Power and Child Protection: The Need for a Child Welfare Service Users' Union or Association

Abstract

This paper reports a study in which parents who had received child protection intervention set out to develop a “Service Users' Guide” to help parents newly receiving intervention better understand and cope with the process. The study took place in Ontario, Canada between 2004–2009. Ninety-five parents took part in 13 focus groups and 20 individual interviews. A mix of Participatory Action and grounded theory methods were used to enable parents to develop their service uses guide. As the study progressed it quickly became evident that the biggest issue parents face when receiving intervention is an imbalance in power between themselves and workers. This paper describes the problems this power imbalance causes for parents and presents a potential solution suggested by parents themselves – the development of a child welfare service users' association or union. Parent's ideas about why this association is needed, how it could function, and the benefits it might bring, are discussed. The paper concludes by reviewing the benefits a service users' association might bring not only for those receiving child welfare intervention, but all social work services.     

Health System Reform and the Elderly: The Case of Israel

Abstract

Following the implementation of the National Health Insurance Law in January 1995, major changes have taken place in the provision of health services by Israel's sick funds and the way these services are funded. This article presents the principal changes that have occurred and assesses their impact on those aged 65 and older, using findings of a survey conducted one year after the law's enactment. While the findings show that the elderly's situation has improved in some areas, they also raise concerns that the elderly are having difficulty navigating the reformed health system and that they are not benefiting from the new competition among the sick funds.     

Applying demographic analysis to store site selection

This case study illustrates how applied demographic analysis can help structure business decisionmaking. We screened every one of several thousand square miles within metropolitan Southern California to identify the 10 best locations for a large supermarket catering to onestop shoppers. Locations were selected based on potential sales volume (irrespective of nearby competitors), future stability of the resident consumer base, and specific demographic factors likely to enhance sales potential among target shoppers (e.g., dual-earner families). The client placed as much importance on how the results were derived as on our recommendations. As a result, our analytic framework for comparing high-potential locations played a central role in structuring the client's thinking. This framework, together with the empirical analysis, illustrate how applied demographers can operationalize business questions about consumer markets and guide a client toward a more systematic way of reaching decisions.This article is based on a paper presented at the 1987 Population Association of America Meetings, Chicago, USA.     

Security Assurance: How Online Service Providers Can Influence Security Control Perceptions and Gain Trust

Security researchers agree that security control is a difficult to observe credence quality of online services that Internet users cannot easily assess through research or experience. Yet there is evidence that users form perceptions of security control that strongly determine how much trust they put in online services. This study investigates whether users’ security control perceptions arise solely from their predispositions or whether online service providers can influence them. The study also examines whether these seemingly undependable perceptions of security control lead to trust or whether more traditional factors might offer a better explanation of trust under security risks. To address these issues, this study proposes a new theory of security assurance that integrates the frameworks of trust and quality signals. The results show that rather than being guided by predispositions, users appear to mainly assess security control based on indirect cues controlled by service providers. Importantly, Internet users do not treat the credence quality of security the same way they treat qualities that can be understood through search and experience. Although returning users develop security control perceptions and trust from the usual heuristics of ongoing relationships, they also continue to evaluate market information about service providers like they do in new relationships. The proposed model offers a new perspective of how users respond to the uncertain and technically challenging qualities prevalent in online services.     

工业企业开拓农村市场的分销策略研究

文章首先研究农村市场的五个特殊特征,即购买潜力大与市场的分散性;人均购买力低;市场组织程度低,市场秩序不规范,市场相对封闭性;农村消费者行为的从众性、攀比性、积累性与集中性特点。其次分析工业企业开拓农村市场的四种分销渠道模式。最后研究农村市场的四种分销管理策略。     

Scanner Data Price Indexes: Addressing Some Unresolved Issues

Scanner data are increasingly being used in the calculation of price indexes such as the CPI. The preeminent approach is the RYGEKS method (Ivancic, Diewert and Fox 2011 Ivancic, L., Diewert, W.E., and Fox, K.J. (2011), “Scanner Data, Time Aggregation and the Construction of Price Indexes,” Journal of Econometrics, 161, 24–35.[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). This uses multilateral methods to construct price parities across a rolling year then links these to construct a nonrevisable index. While this approach performs well there remain some unresolved issues, in particular; the optimal window length and the linking method. In this note, these questions are addressed. A novel linking method is proposed along with the use of weighted GEKS as opposed to a fixed window. These approaches are illustrated empirically on a large scanner dataset and perform well.     

Variable selection in classification model via quadratic programming

Variable selection is an important decision process in consumer credit scoring. However, with the rapid growth in credit industry, especially, after the rising of e-commerce, a huge amount of information on customer behavior is available to provide more informative implication of consumer credit scoring. In this study, a hybrid quadratic programming model is proposed for consumer credit scoring problems by variable selection. The proposed model is then solved with a bisection method based on Tabu search algorithm (BMTS), and the solution of this model provides alternative subsets of variables in different sizes. The final subset of variables used in consumer credit scoring model is selected based on both the size (number of variables in a subset) and predictive (classification) accuracy rate. Simulation studies are used to measure the performances of the proposed model, illustrating its effectiveness for simultaneous variable selection as well as classification.     

西安市人口年龄结构变动趋势对老年消费市场需求的影响分析

人作为消费活动的主体,其内部结构的变化必然会导致消费的变化。本文通过对西安市人口年龄结构的变动、老年人口收入来源及消费行为的分析,发现西安市人口结构的变化对老年消费市场需求既有积极的促进作用,也有消极的负面影响。提出政府与企业应厘清人口变动与消费之间的关系,扬长避短,尽可能发挥其积极影响作用,以促进扩大老年消费市场的需求。     

国内消费者对转基因食品购买意愿研究综述:元分析

对按筛选标准入选的11篇文献70个观察进行元分析,结果表明,在控制（1）消费者样本特征、（2）调查方法特征和（3）所研究的食品特征后,计量经济学模型可以解释转基因食品购买倾向估计方差的71%;结果还发现,由城市消费者构成的样本购买意愿显著高于非城市消费者;以面访方式调查、以及在调查时向消费者提供转基因食品的正面信息,被调查者倾向于增加购买GM食品的意愿;被评价食品特征（是否向消费者提供直接利益）对消费者购买意愿亦有显著影响。     

Climbing out of an economic crisis: A cycle of consumer sentiment and personal stress

This research examines bidirectional relationships between consumer sentiment and personal stress. It seeks to answer the question whether reduced consumer sentiment (consumer perceptions about the global, national and personal economic situation) raises personal stress levels, and whether increased personal stress levels depresses consumer sentiment. Finding such relationships would reveal a pathway from economic to personal well-being, as reflected in personal stress, and the other way around. A large longitudinal study in the Netherlands with a total of eight waves across three years (2012–2014), 4 waves during and 4 waves after the recent worldwide economic crisis, finds on average low personal stress levels among consumers, which is reassuring. Also and as expected, consumers are more positive about the state of the economy after than during the crisis. Importantly, more positive consumer sentiment indeed contributes to lower levels of personal stress. Moreover, the more personal stress consumers experience, the more pessimistic they are about the state of the economy after the crisis, whereas this connection is weaker during the crisis. This sheds new light on the pathways between consumer sentiment about the economy and their personal well-being.