Guerrilla selfhood: imagining young people's entrepreneurial futures

In this paper, we argue that complex forms of selfhood emerge in relation to rapid economic and social changes unfolding in the early stages of the twenty-first century. We draw on literature that explores youth at risk, entrepreneurial selfhood and neoliberalism to argue that young people are developing modes of transition that allow them to acclimatise to economic and social insecurity. It is an insecurity borne of a paradoxical reliance on, and failure of, neoliberal forms of economics and society. In the context of a post-Global Financial Crisis (post-GFC) world, we explore how young people take responsibility for their uncertain futures. Via our critique of how young people are supposed to manage their lives from education to employment, we argue that a form of selfhood emerges as they are challenged by limited education and employment opportunities. We call this selfhood the guerrilla self. We use this term to designate types of identity that require participation through resistance, institutionalisation through the appearance of not being institutionalised, and individualism in the midst of a failure of individualism. In making this case, we draw on stories told by young people in the USA planning for a future in a post-GFC world.     

Further Beyond the Basic Background Check: Predicting Future Unethical Behavior

In this paper, we analyze the ethical issues of using honesty and integrity tests in employment screening. Our focus will be on the United States context: legal requirements related to applicant privacy differ in other countries, but we posit that our proposed balancing test is broadly applicable. We start by discussing why companies have ethical and legal obligations, based on a stakeholder analysis, to assess the integrity of potential employees. We then move to a consideration of how companies currently use background checks as a pre‐employment screening tool, noting their limitations. We then take up honesty and integrity testing, focusing particularly on the problems of false positives and due process. We offer a balancing test for the use of honesty and integrity testing that takes in three factors: (1) the potential harm posed by a dishonest employee in a particular job, (2) the linkage between the test and the assessment process, and (3) the accuracy and validity of the honesty and integrity test. We conclude with implications for practice and future research.     

Estimating a sensitive proportion through randomized response procedures based on auxiliary information

Randomized response techniques are widely employed in surveys dealing with sensitive questions to ensure interviewee anonymity and reduce nonrespondents rates and biased responses. Since Warner’s (J Am Stat Assoc 60:63–69, 1965) pioneering work, many ingenious devices have been suggested to increase respondent’s privacy protection and to better estimate the proportion of people, π _A , bearing a sensitive attribute. In spite of the massive use of auxiliary information in the estimation of non-sensitive parameters, very few attempts have been made to improve randomization strategy performance when auxiliary variables are available. Moving from Zaizai’s (Model Assist Stat Appl 1:125–130, 2006) recent work, in this paper we provide a class of estimators for π _A , for a generic randomization scheme, when the mean of a supplementary non-sensitive variable is known. The minimum attainable variance bound of the class is obtained and the best estimator is also identified. We prove that the best estimator acts as a regression-type estimator which is at least as efficient as the corresponding estimator evaluated without allowing for the auxiliary variable. The general results are then applied to Warner and Simmons’ model.     

Institutional Shaping of Interagency Working: Managing Tensions between Collaborative Working and Client Confidentiality

Tensions between imperatives for sharing of information aboutclients, patients, and offenders and those for confidentialityand privacy have become a prominent but unresolved issue inBritish public policy in the context of greater pressures towardinteragency collaboration. This article analyses empirical datafrom a major Economic and Social Research Council–fundedresearch project designed to provide the first systematic evidenceabout the ways in which local partnerships working in sensitivepolicy fields in England and Scotland attempt to strike settlementsbetween sharing and confidentiality and discusses the impactof national government's attempts to increase formal regulationof their information-sharing practices. To do this, the projecthas developed a methodology to operationalize neo-Durkheimianinstitutional theory and demonstrates that theory in this traditionhas the power to identify and explain patterns of information-sharingstyles adopted in local collaborative working. The overall conclusionis that the stronger assertion of formal regulation by nationalgovernment may well be leading to the greater prominence ofhierarchical institutional forms but it may also be associatedwith the counterassertion of other institutional forms, too,and in ways that may reinforce problems that greater regulationis intended to address. In particular, we show that neitherdoes increased formal regulation always lead frontline staffto be more confident about local information-sharing practicesnor should it lead observers to be more confident that data-sharingpractices will be more transparent or consistent from localityto locality.     

