Effects of group therapy on female adolescent survivors of sexual abuse: a pilot study

Treatment interventions for female sexual abuse survivors was explored through a pilot study examining the relationship between group treatment and adolescent self-image. Self-image was defined as body image, self-reliance, self-control, and impulse-control. An experimental pre-post design was utilized. Participants were 13 female adolescent high school drop-outs with a history of sexual abuse who participated in the National Guard Youth Challenge Program at Camp Shelby in Mississippi. Participants completed the Offer Self- Image Questionnaire for Adolescents. The hypothesis that group therapy was an effective intervention for sexual abuse survivors was not supported; however, this is likely due to the small sample size. Because this was a pilot study, mean trends were observed to see directional changes that may assist future researchers. Observation of mean trends revealed that participants who received group therapy increased in levels of impulse control while the group that did not receive group therapy remained the same. Mean trends also revealed that the experimental group had a decrease in self-reliance whereas the control group maintained their levels of self-reliance.     

Night work and symptoms of anxiety and depression among nurses: A longitudinal study

Over the last few decades, night work has been found to be associated with negative somatic consequences; however, there is less knowledge about its impact on mental health. In a sample of 633 Norwegian nurses, we investigated by means of latent growth curve modelling whether different work schedules predicted differences in baseline values of anxiety and depressive symptoms, and trajectories of these over a two-year span. All participants completed the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale as part of a larger survey conducted during the winters of 2009, 2010 and 2011. The results revealed that night workers and nurses who changed from day work to night work during the study period did not differ from day workers either in terms of baseline symptoms of anxiety or depression, or in terms of trajectories of these symptoms. However, nurses who changed from night work to day work reported a significant decrease in symptoms of both anxiety and depression over time compared to day workers. Furthermore, supporting previous work, languidity was related to higher anxiety and depression and hardiness to lower levels of those symptoms. Possible mechanisms underlying the results are discussed.     

System Dynamics as a Structural Theory in Operations Management

The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the usefulness of (1) system dynamics as a structural theory for operations management and (2) system dynamics models as content theories in operations management. The key findings are that, although feedback loops, accumulation processes, and delays exist and are widespread in operations management, often these phenomena are ignored completely or not considered appropriately. Hence, it is reasoned why system dynamics is well suited as an approach for many operations management studies, and it is shown how system dynamics theory can be used to explain, analyze, and understand such phenomena in operations management. The discussion is based on a literature review and on conceptual considerations, with examples of operations management studies based on system dynamics. Implications of using this theory include the necessary re‐framing of some operations management issues and the extension of empirical studies by dynamic modeling and simulation. The value of the paper lies in the conceptualization of the link between system dynamics and operations management, which is discussed on the level of theory.     

Introduction: New Dynamics of Chinese Migration to Europe

This introduction provides a presentation of the articles in this special issue by framing the contributions in the context of new dynamics related to Chinese migration studies and the ongoing discussions of the impact of China’s powerful economic position. The articles offer new empirical insights to develop new understandings of recent migration and mobilities between China and Europe. By focusing on the changing socio-economic composition of Chinese migrants in Europe towards highly skilled professionals and investors, changes in Chinese entrepreneurship, increasing Chinese political engagement and activism, and new migration from Europe to China by Chinese descendants, these contributions reflect the importance of developing new theories to better grasp the causes and effects of China’s new global economic and political position for Chinese migration. The selected articles identify promising directions for future work on the global discussions of the impact of China as a diaspora state and ensuing policy implications.     

The influence of the modality of telecooperation on performance and workload

Current industrial processes often involve the collaboration of people at distant and remote locations. The technological media for such a tele-cooperation reach from simple email or text-based chatting systems to highly-sophisticated systems for an interactive video-conferencing. But with limited bandwidth the communication between persons at distant locations is often restricted to single modalities. Although this may still be suitable for some tasks, it may result into serious shortcomings and decreased performance with complex tasks like cooperative assembly or maintenance. This is because restricted communication reduces the availability of a common ground, i.e. sharing a common understanding of knowledge, opinions, and goals. The study presented in this paper examines the effect of different communication media on performance of a collaborative assembly task. The results show that tele-cooperation leads to additional verbal communication (AM(direct)=71.1s; AM(video)=145.6s; AM(audio)=204.7s) and, thus, longer times to complete the task (AM (direct)=45.95 min; AM (video)= 50.2 min; am AM(audio)=56.16 min). The percentage of relative speech duration also increases significantly. Workload measurement with NASA-TLX did not show any significant differences between cooperation modes. The results allow estimating the effect of reduced communication modalities on time to complete an assembly task. This facilitates a quantification of temporal requirements in time-critical maintenance and repair tasks.     

Excellent and gender equal? Academic motherhood and ‘gender blindness' in Norwegian academia

This article explores Norwegian female academics' experiences with academic motherhood in an organizational perspective. A main finding is that academia as an organization is greedy, uncertain, and has ‘blind spots' that reveal gender bias related to gender and parental status, especially mothers. By analysing the link between gendered organization of work and the legitimatizing of gender inequality, the article reveals ‘gender blindness' in the academic organization concerning gender and parental status. The article concludes that changes in academia — in line with academic capitalism — may indicate that the Norwegian model of work–life balance is under pressure. This article suggests that the organizational conditions for academic motherhood are important factors in order to understand the persistence of gender inequality.     

Digitized diaspora governance during the COVID-19 pandemic: China's diaspora mobilization and Chinese migrant responses in Italy

We explore how the Chinese diaspora state during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 managed to transform a severe health crisis into a geo-political opportunity for transnational nation-building through diaspora governance based on extensive use of social media technologies. By adopting a multi-scalar perspective, we analyse the intertwined nature of top-down and bottom-up processes of the Chinese Party-state's diaspora mobilization. Based on discourse and ethnographic analysis, we argue that China's diaspora governance exposed a new and strong capacity for extra-territorial governance. We explore how discursive hegemony, social control and diaspora mobilization were achieved by widely employing the Chinese social media application, WeChat. We also contend that this was facilitated by the Italian government's and media's pro-China attitudes to emphasize the importance of considering transnational embeddedness when studying the implementation and impact of interactive online technology for diaspora governance in an illiberal political context.