The Management of Workplace Conflict: Contrasting Pathways in the HRM Literature

This paper reviews the human resource management literature on the management of workplace conflict. It suggests that workplace conflict is commonly viewed in the literature as a symptom of management failure: the notion that conflict may be intrinsic to the nature of work because employees and managers have hard‐to‐reconcile competing interests is given short‐shrift. At the same time, the paper identifies important differences in the literature, which the authors call ‘pathways’, about the best methods to manage problems at the workplace. It is argued that four contrasting pathways can be detected in the literature with regard to how organizations approach workplace conflict management practices. Each pathway is examined fully and their respective strengths and weaknesses are assessed.     

Penalized contrast estimation in functional linear models with circular data

Our aim is to estimate the unknown slope function in the functional linear model when the response Y is real and the random function X is a second-order stationary and periodic process. We obtain our estimator by minimizing a standard (and very simple) mean-square contrast on linear finite dimensional spaces spanned by trigonometric bases. Our approach provides a penalization procedure which allows to automatically select the adequate dimension, in a non-asymptotic point of view. In fact, we can show that our penalized estimator reaches the optimal (minimax) rate of convergence in the sense of the prediction error. We complete the theoretical results by a simulation study and a real example that illustrates how the procedure works in practice.     

Complicated Problems,Complicated Solutions? Homelessness and Joined‐up Policy Responses

The government has recently signalled its determination to address both the symptoms and causes of homelessness through the introduction of new legislation requiring local authorities within England and Wales to develop strategic approaches to addressing this issue. Moreover, in common with many other areas of social provision in recent years, the “joining‐up” of services has been identified as a central tenet of these new approaches. In the case of homelessness, then, experience gleaned from other policy fields may prove an invaluable resource, in terms both of guiding approaches and in avoiding potential pitfalls. This paper examines the findings from a study undertaken within one Midlands city to investigate this assumption. Based upon evidence from this study it is suggested that, while precedent can offer this particular policy area valuable lessons, homelessness is an issue which, due to its multi‐dimensionality, offers new and unique challenges of its own.     

Dimensions of Restorative Justice

Restorative justice proponents tend to focus their attention on criminal justice initiatives in a small number of developed countries, but restorative processes (which encourage citizens to negotiate among themselves, rather than rely on professionals to adjudicate), and restorative values (which emphasize the importance of repairing and preventing harm), can be found across a wide range of regulatory fields. Teachers, social workers, corporate regulators, civil mediators, members of truth commissions, diplomats, and peacekeepers all—at least some of the time—practice a variety of restorative justice. Consideration of these often-neglected examples can help refine current restorative justice theory and practice, which in turn has insights to offer practitioners and researchers in these fields.     

An examination of the resurgence of ethnicity literature

This paper presents a critical review of the most frequently cited resurgence of ethnicity studies. Many of the sources cited in recently published ethnic relations books are found to lack an empirical base. They are essentially polemical, impressionistic and anecdotal works. Empirical studies that support the resurgence of ethnicity theme are also examined. Their shortcomings are noted. Nevertheless, these empirical studies provide convincing evidence that ethnic differences persist into the later generations. Overall, however, the empirical studies overwhelmingly document increasing assimilation. Virtually no evidence is found for the notion of a third generation resurgence.     

Collective violence as social control

Collective violence is often social control: self-help by a group. It typically defines and responds to conduct as deviant. When unilateral and nongovernmental, it appears in four major forms—lynching, rioting, vigilantism, and terrorism—each distinguished by its system of liability (individual or collective) and degree of organization (higher or lower). Following Donald Black's paradigm of pure sociology, the central assumption is that collective violence varies with its location and direction in social space—the conflict structure. I offer ten propositions that predict and explain the likelihood and severity of collective violence in general and the four forms of collective violence in particular. Conflict structures with a high degree of relational distance, cultural distance, functional independence, and inequality between the adversaries are associated with collective violence in general. Each of the four forms depends on the degree of social polarization between the parties as well as the continuity of the deviant behavior to which the violence responds. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, August 1992, and the Centennial Congress of the International Institute of Sociology, University of Paris (Sorbonne), Paris, June 1993.     

Rapid Reregulation,Agricultural Restructuring,and the Reimaging of Agriculture in New Zealand1

Abstract As a member of the Cairns Group, New Zealand is an excellent case for investigation of the impacts of market-based restructuring and the emergence of new mechanisms for regulation. The paper examines how agriculture in New Zealand has been impacted by economic reforms that have fundamentally changed the nature and interrelations of regulatory arrangements and economic processes. The paper sketches the origins of New Zealand's agricultural crisis and the main features of the reforms, outlines developments in several global commodity chains (meat, dairy, apples) that since the mid 1980s have shaped regulatory and governance adjustments, and explores dimensions of a reimaging of agriculture in new conditions. The paper concludes that agri-food restructuring in New Zealand is implicated in the wider integrative project of globalization. Agriculture's reconstruction reopens the scope and terms under which New Zealand labor and households might be able to participate in the agri-food sector.     

Children's participation in child protection—How do practitioners understand children's participation in practice?

Children's participation is essential to achieve good outcomes for children involved in child protection systems. Despite this, research has consistently found children report low levels of participation, are poorly consulted and feel inadequately involved in decisions about their lives. To explore how practitioners understand children's participation, 18 in-depth interviews were conducted with statutory child protection practitioners in Australia. The interviews explored the ways child protection practitioners understand children's participation. Our findings show practitioners conceptualize children as rights holders and believe it is essential to hear directly from children about their needs and wishes to keep them safe. Practitioners identified the importance of transparent processes and decisions. Different understanding of participation emerged, with some participants talking about children as their central focus but not discussing meaningful participation of the child. It appeared that children's participation relied largely on the views and skills of individual workers, as well as their ability to incorporate meaningful participation in limited time and in complex practice environments where children's safety is a primary concern. Systemic changes to address time barriers, training practitioners to understand and implement participatory practice, and seeking children's input into service design, will support consistent and meaningful participation.     

The Salvaging of Identities among Homeless Men: Reflections for Social Work

Abstract

This research reveals the social and individual processes that dominate the experiences of homeless men through an exploration of their struggle to achieve ontological worth. Drawing on eight in-depth interviews with homeless men who are experiencing homelessness, this research demonstrates this struggle is because of the situated nature of identities that homeless men continually reconstruct and renegotiate. It proposes that relations to this set of identities are relevant to homeless men, in particular the construction and reconstruction of their identities within homelessness. The central findings of this research reveal that homeless men actively manage their identities to cope with the instability inherent to the experience. The implications of this for social work practice are explored, focusing on the importance of self-conception and the restoration of positive identities.