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Contemporary Research (contemporary + research)
Selected AbstractsRace, Ethnicity, and Culture in Child Development: Contemporary Research and Future DirectionsCHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2006Stephen M. Quintana The editors of this special issue reflect on the current status and future directions of research on race, ethnicity, and culture in child development. Research in the special issue disentangles race, ethnicity, culture, and immigrant status, and identifies mediators of sociocultural variables on developmental outcomes. The special issue includes important research on normal development in context for ethnic and racial minority children, addresses racial and ethnic identity development, and considers intergroup processes. The methodological innovations as well as challenges of current research are highlighted. It is recommended that future research adhere to principles of cultural validity described in the text. [source] Buyer-Supplier Relationships and Organizational HealthJOURNAL OF SUPPLY CHAIN MANAGEMENT, Issue 2 2003Marie McHugh SUMMARY This article examines the relationship between organizational health and buyer-supplier relationships. Contemporary research has emphasized the need for organizations to move toward closer cooperation. The decision to engage in partnership arrangements is one that has major implications for buyers and suppliers. Using evidence from an exploratory case study, the challenges presented in developing a close, cooperative, and mutually beneficial trading relationship between a buyer and a supplier, where one partner, the buyer, is in a powerful position, are investigated. It is argued that powerful buyers can seriously damage organizational health. The findings provide evidence that it is essential to promote communication structures that encourage dialogue, consultation, and employee participation in decisionmaking. This is particularly important where decisionmaking could benefit from the in-depth technical knowledge of middle and junior managers and shopfloor workers. [source] Do open-ended survey questions on migration motives create coder variability problems?POPULATION, SPACE AND PLACE (PREVIOUSLY:-INT JOURNAL OF POPULATION GEOGRAPHY), Issue 1 2009Thomas Niedomysl Abstract Contemporary research on migration has benefited from adopting a variety of methodological approaches and different sources of information to provide answers to the ever-recurring question of why people migrate. Yet, when it comes to central methods used for researching migration motives, progress appears to have been slow. This paper focuses on surveys to research migration motives using self-administered postal questionnaires. It addresses a key validity question, namely the issue of whether the usage of open-ended questions creates coder variability problems. An experimental research design was used where five coders independently coded 500 randomly selected responses from a large survey on migration motives. Krippendorff's , was calculated to test the level of agreement between the coders. The results advance our knowledge in two important ways: firstly, it is shown that coder variability is not a major problem (Krippendorff's , = 0.82). Secondly, it identifies those types of responses that nevertheless appear problematic to code. The implications of these findings for survey research on migration motives are discussed, and it is argued that open-ended questions have some distinct advantages compared with the more commonly used closed-ended questions. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Gauging Public Opinion in the Hoover White House: Understanding the Roots of Presidential PollingPRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2000ROBERT M. EISINGER Contemporary research often ignores early presidential attempts to measure public opinion, focusing instead on the use of polls by modern presidents. The Hoover presidency precedes the invention of modern surveys and provides a rich theoretical and empirical context for analyzing the early institutionalization of political polling. President Herbert Hoover sought to assess public opinion independent of his party and Congress, in large part because of the contentious relations these institutions shared with his administration. He did so under the guise of scientific legitimacy,quantifying newspaper editorials and undertaking a scholarly survey of American life. Although he was not the first president to use media reports to measure public opinion, Hoover's systematic quantification marks a significant change in how presidents assessed citizens' views and used those assessments to gain power and independence with respect to Congress and political parties. [source] PUNISHING THE "MODEL MINORITY": ASIAN-AMERICAN CRIMINAL SENTENCING OUTCOMES IN FEDERAL DISTRICT COURTS,CRIMINOLOGY, Issue 4 2009BRIAN D. JOHNSON Research on racial and ethnic disparities in criminal punishment is expansive but remains focused almost exclusively on the treatment of black and Hispanic offenders. The current study extends contemporary research on the racial patterning of punishments by incorporating Asian-American offenders. Using data from the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) for FY1997,FY2000, we examine sentencing disparities in federal district courts for several outcomes. The results of this study indicate that Asian Americans are punished more similarly to white offenders compared with black and Hispanic offenders. These findings raise questions for traditional