Premarital Cohabitation and Marital Dissolution: An Examination of Recent Marriages

An ongoing question remains for family researchers: Why does a positive association between cohabitation and marital dissolution exist when one of the primary reasons to cohabit is to test relationship compatibility? Drawing on recently collected data from the 2006–2008 National Survey of Family Growth, the authors examined whether premarital cohabitation experiences were associated with marital instability among a recent contemporary (married since 1996) marriage cohort of men (N = 1,483) and women (N = 2,003). They found that a dichotomous indicator of premarital cohabitation was in fact not associated with marital instability among women and men. Furthermore, among cohabitors, marital commitment prior to cohabitation (engagement or definite plans for marriage) was tied to lower hazards of marital instability among women, but not men. This research contributes to our understanding of cohabitation, marital instability, and broader family change.     

PERCEIVED IMPACT OF DEFAMATION: AN EXPERIMENT ON THIRD-PERSON EFFECTS

This paper explores the intersection of libel law and communicationtheory that occurs when libel juries assess the effect of adefamatory communication on others. The third-person hypothesissuggests that people often assume others will be more affectedby potentially persuasive communications than they are themselves.An experiment was conducted in which students were exposed toa variety of defamatory newspaper articles. The results confirmedseveral predictions. First, readers estimated that others wouldbe more affected by defamatory messages than the readers themselveswould be. Second, this effect was magnified as the "others"became progressively more distant from these readers. Third,when the defamation was attributed to a negatively biased sourcethe effect was also accentuated: readers themselves discountedthe message, while assuming others would be even more influenced.It is suggested that courtroom assessments of the effects ofdefamatory communications on others may be influenced by suchthird-person perceptions.     

Breaking the Rules: A Group Work Perspective on Focus Group Research

Marcia B. Cohen, University of New England, School of Social Work, Biddeford, Maine, USA, 04005. E-Mail: mcohen{at}mailbox.une.edu. Kendra J. Garrett, Department of Social Work, The University of St Thomas, St Paul, Minnesota, USA 55105. E-Mail: kjgarrett{at}stthomas.edu. Summary Focus groups, originally used in fields such as marketing andconsumer research, are rapidly gaining popularity as a researchmethodology in the social sciences. It is interesting to notethat most of the scholarly work on focus groups continues tocome from business rather than the social sciences. Few researchershave discussed the differing purposes and goals in social scienceand consumer research (Ospina, 1994; Moore, 1996). Furthermore,the literature on focus group research rarely utilizes socialwork knowledge of group dynamics or group facilitation skills.Rather, the literature on focus groups tends to give guidelinesfor leading groups, telling focus group facilitators what todo and what not to do in leading such groups. We believe thatthese guidelines, while generally helpful, can lead to rigidityon the part of focus group leaders. We suggest that, in socialwork research, focus group facilitators should use their knowledgeof group dynamics and the values of individualization and empathyto modify focus group rules where appropriate. This paper describes part of a qualitative study of client/workerrelationships in residential mental health settings. Duringthe course of this research, group work principles came intoconflict, at times, with recommended guidelines for focus groupleaders. The paper illustrates how insights gleaned from groupwork theory and practice can enable a researcher to break focusgroup rules responsibly, thus bringing greater depth to thedata gathered and allowing the researcher to be more sensitiveto the needs of focus group participants.     

Race-of-Interviewer Effects in Telephone Interviews

Previous studies have found a race-of-interviewer effect onsurvey questions dealing with racial issues. This effect hasbeen found in both personal interviews and on questionnairesfilled out in the presence of an interviewer. This study examineswhether a race-of-interviewer effect is also present in telephoneinterviews. The results show that a race-of-interviewer effectdoes occur in telephone interviews on racial questions.     

THE EFFECT OF CONCEALED WEAPONS LAWS: AN EXTREME BOUND ANALYSIS

Lott and Mustard [1997] provide evidence that enactment of concealed handgun ("right-to-carry") laws deters violent crime and induces substitution into property crime. A critique by Black and Nagin [1998] questions the particular model specification used in the empirical analysis. In this paper, we estimate the "model uncertainty" surrounding the model specified by Lott and Mustard using an extreme bound analysis (Leamer [1983]). We find that the deterrence results are robust enough to make them difficult to dismiss as unfounded, particularly those findings about the change in violent crime trends. The substitution effects are not robust with respect to different model specifications. (JEL K42)     

Corporate Citizenship and Managerial Motivation: Implications for Business Legitimacy

In 2000, Business and Society Review published a Special Issue of the journal to explore scholars’ ideas about how the practice of corporate citizenship would evolve in the 21st century. Contributors to the volume predicted a change in business motives for engaging in social initiatives, suggesting that managers would begin to see corporate citizenship as a strategic necessity to preserve organizational legitimacy in the face of changing social values. This article uses data from a study of corporate citizenship practices in over 500 Norwegian companies to explore the validity of the Special Issue predictions. We begin by reviewing the foundations of organizational legitimacy theory and examine recent research documenting the growing importance of corporate citizenship for assessments of business legitimacy. We describe our study methods, present our results, and discuss the implications of our findings in this context.     

COORDINATION ALTERNATIVES IN A MANUFACTURER/DEALER INVENTORY SYSTEM UNDER STOCHASTIC DEMAND

This paper introduces a stochastic model of a distribution system where the stocking location is owned by a dealer (or retailer) and the product is supplied by a manufacturer. Inventory is managed by the dealer, and the manufacturer is responsible for delivery of the product through both regular replenishment and expedite shipment modes. The dealer and the manufacturer share the goal of providing a high level of customer service. Demand, moreover, is a function of the service level offered to the market by the dealer. We develop optimal stock control policies for the cases where each decision maker in turn is dominant and acts unilaterally while being constrained by the supply/demand linkages of the system. We also develop an optimum policy for the case where both levels are managed under centralized control (i.e., both levels cooperate). Results indicate that the expected profit for a dominant dealer (or dominant manufacturer) is higher under decentralized control than the optimal solution for either under centralized control. However, the centralized solution is a global-optimal solution and therefore will guarantee longterm stability. Differences between the various solutions are analyzed explicitly to estimate the cost of coordination.