Prioritization of corporate goals in Saudi Arabia: An exploratory investigation

This paper tries to fill partially the informational gap in the area of organizational goals. Data provided by four Saudi Arabian industries-namely: petrochemicals, packaging, electric & electronics, and food processing, indicate that goal-setting processes may be influenced by several factors. Profitability, growth, and social responsibility were ranked among the top four goals in all four industries. The nature of the industry and environmental factors have a strong influence on these processes. This study highlights the importance of culture for joint ventures and its impact on goal-setting in Saudi Arabia.     

Urban growth boundary policy and residential suburbanization: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

The process of suburbanization of Riyadh, a city of 4.5 million inhabitants, offers a unique situation in which the urban morphology of the city can be examined in light of socio-political and economic conditions. Central government ordinances helped create ‘dysfunctional’ sprawl by mandating big lots and overly wide streets. Fifty percent of the city’s urban plan of approximately 1300 km² represents a pattern of untimely, undeveloped subdivisions. Much of this premature sub-divisioning was a result of speculative land deals. The current area of undeveloped subdivided land is approximately 650 km², which is roughly the equivalent to the city’s land currently developed.The author argues that government policies and inefficient urban planning practices have encouraged the transformation of the peripheral desert landscape into unchecked land sub-divisioning championed by land developers and speculators. Using a comparative approach, the paper attempts to highlight sociopolitical and other cultural factors that underlie this inefficient sprawl at the fringe. It closes with recommendations to alleviate such a costly pattern that can be generalized to other developing world cities.     

Attitudes towards safety performance on construction work: An investigation of public and private sector differences

This paper summarizes the results of a research project into the attitudes and behaviour relating to safety performance on construction work. Based upon the findings of a pilot study (Shimmin et al. 1981), the research had as its principal objective the investigation of previously observed differences in attitude and motivation between private-sector and public-sector employees. In particular, it had been found that the two groups differed in terms of their views on the locus of responsibility for safety and the cause of accidents: private-sector operatives displayed more of an internal attribution and public-sector operatives more of an external attribution. Additionally, the research examined the importance of such factors as working conditions, payment schemes and the social organization of work in relation to the structure of these attitudes.     

Childcare involvement, job characteristics, gender and work attitudes as predictors of emotional exhaustion and sickness absence

Reports in the literature vary regarding the existence of gender differences in relation to burnout and sickness absence. To investigate this, the present study was aimed at investigating the role of several gender-relevant variables, particularly childcare obligations, job characteristics, and work attitudes in emotional exhaustion and sickness absence in 404 male and female nurses in an institution for people with learning difficulties. Questionnaires were administered reflecting demographic and job characteristics, work and non-work attitudes, and emotional exhaustion (as measured by the Emotional Exhaustion Scale of the Maslach Burnout Inventory). Female nurses were expected to report higher levels of emotional exhaustion and to be absent through sickness more often than men. Also, childcare investment, job characteristics, and (non) work attitudes were expected—via emotional exhaustion—to predict gender differences in sickness absence. It was found that women did not have higher sickness absence rates, and although a gender difference appeared in emotional exhaustion it was in the opposite direction from that predicted. For both genders, emotional exhaustion had a significant positive effect on sickness absence, and especially childcare investment and number of work hours appeared to contribute to both outcomes. These results are of interest because, despite current stereotypes, sickness absence was not higher in women, and neither were women more at risk for emotional exhaustion. In particular, load—workload as well as care load—appeared to predict emotional exhaustion and thus sickness absence.     

Developing a Subject-Derived Terminology to Describe Perceptions of Chemicals in Foods

Risk perception may be influenced by a number of factors, such as unfamiliarity, lack of control, perceived consequences, and hazards being seen as catastrophic and having risk for future generations. Risk perception researchers have typically used such investigator-selected characteristics to assess hazards. In the first study reported here, the repertory grid method was used to elicit the terminology that subjects ( n = 30) use to distinguish between 30 different chemicals. The data were submitted to generalized Procrustes analysis. The first principal axis of the resulting consensus plot separated the chemicals ranging from "poisonous or toxic,""harmful or dangerous," and "sounds negative" at one end, to "positive effect on health,""often present in food nowadays," and "sounds positive" at the other end. The second principal axis ranged from "familiar with or knowledge of" and "chemical" to "natural." A second study ( n = 226) was carried out to look at the general validity of the results of the repertory grid interviews using a fixed questionnaire. The data were submitted to principal components analysis and internal preference mapping. The first principal component ranged from "safe" and "healthy" at one end, to "poisonous" and "harmful" at the other end. The chemicals also separated in terms of "familiar,""chemical," and "natural." All three methods of data collection and analysis yield essentially similar results.     

Cajun is Dead – Long Live Cajun: Shifting from a Linguistic to a Cultural Community

Researchers have reported an evolution or change in progress in the Cajun identity, though their intuitions have not been confirmed empirically. The traditional membership borders of what a community consists of no longer apply in the case of Cajun. In order to understand these questions of identity and belonging, and to scientifically control the interpretation of the linguistic behavior of Cajun speakers, a general survey has been conducted on the linguistic attitudes and cultural identity of a sample of 929 individuals stratified by age and sex from four communities. Our results show that Cajun identity rests fundamentally in the linguistic ability of the speakers, regardless of the age group one is in: the more one has access to the Cajun language, the more one self-identifies as Cajun. In general, respondents claim that the necessary criteria to be considered Cajun are just those criteria that they themselves satisfy. We will demonstrate that there appear to be several 'paths' to take insofar as the Cajun community identity in Louisiana is concerned. However, this segmentation obviously has not been established or maintained without creating considerable tension between members of the cultural Cajun community.     

医务工作者､患者及家属对器官捐献的认知､态度及意愿

为了解医务工作者?患者及家属对于器官捐献认知?态度?意愿的差异,并探讨影响器官捐献意愿的独立因素,采用自制问卷对2017年12月—2018年2月南京医科大学第一附属医院肝胆中心241名住院患者(家属)和202名医务工作者进行调查?医务工作者对器官捐献的认知显著高于患者群体(P < 0.001),而两组人群对器官捐献的态度?愿意身后捐献器官差异均不显著(P=0.17,P=0.44)?Logistic回归显示,促成身后捐献器官的因素包括年龄≤35岁,认为器官捐献是高尚的事情,以及对器官捐献持赞同态度?建议将器官捐献相关知识纳入医学教育课程,提高医务人员的捐献意愿,进而影响社会民众,促进我国器官捐献事业的发展?     

重建母语读写,保护濒危语言

语言濒危已成为现当代社会一种突出的文化现象,通过母语读写的重建来保护濒危语言是可取的一个重要措施。它可以激发母语使用者对母语的热爱,更好地保护族群文化,发挥语言的工具性能,拓展母语的使用范围,顺利地融入社会生活。     

论大学生政治心理诸因素

大学生政治社会化的过程是政治人格的形成过程,也是多种政治心理因素协调发展、有机结合的过程。本文详细论述了大学生政治心理诸要素及其之间的关系。