racial conflict perspectives and lend support to more recent theoretical perspectives grounded in attribution processes of the courtroom workgroup. The article concludes with a discussion of future directions for research on understudied racial and ethnic minority groups. [source] Contemporary issues and future directions for research into pathological gamblingADDICTION, Issue 8 2000Article first published online: 2 SEP 200 The recent healthy increase in research into all aspects of gambling is noted. The dominant theme accounting for most of this research is the mental disorder model of pathological gambling and measures that have been derived from this conceptualization. It is suggested that an alternative approach focusing on the construct of choice or subjective control over gambling may be a research direction that will ensure that progress is maintained. In this paper a context for the discussion is provided by first identifying briefly fundamental conceptual and methodological issues associated with the mental disorder model. In particular it is argued that the heterogeneity of the diagnosis of pathological gambling makes the research task of assessing truly independent variables extremely difficult. Subsequently an illustrative schema is presented that demonstrates both the potential advantages and some of the complexities associated with the dependent variable of self-control over gambling behaviour. The main advantages are argued to be (a) the focus of research is narrowed to one potential cause of harmful impacts rather than the great diversity of impacts themselves, (b) prospective studies of regular gamblers in real gambling venues may be a key source of insight into the development of pathological gambling and (c) it promotes the development of theoretical links with the mainstream of the discipline of psychology. Despite the conceptual difficulties that may be associated with the variable of self-control, it is suggested that these may be overcome because contemporary research into the addictive behaviours has demonstrated considerable success in the definition and measurement of control and related themes such as craving, restraint and temptation. [source] Genetic Probes of Three Theories of Maternal Adjustment: I. Recent Evidence and a Model,FAMILY PROCESS, Issue 3 2001David Reiss M.D. Studies focusing on genetic and social influences on maternal adjustment will illumine mother's marriage, parenting, and the development of psychopathology in her children. Recent behavioral genetic research suggests mechanisms by which genetic and social influences determine psychological development and adjustment. First, heritable, personal attributes may influence individuals' relationships with their family members. These genetically influenced family patterns may amplify the effects of adverse, heritable personal attributes on adjustment. Second, influences unique to siblings may be the most important environmental determinants of adjustment. We derive three hypotheses on maternal adjustment from integrating these findings from genetic studies with other contemporary research on maternal adjustment. First, mother's marriage mediates the influence of her heritable, personal attributes on her adjustment. Second, mother's recall of how she was parented is partially genetically influenced, and both her relationships with her spouse and her child mediate the impact of these genetically influenced representations on her current adjustment. Third, characteristics of mother's spouse are important influences on difference between her adjustment and that of her sister's These sibling-specific influences are unrelated to mother's heritable attributes. The current article develops this model, and the companion article describes the Twin Mom Study that was designed to test it as well, as its first findings. Data from this study can illumine the role of family process in the expression of genetic influence and lead to specific family interventions designed to offset adverse genetic influences. [source] Spirituality and clinical care in eating disorders: A qualitative studyINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF EATING DISORDERS, Issue 1 2007Patricia Marsden MA Abstract Objective: Historical and contemporary research has posited links between eating disorders and religious asceticism. This study aimed to examine relationships between eating disorders, religion, and treatment. Method: Qualitative study using purposeful sampling, applying audiotaped and transcribed depth interview, subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. Results: Participants were 10 adult Christian women receiving inpatient treatment for anorexia or bulimia nervosa. Five dominant categories emerged: locus of control, sacrifice, self-image, salvation, maturation. Appetitive control held moral connotations. Negative self-image was common, based more on sin than body-image. Medical treatment could be seen as salvation, with religious conversion manifesting a quest for healing, but treatment failure threatened faith. Beliefs matured during treatment, with prayer, providing a healing relationship. Conclusion: Religious beliefs impact on attitudes and motivation in eating disorders. Clinicians' sensitivity determines how beliefs influence clinical outcome. Treatment modifies beliefs such that theological constructs of illness cannot be ignored. © 2006 by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Eat Disord 2006 [source] Re-reading Castells: Indifference or Irrelevance Twenty Years On?INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF