Open Adoption and Post-Adoption Birth Family Contact: A Comparison of Non-Relative Foster and Private Adoptions

This study used data from the National Survey of Adoptive Parents (NSAP) to compare post-adoption contact in families with non-relative private domestic and foster care adoptions. This study is the first to use a nationally representative sample to examine and compare the extent of post-adoption contact in both private and foster adoptions. The results suggest that children adopted from foster care were less likely to experience post-adoption contact with their birth families than children adopted privately despite the fact that they were more likely to have lived with their birth families.     

Conceptualizing ethical knowledge and knowledge transfer in public relations

In a survey with 350 public relation practitioners, this study examined practitioners’ conceptualizations of ethical knowledge and ethical training through a knowledge management framework. The findings show that practitioners characterized ethical knowledge as a form of tacit knowledge that is personal in nature. However, ethical knowledge in public relations is tacit only to the extent that it is a personal body of knowledge grounded in individual actions and experiences. As a professional construct, ethical knowledge in public relations is explicit in that it is a tangible form of knowledge that could be communicated and shared in the workplace.     

关于非社会学专业开设《社会学概论》课程的几点思考

非社会学专业开设社会学概论课程,其课程目标可以定位为培养学生的"社会学想象力"和为本专业学习奠定社会学知识基础;在教学内容安排上必须结合专业特点,以教材为依托,合理安排教学内容;在教学方法选择上需要根据不同的教学内容,结合教学对象的实际情况,选择灵活多样的教学方法。     

Governance Choice,Sourcing Relationship Characteristics,and Relationship Performance

Past work on exchange relationships has debated the efficacy of partnership versus arm's‐length governance on performance of a buyer–supplier relationship. However, how these governance approaches leverage key supplier specific relationship characteristics has not been examined. In this study, we examine the moderating role of governance choice (arm's‐length versus partnership governance) in leveraging key supplier specific characteristics to achieve superior performance for the buyer in a relationship. Specifically, drawing from residual rights theory, we argue that the governance choice buyers make moderates the impact of supplier flexibility, supplier human capital and relationship dependency on performance. Our findings suggest that, for a buyer, the benefits of supplier flexibility and relationship dependency are better realized in partnership governance as opposed to arm's‐length governance. Further, our findings suggest that although buyers choose a specific governance approach consistent with their outsourcing motivation, the choice of governance is critical to leveraging the impact of supplier characteristics due to the moderation effects studied. We elaborate on these effects and discuss the implications of our findings.     

Socially Responsible Practices: An Exploratory Study on Scale Development using Stakeholder Theory

Socially responsible practices of firms have evolved into an important area of research in operations management; however, it remains challenging to identify specific scales that capture multiple dimensions of such social practices. In this exploratory study, we use stakeholder theory to develop new multi‐item measurement scales linked to multiple groups (i.e., internal, supplier, customer, and community stakeholders). Furthermore, we empirically test a higher order multidimensional construct that collectively assesses the socially responsible practices of a firm. Using these stakeholder‐derived constructs as taxons in a cluster analysis, we identify important patterns in the way that multiple groups of stakeholders are engaged. Finally, we demonstrate that the set of social practices are complementary and concentrating on one group can yield spillover effects to other specific stakeholder groups.     

我国调查失业率估计抽样方案——基于行政记录与统计调查数据来源

到目前为止,我国官方发布的是城镇登记失业率。从明年起,我国将发布与国际接轨的调查失业率。国家统计局是通过抽样调查,采取上门登记样本调查小区居民就业信息而获得全国失业率估计值的。本文以劳动力所在工作单位或居民委员会为抽样单位,使用行政记录与统计调查相结合的就业状况数据来源。重新设计我国调查失业率估计抽样方案。为了获得较高的调查失业率估计精度,我们使用了PPS抽样法,并进行了模拟研究。     

我国上市公司股利分配决策的调查研究分析

本文调查了上市公司财务总监股利支付水平决策的主要影响因素和股利分配动因.2006年5月和8月,我们对河北省、山西省、陕西省82家上市公司和厦门国家会计学院两期培训班60家上市公司财务总监进行问卷调查,累计收回有效问卷123份.分析调查结果我们发现,上市公司管理层在决定现金股利支付水平时,首先考虑公司是否有充足的现金储备和持续经营现金净流入量;股票股利高低主要受公司扩张计划、当期每股净利润和未来预期每股净利润的影响;每股资本公积金是公积金转增股本的首要影响因素;支付现金股利的资金主要来源于当期和以前经营活动现金净流量.大部分CFO同意公司应设立现金股利目标支付率并逐步调整至目标支付率,反对稳定的现金股利政策;支持"一鸟在手"理论、信号传递理论、代理成本理论和大股东陶空理论.现金股利、股票股利分别对非流通股股东、流通股股东存在显著的财富效应.为股东财富效应理论提供了充分证据.     

Question-order effects in social network name generators

Social network surveys are an important tool for empirical research in a variety of fields, including the study of social capital and the evaluation of educational and social policy. A growing body of methodological research sheds light on the validity and reliability of social network survey data regarding a single relation, but much less attention has been paid to the measurement of multiplex networks and the validity of comparisons among criterion relations. In this paper, we identify ways that surveys designed to collect multiplex social network data might be vulnerable to question-order effects. We then test several hypotheses using a split-ballot experiment embedded in an online multiple name generator survey of teachers’ advice networks, collected for a study of complete networks. We conclude by discussing implications for the design of multiple name generator social network surveys.     

Determinants of Work-life Balance: Shortcomings in the Contemporary Measurement of WLB in Large-scale Surveys

Research on work-life balance (WLB) has presented important insights into the problems of combining family aspirations with paid work in relation to policy relevant agendas. Using the ESS II (2004/2005), we examine work-related and household/family-related causes of WLB. We can corroborate other research findings that show that work-related aspects explain by far the largest part of the variation in WLB. However, we illustrate that the measurement of WLB is partly problematic. Because WLB scales conceptualize the work component more specifically than the life component, what ‘life’ means remains rather intangible apart from general references to the ‘home’, ‘housework’ and ‘family responsibilities’. This largely neglects different emic dimensions to WLB common to specific subgroups and renders the measurement rather abstract. Second, the wordings of WLB indicators already include their most probable explanations. There is the danger of a circular argument here and many explanations seem tautological. This makes it difficult to conclude on the effects of other than work-related aspects on WLB, which are, arguably, also important aspects of WLB. Finally, WLB scales hardly correlate with relevant external criteria, for instance subjective well-being. Following from these findings, we discuss what these WLB scales could really measure and propose to broaden quantitative empirical approaches to it.

Domestic Supply,Job-Specialization and Sex-differences in Pay

This article proposes an explanation of sex-differences in job-allocation and pay in different institutional contexts. Job-allocation calculations are considered to be related to (1) the distribution of housework and (2) the skill-specialization requirements of jobs. In a context of uncertainty and imperfect information, housework and job-specialization requirements generate a particular incentive structure for each sex. This incentive structure can, however, be altered by governmental action. Welfare policies and services are expected to affect allocation decisions at the micro-level both by reducing the risks of skill-depreciation for women as well as by increasing their intra-household bargaining power. Both effects combined should reduce the economic pay-offs of “traditional” sphere-specialization by sex. This model is tested using a sub-sample of married and cohabiting employees drawn for the second round of the European Social Survey. Results based on nested random-intercept regressions show that sex-differences in job-specialization and housework can explain the wage effects of occupational sex-composition and have a significant direct impact on hourly earnings. Welfare-regime interactions also suggest that the association between housework and earnings is much weaker in societies displaying high levels of defamilialization and decommodification.