Power Structure and Profitability in Assembly Supply Chains

This paper studies the impact of supply chain power structure on firms' profitability in an assembly system with one assembler and two suppliers. Two power regimes are investigated—in a Single Power Regime, a more powerful firm acts as the Stackelberg leader to decide the wholesale price but not the quantity whereas in a Dual Power Regime, both the price and quantity decisions are granted to the more powerful firm. Tallying the power positions of the three firms, for each power regime we study three power structures and investigate the system's as well as the firms' preference of power. We find that when the assembler is the most powerful firm among the three, the system‐wide profit is the highest and so is the assembler's profit. The more interesting finding is that, if the assembler is not the most powerful player in the system, more power does not necessarily guarantee her a higher profit. Similarly, a supplier's profit can also decrease with the power he has. These results contrast with the conclusion for serial systems, where a firm always prefers more power. We also find that when both suppliers are more (less) powerful than the assembler, it can be beneficial (indifferent) for everyone if the two suppliers merge into a mega supplier to make decisions jointly. When the assembler is more powerful than one supplier and less so than the other, it is always better for the system to have the two suppliers merge, and for each individual firm, merging is preferred if the firm becomes the more powerful party after merging.     

Social Legislation For The Reproductive Technologies

The reproductive technologies, particularly IVF, have proved a continuing source of community disquiet Despite numerous attempts in many countries to frame appropriate regulations, a community consensus has not been achieved. This failure is due to the medical control of the reproductive technologies, whereas the contentious issues are in fact social. The argument of this paper is that we already have regulatory procedures which are suited to the control of the social aspects of these technologies in the current legislation covering adoption and rights of parenthood.     

Culture and context: exploring attributions and caregiving approaches of parents of children with an intellectual disability in urban India

We utilized a sociocultural lens and a qualitative approach to examine causal attributions and caregiving approaches of parents of children with an intellectual disability in a mid‐sized Indian city. Sixteen mothers and three fathers participated in a semi‐structured interview. Findings elucidate participants' active processing of the cause of their child's intellectual disability. They seemed to simultaneously draw upon religious, biological and situational factors to construct an explanation. As far as caregiving approaches, most parents reported moving away gradually from mainstream medicine to alternative medicine and physiotherapy and from regular education settings to special schools. The themes highlight the role of sociocultural factors and also cross‐cultural similarities in parental causal attributions and caregiving approach. The findings are discussed in the context of implications for social work practice and policy in India.     

Local worker discretion within non-governmental organisations: social integration,social control,or innovation?

Abstract

This paper focuses on the dynamics of frontline organisational practice and examines how non-governmental organisations (NGOs) act as an intermediary between people and the state. It explores how workers in NGOs in the Pearl River Delta are responding to the needs of local migrant populations including rural-to-urban migrants and foreigners within mainland China, cross-border ‘new arrival’ Chinese and ethnic minorities in Hong Kong. We examine how government policy imperatives that relate to (im)migrants within the wider region are operationalised in strategic and direct practice, drawing on the theory of street-level bureaucracy to guide the analysis of primary data collected in two cities (Hong Kong and Guangzhou) during 2014. Key findings provide evidence of discretionary agency in both locations although the broader scope for an agency is evident in Hong Kong than Guangzhou. Implications for future practice are discussed within the context of increasingly restrictive political and social environment within the region.     

The restructuring of WA human services and its implications for the not‐for‐profit sector

Western Australia provides an interesting case study of the outsourcing of human services to the not‐for‐profit (NfP) sector. This article presents and discusses some of the key themes that emerged from a recently completed research project examining one large NfP in Western Australia. Key themes included the recruitment and retention of staff linked to pay and changing funding arrangements, and the sector becoming increasingly corporatised in outlook and goal orientaiton. Despite evidence that the shifting policy and funding environment within the NfP sector has had some negative consequences, the research findings highlight a degree of agency within which organisations can resist or counterbalance these changes. Efforts to avoid this trend, however, are reliant upon a number of factors; for example, a strong commitment to vision and mission supported by skilled leadership and adequate resourcing. Significantly, these factors are unlikely to be readily available, particularly for smaller NfPs. This discrepancy in organisational capacity is set to become more conspicuous with the potential introduction of ‘Big Society’ policies derived from the United Kingdom, and funding cuts proposed by the Coalition government.     

Implicit Behavioral Mimicry: Investigating the Impact of Group Membership

Two experiments investigated the impact of group membership on non-conscious behavioral mimicry. Female participants viewed videotapes of female confederates who rubbed their faces whilst describing a picture. The extent to which the participant mimicked this face rubbing behavior was assessed from video footage taken using a hidden video-camera. Experiment 1 showed greater mimicry of a member of an in-group than of a member of an out-group. Experiment 2 showed both explicit and implicit liking of a target group to predict the extent of mimicry of a member of that group. There was a positive relationship between implicit liking and mimicry but a negative relationship between explicit liking and mimicry. Results are discussed in terms of processes underlying mimicry.

Suicide prevention and community-level indictors

This study sought to develop a set of easily obtainable, relevant measures of a community's condition that could be used to guide its suicide prevention efforts. Existing data were gathered across 159 Georgia counties for nine potential social indicators (rates of net migration, divorce, unemployment, violent crimes reported, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs [DUI] crashes, high school dropouts, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families [TANF], percentage of population aged 65 or older, and percentage of population who are white males) that had been chosen by the communities. Data on the social indicators from 1995 through 1999 were averaged and analyzed to determine their correlation with aggregated 5-year county suicide rates. Results of multivariate modeling procedures showed number of DUI crashes and percentage of the population aged 65 or older to be significant correlates of the suicide rate, controlling for other potential indicators. These preliminary data may provide a useful model of a county's 5-year suicide rate among counties reporting 20 or more suicides. Research with additional indicators and in other states will help determine the generalizability of these findings to other communities.