The A+ of a practice doctorate

In light of the growing trend of developing practice doctoral degree programmes in social work, the author uses the first Doctor of Social Work (DSW) programme in Hong Kong, which is a unique programme in China, as a case study to examine the pedagogy and constraints of doctoral programmes in social work. The programme serves as an alternative to a typical PhD programme and is designed particularly for seasoned practitioners in the field who strive to achieve a balance between a research and practice orientation and between an academic and a pragmatic focus. This paper emphasises that, to stand out from the crowd, practice doctorates in Hong Kong should take part in practice-based research and publish in refereed journals.     

收入风险、金融教育与家庭金融市场参与

运用中国城市居民消费金融调查数据,基于因果推断的分析框架,采用倾向分值匹配法研究了收入风险、金融教育对家庭金融市场参与的影响。研究发现,收入越稳定,家庭开展金融教育的概率越高;金融教育显著提高了家庭的金融市场参与;按收入风险将样本分组后,上述结论依然稳健,且金融教育对不同家庭金融市场参与的影响具有非对称性。在对家庭收入稳定性分类的基础上,有针对性地增加金融教育的供给,提升家庭整体的金融教育水平,有利于提高家庭金融市场参与度,优化家庭金融资产配置,进而改善家庭金融福利。     

农民社会养老意愿和缴费能力分析——基于陕西省关中地区的调查

社会保障制度是有效的社会风险化解机制,对于以国家为主导的农民社会养老保障建设成功与否,不仅取决于未来国家对农村社会养老保障供给的数量与质量,更取决于农民社会养老保障制度的主要供给者——政府对农民真实需求的了解、把握与满足程度。调查地区农民在养老保障项目上可承受的支付金额的平均值为32.06元/月,农民在养老保障项目上的支付上限值为当地农民年人均纯收入的17.29%,高于此比例,则影响农民正常的生活水平,而农民普遍能够接受的适宜比例值为10.61%。     

河北省新农保试点推进中的难点问题研究

本文基于对河北省新型农村养老保险试点地区的问卷调查,从多视角分析试点运行过程中存在的现实难点问题。研究发现,新农保的制度内容普及度较低、制度吸引力相对不足、制度执行力急需改善、制度公信力期待提升。为保障新农保的稳健性与制度优化,本文提出若干具有针对性的政策建议,以期为促进新型农村养老保险制度的健康可持续发展提供改革参考。     

Crisis communication online: How medium,crisis type and emotions affected public reactions in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster

Social media play in today's societies a fundamental role for the negotiation and dynamics of crises. However, classical crisis communication theories neglect the role of the medium and focus mainly on the interplay between crisis type and crisis communication strategy. Building on the recently developed “networked crisis communication model” we contrast effects of medium (Facebook vs. Twitter vs. online newspaper) and crisis type (intentional vs. victim) in an online experiment. Using the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster as crisis scenario, we show that medium effects are stronger than the effects of crisis type. Crisis communication via social media resulted in a higher reputation and less secondary crisis reactions such as boycotting the company than crisis communication in the newspaper. However, secondary crisis communication, e.g. talking about the crisis communication, was higher in the newspaper condition than in the social media conditions because people consider traditional media as more credible. We also found higher levels of anger in the intentional crisis condition than in the victim crisis condition. Anger in turn was related to reputation, secondary crisis communication and secondary crisis reaction. The results stress the need for more complex models of crisis communication.     

Sports fans as crisis communicators on social media websites

Previous research has analyzed how organizations publicly respond in crisis situations. This study addresses a sports crisis, the University of Miami NCAA investigation, as an avenue for exploring how fans become surrogates for organizational crisis responses via the social media entity, Twitter. Using Coombs's (2007) strategy for reputation repair, analysis of 75 highly identified Miami fans with over 42,000 Twitter followers shows that fans were most likely to engage in (a) ingratiation, (b) reminder, (c) attack the accuser, and (d) divert attention as primary methods of coping with the scandal. New methods for reputation repair were also found within the analysis and implications for organizations, academic institutions, sports research, and crisis communication theory are articulated.     

Beyond liking or following: Understanding public engagement on social networking sites in China

Corporate pages on social networking sites (SNSs) have become the key platform where publics interact with companies and organizations around the world. Focusing on one of the most important world economies, China, this study explored the types of public engagement with corporate pages on leading Chinese SNSs as well as the motivations and antecedents that drive such engagement. Given the participatory and communal nature of SNSs, this study proposed a conceptual model incorporating social media dependency and several social relationship factors, including parasocial interaction, perceived source credibility, and community identification, that influenced Chinese publics’ engagement with companies on SNSs. We conducted a web survey with a random sample of 245 Chinese SNS users to test the proposed model. The results confirm that with the exception of perceived credibility, social media usage and relationship-oriented factors played a significant role in inducing public engagement in China.     

Top issues and responsive strategies in public relations practice: An empirical assessment in the Greater China area

An online survey of 132 public relations practitioners in Mainland China, Hong Kong, and, Taiwan revealed three issues (i.e., finding, developing and retaining highly talented communication, professionals, managing the digital revolution and rise of social media, and dealing with the speed and, volume of information flow) as the most urgent ones to deal with in today's public relations practice. Consequently, various responsive strategies have been applied to deal with emerging critical issues.     

Social Work and Disadvantage: Addressing the Roots of Stigma through Association

Abstract

This paper reports on a small-scale research study that explores the impact of climate change on rural women. Qualitative data were collected through interviews with 7 women, who came from a regional centre and were either employed by women's services or who had activist roles within the community pertaining to women's services. Outcomes of the study identified a range of areas of impact, including increased hardship for rural women, implications of household roles, and subsequent organisational responsibilities. A high level of concern, particularly for the vulnerability of women in crisis, was identified among participants. We contend that the effects of climate change are becoming increasingly relevant to the social work profession and that specific groups such as women are at risk of further disadvantage unless collective action is taken to circumvent the impact of climate change. Strategies for social work practice and policy initiatives are considered.     

Who is bullying whom in ethnically diverse primary schools? Exploring links between bullying,ethnicity, and ethnic diversity in Dutch primary schools

This study investigated associations between ethnicity, ethnic diversity, and bullying among 739 pupils enrolled in their last year of primary school. Hypotheses derived from social misfit and inter-ethnic relations theories were tested using the multilevel p₂ model. Our key findings were: (1) inter- and intra-ethnic bullying are just as common in ethnically heterogeneous as in homogeneous classes; (2) pupils belonging to the Turkish and Moroccan minority groups bully significantly more than native Dutch (in particular according to victims); the chance to be victimized does not depend on the ethnic background of the pupil; (3) the prevalence of inter- and intra-ethnic bullying depends on the level of ethnic diversity in the class; inter-ethnic and intra-ethnic bullying increase with increasing levels of ethnic diversity.