Testing an Economic Model of Nonprofit Growth: Analyzing the Behaviors and Decisions of Nonprofit Organizations,Private Donors,and Governments

This study draws an economic model of the growth of nonprofit organizations by analyzing the behaviors of three major actors—nonprofit organizations, private donors, and governments—in making decisions on the allocation of limited resources for nonprofit services. Since decisions made by each actor affect resource allocation, it is important to understand what drives these decisions. The model was tested using an unbalanced, 463 panel dataset collected from 28 OECD countries over a 23-year period. The results indicated that macro- and micro-economic trends and government policies framed the decision premises of the three major actors, which led them to leverage the supply and demand for goods and services and, in turn, determined how they allocated limited resources for nonprofit services. This result implies that understanding the interdependencies of all sectors of the economy is critical to comprehending the size and development of the nonprofit sector. Effective management of micro-economic policies and macro-economic stability is necessary. More important, however, is understanding how a decision in one part of the economy will have intended and unintended effects on the nonprofit sector.     

What makes hybrid insourcing successful: A new public–private partnership model for social welfare services

Outsourcing has been a key policy tool for delivering a range of social services, and regarded as more effective than insourcing or direct government provision. At the same time, it has also caused many delivery issues such as principal‐agent problems, a lack of policy coordination, and poor‐quality welfare services. While the pendulum continues to swing between insourcing and outsourcing, we aim to propose a new public–private partnership model called the “hybrid insourcing model” and examine which factors influence the performance of the model. In South Korea, around 2010, the local government in Namyangju City was the first to implement the “Hope Care Center model,” a kind of hybrid insourcing model, which has been praised for its innovation and widely emulated by central and local governments. Our analysis utilizes data collected between December 2017 and January 2018 from public sector employees and civilian staff in Namyangju and a comparable city, A. From this, we draw a number of implications, both for theory and for policy. We argue that, for public–private partnerships, active cooperation and equality are the biggest factors in contributing to positive performance. These work alongside leaders with a clear vision and with employees' positive attitude.     

Unveiling the Canvas Ceiling: A Multidisciplinary Literature Review of Refugee Employment and Workforce Integration

Increasing levels of displacement and the need to integrate refugees in the workforce pose new challenges to organizations and societies. Extant research on refugee employment and workforce integration currently resides across various disconnected disciplines, posing a significant challenge for management scholars to contribute to timely and relevant solutions. In this paper, we endeavour to address this challenge by reviewing and synthesizing multidisciplinary literature on refugee employment and workforce integration. Using a relational framework, we organize our findings around three levels of analysis – institutional, organizational and individual – to outline the complexity of factors affecting refugees’ employment outcomes. Based on our analysis, we introduce and elaborate on the phenomenon of the canvas ceiling ? a systemic, multilevel barrier to refugee workforce integration and professional advancement. The primary contributions of this paper are twofold. First, we map and integrate the multidisciplinary findings on the challenges of refugee workforce integration. Second, we provide management scholarship with a future research agenda to address the knowledge gap identified in this review and advance practical developments in this domain.     

Employee communication,job engagement,and organizational commitment: A study of members of the Millennial Generation

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between job engagement and two key components of employee-organization relationships (EOR). Findings from a survey of members of the Millennial Generation (N = 539) in the United States indicate that job engagement mediates the relationship between employee communication and organizational commitment. It is concluded that when employees are engaged in their work, their commitment to the organization is strengthened and the likelihood of them leaving the organization decreases. Furthermore, an argument is made in light of the study’s findings that engagement and commitment work in concert to strengthen EORs overall. To foster engagement, organizations should remove obstacles to internal information flow and provide ongoing feedback to employees about individual and organizational issues.     

Who Among the Elderly Owns Stocks? The Role of Cognitive Ability and Bequest Motive

Conventional advice is to reduce risky investments as one ages. Such a generalized focus on risk avoidance may be inappropriate for elderly with longer life spans and those with financial goals that extend beyond their lifetime. To better understand risky asset holdings among the elderly, we investigated the effect of cognitive ability and bequest motive on stock ownership and stock purchase. Using the 2004 wave of the Health and Retirement Study, we found that one-third of elderly households held stocks and 36% of those elderly stockowners had recently acquired stocks. The respondent??s cognitive ability and bequest motive were strongly related to stock ownership. Among those who owned stock, a bequest motive was positively related to a recent purchase of stocks.     