URBAN AND REGIONAL RESEARCH, Issue 1 2006LYNN A. STAEHELI This essay considers the relevance of The City and the Grassroots to contemporary debates within critical urban analysis. It argues that the book addresses many of the same empirical topics as more recent scholarship, but that shifts in the kinds of questions asked about those topics may make the book seem less relevant to contemporary debates. In particular, Castells' attempt to abstract from local experience to understand the process of political and social change in something specifically ,urban' may be at odds with the goals of contemporary research and of researchers outside Europe, many of whom attempt to provide a differentiated analysis attuned to context and the positionality of agents within social movements. So, while the book makes important contributions to theoretical and empirical arguments because of its deep and rich comparative analysis, intellectual debates and approaches over the past 20 years may have shifted focus. [source] Re-Assessing the "Power of Power Politics" Thesis: Is Realism Still Dominant?,INTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 2 2005Thomas C. Walker Disagreements frequently arise over the dominant role played by realism in the study of international relations. Even though some scholars characterize the discipline by its rich theoretical diversity, others see realist concerns overshadowing all alternative theories. John Vasquez's The Power of Power Politics (1983) demonstrated how the realist paradigm had informed more than 90 percent of the data-based articles published from the end of World War II to 1970. In this Forum, we reevaluate the centrality of realism in international relations scholarship. Reviewing 515 data-based articles published from 1970 to 2000, we find that the proportion of articles informed by realism has been declining over the past three decades. From 1995 to 2000, liberalism surpassed realism as the leading guide to inquiry. This new theoretical pluralism calls into question the power of power politics thesis as a fitting description of contemporary research in international relations. [source] The multidimensional nature of biodiversity and social dynamics and implications for contemporary rural livelihoods in remote Kalahari settlements, BotswanaAFRICAN JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY, Issue 2009S. M. Sallu Abstract Despite rapid socio-economic development in Kalahari drylands, contemporary research suggests that biodiversity remains important as a component of the complex portfolio of livelihood strategies, as a real and perceived safety net in times of stress, and a key factor of cultural identity. The degree to which the spatially and temporally dynamic nature of biodiversity in drylands influences livelihoods is, however, little studied, particularly in socially complex contemporary rural settlements. Greater understanding in this area is required to allow better-informed design and implementation of rural development, poverty alleviation and conservation initiatives. This is particularly true in the light of predicted increases in environmental dynamism with climate change. An interdisciplinary approach was used in two environmentally and socially distinct dryland settlements in Botswana, to investigate the extent to which the dynamic biodiverse setting influences contemporary rural livelihoods. Results illustrate that biodiversity, particularly its dynamics, is of critical contemporary importance to rural settlement livelihoods, particularly in times of inner settlement scarcity. Entitlements to biodiversity dynamics were, however, bound up by complex settlement-specific social, economic and political factors. Unless such contextual within-settlement dynamics are understood, the relative importance of biodiversity in rural development and poverty alleviation strategies in contemporary Kalahari drylands may be undermined. [source] METHODS, TRENDS AND CONTROVERSIES IN CONTEMPORARY BENEFIT TRANSFERJOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 3 2010Robert J. Johnston Abstract Benefit transfer uses research results from pre-existing primary research to predict welfare estimates for other sites of policy significance for which primary valuation estimates are unavailable. Despite the sizable literature and the ubiquity of benefit transfer in policy analysis, the method remains subject to controversy. There is also a divergence between transfer practices recommended by the scholarly literature and those commonly applied within policy analysis. The size, complexity and relative disorganization of the literature may represent an obstacle to the use of updated methods by practitioners. Recognizing the importance of benefit transfer for policymaking and the breadth of associated scholarly work, this paper reviews and synthesizes the benefit transfer literature. It highlights methods, trends and controversies in contemporary research, identifies issues and challenges facing benefit transfer practitioners and summarizes research contributions. Several areas of future research on benefit transfers naturally emerge. [source] Differences in Entrepreneurial Opportunities: The Role of Tacitness and Codification in Opportunity Identification,JOURNAL OF SMALL BUSINESS MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2009Brett R. Smith The role of opportunities in the entrepreneurial process remains relatively underdeveloped. To address this issue, we develop a definition of an entrepreneurial opportunity and draw upon a distinction from the domain of