Managing a crisis of confidence in Nigeria's banking and financial industry

An ongoing crisis of confidence in the banking and financial industry in Nigeria's emerging economy calls for using integrated marketing communications (IMC) in optimizing five potentially normative actions as a beachhead in procuring corporate benefits from three variables that predict significantly customers’ favorable impressions of business: satisfaction, trust, relationship commitment. The actions: (a) personalize the stakeholder experience, (b) integrate ethics into the workplace and into corporate communications, (c) participate in training sessions in applied ethics, (d) use brandstanding expansively and integratively, and (e) conduct rigorous outcomes assessment and disseminate its results promptly to stakeholders.     

A study of a social work agency: the occupational routines and working practices of the education social work service

In this paper we will be examining the way in which the education social work service goes about its routine, everyday work with truants (which, for the purposes of this paper, will be seen as the service's major occupational task to resolve).¹ Such an analysis has, in our view, a twofold importance. Firstly, it adds to the extensive literature² on disaffection amongst school students; secondly, it contributes to juvenile justice studies³ which have highlighted the importance attached to truancy in the formal decision-making process; this in turn has led to the development of a range of administrative and judicial strategies to remedy the problem⁴. In addition, it is our view that the truancy problem is likely to increase in the light of the growing certainty of unemployment on leaving school for large sections of the youth population, coupled with fiscal cuts in the education budget: we have been able to show in our Sheffield-based research (which confirms trends indicated in earlier studies undertaken in this same city⁵ that there has been a statistically significant increase in non-attendance amongst fifth formers between 1976 and 1982 in the local comprehensive schools.⁶ The truancy issue has been perceived as a serious social problem for a number of years now⁷ and, on the same basis, we can expect that this will continue – indeed, as something of the moral panic that exists in the related social sphere of youth unemployment.⁸ Perhaps this is one of the reasons for the reference to the role of the service in the 1983 Conservative party manifesto:⁹‘we shall switch the emphasis in the education welfare service back to school attendance so as to reduce truancy'.     

A TEST OF THE CURVILINEAR HYPOTHESIS WITH FACES II AND III

Previous research has not supported the validity of Olson's "curvilinear hypothesis." Convergent validity studies of the FACES I and II have indicated that the "cohesion" and "adaptability" dimensions have a linear relation with healthy family functioning. It is not clear, however, whether these findings are due to the measurement of the FACES' constructs or to the curvilinear theory. This study tested the "curvilinear hypothesis" in terms of these theoretical and measurement issues. The results indicate that FACES II and III do not adequately operation-alize the "curvilinear hyothesis." However, an item consistent with the "curvilinear hypothesis" utilizing a bipolar item response format did adequately opera-tionalize the theory. The use of a bipolar item response format is suggested in the measurement of "cohesion" and "adaptability."     

Parental Divorce and First-Year Students' Transition to University: The Need to Include Baseline Data and Gender

This research examines parental divorce and first-year students' transition to university. Incoming students (N = 2,724) to six diverse universities completed questionnaires in August, before university, and again in November and March. Initial baseline measures indicated that females of divorced parents reported more depressive symptoms than females of intact families, whereas males of divorced parents reported lower levels of perceived stress than those of intact families. These findings remained over the first year. Regarding adjustment to university, males with divorced parents reported the best academic adjustment, and females with divorced parents were most vulnerable regarding personal-emotional adjustment.     

Slavery in White and Black: Class and Race in the Southern Slaveholders' New World Order

Slave-breeding is a topic that has long divided American historians. Since the late nineteenth century, historians have sought out empirical evidence to prove or disprove the idea that some slave owners deliberately bred slaves for sale or to augment their own labour force. As a result, the historiographical treatment of slave-breeding has become bogged down in what Herbert Gutman called ‘the numbers game’. This essay re-examines the question of slave-breeding and challenges us to consider the broader historical meaning of such sensational accusations. It does this by focusing on the rhetoric of black and white abolitionists in the United States between 1830 and 1861. The author argues that slave-breeding discourse provided abolitionists with a narrative focal point with which to attract public attention to their concerns about the westward extension of slavery, the physical and emotional toll slavery wrought on enslaved women, and the trauma associated with the break-up of slave families.     

Go to the Hospital or Stay at Home? A Qualitative Study of Expected Hospital Decision Making Among Older African Americans With Advanced Heart Failure

To address the need for more information concerning hospital decision making, we conducted in-depth interviews among African Americans with heart failure and their family caregivers (n?=?11 dyads). Using a case scenario, we asked participants about their anticipated hospitalization decisions. Most patients indicated that they would seek care to avoid further deterioration or death from their worsening condition. Many family caregivers anticipated having an active influence on hospitalization decisions. Findings suggest that social workers should encourage the development of adequate home-based services, recognize diverse communication styles, and use this information to facilitate medical decision making by these patients and their caregivers.