Endorsing Comments Public Organization Review: An Appreciation

Public Organization Review -     

Restructuring of the Financial Industry: The Disappearance of Locally Owned Traditional Financial Services in Rural America

Restructuring in the financial services industry has altered the relationship between small business owners and capital. In the past small businesses have relied on relational, or soft data, lending from locally owned banks for capital. The proliferation of absentee‐owned local branch networks brought standardized practices, thus eliminating the autonomy of local loan officers to utilize soft data in loan decisions. In this article we examine the changes in the percentage of traditional financial services that are locally owned in three county types: metropolitan, micropolitan, and noncore. We utilize the Longitudinal Business Database at the U.S. Census Bureau Center for Economic Studies. We examine changes in local ownership of traditional financial services between 1976 and 2007. We find that the rate of decline of local ownership has been greatest in the noncore (most rural) counties. We also explore to what extent these patterns are related to the emergence of alternative financial services during the same period. We find that such alternative services are growing in all three county types, but at rates not significantly different than the population growth for these county types. We supplement our analysis with data from qualitative interviews with small business owners throughout rural Texas. We conclude with a discussion of implications and plans for future research.     

Preventing risk for obesity by promoting self-regulation and decision-making skills: pilot results from the PATHWAYS to health program (PATHWAYS)

The overall aim of the two school-based pilot studies was to evaluate whether an approach to prevention that focused on changing child impulse control, decision making, and social competence can be effective in changing attitudes toward food intake and physical activity as risk factors for obesity. The strategy used was to translate specific components of one evidence-based program for violence prevention (Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies: PATHS) into an elementary school curriculum program for obesity prevention. Both studies demonstrated significant changes in positive attitudes toward self-regulation of appetitive behavior. In addition, Study 2 demonstrated positive changes in actual food choices and television viewing patterns. Implications are that comprehensive efforts to prevent youth risk for obesity should include as one component school-based curricula that target self-regulation and decision-making skills.     

Childhood Sexual Abuse Severity Reconsidered: A Factor Structure of CSA Characteristics

To address the lack of empirically grounded measures of childhood sexual abuse severity, a survey of self-report items was developed following a thorough review of the childhood sexual abuse literature. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted using data collected from a convenience sample of college students that included 275 females and males with a history of childhood sexual abuse. The solution produced seven factors interpreted as the following: (a) less intrusive forms of childhood sexual abuse (e.g., sexual invitations, kissing), (b) more intrusive forms of childhood sexual abuse (e.g., oral sex, intercourse), (c) humiliation/fear, (d) childhood sexual abuse involving photography, (e) familiarity with the perpetrator, (f) physical force/rape, and (g) active digital penetration. Correlations among these factors further suggested the existence of two relatively independent second-order factors, one based on the levels of physical intrusiveness and the other composed of the psychological/emotional factors. While arguably the most common measurement of severity, physical intrusiveness had little association with critical factors such as humiliation, fear, and association with the perpetrator. Consequently, physical intrusiveness appears to be an inadequate stand-alone measure of childhood sexual abuse severity. These results are proposed to lay the groundwork for an improved, more comprehensive measure of childhood sexual abuse severity.     

Endorsing Comments

Public Organization Review -     

Decompensation: A Novel Approach to Accounting for Stress Arising From the Effects of Ideology and Social Norms

To date, research that has drawn on Meyer’s (2003) minority stress model has largely taken for granted the premises underpinning it. In this article we provide a close reading of how “stress” is conceptualized in the model and suggest that aspects of the model do not attend to the institutionalized nature of stressors experienced by people with marginalized identities, particularly lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals. As a counter to this, we highlight the importance of a focus on the effects of ideology and social norms in terms of stress, and we argue why an intersectional approach is necessary to ensure recognition of multiple axes of marginalization and privilege. The article then outlines the concept of decompensation and suggests that it may offer one way to reconsider the effects of ideology and social norms. The decompensation approach centers on the need for social change rather than solely relying on individuals to be resilient.