making around their needs in care are considered in the context of broad adult–child social relations in the care system.     

Family Experience of Borderline Personality Disorder

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) struggle with unbearable emotions that arise out of interpersonal difficulties. Self‐harm and suicidal behaviours serve to regulate these emotions and to gain a sense of well‐being and control in a treatment context where hospital admissions are avoided by mental health services. Clinician engagement with families may be constrained by their knowing the accepted etiology of the disorder, which includes a causal link with the family environment. Other constraining factors include the negativity of those with BPD toward their family, and their clinicians' diagnostic uncertainty or confusion. This qualitative study explored the experience of families whose close relative with BPD has a long history of self‐harm and/or suicide attempts. Family members were found to have chronic and traumatic stress. Family roles and relationships were strained, as were relationships between the family and the mental health system. The findings of this study indicate that treatment for BPD needs to adopt a systemic approach that considers individuals and their significant family relationships, as well as relationships between the family and treatment providers.     

Sensitivity Analysis of a Two‐Dimensional Quantitative Microbiological Risk Assessment: Keeping Variability and Uncertainty Separated

The aim of quantitative microbiological risk assessment is to estimate the risk of illness caused by the presence of a pathogen in a food type, and to study the impact of interventions. Because of inherent variability and uncertainty, risk assessments are generally conducted stochastically, and if possible it is advised to characterize variability separately from uncertainty. Sensitivity analysis allows to indicate to which of the input variables the outcome of a quantitative microbiological risk assessment is most sensitive. Although a number of methods exist to apply sensitivity analysis to a risk assessment with probabilistic input variables (such as contamination, storage temperature, storage duration, etc.), it is challenging to perform sensitivity analysis in the case where a risk assessment includes a separate characterization of variability and uncertainty of input variables. A procedure is proposed that focuses on the relation between risk estimates obtained by Monte Carlo simulation and the location of pseudo‐randomly sampled input variables within the uncertainty and variability distributions. Within this procedure, two methods are used—that is, an ANOVA‐like model and Sobol sensitivity indices—to obtain and compare the impact of variability and of uncertainty of all input variables, and of model uncertainty and scenario uncertainty. As a case study, this methodology is applied to a risk assessment to estimate the risk of contracting listeriosis due to consumption of deli meats.     

Therapeutic Responses to Communities Affected by Disasters: The Contribution of Family Therapy

This article is underpinned by the premise that for recovery, healing and post‐traumatic growth to occur after traumatic events such as technological and natural disasters, massacres and terrorist attacks, effective therapeutic services need to be offered at both the individual and community level. Frequently, responses to such traumatic instances have been conceptualised as discrete, polarised interventions offered by various groups of health and welfare professionals at various points post the traumatic event. Traditionally when therapeutic interventions are considered, many practitioners assume that the response would, and should, focus primarily and narrowly, on individuals or their families and the symptoms of post‐traumatic stress. Conversely, the perceived role of community wide interventions has been unnecessarily limited to disaster relief or organised emergency responses most usually offered at the time of the crisis. The consequence of these limited understandings is an apparent failure to explore fully the therapeutic or mediating role of social or community support in surviving trauma. Interventions encompassing the level of community might be therapeutic in two fundamental ways. First, if practitioners embraced ideas from systemic family therapy literature, ideas that acknowledge the importance of social networks, this would encourage a more holistic vision of resilience and recovery. Second, if practitioners recognised that whole communities and social networks might also be traumatised, they could provide support and interventions oriented toward healing at this broader level.     

Improving special education mediation

This article provides background information about special education and mediation and offers some points to consider for those interested in starting, improving or analyzing a special education mediation process. This article is based on the author's experience as a mediator as well as on site visits, interviews and a review of the relevant literature. The author concludes that mediation can be a very effective method for settling special education disputes and/or improving relationships but that the process can be affected by outside factors such as politics, finances and/or the system.     

Portfolio decision-making genres: A case study

This article addresses the portfolio management practices and challenges of contemporary firms. Based on a review of the extant literature on project selection, termination and deletion decisions, we conducted an in-depth interview study with 19 key informants in 11 multinational firms. We identified three genres of portfolio management decision making: formalist-reactive, intuitive, and integrative. Each genre can be described by a unique set of portfolio management practices. For example, formalist-reactive firms rely on quantitative criteria while intuitive firms prefer qualitative criteria. In addition, each genre has to overcome a unique set of challenges. We discuss the three genres in detail and provide several implications for portfolio management decision making.     

Geographic Ancestry and Cause-specific Mortality in a National Population

There are marked differentials in mortality risks across regions in Finland. No exhaustive explanation to this variation has been provided, however. The aim of this paper is to analyse how geographic ancestry, as proxied by persons’ birth region and population group, interrelates with cause-specific mortality risks. Focusing on people aged between their mid-thirties and late-forties, we use longitudinal population register data that offer opportunities to account for variables that represent both persons’ social background and their own social status at young adult age. Results of Cox proportional hazard models say that these variables have substantial effects on mortality of different causes, but only a marginal impact on the variation in death rates by birth region and population group. The geographic mortality pattern is found to be specifically prominent for causes of death that are fairly unrelated to persons’ lifestyles. Our findings suggest that genetic predisposal as expressed in terms of geographic ancestry might play a relevant role in understanding mortality variation within the population of Finland.