knowledge management to suggest a continuum of entrepreneurial opportunities ranging from codified to tacit. Though both traditional and contemporary research has examined how individual differences relate to the identification of opportunities, we focus instead on the importance of differences in the opportunities themselves. Specifically, we examine how relative differences in the degree of opportunity tacitness relate to the process of opportunity identification. We find that relatively more codified opportunities are more likely to be discovered through systematic search, whereas more tacit opportunities are more likely to be identified due to prior experience. These findings contribute to an increased understanding of the role of the opportunity in entrepreneurship research and have important implications for economic theories of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial learning, entrepreneurial networks, and entrepreneurial education. [source] Framing the Lewinsky Affair: Third-Person Judgments by Scandal FramePOLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2003Mark R. Joslyn Recent studies have documented a "third-person effect" whereby people are found to judge others as more influenced than themselves by the mass media. Meanwhile, contemporary research on issue framing has demonstrated the powerful role of mass media in shaping people's political judgments. But are the perceptual judgments that define third-person effects sensitive to how the media frame an issue? Two studies investigated this question in the context of the Lewinsky-Clinton scandal, one in late August 1998 and the other during spring 1999. Several hundred undergraduates in each study were randomly assigned to one of two media frames. In the 1998 study, the political scandal was depicted as a matter of sexual indiscretion by the president or as legal wrongdoing; in the 1999 study, the recently concluded impeachment process was depicted as the consequence of partisanship or of Clinton's actions. The participants' judgments of media influence on themselves and on the public were then recorded. The results show that third-person effects were sensitive to issue framing, but change occurred primarily in participants' judgments about their own vulnerability to media influence. [source] The study of organisational autonomy: a conceptual reviewPUBLIC ADMINISTRATION & DEVELOPMENT, Issue 2 2004Koen Verhoest We argue that contemporary research on the influence of organisational autonomy on performance in public organisations uses a diverse and a too restrictive conceptualisation of autonomy. After discussing that research, the article develops six dimensions of the concept of autonomy in public organisations. Second, weaknesses of contemporary research are shown by confronting their conceptualisations with the developed taxonomy. Third, data from a survey of Flemish public organisations illuminate the need to acknowledge the six different dimensions of autonomy when studying the effect of autonomy on performance. The empirical material points at the dangers of using formal,legal status of a public organisation as an indicator of its autonomy, given substantial heterogeneity of organisations with the same formal,legal status on each dimension of autonomy. Moreover, tensions between different levels of autonomy appear in practice, indicating the need for a combined and integrated study of the effects of the different dimensions of autonomy on performance. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Premature Ejaculation: On Defining and Quantifying a Common Male Sexual DysfunctionTHE JOURNAL OF SEXUAL MEDICINE, Issue 2006Gregory A. Broderick MD ABSTRACT Introduction., Premature ejaculation (PE) and its individual and relationship consequences have been recognized in the literature for centuries. PE is one of the most common male sexual dysfunctions, affecting nearly one in three men worldwide between the ages of 18 and 59 years. Until recently, PE was believed to be a learned behavior predominantly managed with psychosexual therapy; however, the past few decades have seen significant advances in understanding its etiology, diagnosis, and management. There is, as yet, no one universally agreed upon definition of PE. Aim., To review five currently published definitions of PE. Methods., The Sexual Medicine Society of North America hosted a State of the Art Conference on Premature Ejaculation on June 24,26, 2005 in collaboration with the University of South Florida. The purpose was to have an open exchange of contemporary research and clinical information on PE. There were 16 invited presenters and discussants; the group focused on several educational objectives. Main Outcome Measure., Data were utilized from the World Health Organization, the American Psychiatric Association, the European Association of Urology, the Second International Consultation on Sexual Dysfunctions, and the American Urological Association. Results., The current published definitions of PE have many similarities; however, none of these provide a specific "time to ejaculation," in part because of the absence of normative data on this subject. While investigators agree that men with PE have a shortened intravaginal ejaculatory latency time (IELT; i.e., time from vaginal penetration to ejaculation), there is now a greater appreciation of PE as a multidimensional dysfunction encompassing several components, including time and subjective parameters such as "control,""satisfaction," and "distress." Conclusion., There is a recent paradigm shift away from PE as a unidimensional