Trends in marijuana and other illicit drug use among college students: results from 4 Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study surveys: 1993-2001

The authors examined changes in college students' illicit drug use, patterns of polydrug use, and the relationship between students' ages of initiation of substance use and later use of marijuana and other illicit drugs between 1993 and 2001. Data from 119 US colleges and universities in the Harvard School of Public Health College Alcohol Study were used in the study. They found significant increases in percentages of students' use of marijuana in the past 30 days (from 13% to 17%), past year (from 23% to 30%), and lifetime (from 41% to 47%) between 1993 and 2001, with most of the increase occurring between 1993 and 1997. Past 30-day use of other illicit drugs increased from 4% to 7% and past year use increased from 11% to 14%. More than 98% of marijuana and other illicit drug users used another substance. They also either smoked, were binge drinkers, and/or were users of another illicit drug. Drug prevention programs should emphasize heavy alcohol use and smoking and should start when students are in high school or earlier.     

A Decision Framework for Managing Risk to Airports from Terrorist Attack

This article presents an asset‐level security risk management framework to assist stakeholders of critical assets with allocating limited budgets for enhancing their safety and security against terrorist attack. The proposed framework models the security system of an asset, considers various threat scenarios, and models the sequential decision framework of attackers during the attack. Its novel contributions are the introduction of the notion of partial neutralization of attackers by defenders, estimation of total loss from successful, partially successful, and unsuccessful actions of attackers at various stages of an attack, and inclusion of the effects of these losses on the choices made by terrorists at various stages of the attack. The application of the proposed method is demonstrated in an example dealing with security risk management of a U.S. commercial airport, in which a set of plausible threat scenarios and risk mitigation options are considered. It is found that a combination of providing blast‐resistant cargo containers and a video surveillance system on the airport perimeter fence is the best option based on minimum expected life‐cycle cost considering a 10‐year service period.     

Two‐sample empirical likelihood ratio tests for medians in application to biomarker evaluations

The median is a commonly used parameter to characterize biomarker data. In particular, with two vastly different underlying distributions, comparing medians provides different information than comparing means; however, very few tests for medians are available. We propose a series of two‐sample median‐specific tests using empirical likelihood methodology and investigate their properties. We present the technical details of incorporating the relevant constraints into the empirical likelihood function for in‐depth median testing. An extensive Monte Carlo study shows that the proposed tests have excellent operating characteristics even under unfavourable occasions such as non‐exchangeability under the null hypothesis. We apply the proposed methods to analyze biomarker data from Western blot analysis to compare normal cells with bronchial epithelial cells from a case–control study. The Canadian Journal of Statistics 39: 671–689; 2011. © 2011 Statistical Society of Canada     

Pathways to happiness: From personality to social networks and perceived support

The present study attempts to incorporate individual personality into a social network account of subjective wellbeing (SWB) by proposing and testing a path model in which social relationships (egocentric social networks and perceived social support, PSS) mediate the relationship between personality and SWB. We found that network characteristics (including network size, emotional closeness, and proportion of new contacts) are related to SWB largely via the mediation of PSS. Additionally, network size and proportion of new contacts function as important mediating mechanisms linking extraversion, agreeableness and openness to PSS and SWB.     

Understanding aging in Korea

"This study discusses demographic trends, sociocultural characteristics, and policy choices of aging in [South] Korea.... Although the proportion of the elderly was not so high as to worry about aging before 1990, it is projected that one in eight Koreans will be aged 65 or more in 2020. Because the care for the elderly is mostly expected to be provided by each family, not by the state or Korean society, the role of the family is pivotal in coping with [the] aging problem.... Although adult children currently understand that their aged parents need assistance and support from them, they want to solve the issue of support for the elderly in a way different from the traditional.... This paper examines how the changing attitude toward the old is reflected in family life in terms of living arrangement and physical contacts. This paper also describes and discusses the current situation of various welfare policies on the elderly in Korea."