Advances in estimation by the item sum technique using auxiliary information in complex surveys

To collect sensitive data, survey statisticians have designed many strategies to reduce nonresponse rates and social desirability response bias. In recent years, the item count technique has gained considerable popularity and credibility as an alternative mode of indirect questioning survey, and several variants of this technique have been proposed as new needs and challenges arise. The item sum technique (IST), which was introduced by Chaudhuri and Christofides (Indirect questioning in sample surveys, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, 2013) and Trappmann et al. (J Surv Stat Methodol 2:58–77, 2014), is one such variant, used to estimate the mean of a sensitive quantitative variable. In this approach, sampled units are asked to respond to a two-list of items containing a sensitive question related to the study variable and various innocuous, nonsensitive, questions. To the best of our knowledge, very few theoretical and applied papers have addressed the IST. In this article, therefore, we present certain methodological advances as a contribution to appraising the use of the IST in real-world surveys. In particular, we employ a generic sampling design to examine the problem of how to improve the estimates of the sensitive mean when auxiliary information on the population under study is available and is used at the design and estimation stages. A Horvitz–Thompson-type estimator and a calibration-type estimator are proposed and their efficiency is evaluated by means of an extensive simulation study. Using simulation experiments, we show that estimates obtained by the IST are nearly equivalent to those obtained using “true data” and that in general they outperform the estimates provided by a competitive randomized response method. Moreover, variance estimation may be considered satisfactory. These results open up new perspectives for academics, researchers and survey practitioners and could justify the use of the IST as a valid alternative to traditional direct questioning survey modes.     

European competition law and the non-profit sector

Although there has been a debate in the USA for more than two decades about competition policy and non-profit organisations, the debate has not yet had the same prominence in Europe. Only in the last few years, even in the USA, has anti-trust policy toward the sector been examined. The paper examines the position for two groups of competition issues in European Community law: first, the problem of the lawfulness of grant aid, given the rules against state subsidies distorting competition; and second, the application of the rules for competition in the single market including EC anti-trust law. Particular legal problems are identified for non-profits which use geographical catchment area agreements with similar organisations. Finally, the paper examines a range of policy issues which arise on consideration of Community law, including the idea of community development as a locally autarchic objective, the terms of competition for grants and contracts, and the possible implications of the future application of European competition law to non-profits in the Community.This paper is part of a series of studies on non-profit organisations and competition policy; others include 6, 1991; 1992a,b. Many people, all of whom know much more about the law and the economics of this subject than I do, have helped me with this paper. I am particularly grateful to Richard Steinberg, Tymen van den Ploeg, Richard Whish, Martin Knapp, Jeremy Kendall and Stephen Lloyd who read and commented on earlier drafts. Richard Whish urged me to greater caution on the meaning of undertaking and interstate trade effects, pointed out the relevance of the subsidiarity provisions in Maastricht, put me straight on the merger regulations, and saved me from a number of legal errors. I am grateful to Jeremy Kendall for pointing out the BUPA case to me, and to Tymen van den Ploeg for directing me to theDaily Mail case and explaining its significance to me with greater patience than I deserved. I have also benefited from advice from Lindsay Driscoll, Nigel Tarling, Bridget Phelps, Anita Randon and Janet Morrison. I am grateful also to all the people who attended an NCVO seminar on 27 April 1992 at which a late draft of the paper was given for their comment. None of them is responsible for my errors. Although I am employed by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, London, the paper represents my own views and not those of the Council.     

Young people's resilience and post-financial crisis television: allegories of economic and social survival

ABSTRACT

The Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007–2008 added significant stress and anxieties to the already precarious lives of many young people. Despite this, there is emerging evidence that young people are able to demonstrate remarkable resilience in the midst of economic uncertainties that render the trajectories of their futures uncertain. The pressure to be resilient, to find effective ways to manage the uncertainties inherent to the liberal democracies of the twenty-first century, can be significant. The consequences of failure include deteriorating health and well-being, losses in motivation and hope, economic marginalisation, and ambivalence about the markers of what is means to be an adult. In this paper we spotlight moments in post-GFC television that have drawn on these social narratives, depicting young people's experiences of resilience and uncertainties. We view these moments as more than just television or popular culture. The stories we tell are allegorical, but they are not mere fictions. We focus on the popular television comedy Broad City (2014-) that focusses on the marginalised lifeworlds of trendy, college-educated, young hipsters Ilana and Abbi who are barely getting by in New York City.     

An improved class of estimators for the population mean

Starting from the Rao (Commun Stat Theory Methods 20:3325–3340, 1991) regression estimator, we propose a class of estimators for the unknown mean of a survey variable when auxiliary information is available. The bias and the mean square error of the estimators belonging to the class are obtained and the expressions for the optimum parameters minimizing the asymptotic mean square error are given in closed form. A simple condition allowing us to improve the classical regression estimator is worked out. Finally, in order to compare the performance of some estimators with the regression one, a simulation study is carried out when some population parameters are supposed to be unknown.