disorder of IELT toward a multidimensional description of PE as a biologic dysfunction with psychosocial components. Broderick GA. Premature ejaculation: On defining and quantifying a common male sexual dysfunction. J Sex Med 2006;3(suppl 4):295,302. [source] A Canadian Copyright NarrativeTHE JOURNAL OF WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Issue 5-6 2008Daniel J. Gervais Copyright policy, like other major areas of public policy, requires a solid anchoring in fundamental principles. The perceived need to anchor copyright debates in a solid policy context and, hence, to develop a coherent (and hopefully convincing) narrative has been the subject of excellent contemporary research. We are indebted to a number of scholars for their work in this area. The attempt to find normative applications from a historically derived model for copyright is not either. However, the research thus far tends to provide a blurred picture, by espousing justiflcatory theories based on one or many of the following: commercial and personal Interests of authors, understood as property and/or liability rules; commercial interests of publishers and other "rights holders"; and/or the social costs of overprotection and the related economic-driven search for an optimal point of protection. This article looks at pieces in the Canadian narrative puzzle and tries to present a faithful picture of its current stage of evolution. To do so, however, a detour via England is required, because that is whence the soil from Which the Canadian narrative comes. This historical detour will be the focus of Part 1. Part III will suggest a path for the next stages of the Canadian narrative that is both consistent with international norms and hopefully useful in moving the debate forward. The part ends with a brief look at the impact that the linkage with trade rules may have on copyright. [source] The Unintended Consequences of Culture Interventions: A Study of Unexpected OutcomesBRITISH JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, Issue 1 2002L. C. Harris The topic of managing culture has been central to organizational culture research for the last two decades. Although critical theorists argue that culture management efforts are prone to unintended consequences, few empirical studies have explicitly explored this issue. The study reported in this article is designed to redress this imbalance in the literature through focusing on the exploration and description of the unintended consequences of culture management interventions. The aims of the study are to locate and describe how management actions during culture change initiatives result in unintended consequences and then subsequently to explore and describe these effects. The article begins with an overview of contemporary research into the nature of culture, the rationale, approaches and perspectives on culture management as well as research into unintended consequences. After a discussion of the research design and methods employed, the results of the study are presented. These findings review and elucidate eight forms of management action during culture change programmes that resulted in unintended consequences, which had serious consequences for the organizations concerned. The article concludes with the discussion of implications and conclusions for theorists and practitioners. [source] Activational effects of sex hormones on cognition in menCLINICAL ENDOCRINOLOGY, Issue 5 2009A. Ulubaev Summary Background, Changing world demographic patterns, such as the increasing number of older people and the growing prevalence of cognitive impairment, present serious obstacles to preserving the quality of life and productivity of individuals. The severity of dementia varies from subclinical, mild cognitive impairment to neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's. In normally ageing men, these age-related cognitive declines are accompanied by gradual but marked decreases in androgen levels and changes in other hormone profiles. While developmental effects of sex hormones on cognition in the pre- and early postnatal period have been demonstrated, their activational effects in later life are still a focus of contemporary research. Although there is a plethora of published research on the topic, results have been inconsistent with different studies reporting positive, negative or no effects of sex hormones on various aspects of mental agility. Methods, This review summarizes the evidence supporting the biological plausibility of the activational effects of sex hormones upon cognition and describes the mechanisms of their actions. It offers a comprehensive summary of the studies of the effects of sex hormones on fluid intelligence in men utilizing elements from the Cochrane Collaboration Guidelines for Reviews. The results of both observational (cross-sectional and longitudinal) and interventional studies published to date are collated in table form and further discussed in the text. Factors contributing to the difficulties in understanding the effects of sex hormones on cognition are also examined. Conclusions, Although there is convincing evidence that steroid sex hormones play an organizational role in brain development in men, the evidence for activational effects of sex hormones affecting cognition in healthy men throughout adult life remains inconsistent. To address this issue, a new multifactorial approach is proposed which takes into account the status of other elements of the sex hormones axis including receptors, enzymes and other hormones. [source] | ||||||||||||||||||||||