Caring for a demented relative at home: Effects on parent–adolescent relationships and family dynamics

Informed by a family systems perspective, the main purpose of this study was to identify changes in parent–adolescent relationships and in family dynamics when a family member with Alzheimer's or similar dementia moves into the household. The data, based on in-depth interviews with 17 adolescents, revealed that the care situation induces both positive and negative changes in family relationships. On the one hand, adolescents showed considerable empathy and respect for the parent who is the primary caregiver and reported that joint involvement in caregiving enhances adolescent–parent bonds. On the other hand, the adolescents lamented restrictions on their own and the family unit's activities due to the care situation. They also complained about spillover of caregiver stress on other family relationships and about parent-caregivers' focus of attention on the care recipient. These negative features strongly influenced adolescents' adaptation to the care situation. Overall, the results confirm the importance of a family systems perspective for understanding of and intervention in family caregiving for demented relatives. Family life educators should convey the importance of family dynamics in caregiving situations to their audiences, and family practitioners should be aware that an exclusive focus on the primary caregiver's problems may hamper adaptation of other family members (and especially adolescents) who are involved in the care situation.     

How do executive search firms increase interest in career opportunities? The role of past interactions

This article explores how executive search consultants stimulate executives’ consideration of career opportunities available at other employers. The study is based on a panel dataset of 3582 executives invited to a job interview by a global executive search firm from January 2005 to May 2009. The results demonstrate that past interactions between executives and the search consultants had a delayed effect on consideration of career opportunities. The results contribute to research on executive careers by identifying past relationships with search consultants as a factor affecting rejection of new career opportunities. They also shed light on the relatively understudied phenomenon of executive search firms.     

《论十大关系》对中国特色社会主义理论的探索和历史贡献

通过对《论十大关系》的解读,着重对实事求是、以人为本、统筹协调及和谐发展等理念的思想发端进行了论述,借此阐明了毛泽东同志的《论十大关系》对中国特色社会主义理论所作的初步探索及其历史贡献。     

Survival and Abuse: What We Can Learn From It

This article is about a journey involving survival, abuse and learning. It is written by two people who have considerable experience of being involved with mental health services; both are currently making an active contribution to social work education. It describes the way in which, in situations of survival and abuse, service users can use their experience and knowledge to learn how to support and advocate for each other. It suggests that the relationships that are built between service users as a result of these experiences can be used to address some of the gaps in service provision. At the same time these relationships can provide mutual learning which can be used to improve the education and training of social workers and other professionals.     

Creating a model to measure relationships: U.S. Army strategic communication

Strategic Communication is receiving much credence for public relations planning in the U.S. Army, (Quadrennial Defense Review Report, 2010. The Office of the Chief of Public Affairs for the U.S. Army, has a Strategic Communication Division and it is home to the last vestiges of former Secretary of, Defense Donald Rumsfeld's ill-fated attempt to create such an office at the Department of Defense, (DoD) level. In 2009, Major General Mari K. Eder, deputy director of the U.S. Army Reserve, wrote of, the tragic lack of a comprehensive strategic communication focus across DoD levels, let alone at the, Army level. A “Deep Dive” Conference sponsored by the Army during the summer of 2006 focused on, measuring outcomes of its public affairs programs. In spite of the conference objectives, the Army was, not able to define strategic communication completely nor was it able to come up with adequate, operational measurement tools for measuring relationships with key publics or stakeholders within, strategic communication. It was able to produce some measurable and motivational objectives as well, as measurable process tools for media relations, but it still lacked the ability to measure quantitative or, qualitative relationships with key stakeholders.     

The Impact of Revenue‐Maximizing Priority Pricing on Customer Delay Costs

Speed is an increasingly important determinant of which suppliers will be given customers' business and is defined as the time between when an order is placed by the customer and when the product is delivered, or as the amount of time customers must wait before they receive their desired service. In either case, the speed a customer experiences can be enhanced by giving priority to that particular customer. Such a prioritization scheme will necessarily reduce the speed experienced by lower‐priority customers, but this can lead to a better outcome when different customers place different values on speed. We model a single resource (e.g., a manufacturer) that processes jobs from customers who have heterogeneous waiting costs. We analyze the price that maximizes priority revenue for the resource owner (i.e., supplier, manufacturer) under different assumptions regarding customer behavior. We discover that a revenue‐maximizing supplier facing self‐interested customers (i.e., those that independently minimize their own expected costs) charges a price that also minimizes the expected total delay costs across all customers and that this outcome does not result when customers coordinate to submit priority orders at a level that seeks to minimize their aggregate costs of priority fees and delays. Thus, the customers are better off collectively (as is the supplier) when the supplier and customers act independently in their own best interests. Finally, as the number of priority classes increases, both the priority revenues and the overall customer delay costs improve, but at a decreasing rate.     

Interorganizational Governance Value Creation: Coordinating for Information Visibility and Flexibility in Supply Chains*

More thoroughly understanding how interorganizational governance value can be created by information technology and other governance mechanisms is critical for supply chain management. Based primarily on transaction‐cost economics and supplemented by the resource‐based view, this study investigates how interorganizational governance (i.e., relational governance and virtual integration) can create value (i.e., information visibility and supply chain flexibility) in the supply chain context. The findings show that both relational governance and virtual integration benefit information visibility. Those results also support both direct and indirect (via information visibility) effects of relational governance on supply chain flexibility. Although failing to affect supply chain flexibility directly, virtual integration can still improve supply chain flexibility with its ability to enhance information visibility. Thus, interorganizational governance mechanisms emphasizing both control and collaboration can influence the gain from collaboration‐specific capabilities, leading to the competitive advantage of a supply chain. The results of the study suggest that firms can gain greater supply chain flexibility within existing interfirm relationships by enhancing information visibility through virtual integration and relational governance.     

《论十大关系》中的和谐思想

《论十大关系》是毛泽东同志关于社会主义建设的重要著作.文章所论述的十大关系大致划分为经济关系的和谐、政治关系的和谐、民族关系的和谐、国际关系的和谐等思想.这些不仅是我们今天建设有中国特色社会主义的题中之义,而且对我们如何构建和谐社会有着重要的借鉴和指导意义.     

提升校长信任度要理顺五种关系

校长信任度是影响校长与学校教职工合作共事的一个重要的关系维度。当前,在一些学校里教职工对校长的信任成了稀缺资源,以致严重阻碍了学校工作的正常运行和教育事业的发展。调查表明,校长自身的素质是影响校长信任度最根本的因素。要赢得教职工的信任,校长必须努力改变自己在教职工心目中的形象,特别要注意理顺“权力运用与以德服人”等五种关系。     

The origins of distant voicing: Examining relational dimensions in public diplomacy and their effects on megaphoning

Extant literature has discussed the similarities between public relations and public diplomacy. This study seeks to contribute to existing research on the application of organization–public relationships (OPR) to public diplomacy by further exploring relational dimensions in public diplomacy and empirically testing them based on a model consisting of antecedents (i.e., political, economic, interpersonal, cultural and corporate interactions), relational dimensions (i.e., interactional bilateralism, power mutuality, trust, empathy, relational satisfaction, relational continuation, relational attentiveness and relational curiosity), and consequences (i.e., positive and negative megaphoning). A total of 490 respondents from the United States were recruited on Amazon M-Turk to respond to survey items regarding China and Mexico. Confirmatory factor analysis and regression analysis were conducted. The findings indicate: (a) positive associations between the antecedents and the relational dimensions, (b) positive associations between the relational dimensions and positive megaphoning, and (c) negative associations between the relational dimensions and negative megaphoning. (148 words)